{"id":9089,"date":"2019-11-10T15:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/\/\/"},"modified":"2020-02-24T16:18:05","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T16:18:05","slug":"i-didnt-want-to-make-them-feel-wrong-in-any-way-preservice-teachers-craft-digital-feedback-on-sociopolitical-perspectives-in-student-texts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/volume-19\/issue-4-19\/english-language-arts\/i-didnt-want-to-make-them-feel-wrong-in-any-way-preservice-teachers-craft-digital-feedback-on-sociopolitical-perspectives-in-student-texts","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI Didn\u2019t Want to Make Them Feel Wrong in Any Way\u201d: Preservice Teachers Craft Digital Feedback on Sociopolitical Perspectives in Student Texts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We cannot ignore the current moment and the significance of new teachers entering the field ready to support students as sociopolitical agents in a tumultuous, and in many ways dystopian, context. (Bomer, Land, Rubin, & Van Dike, 2019, p. 13)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Describing her experience giving\nfeedback to an adolescent writer through Google Docs, preservice teacher (PST)\nEmily (all names are pseudonyms) said that she wished she knew the\nrace of a student who had analyzed the poem \u201cRosa Parks\u201d (Giovanni, 2002). The\nstudent <\/p>\n\n\n\n

was proving that racism ended … which obviously isn\u2019t true. And I didn\u2019t know how to respond. … I\u2019m like, is she white and she just doesn\u2019t understand that racism still exists? Or is she some other minority and she\u2019s reading the poem incorrectly? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The main platform used in this connected learning\/teaching partnership (Moran, 2018), Google Docs, made Emily\u2019s experience giving feedback more challenging because she couldn\u2019t tailor her feedback to the student. Although Emily was willing to respond to the student\u2019s views on racism, other PSTs whose students engaged with sociopolitical perspectives \u2013 that is, explored issues of social injustice \u2013 were less willing to take such risks, preferring to comment on seemingly neutral aspects of students\u2019 writing to not be perceived as partisan (e.g., see Hess & McAvoy, 2015). In using this definition, we acknowledge that all texts are potentially sociopolitical. An ideology is a belief system that shapes an agent’s sociopolitical participation in a text. In times when teachers\u2019 voices are being silenced by legislators (e.g., Altavena, 2018) and echo-chambers proliferate in public discourse, learning to provide productive digital writing feedback is an especially relevant practice for preservice teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considerable attention has been devoted to research on the teaching of writing in K-12 teacher education since Morgan and Pytash\u2019s (2014) review of literature, which identified only seven studies conducted on this topic before 2010. Bomer et al. (2019) found 82 studies published between 2000 and 2018, but they identified only one study \u201cas activating a sociopolitical discourse, [and] none specifically discussed how [prospective teachers] might introduce sociopolitical purposes for writing or position their EC-12 students as social agents\u201d (p. 7). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this paper, we build on two\nemerging bodies of literature: calls for support for PSTs\u2019 development of\nsocial justice pedagogical content knowledge (Dyches & Boyd, 2017; Garcia\n& O\u2019Donnell-Allen, 2015; Minor, 2018) and scholarship on ideologies shaping\nELA teachers\u2019 beliefs and practices (Barnes & Chandler, 2019; Laughter,\nHuddleston, Shipman, & Victory, 2018; Sherry, 2017). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discourses in the Teaching of Writing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Both theory (Ivani\u010d, 2004) and\nresearch (Bomer et al., 2019) suggest that a broad range of discourses on\nteaching writing exist and are taken up in different ways by different\nteachers.  Ivani\u010d (2004) described six distinct discourses that shape\nthe teaching and researching of writing: skills, creativity, process, genre,\nsocial practices, and sociopolitical (p. 225). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PSTs must balance concerns for helping high school students master a set of basic rules and structures \u2014 Ivani\u010d\u2019s \u201cskills\u201d discourse \u2014 with progressive academic orientations to writing as a social, cultural, and ideological activity \u2014 Ivani\u010d\u2019s \u201csocial practices\u201d and \u201csociopolitical\u201d discourses. PSTs must also address potential conflicts between what they tend to think teachers should<\/em> do when responding to student writing \u2014 correcting student missteps and taking on a seemingly objective, one-size-fits-all approach to student writers \u2014 and what they find satisfying when actually responding to student texts in their field experiences, including engaging in dialogue with students about the content of their writing when issuing feedback (Heron-Hruby, Olinger, & Chisholm, 2019). Sherry (2017), for example, demonstrated how these discourses compete with one another as PST participants engaged in default responses (e.g., correcting mechanical issues) on students\u2019 writing even when they previously expressed negative feelings about engaging in such an approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sherry and Roggenbuck (2014) called\nfor research that illustrates how PSTs \u201cpractice responding to student writing\nin ways that both challenge their assumptions about their roles as teachers and\nhelp them to connect theory to practice\u201d (p. 6). Such learning opportunities\ncan bring into consciousness for PSTs the plethora of factors (e.g., teacher\neducation cohort, cooperating teachers, and methods courses) that influence\nPSTs\u2019 conceptions about teaching and the relative levels of influences those\nfactors may have at different points in time (Barnes & Smagorinsky, 2016;\nPardo, 2006). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such diverse factors can result in what Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann (1985) described as the \u201ctwo-worlds pitfall\u201d (p. 63). This pitfall emerges when PSTs graduate from progressive teacher education programs and then experience \u201cpraxis shock\u201d (Smagorinsky, Gibson, Bickmore, Moore, & Cook, 2004, p. 214) \u2014 the realities of contemporary classroom life that may challenge beginning teachers who learned about sociopolitical discourses related to the teaching of writing but then encountered the skills discourse in their first jobs. For example, these PSTs may encounter \u201ccompeting centers of gravity\u201d (Smagorinsky, Rhym, & Moore, 2013, p. 148) through the scrutiny of administrators who perceive skills instruction as necessary for raising student test scores. <\/strong>Aligned with the sociopolitical discourse related to teaching writing, our study sought to understand how prospective teachers think about and respond to students whose argumentative writing is grounded in potentially polarizing ideological perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching as Social Justice Practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In their framework for Social\nJustice Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (SJPACK), Dyches and Boyd (2017)\nargued that \u201call instructional maneuvers are politically charged and therefore\nnever neutral\u201d (p. 477). Grounded in this belief, the authors extended\nShulman\u2019s (1987) influential framework that described the specialized knowledge\nset of teachers known as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) \u2014 a framework\nfound ubiquitously in teacher education programs and used recently to frame\nresearch on the teaching of writing as a core practice for PSTs (Ballock,\nMcQuitty, & McNary, 2018). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyches and Boyd (2017) noted,\nhowever, that Shulman\u2019s framework is relatively silent on supporting teachers\nto disrupt status-quo structures that result in inequities for students from\nmarginalized populations and prevent teachers\u2019 growth as critical change\nagents. SJPACK offers a framework within which teacher practices, such as\nresponding to student writing, can be reconceptualized as a space for enacting\nsocial justice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If teacher educators and other stakeholders with a vested interest in the field do not make explicit that all PCK practices are politically imbued, PSTs will continue to think of their work as neutral and devoid of ideology, an orientation that will likely affirm students belonging to dominant, mainstream groups while only further marginalizing students belonging to nondominant populations. (Dyches & Boyd, 2017, pp. 478-79)  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The circulation of power, ideologies, and the influences of\nlived experiences creates a political context in every instructional\ninteraction, perhaps especially during written interactions in which political\nstances are encoded in the language choices that privilege some concepts over\nothers, establish power relationships between author and respondent, and expose\nideological differences derived from writers\u2019 lived experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of developing SJPACK as a teacher of writing involves studying ways to respond to and explore sociopolitical issues. Scholars have used the phenomenon (a.k.a. \u201cdisease\u201d) of educational niceness (Baptiste, 2008, p. 7; Bissonnette, 2016) to problematize the ways in which teachers may unwittingly reinforce status quo societal structures by avoiding imposing ideas on their students in the interest of \u201cvalue-neutrality\u201d (Baptiste, 2008, p. 7). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By identifying how the commitment to educational niceness\nundermines even the work of two of the most revered critical theorists in\neducation \u2014 Paulo Freire and Myles Horton \u2014 Baptiste argued that educational\nniceness is \u201cnot a humanizing practice.\u201d He said that \u201cuntil educators rid\nthemselves of their yearning to be nice, until they embrace wholeheartedly\ntheir obligation to impose, their educational impact \u2014 especially in addressing\nsocial inequalities \u2014 will be severely curtailed\u201d (Baptiste, 2008, p. 26).\nKnowing when and how to \u201cimpose\u201d can represent an ideological and pedagogical\nchallenge for prospective teachers of writing who are charged with reconciling\nwhat they are learning in their teacher education programs with what they are\nseeing in their field experiences and with their own experiences of schooling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to Student Writing as Social Justice Practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Researchers working in the area of\nlanguage instruction (as part of a larger curricular program in the teaching of\nwriting) have explored preservice and in-service teachers\u2019 language ideologies\nabout marginalized and stigmatized Englishes (Godley, Carpenter, & Werner,\n2007; McBee-Orzulak, 2013; Metz, 2017). In particular, scholars have called for\nincreased attention to the ways in which PSTs can become sociopolitical agents\ntoward the language ideologies that inform methods for teaching about grammar\n(McBee-Orzulak, 2013). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholars have also emphasized how\nteachers\u2019 disciplinary content knowledge of dialects of English (i.e.,\nsociolinguistics) and the approaches available to them for teaching about\nlanguage (e.g., code-meshing; Young, Barrett, Young-Rivera, & Lovejoy,\n2014) can support a social justice agenda and support learners\u2019 sociopolitical\nagency (Godley & Reaser, 2018), including for white and monolingual\nstudents (Metz, 2017). This body of research has produced clear recommendations\nand guiding principles for teachers working in secondary English language arts\n(ELA) settings, as well as for English teacher educators (e.g., Godley,\nSweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, & Carpenter, 2006). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other scholars have studied how teachers negotiate competing ideologies during discussions of polarizing and challenging topics during classroom discussions (Chisholm & Whitmore, 2018; Hess & McAvoy, 2015; O\u2019Donnell-Allen, 2011). Concepts such as \u201ccivil  discourse\u201d (O\u2019Donnell-Allen, 2011) and dialogic stance (Boyd & Markarian, 2015; Juzwik, Borsheim-Black, Caughlan, & Heintz, 2013) have been introduced in ELA teacher education to manage political polarization during discussions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hess and McAvoy (2015) drew on an\nextensive study of teachers and students engaging in political discussion to\nposition such discourse as integral to democratic education. Promoting\npolitical literacy, Hess and McAvoy argued, requires that students learn to\nlisten, engage with, and respond to political controversies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, ELA researchers have\nconceptualized Daily Independent Listening as an approach to navigating\npolarizing perspectives during discussions for PSTs (Laughter et al., 2018).\nLaughter et al. provided portraits of three PSTs as they facilitated\ndiscussions during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Although the authors did\nnot address the myriad situated obstacles that could prove to be challenging\nfor teachers who broach sociopolitical content with their students, they pointed\nout ways teachers can support students\u2019 learning during classroom discussions\naround polarizing topics by (a) creating a space for students to speak (without\nneeding the teacher\u2019s approval for everything that is said), (b) developing\nexplicit listening skills, (c) promoting students\u2019 critical reflections about\nsociopolitical topics, (d) building relationships through critical listening\nand speaking practices, and (e) not becoming discouraged when this literacy\npractice is not immediately successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, however, ELA teacher\neducation researchers have not focused on prospective teachers\u2019 responses to\nsociopolitical issues in students\u2019 writing drafts. In this study, in which PSTs\nand students never met face to face, we examined how PSTs reflected on the\nsociopolitical perspectives embedded in students\u2019 writing and perceived the\ndigital tools to mediate their feedback. We asked, how did PSTs respond to\nsociopolitical perspectives in high school students\u2019 writing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methods<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because our university courses focus\non writing as a sociocultural practice, it is important that candidates work\nwith diverse populations. To that end, we emphasize in our teacher education\ncoursework the centrality of culture and cultural knowledge. We draw on\nLadson-Billings\u2019 (2014) definition of culture as a foundation for this work:\n\u201can amalgamation of human activity, production, thought, and belief systems\u201d\n(p. 75). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural knowledge, then, \u201crefers to\nthe ability to help students appreciate and celebrate their cultures of origin\nwhile gaining knowledge of and fluency in at least one other culture\u201d\n(Ladson-Billings, 2014, p. 75). Of critical importance to us is our students\u2019\nunderstanding that culture is \u201cdynamic, shifting, and ever changing\u201d (Paris,\n2012, p. 94). We also seek to support future teachers in developing a\ncontemporary conceptualization of pedagogy that goes beyond being relevant and\nresponsive to their students\u2019 cultural practices to \u201cperpetuat[ing] and\nfoster[ing] \u2014 to sustain[ing] \u2014 linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as\npart of the democratic project of schooling\u201d (Paris, 2012, p. 95).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With these goals in mind, we\ndeveloped the Writing Mentors program, a connected learning\/teaching partnership\n(Moran, 2018). PSTs at a rurally situated university work with high school\nstudents in a city about 130 miles away, and PSTs who attend a university in\nthat city work with high school students near the rural university. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We designed Writing Mentors to be a digital field experience so that our PSTs could participate outside of K-12 school hours to provide high school writers support without traveling great distances, which would be difficult for university students with jobs, families, or a lack of funds for gas. PSTs are paired with one or more mentees and give them feedback on a variety of English class assignments, including short stories, advertising campaigns, speeches, and argumentative and analytical essays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present study stemmed from a\nmulticase analysis of five undergraduate English methods courses that used the\nWriting Mentors program for field experience hours (two methods courses at the\nrural university and three at the urban university). The study began at the start\nof the spring 2018 semester with two courses and continued in the fall 2018\nsemester with three courses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From each course, we requested volunteers to participate in focus groups to learn about their experiences responding to high school students\u2019 drafts over digital platforms. We used focus groups instead of individual interviews to capture the shared knowledge that emerges from the discussion of complex processes (Cyr, 2015). The shared cognition of a group interview format aligned well with our orientation toward data analysis, a constructivist thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 14), in which we sought to theorize the sociocultural contexts and structural conditions that shaped the PSTs\u2019 responses to student writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From each list of volunteers, we chose up to four participants to keep the number manageable and to give each participant multiple opportunities to speak. Our selections were based on a questionnaire we had the PSTs complete at the start of each course to glean their orientation toward writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The questionnaire was based on\nNewell, VanDerHeide, and Olsen\u2019s (2014) study of argumentative epistemologies,\nwhich they termed structural<\/em>, ideational<\/em>, and social practice<\/em>. Structural epistemology refers to a focus on\ndeveloping a coherent essay structure as an argument; ideational epistemology\nfocuses on developing original ideas that are explored and justified through\nargument; and social practice epistemology focuses on developing a projected or\nimagined context with an authentic audience for the argument (p. 97). We\nselected participants with different orientations to include diverse\nperspectives during the focus groups.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total, we had 12 participants (three\nfrom the rural university and nine from the urban university) across five\ndifferent courses. Two of the participants from the rural university\nparticipated during both semesters of the study because the university has a\nsmall English education program, and they were in both of the courses involved\nin the research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The participant demographics are\nrepresentative of the courses in the study and of the national teaching\ndemographics in the United States, where most of our K-12 teachers are white\nwomen (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). One exception to the\ndemographic trend was CJ, identified as an African American man (see Table\n1).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Table 1<\/strong>
Participant Contextual Information<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Download Table 1 in Word for accessibility<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The courses involved in the case studies were as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n