abstract: In 1976 Florynce R. Kennedy, a United States lawyer, activist, speaker, and author famously stated that “anybody with the brains and energy to become a teacher ought to want to become something better.” With these stigmas surrounding the teaching profession, it becomes a wonder that anybody decides to become a teacher, or even more difficult, stay in the profession. The state of Arizona, specifically, has reached landmark attrition rates and dissatisfaction surrounding lack of education funding. The stories of those leaving have been well publicized over the last year, but what about those who choose to stay? This dissertation examines the counter narrative behind the teacher attrition crisis by focusing on the stories of the teachers in the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom who have decided to remain in the profession. Through narrative inquiry, this study examines how teachers narrate their experiences as teachers and how those constructs may have contributed to their retention. This study collected data from four high school English teachers through two in-depth interviews, classroom observations, a self-made teacher journey concept map, and teaching artifacts in the form of a teaching experience “time capsule.” Through this data, the participants’ stories highlighting their journey to teaching, current careers, and insights on retention were re- storied then thematically coded and analyzed. Findings are in essence the stories themselves, but also reveal how these teachers narrate their career, societal impacts, quality of life, as well as what motivating factors inspire them to stay in the classroom and teach. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

The purpose of this qualitative study was to employ a sociocultural, anti-deficit, and dialogic rural theoretical framework to examine the ways teachers seek to support the lived experiences of rural adolescent students in the secondary English language arts classroom as students make meaning with the content of the curriculum. This study worked with the social constructs of rurality (Azano, 2011; Azano and Biddle, 2019; Corbett, 2007; Gruenewald, 2008), critical literacy (Freire, 1990, 2018; Gee, 1990), and learning-centered pedagogy (Fecho et al., 2021) to develop insights into ways that teachers navigate opportunities and challenges in contemporary rural schools. The study focused on secondary English language arts teachers teaching in rural school districts. The participant selection criteria included being employed fulltime as an English language arts teacher at a secondary rural high school, having taught for at least three years, and identifying as teaching from a learning-centered pedagogical stance. All three participants taught at rural North Carolina high schools. The method used was adapted from the three-phase interview approach (Seidman, 1990), with an intake interview, a midpoint interview, and a final interview. The midpoint interview was adapted to consist of three separate post-classroom observation interviews. The post-classroom observation interviews were preceded each round by a co-planning lesson and a classroom observation. There were three stages of data generation, spanning from February 2021 to May 2021. To learn about participants' experiences supporting rural student voices, triangulation (Guba and Lincoln, 1981) was used through multiple data sources: teacher interviews, collaborative lesson planning, classroom observations, post-observation conferences, field notes, memos, and email correspondences. Thematic analysis (Maxwell, 2013) was used to analyze and code the data. From the data analysis, three understandings were generated about the ways in which rural English language arts teachers support students in the classroom. Participants were (1) supporting student voice through instructional design, (2) attending to biases and seeking to dialogue within the classroom, and (3) utilizing lived experiences and literacies. The implications of the study include that rural students can face stereotypes due to the deficit mindset of rurality (Azano et al., 2021a, 2021b, Azano and Biddle, 2019; Theobald and Wood, 2010) and that the utilization of bringing their lived experiences into the classroom can serve as a means to help them make meaning with the content of the classroom. The English language arts classroom can be a space for students to be supported through the use of a learning-centered stance that seeks to collapse traditional hierarchies in the classroom (Fecho et al., 2021). / Doctor of Philosophy / The purpose of this study was to use a sociocultural, anti-deficit, and dialogic rural theoretical framework to examine ways teachers can draw on the lived experiences of rural adolescent students in secondary English language arts classrooms as students make meaning with curriculum content. This study worked with the social constructs of rurality (Azano, 2011; Azano and Biddle, 2019; Corbett, 2007; Gruenewald, 2008), critical literacy (Freire, 1990, 2018; Gee, 1990), and learning-centered pedagogy (Fecho et al., 2021) to develop insights into ways that teachers navigate opportunities and challenges in contemporary rural schools. Participant criteria included being employed fulltime as an English language arts teacher at a rural secondary school, having taught for at least three years, and The study's three participants were rural North Carolina secondary English language arts teachers. Utilizing an adapted three-phase interview process, the study had three stages for each participant: (1) an intake interview, (2) three rounds per participant of co-planning, classroom observations, and post-observation conferences, and (3) a final interview. Thematic analysis (Maxwell, 2013) was used to analyze and code the data. Understandings were that participants, in their success and challenges of supporting rural student voices (1) supported student voice through instructional design, (2) attended to biases and seeking to dialogue within the classroom, and (3) utilized the lived experiences and literacies.

Mythology is a consistent part of the high school English language arts school curriculum dating back well beyond the last forty years. High school English teachers‘ beliefs about mythology, student engagement, and educational policy demonstrate the rationale and dynamic of this longevity. This study explores the development and elements of myth, asserting the importance of approaching myth through critical cultural studies generally, and in high school English arts classrooms specifically. Drawing upon a variety of cultural sources (i.e. sacred narrative, children‘s television, cable news television, literature, movies, music, and the internet); theorists (from Levi-Strauss‘s structuralism through the post-structuralism of Barthes, Anzuldua, and Maya Derrin); and methodologies (content analysis of murals, news excerpts, teacher footage on video literary analysis, and autoethnography) this study presents a critical cultural studies exploration of myth and myth studies. After deconstructing and applying Levi-Strauss‘ notion of Bricolage to a wide variety of contexts, I conclude that myth is based in all sorts of individual and collective human movement. And this movement gives rise to myth which can be characterized as political, spiritual inter-textual, performative and hybrid. I further conclude that a critical cultural studies approach to myth attends to student engagement, anticipates 21st century learning frameworks, and offers possible consideration of interfaith education in schools.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / F. Todd Goodson / The purpose of this study was to determine what social factors influenced ninth-grade students asked to participate in dramatic oral reading activities in the context of their high school English classroom. Participatory action research was completed in cooperation with a classroom teacher and his student teacher. A grounded theory design advised the transcription, coding, and data analysis of the study. In 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation formed Poetry Out Loud, a National Recitation Contest where high school students around the country recited poetry in a contest form. This study used materials and some curriculum from Poetry Out Loud, but rather than memorizing and reciting the poems, the students were asked to perform dramatic oral readings of them. This focus on reading stemmed, in part, from studies completed by Rasinski (2005) claiming ninth-grade students still lacked fluency in their reading in addition to work in the areas of Automaticity (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974) and Prosody (Schreiber, 1991). These students participated in six weeks of activities designed to build skill in dramatic oral reading. Field notes were taken throughout the project. Performances were recorded using video and audio devices, student interviews were recorded and transcribed, and teacher interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data revealed fourteen categories during the open coding stage that contributed, through axial coding, to three different themes: family versus dysfunctional family, positive performance conditions versus adverse performance conditions, and literate identity versus anti-literate identity. These three themes and each respective antithesis were progressively contingent on each other when laid out in a lateral manner with the results of the project being that students either developed a literate identity when the conditions were in place or developed a decidedly anti-literate identity. This theory, grounded entirely in data collected during the study, provided an understanding of the social context at play in this classroom. This study provided qualitative insight necessary for continuing to explore dramatic oral reading fluency at the high school level by revealing the importance of community in asking students to perform in front of their peers, a potentially socially jeopardizing situation.

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This study reports on the impact of the Authorial Empathy Scale (AES), a tool designed to measure responses to literature that balance attention both to authors’ aesthetic choices and to empathetic engagement with the narrative world, on teachers’ instructional practices and students’ written and spoken responses. The research is guided by the following research questions: (1) In what ways, if any, does a literary unit intervention designed to foster readings of authorial empathy shape the teaching practice of two secondary ELA teachers? (2) In what ways, if any, does a literary unit intervention designed to foster readings of authorial empathy shape secondary students’ responses to texts? Data consist of stimulated-recall interviews and discussion transcripts of teachers and students that were analyzed for the goals, tools, and sources of their decisions. The major findings are the use of the AES seemed to facilitate a common approach among teachers and students for generating more balanced responses to texts. However, sustaining the balanced responses faced challenges in the form of institutional rubrics, IRE discussion patterns, and the specific demands of writing tasks. Students who evidenced greater mastery of the conventions of academic writing tended to generate more authorially empathetic responses to texts. During the Authorial Empathy unit, students tended to engage in more extensive and collaborative talk turns during discussion. The results make clear the importance for teachers to select texts, tasks, and tools that support the use of the AES in guiding students to respond with authorial empathy. / Literacy & Learners

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences and perceptions of 12th-grade literature teachers about curriculum, Post-Colonial literature, and students. Theories posed by Piaget (1995), Vygotsky (1995), and Rosenblatt (1995) formed the framework for this micro-ethnographic study. Seven teachers from public and private schools in South Florida participated in this two-phase study; three teachers in Phase I and four in Phase II. All participants completed individual semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys. In addition, four of the teachers were observed teaching. The analysis yielded three themes and two sub-themes: (a) knowledge concerned teachers’ knowledge of British literature content and Post-Colonial authors and their literature; (b) freedom described teachers’ freedom to choose how to teach their content. Included in this theme was dilemmas associated with 12th-grade classrooms which described issues that were pertinent to the 12th-grade teacher and classroom that were revealed by the study; and (c) thoughts about students described teachers’ perceptions about students and how literature might affect the students. Two subthemes of knowledge were as follows:(1) text complexity described teacher responses to a Post-Colonial text’s complexity and (2) student desirability/teachability described teachers’ perception about how desirable Post-Colonial texts would be to students and whether teachers would be willing to teach these texts. The researcher offers recommendations for understanding factors associated with 12th-grade teachers perceptions and implications for enhancing the 12th-grade experience for teachers and curriculum, based on this study: (a) build teacher morale and capacity, (b) treat all students as integral components of the teaching and learning process; teachers in this study thought teaching disenfranchised learners was a form of punishment meted out by the administration, and (c) include more Post-Colonial authors in school curricula in colleges and schools as most teachers in this study did not study this type of literature nor knew how to teach it.