English/Language Arts Education

Through a thematic and critical discourse analysis framed by critical literacy and mediated contact communication theories, the authors examined the discursive moves preservice teachers made when engaging in discussions on racial injustice through Flipgrid. Analysis showed that preservice teachers used language in productive and critical ways: moving from neutral stances to critical stances, challenging peers by questioning to understand, and reflecting on cultural assumptions. Preservice teachers thought Flipgrid provided the right balance of proximity and distance in order to see the issues in new ways and collaborating across locations and universities provided needed alternative perspectives for all and solidarity for some.

This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year study designed to support middle and high school teachers in infusing computational thinking (CT) into their disciplinary teaching. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, weeklong workshops held in summer 2020 were shifted to a virtual format and utilized emerging technology tools, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, explicit collaborative scaffolds, networking, and digital badging. Specifically, this study examined the experiences of English language arts (ELA) teachers (14 middle school, 13 high school) who participated in the virtual Infusing Computing workshops. Findings demonstrated that ELA teachers were able to leverage learning successfully from virtual PD to infuse CT into existing curricula, although teachers differed in the ways that they appropriated and adapted pedagogical tools for CT infusion.

This article reports on a case study of an English language arts (ELA) teacher education course that prioritized amplification as a method to decenter whiteness in English teacher preparation. The researchers demonstrate how they engaged in designing a course that aimed to use interactive digital technologies and multimodal texts to amplify racially and ethnically marginalized voices in ELA preservice education. Design principles that facilitated amplification included saturation of the learning environment with mediational resources and tools (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010) and the notion of “low floor and wide walls” (Resnick & Silverman, 2005). The analysis revealed ways in which the course design supported engagement with culturally sustaining pedagogies and the amplification of authors, literary characters, and preservice teachers from historically marginalized groups. Concrete examples are provided of intentional design decisions and course features that opened up opportunities for preservice teachers to engage in discourse that foregrounded identities related to race, ethnicity, language, and gender/sexual orientation.

The closing of universities and pK-12 schools in March 2020 pushed teacher preparation programs to explore virtual models of providing teacher candidates with clinical experiences. This case study chronicles a multiple-semester collaboration between a bilingual graduate-level teacher candidate (TC) and university faculty members (authors) exploring what it might mean to enact writing instruction in a fully virtual community of in-service teachers, undergraduate- and graduate-level TCs, and children in grades K-5. Drawing on Garcia et al.’s (2016) current/corriente metaphor, the TC’s translanguaging performances in the community across time were examined to track the multidirectional flows of mentorship that shifted the community’s engagement as digital writers and writing teachers. Findings identified three critical flows of mentorship made possible by the virtual infrastructure: (a) mentorship between TCs and in-service teachers; (b) mentorship between TCs and faculty members; and (c) and mentorship between families/caregivers and TCs. These multidirectional flows disrupted traditional hierarchical notions of university-pK-12 school demarcations, offering insights into possibilities for reimagining more effective virtual clinical models for preparing TCs who can enact culturally sustaining writing pedagogy as a means of sustaining all children’s cultural and linguistic practices.