Cindy O'Donnell-Allen

Inside city schools : investigating literacy in multicultural classrooms

This text synthesizes and co-ordinates the work of teacher researchers who address the issues of race and ethnicity in the classroom. It deals with issues of teaching within a culturally responsive framework, featuring stories by teachers trying to bring their students multicultural literacies.

The Depth and Dynamics of Context: Tracing the Sources and Channels of Engagement and Disengagement in Students' Response to Literature

In this article, we analyze one coauthors 12th-grade English class, focusing on a small group of students who interpreted the character of Gertrude in Hamlet through a body biography, a life-sized human outline that students filled with words and images that represented their understanding of the character. We analyze the body biography production as a function of the social context of activity and then analyze the processes of composition involved in their production. Analysis of the data reveals that (a) the students exhibited different degrees of commitment to and involvement in the group task, (b) the degree of equity in productivity and social relations varied within the group in accordance with these different degrees of engagement, and (c) the inequity in social relations and contributions to the group product belied the degree to which the final interpretive product met the teachers assessment criteria. We conclude with a reconsideration of the notion of engagement that includes attention to both the immediate social relations within the classroom and the histories of engagement that students bring to class.

Student Engagement in the Teaching and Learning of Grammar A Case Study of an Early-Career Secondary School English Teacher

This article reports a study of coauthor Laura Wright as she learned to teach secondary school grammar in four settings: university teacher education program, student teaching, her first job, and second job. Data for her university program came from Laura’s journals and projects from her course work. Data from student teaching and her first job included interviews and field notes from observations and interviews and self-reports by Laura of teaching conducted on other occasions. Information from her second job came from self-reports by Laura. The data were analyzed using a system that identified the pedagogical tools Laura employed and the attributions she made for learning how to use them. The data suggest that Laura sought to teach in ways that students found engaging, meaningful, enjoyable, and relevant. How she was able to make grammar instruction fit this goal varied according to the setting in which her instruction took place.