Holly Hungerford-Kresser

Learning From Our Mistakes: What Matters When Incorporating Blogging in the Content Area Literacy Classroom

This manuscript explores the inclusion of blogging as a pedagogical tool with preservice secondary teachers from a variety of content areas. The authors focus on data collected over two and a half years with preservice teachers in the content literacy classroom setting, specifically highlighting the qualitative data collected to determine students’ perceptions of blogging as a pedagogical strategy. Once the study is discussed, and qualitative findings outlined, the authors provide suggestions for other practitioners considering the use of blogging in their classrooms.

Blogging with Pre-Service Teachers as Action Research: When Data Deserve a Second Glance.

The implementation of digital pedagogies (i.e. blogging) is one way to mediate large classroom discussions in culturally relevant ways. This 2.5-year longitudinal mixed-method action research study reflects on the ways blogging can further promote culturally relevant discussions explored in face-to-face classes. Findings include pre-service teachers’ use of blogs in: interrogating issues as a means of developing cultural competence; recognizing their own trepidation and lack of self-knowledge related to topics of diversity; and exploring the disconnect between their current knowledge and future practice. Additionally, this study explores ways in which the authors could have further assisted students in challenging their beliefs and strengthening cultural competencies through blog responses.

Political tensions: English teaching, standards, and postsecondary readiness

Purpose n n n n nThe purpose of this paper was to highlight ways two novice secondary English teachers negotiated the politics of college and career readiness along with the literacy needs of students, in the age of accountability. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nThis three-year longitudinal qualitative case study focused on two participants in English teacher preparation and their first two years in the classroom. n n n n nFindings n n n n nThe findings focus on participants’ definitions of college and career readiness as it pertains to their English Language Arts classrooms. Next, the focus is on two themes: tensions these novice teachers experienced as they attempted to build classrooms focused on postsecondary readiness, and the ways in which they worked to bridge the gap between their definitions of college and career readiness and the realities of their classrooms. n n n n nResearch limitations/implications n n n n nConnections among high stakes testing environments, postsecondary readiness and literacy teacher education are important to the field. Studying the experiences of novice teachers can fill a present gap at the intersection of these concepts. n n n n nPractical implications n n n n nCurriculum in teacher education should introduce standards, as well as provide a platform for negotiating and critiquing them. Three focus areas to help pre-service teachers mitigate tensions between minimum skills assessments, college readiness and literacy are personal experience, collaboration and reflective partnerships. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThere has been little to no research done on the tensions between preparing all students to be college and career ready and the minimum skills based priorities that govern many school systems and its impact on novice teachers. This classroom reality is important to literacy teacher education.

Implementation of digital technologies: Creating new conversations with students

Introduction: English - Looking Ahead Section 1 - Literacies and Literatures: Creative Possibilities 2. What does it mean to know in English 3. Opportunities or constraints? Where is the space for culturally responsive poetry teaching within high stakes testing regimes at 16+ in Aotearoa New Zealand and England? 4. Teachers Researching Literacy Lives 5. Student, Reader, Critic, Teacher: Issues and Identities in Post-16 English Literature 6. Machines to think with? E-books, Kindles and English teachers, the much prophesied death of the book revisited 7. The online identities and discourses of teenagers who blog about books 8. Rewriting the Canon: Literature Curricula Text Lists 9. Teaching reading in a digital age: Towards an understanding of pedagogic practice Section 2 - English Teachers @ Work: Tensions, Pressures, Opportunities 10. The Past: A foreign country worth visiting? 11. Developing Student Independence in English 12. Language as Putty Framing a Relationship between Grammar and Writing 13. English Teachers, Low SES Students and Intellectual Challenge: Cases from Australia 14. Is it Endgame for Teacher Preparation in U.S. Universities? Section 3 - New Technologies, New Practices 15. English Educators as Change Agents: How to Do Change Differently in a Complex World 16. The North American Teacher Research Movement: The National Writing Project and the Scholarship of Teaching Practice 17. The Origins and Ominous Future of the US Common Core Standards in English Language Arts 18. Multiliteracies: An App for the Literacy Boomerang 19. With Rest...and Time...and a Little Hope: Moving into Virtual Worlds Through Multi-Modal Literacy Forms 20. You Are What You Read: Text Selection and Cultural Capital in the (Globalising) English Classroom 21. Web of deceit: Is the internet making your students dumb? 22. Implementation of Digital Technologies: Creating New Conversations with Students 23. The (Designed) Influence of Culture on Eportfolio Practice