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