Prospective English teachers learn to respond to diversity in students’ writing through the student writing archive project (SWAP).
Abstract
Responding to students’ writing is integral to English teaching. However, preservice secondaryEnglish teachers (PSETs) often have few opportunities to practice this skill or to see how experienced teachers respond to diverse writers. I built an online database of students’ writing, teacher feedback, and teacher interviews; 32 PSETs in my English methods courses explored this database in conjunction with fieldwork in local classrooms. In this article, I analyze PSETs’ database discussionforum posts, comments on field-placement students’ writing, and reflections about learning toprovide feedback. Reading teachers’ feedback positioned PSETs as students, evoking recollections about receiving teacher feedback, while writing their own feedback positioned them as teachers, evoking visions of what a writing teacher must do/be to claim authority in the classroom. All but two PSETs provided feedback of the kind they had claimed to hate. Those two adapted approaches they encountered in the database, learning to draw on their own writing histories as resources for responding with authority.
Reference
Journal
English Education
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
no
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
Research Location Context
Preservice Participants
- undergraduate preservice teachers
Preservice Sample Size
32
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- online discussions
- Online response
Data Analysis Tools
Researcher Positionality
Research Questions
How might English teacher education programs support PSETs as they learn to respond to students’ writing?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes