Melissa Schieble

A critical discourse analysis of teachers’ views on LGBT literature

This article presents a thread of discussion posted to a web-based forum in the context of a childrens literature course in one teacher education program in the USA. Participants in the virtual discussion include three preservice elementary teachers and the course instructor (author) on the subject of bringing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) literature into the elementary classroom. Classroom teachers who lead discussions about race, gender, class, sexuality and inequality are encouraged to create and maintain a safe environment for dialogue. In this article, the author explores how the need to maintain a culture of safety around discussions of sexuality shaped the participants’ views on teaching LGBT literature written for children. Applying the tools of critical discourse analysis, the author demonstrates how events in the discussion unfolded that left normative constructions of sexuality unexamined.

A Discourse Analytic Approach to Video Analysis of Teaching Aligning Desired Identities With Practice

The authors present findings from a qualitative study of an experience that supports teacher candidates to use discourse analysis and positioning theory to analyze videos of their practice during student teaching. The research relies on the theoretical concept that learning to teach is an identity process. In particular, teachers construct and enact their identities during moment-to-moment interactions with students, colleagues, and parents. Using case study methods for data generation and analysis, the authors demonstrate how one participant used the analytic tools to trace whether and how she enacted her preferred teacher identities (facilitator and advocate) during student teaching. Implications suggest that using discourse analytic frameworks to analyze videos of instruction is a generative strategy for developing candidates’ interactional awareness that impacts student learning and the nature of classroom talk. Overall, these tools support novice teachers with the difficult task of becoming the teacher they desire to be.

Critical Conversations on Whiteness with Young Adult Literature.

In this article, the author argues that whiteness remains an overwhelmingly absent dimension in literacy teaching that addresses systems of power from a critical perspective. One way literacy teachers may bring this dimension more explicitly into the classroom is by facilitating critical conversations on whiteness with young adult literature. As whiteness is neither a fixed nor static category, the author analyzes whiteness as intersected with multiple identity markers such as social class and gender in two young adult novels that are popular with adolescents and taught in middle and high school classrooms. The author concludes with recommendations for literacy teachers on how to bring whiteness more explicitly into critical literacy teaching and learning.

Reading Between the Lines of Reader Response: Constructing ‘the Other’ through the Aesthetic Stance

In this article, the author challenges English teachers of literature to examine applications of reader response theory in teaching reading which posit that readers approach a text from two stances: ‘aesthetic’ (emotional) or ‘efferent’ (literal). The essay presents a case study of pre‐service English teachers and adolescents’ web‐based discussions about a work of young adult fiction based on a transgendered character. The study highlights how the pre‐service teachers’ framing of questions about the book provoked the adolescents to adopt an aesthetic stance with the text that effectively ‘othered’ transgenderism, leaving potential opportunities for critical reflection and analysis of gender and sexuality unexamined.

English Language Learners Pedagogy in the English Methods Class: Collaborative Planning as a Component of Preservice Teacher Preparation

As colleagues at an urban college of education, the authors engaged in an ongoing initiative to collaborate across their secondary English and teachers of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) preparation programs. This chapter outlines a collaborative project they implemented to strengthen English teacher candidates’ understanding of TESOL pedagogy, with benefits to TESOL specialists as well. In particular, they describe how co-planning between English and TESOL teacher candidates can set the stage for English teachers to enter the field with a greater understanding of differentiation strategies for linguistically diverse adolescents.

Addressing LGBTQ-Themed Texts and Heteronormativity in English Education

Abstract English teacher candidates have limited opportunities to examine classroom-based discussions about LGBTQ-themed texts and heteronormativity in teacher education courses. This chapter presents one effort to address this issue using a video-based field experience in the English Methods course that demonstrated a critical unit of instruction about the play, Angels in America. The chapter provides a description of the project and English teacher candidates’ perspectives about what they learned for English educators interested in devising similar projects for their courses.