This study explores the impact of "teacher thinking" exercises in the Composition Practicum as a means of instilling a clearer sense of professional development in graduate instructors. Teacher thinking is a teacher training method that asks the novice instructor to see from the perspective of learners within their writing classrooms. Scholarship on writing teacher preparation programs suggests that English educators regularly employ teacher thinking exercises in the training of secondary school teachers. Teacher thinking has allowed many English education majors to conceptualize and obtain teaching identities by helping them to envision the intricate layers of teaching earlier in their careers. But can teacher thinking exercises have the same effect on graduate instructors in the Composition Practicum? Using the two main writing teacher preparation courses at Brigham Young University (BYU) for graduate instructors and English education majors, English 610 and English 423, I analyze the evidence of teacher thinking in each program and address the possible implications these findings could hold for the Composition Practicum course. Through my comparison of these courses, I determine if conversations between English educators and the Composition Practicum could be beneficial in helping graduate instructors to grow professionally as teachers as they learn to think like teachers in the Composition Practicum. I examine, analyze, and compare syllabi, surveys, and interview response from graduate instructors, English education majors, and the teachers of both courses to identify the types of teaching thinking students are exposed to in each course. Structuring my discussion around the teacher thinking theories of teacher educators, Forrest Parkay and Beverly Stanford, George Hillocks, and Alicia Crowe and Amanda Berry, I identify three types of knowledge that graduate instructors and English education majors gained or lacked in each program. These three types of knowledge are knowledge of self, knowledge of students, and knowledge of educational theory. Through this discussion, I explore what it means to think like a composition teacher and how learning to "teacher think" may help graduate instructors, nationally, to understand what it means to "simply be a composition teacher".

abstract: This mixed methods study explores the work of five small writing communities formed within a university-based preservice English language arts writing methods course. Fifteen preservice English language arts teachers took part in the study and participated across five peer writing groups. The study shares the instructional design of the course as well as the writing activities and practices that took place within the groups over the course of one 15-week semester. The study draws on Wenger’s (1998, 2009) theory of communities of practice as well as activity theory (Engeström,1999, 2001; Russell, 1997) to understand the social supports, practices, and learning activities that assisted these preservice teachers as writers and as teachers of writing. The qualitative data included writing surveys, writing samples, and participant interviews as well as pre and post writing self-efficacy surveys as quantitative data. This study documents the affordances and constraints of peer writing groups in methods courses for preservice English language arts teachers and how these groups may influence their identities and practices as writers and as teachers of writing. These findings provide insight into ways we might strengthen the preparation of English language arts preservice teachers as teachers of writing and build communities of practice within preservice training courses and programs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

abstract: While the literacy narrative genre has been studied in first-year composition and methods of teaching courses, investigations of the literacy narrative as a multimodal project for pre-service teachers (PSTs) of English Language Arts remain scarce. This research shares a qualitative classroom-based case study that focuses on a literacy narrative project, redesigned as a Multimodal Writing History Memoir (see Appendix 1), the first assignment in a required writing methods course in a teacher training program for English Language Arts (ELA) teachers at a large public university in the southwest. The study took place during the fall semester of 2019 with 15 ELA undergraduate pre-service English Education or Secondary Education majors. The study described here examined the implementation and outcomes of the multimodal writing history memoir with goals of better understanding how ELA PSTs design and compose multimodally, of understanding the topics and content they included in their memoirs, to discover how this project reflected PSTs’ ideas about teaching writing in their future classrooms. The memoir project invited pre-service teachers to infuse written, audio, and visual text while making use of at least four different mediums of their choice. Through combined theoretical frames, I explored semiotics, as well as pre-service teachers’ use of multiliteracies as they examined their conceptions of what it means to compose. In this qualitative analysis, I collected students’ memoirs and writing samples associated with the assignment, a demographics survey, and individual mid-semester interviews. The writing activities associated with the memoir included a series of quick writes (Kittle, 2009), responses to questions about writing and teachers’ responsibilities when it comes to teaching composition, and letters students wrote to one another during a peer review workshop. Additionally, my final data source included the handwritten notes I took during the presentations students gave to share their memoirs. Some discoveries I made center on the nuanced impact of acts of personal writing for PSTs, some of the specific teaching strategies and areas of teaching focus participants relayed, and specifically, how participants worked with and thought about teaching multimodal composition. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2020

The purpose of this study is to explore the writer identity of four preservice teachers from a large midwestern University. I utilized the narrative inquiry methodology. I interviewed participants four times: Once in January 2019, January 2020, March 2020, and May 2020. I also asked participants to submit a visual metaphor and reflection. Additionally, I observed participants teach in the secondary classroom. Primarily, the findings reveal that participant writer identities largely influence their secondary writing pedagogy. The findings also indicate that participant writer identities were strongly influenced by their k-12 English teachers. Lastly, the findings suggest that participants experienced trouble navigating tensions in writing instruction. The implications suggest that teacher educators can highlight identity work in teacher education courses to strengthen writer identity. Similarly, I recommend in the Implications section that teacher educators design activities to strengthen preservice teachers’ writer identities so they can strengthen the writer identity of future secondary students. The implications also underscore how teacher educators can highlight the tensions that preservice teachers may encounter as a secondary writing instructor, and how to navigate such tension. This study complements the research on writing teacher education and provides new possibilities to effectively prepare writing instructors.

abstract: This qualitative study examines second language (L2) writing teachers’ identities. The study explores L2 writing teachers’ narrated identities (i.e., the teachers’ perceptions of themselves), enaction of these identities (i.e., students’ perceptions of those teachers; those teachers’ classroom behaviors), and identity enaction’s positive impacts on students. In order to investigate these issues, I conducted interviews with three L2 writing teachers of first-year composition in the United States (U.S.), along with student interviews and classroom observations. Findings showed that there were 10 narrated identities of these L2 writing teachers. All of these narrated identities were enacted except for one. The findings also indicated that there were positive impacts on students from enaction of these identities when that enaction involved certain teaching practices. Enaction of L2 writing teacher identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher paying attention to L2 writers’ needs, showing empathy toward L2 writers, and avoiding overemphasis on L2 writers’ language issues. Enaction of writing teacher identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher providing an enjoyable writing experience, focusing on content knowledge learning, and focusing on writing issues over language issues. Enaction of language teacher identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher providing language help. Enaction of freedom teacher identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher providing guided freedom. Enaction of American teacher identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher focusing on U.S. academic experience. Enaction of general teacher identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher displaying positive attitudes towards teaching in general. Enaction of individual coach identity had a positive impact when it involved the teacher providing individualized help. These findings suggest that L2 writing teachers can maintain positive L2 writing teaching practices. L2 writing teachers can make their teaching practices more informed by seeking out teaching resources and insights from various disciplines as pedagogical content experts in L2 writing. They can also teach L2 writers by addressing L2 writers’ needs with positive emotions, providing guided freedom and individualized help, and understanding L2 writers’ educational backgrounds. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2020

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Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:42:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Arquivototal.pdf: 1615196 bytes, checksum: 2688d98cd18e9b60be7e4c403a5534ee (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-11-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work aimed to identify what 5th grade teachers from private and public schools of João Pessoa, PB, knew about dyslexia, besides the pedagogic practices developed with the teachers to help dyslexics and the interaction between schools staff and the professionals specialized in treating this learning disorder. We focused the 5th grade teachers because it is supposed that students have already got over the expected difficulties of reading and writing acquisition at this time. Dyslexia is a social serious and numerous problem, according to Brazilian Dyslexia Association (ABD), but has not received a proper attention from health and education public offices and has even been excluded from the assistance program ruled by the Secretaria de Educação Especial of Brazilian Ministério de Educação e Cultura. The research was based on Vygotsky s social-interactive theory and on some other researchers of equal importance and scientific orientation, such as Kleiman (2007), Perrenoud (2001), Ong (1998) and Marcuschi (2004). The data were collected from bibliographic sources, interviews and questionnaires applied to twenty 5th grade teachers, ten public and private school technicians and eight professionals of the multidisciplinary team of dyslexia diagnosis and treatment. Surveys about the importance of teachers help to dyslexics hardly exists, in spite of the emphasis and information coming from cognition studies that point to the relevance of teacher s mediation to students get over reading and writing difficulties. This research pointed to little knowledge about this learning disorder among teachers, due mostly to inadequate academic and continuous formation course curriculum. It also showed that there is intense communication between health professionals and private schools what does not happen between them and public schools. / Esta pesquisa objetivou identificar o nível de conhecimento entre profissionais docentes do 5º ano, de Escolas Privadas e Públicas Municipais, de João Pessoa, PB, acerca da Dislexia, como também trabalho realizado pela escola com professores para o atendimento de alunos disléxicos e a relação mantida entre a escola e os profissionais de saúde que tratam desse distúrbio. Detivemo-nos aos professores de 5° ano, quando já se supõe a criança ter superado as dificuldades iniciais, próprias do processo de aquisição da lectoescrita. A dislexia é um problema social grave, de alta incidência, segundo a Associação Brasileira de Dislexia, mas não tem recebido a merecida atenção da escola e órgãos públicos de saúde e educação, chegando a ser excluída do Atendimento Educacional Especializado (AEE), definido pela Secretaria de Educação Especial, do Ministério da Educação e Cultura. Teoricamente a pesquisa teve como fundamentação a teoria sóciointeracionista de Vygostky e pesquisadores de mesmo posicionamento e relevância, como Kleiman (2007), Perrenoud (2001), Ong (1998) e Marcuschi (2004). Como dados, foram utilizados fontes bibliográficas e entrevistas realizadas entre três grupos de participantes, sendo o Grupo I composto por vinte professoras de 5º do Ensino Fundamental I, de escolas públicas e privadas; o Grupo II, por dez técnicos de escolas públicas e privadas, e o Grupo III, formado pelos membros da equipe multidisciplinar de tratamento da dislexia. Pesquisas sobre a importância da atuação do professor no acompanhamento de disléxicos são praticamente inexistentes, apesar de toda a ênfase e informação advindas de estudos sobre cognição apontarem para a importância da mediação docente na superação de problemas no processo de aquisição da lectoescrita. A pesquisa apontou para um nível de conhecimento deficitário sobre este distúrbio entre esse segmento docente, motivado, principalmente, por inadequação curricular nos cursos de formação acadêmica e continuada; para uma relação estreita entre profissionais de saúde e a escola privada e sua ausência entre aqueles e a escola pública.