This dissertation reports on a study of the four most widely-used10th grade literature textbooks in terms of the opportunities they provide for students to engage in coherent English language arts curricular units in which the texts, questions, and tasks provide opportunities for students to develop their own text-based interpretations and arguments, engage in focused inquiry about individual texts, and build conceptual understanding of overarching unit or text-specific concepts/questions. Data included the texts, questions, and tasks in two units per textbook, a short story unit and persuasion unit. Data analysis focused on (a) how the texts, questions, and tasks in each unit were structured to provide coherent learning opportunities that allow for students to build conceptual understanding of unit and text-specific concepts/questions, and (b) the extent to which texts and post-reading questions and tasks provide opportunities for students to develop their own text-based interpretations and arguments. The findings from this study show that despite all units including texts, questions, and tasks that cohere around overarching unit or text-specific concepts/questions, units are not structured to provide students with coherent learning opportunities that will allow them to build their conceptual understanding of unit or text-specific concepts/questions. This is due to the plethora of questions and tasks that are unrelated to the unit or text-specific concept/question or to each other. Additionally, findings show that many of the texts, especially in the persuasion units, do not provide opportunities for readers to develop multiple text-based interpretations and arguments about the ideas, arguments, characters, and events. Finally, findings show that the majority of post-reading questions in all four textbooks are recitation questions that have or assume one correct response.
The findings from this study suggest that preservice and inservice educators must prepare teachers to use and modify literature textbooks in ways that are shown to improve student learning. Moreover, time must be provided in schools for teachers to work with colleagues to design instructional units that modify rather than rely on textbook units. Finally, findings from this study suggest that research is needed on how teachers use and what teachers learn from textbooks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07182010-075945 |
| Date | 20 September 2010 |
| Creators | Mihalakis, Vivian |
| Contributors | Amanda Godley, Anthony Petrosky, Amanda Thein, Jean Ferguson Carr |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07182010-075945/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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