Janine L. Certo

Retaining Quality Teachers

This study investigated teacher attrition and retention in seven Virginia school divisions representing urban, suburban, and rural localities. Focus group interviews of teachers who stay in their school divisions and telephone interviews of teachers who migrated to another school division or who left the teaching profession revealed a hierarchy of organizational influences on teacher attrition and retention. A menu of state, district and building level recommendations are offered for retaining quality teachers.

Beginning Teacher Concerns in an Accountability-Based Testing Environment

Abstract This paper, part of a larger case study of beginning teachers and mentors, describes the concerns of four teachers throughout their stages of development in first-year teaching. They and their mentors were interviewed at three intervals in the school year to obtain perceptions of beginning teacher concerns. Beginning teachers also kept journals of their concerns in first-year teaching. Data revealed that in an accountability-based testing environment, instructional pacing was reported as a top, pervasive concern of beginning teachers. These case studies reveal that participants were reporting beginning teacher concerns, but not necessarily in the predictable areas, such as classroom discipline, student motivation, or individual student differences. The data suggest that typical problems were overshadowed by concerns and preoccupations with district instructional pacing, test pressure, and test preparation.

Support and challenge in mentoring: A case study of beginning elementary teachers and their mentors

In a recent Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education article, the author reported on a single case of a successful mentor–beginning teacher pairing that was derived from a larger qualitative study (Certo, 2005). The purpose of this article is to report findings from that larger investigation. Three Virginia elementary 1st-year teachers and their mentors were interviewed in September, December, and February. Beginning teachers also kept journals of reflections about challenges in 1st-year teaching and the presence, nature, and impact of mentoring activities. Perceptions of mentor activities and the perceived impact on beginning teachers’ thinking and professional development are described using Daloz’s support and challenge model (1988). Mentors provided a balance of support and challenge activities, and beginning teachers reported being impacted by their mentors in numerous ways, from classroom management to adoption of new instructional approaches. These cases may be useful to practitioners as models of effective practice.

The Poetry Café Is Open! Teaching Literary Devices of Sound in Poetry Writing

A six-week long intervention that introduced second graders to poetry writing is described in this article, ending in a classroom “poetry cafe” culminating event. This article details the established classroom “writing workshop” structure and environment and the perceptions and observations of how students responded to the instruction. Four poetry writing minilessons on rhymed verse, repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and collaborative poetry are highlighted. Poetry trade books were used as models. An intervention used to meet the needs of a struggling writer is explained. Finally, the article showcases the celebratory “Kovalcik Cafe” where second graders read aloud their published works to family and friends.

Support, Challenge, and the Two-Way Street: Perceptions of a Beginning Second Grade Teacher and Her Quality Mentor

While mentoring programs continue to increase in number, the field still knows little about what kinds of interventions mentors do and the impact they have on beginning teachers. This article shares a case study example of a positive mentoring relationship—beginning teacher Madeleine, and her mentor, Kelly—extracted from a larger qualitative study investigating elementary beginning teachers and their mentors. Because of the complex nature of beginning teacher mentoring, more case studies of positive experiences need to be available for stakeholders to read. Teachers that are already mentors may learn from Kelly’s approach and can see the potential impacts they can have on a 1st-year teacher. Equally important, teacher educators, policymakers, administrators, and other prospective mentors can become aware of the tremendous amount of time, energy and requisite skills required to be a quality mentor. A beginning teacher, Madeleine, and her mentor, Kelly—both classroom teachers in an urban elementary school in Virginia—were interviewed separately in September, December, and February to obtain perceptions of mentoring interventions occurring in the relationship and the perceived impact on Madeleine’s professional development. Madeleine also kept a journal of her thoughts and reflections about challenges in 1st-year teaching and the presence, nature and impact of Kelly’s mentoring interventions. The study categorized activities into those that were supportive, challenging, or characterized as a two-way street, with each party learning and taking ideas from the other.

Social Skills and Leadership Abilities among Children in Small-Group Literature Discussions.

Many childhood educators are attempting to shift from the dominant “recitation” format of discussions found in todays classrooms. This study draws on reader response, and sociocognitive and sociocultural theories to investigate childrens perceptions of social skills and leadership moves after participating in small-group discussions of literature for the first time. The researcher interviewed a stratified random sample of 24 elementary-age students after participating in such discussion groups for 4 months. Findings included that children perceived incidents of peers who helped, took turns, got along, and kept the discussion going. Results suggest that participation in small-group, peer-led literature discussions, with the support of teacher scaffolding, may support childrens social and leadership skills.

Poetic Language, Interdiscursivity and Intertextuality in Fifth Graders’ Poetry An Interpretive Study

In spite of views that children’s writing development is in large part a linguistic complex process involved in their engagement within and across social activities in and out of school, the literature is scant on the wide range of semiotic resources that children may draw on to animate their poetry writing and performances. Drawing from a case study of poetry writing and performance in one U.S. fifth-grade classroom, this article uses interpretive methods and textual analysis to ask the following questions: (a) What, if any, poetic language do children draw on and identify in their written poems? (b) What interdiscursive and intertextual writing practices do children draw on to write poetry? and (c) How, if at all, might the act of reading an original poem influence children’s writing practices and literacy learning? Highlighted by three focal students, data suggest that children’s poems most often used features, including stanza break, varied types of rhyme, alliteration, and metaphor. Furthermore, some children’s poems could even be classified into distinct poetic structures. The data also suggest that children appropriated and recontextualized content for a single poem from a variety of semiotic resources in and out of school. Finally, children’s performances were caught up with satisfying multiple audiences, including themselves. This study suggests that elementary children can control the process of poetry writing and performance through active integration of formal poetic language taught with interdiscursive and intertextual practices.

It’s something that I feel like writing, instead of writing because I’m being told to: elementary boys’ experiences writing and performing poetry

Poetry is one of the most feared and least understood literary genres in our public schools. Boys, in particular, are frequently perceived to be resistant to poetry instruction; a view that often stems from a limited vision of what poetry is and a misread of masculinity. Nevertheless, the study of poetry provides many benefits in the journey to becoming a competent and expressive writer. In this study, the writing practices of 20 fourth- and fifth-grade boys in a low socioeconomic US urban school were investigated as they engaged in the writing and performance of poetry across a 4-week poetic genre study. Audio-recordings of interview responses, video-recordings of poetry performances, drafts of participants’ original poems, and other relevant classroom artifacts were analysed using interpretive analytic methods to identify themes in and across data sources. Analyses revealed that it was possible to create an environment in which these elementary-aged boys were willing (and sometimes even eager) to engage with poetry. This engagement with and enjoyment of poetry appeared to originate from several sources. First, through the freedom and choice afforded by poetry, participants were able to give voice to those experiences, thoughts, and feelings that were important to them. Second, through the use of mentor texts and role models of visiting poets, participants appropriated and transformed the voices around them to create poems which arguably incorporated some sophisticated language and literary devices. Third, through poetry performance, participants found a space in which their voices could be heard and valued.