Teaching grammar and writing: A beginning teacher’s dilemma

Abstract

This longitudinal case study follows one high school English teacher’s path of concept development over a two-year period encompassing her student teaching and first year of full-time teaching, both at the same rural school in the southeastern United States. The authors use a sociocultural theoretical framework emerging from the work of Vygotsky to focus on the construction of activity settings and the ways in which settings help to shape concept development. In particular, the analysis finds the teacher drawing on apparently inconsistent pedagogical traditions and their associated mediational tools: one centered on a teacher’s authoritarian control of the curriculum and adherence to formal properties of texts and one centered on students’ interests and their agency in learning.

Reference

Smagorinsky, P., Wilson, A. A., & Moore, C. (2011). Teaching grammar and writing: A beginning teacher's dilemma. English Education, 43(3), 262-292.

Journal

English Education

Analysis

Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?

yes

Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?

Research Approach

"longitudinal": across varying classes over time
Case study
Qualitiative

Geographic Setting

Southern US

Institutional Context

University based

Certification Level

Secondary

Programatic Focus

English
Secondary
Writing

Research Location Context

Secondary school
student teaching placement schools

Preservice Participants

First-year teachers
Undergraduates (university based program)

Preservice Sample Size

Duration of Data Collection

2 years

Data Sources

fieldnotes
Interviews
interviews (post-lesson)
Observations

Data Analysis Tools

coding to a prior categories
Inductive analysis

Researcher Positionality

inside (staying their own students)

Research Questions

What factors contributed to Brandy’s development of a conception of how to teach the language and writing strands of the secondary school English curriculum?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes

How did her instruction unfold within the constraints and affor- dances of the settings that produced these factors?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes

How was this conception evident through her choice of pedagogical tools—the teaching practices through which she enacted instruction in grammar and writing—and the attributions she made to iden- tify the source of those tools in her teaching, thus suggesting the influence of the settings in which she appropriated these particular tools
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes