“THE THINGS THEY CARRIED”: A STUDY OF LEARNING TO TEACH ACROSS

ACTIVITY SETTINGS

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES

OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

SANDY MARIAM PHILIPOSE

March 2010

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/sw298kt9576

© 2010 by Sandy Mariam Philipose. All Rights Reserved.

Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

ii

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Linda Darling-Hammond, Primary Adviser

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Pamela Grossman

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Rachel Lotan

Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies.

Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education

This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file inUniversity Archives.

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ABSTRACT

The study described here examines the practices of 7 beginning English-Language

Arts teachers in two schools over the course of an academic year. The analysis of

classroom observations and data on the preparation for teaching highlighted the elements

of learning settings in both pre-service and in-service settings that supported

appropriation of subject specific tools for teaching. The common features across settings

that supported appropriation were a foundation of conceptual tools for teaching, the

enactment or unpacking of practical tools through explicit modeling or collaboration, and

opportunities to enact tools within and/or across learning settings. The study also

highlighted the importance of the reinforcement of tools across settings for promoting not

only appropriation of practices but depth of appropriation. The cases suggest that it was

the features of the individual and overlapping settings for teacher learning such as the

availability of models, norms around practical tools, opportunities to enact tools, and the

access to these features across settings that best explain the teaching practice of these 7

teachers.

The study reveals a more complicated and nuanced picture of the development of

teaching practices across settings in which teachers learn to teach their subject matter.

The findings suggest that in addition to considering how to better scaffold tool

appropriation in their respective settings, teacher educators, professional developers,

departmental leadership, and policy makers should work together to provide support for

tool appropriation that spirals across settings.

As I was collecting data for the study, I came across the title “The Things They

Carried” on the book club list at Highland High School. Having never read the book, I

was inspired to pick up Tim O‟Brien‟s novel on the Vietnam War. Reading through the

first chapter by the same name, I was captivated by the detailed description of what the

soldiers carried, both literally and figuratively, as they marched in and through war. As I

sat down to write the dissertation about the tools teachers carried across settings into their

practice, this is the title that came to mind. Each teacher carries into teaching their

personal histories, the tools specific to where they have been, and those necessary for

where they are. This dissertation is my detailed analysis and report of 7 beginning

teachers and “the things they carried” into their classrooms.

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ACKNLOWLEDGEMENTS

Throughout the writing of this dissertation, I found myself struggling with how to

concisely and accurately capture what I wanted to say. The case is no different with this

very last piece. These few words of thanks carry with them an appreciation that is

beyond words.

I would first like to thank the teachers (Abby, Andrea, Barbara, Jackie, Jade,

Janice, Joanna) who allowed me into their classrooms and their lives. Through sitting in

your classrooms, you not only deepened my understanding of teacher preparation and

development, but also reignited my love of literature. I am honored to call each of you

colleagues and now friends.

Over the last five years, I have been continually inspired by Linda Darling-

Hammond‟s tireless work and commitment to improving education. I am grateful to have

had the opportunity to work with her both as an advisee and a member of her research

team. Our conversations and the TNE project have challenged me to think more deeply

about educational research and how our work connects to important questions of policy

and practice.

Rachel Lotan has been my advocate since my first day at Stanford. She has

provided me with numerous opportunities to develop as a teacher educator as well as

introduce me to the STEP model that shapes my conception of teacher preparation. Most

recently, she held my hand through the long and arduous process of writing this

dissertation. Her hugs and words of encouragement, coupled with gentle prodding,

helped me reach the finish line.

Pam Grossman has inspired much of my thinking on the theoretical foundations

of teacher education as well as the framework for this dissertation. Her encouragement,

continual interest in the study, and feedback on books disguised as chapters were

invaluable in this process.

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“Daddy, do you know what the most important thing in the world is?”

“What is the most important thing in the world, Joseph?”

“Friendship.”

I am infinitely grateful for the friends that helped support me, not only through

the dissertation process, but throughout my time at Stanford.

Regina Bolaños has been a source of encouragement from before the application

process to the day of my defense. Plano ISD did not know what a special relationship

they were forging when they assigned Regina as my mentor in my first year of teaching.

I cannot thank her enough for all the ways she has cared for and supported me.

Jack Dieckmann has been not only a friend (a.k.a. “conjoined twin”) but an

advisor and mentor in so many ways. I am extremely grateful for his gentle pushes in

both my professional and personal life. I feel privileged to have walked alongside him,

both literally and figuratively, for this journey. I am also grateful to Esther, Joseph, and

Benjamin for inviting me into their home and their family.

This dissertation would not have been possible without support of friends and

family both in Texas and in California. To the Chathas, Esther, and Lea I am especially

grateful. I also want to acknowledge those in my church and school community who

worked with me, prayed for me, and supported me with food and words of

encouragement. Each of you is very special to me and a strong reminder of how God

shows His love through people.

I dedicate my work to my Maker who has known my destination even when I did

not and to my parents who, though they did not always understand my destination, have

continually tried to provide me with the time and resources for the journey. At the end of

the long road, they can now say they are the parents of Dr. Philipose.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ........................................................................................... IX

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 10

PREVIEW OF STUDY ...................................................................................................................... 16

CHAPTER 2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................... 17

REDEFINING “CONTEXT” AS “ACTIVITY SETTINGS” ................................................................ 17 THE ROLE OF TOOLS .................................................................................................................... 21 REDEFINING “LEARNING” AND “PRACTICE” AS TOOL APPROPRIATION ................................ 22 TENSIONS WITHIN AND ACROSS ACTIVITY SETTINGS .............................................................. 23 LEARNING TO TEACH ACROSS ACTIVITY SETTINGS ................................................................. 23 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................ 25

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 26

STUDY DESIGN .............................................................................................................................. 26 DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................................................................... 31 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 39 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ....................................................................................................... 42

CHAPTER 4 CLARK AND HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOLS ................................................. 44

CLARK HIGH SCHOOL .................................................................................................................. 44 HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL ........................................................................................................... 51 INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES BY SCHOOL SITE ...................................................................... 58 FEATURES OF SCHOOL SETTINGS THAT INFLUENCE TOOL APPROPRIATION .......................... 59

CHAPTER 5 JENNINGS GRADUATES .................................................................................. 62

JENNINGS METHODS COURSE ..................................................................................................... 62 JENNINGS GRADUATES AT CLARK HIGH SCHOOL ..................................................................... 69 JENNINGS GRADUATES AT HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL .............................................................. 77 PROGRAM FEATURES THAT FOSTER APPROPRIATION .............................................................. 88

CHAPTER 6 ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES ........................................................ 92

ABBOTT STATE COLLEGE AND BENNETT STATE UNIVERSITY TEACHER EDUCATION

PROGRAMS .................................................................................................................................... 92 ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES IN SCHOOL SETTINGS ................................................... 101

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ABBOTT GRADUATES AT HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL ............................................................... 103 BENNETT GRADUATE AT CLARK HIGH SCHOOL ..................................................................... 115 SUMMARY OF ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES ................................................................. 122

CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION OF CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS ................................................ 123

WITHIN SETTING FEATURES THAT FOSTER TOOL APPROPRIATION ..................................... 123 FEATURES OF LEARNING ACROSS SETTINGS THAT SUPPORT DEEPER LEVELS OF

APPROPRIATION ......................................................................................................................... 135

CHAPTER 8 IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY ................................................................. 145

DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................. 145 IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 146 A “SPIRALING CONTINUUM” FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING ................................................ 149 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE POLICY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHER PREPARATION ..................... 154 IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION METHODS COURSES AND SUBJECT SPECIFIC

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................. 155 IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL SETTINGS .................................................................................... 156 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY MAKERS AND PROGRAM DESIGNERS ........................................ 157 IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ............................................................................... 160 AREAS OF FUTURE RESEARCH .................................................................................................. 161 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 165

APPENDIX A PROTOCOLS FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS .......................................... 167

APPENDIX B PROTOCOLS FOR OTHER PARTICIPANTS ........................................... 170

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 173

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Chapter 3

Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for School Sites……………………………………29

Table 3.2 Participants by Site……………………………………………………….31

Table 3.3: Observations/Interviews by Teacher…………………………………….35

Table 3.4: Data Sources by Setting………………………………………………....36

Table 3.5 Data Analysis Questions and Data Sources………………………………41

Chapter 4

Table 4.1: Privileged Tools for English-Language Arts Instruction by School…….59

Chapter 5

Table 5.1: Jennings Course Design by Domain Specific Units……………………..68

Table 5.2: Practices of Jennings Teachers by School……………………………….76

Table 5.3: Practical Tools Teachers Attributed to Models from Jennings………….89

Chapter 6

Table 6.1 Methods course overview across 3 teacher education programs………..100

Table 6.2

Principal Settings for Teacher Learning for Abbott and Bennett Graduates……….101

Table 6.3 Practices by Teacher, School, and Teacher Education Program………...102

Chapter 7

Table 7.1: Table of Learning Features by Setting………………………………….143

Table 7.2 Practices by Teacher, School, and Teacher Education Program….…......144

(Same as Table 6.3 – Repeated for Reader’s Convenience)

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1 Basic Model of Activity Setting………………………………………...19

Figure 2.2 Activity Setting: Teacher Education…………………………………….20

Figure 2.3 Activity Setting: Initial Teaching Job…………………………….……..21

Figure 2.4 Learning to Teach Across Settings…........................................................25

10

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

We are currently in the era of No Child Left Behind which mandates a “highly

qualified” teacher in every classroom. According to the legislation, a “highly qualified”

teacher is one that has a bachelor‟s degree, full state certification or licensure, and can

prove that they know each subject they teach. At the same time policy makers have been

calling for increased attention to subject matter preparation and credentialing, there has

also been an increase in the number of alternative teacher education programs which

require little to no training before teachers enter the classroom (Levine, 2006). These

seemingly contradictory policy moves demonstrate the lack of agreement on how best to

prepare “highly qualified” teachers and the diminishing importance of preservice teacher

education in teacher preparation.

Research and current policy decisions such as the ones above have highlighted the

importance of content knowledge for teaching but have yet to definitively provide an

answer to the following question: Does teacher education matter? The debate regarding

the importance and quality of teacher education has been circling the research and policy

arenas for decades. The debate has been fueled by studies that show that beginning

teachers often fail to implement the lessons from teacher education when they enter their

own classrooms or by investigations that compare student achievement scores of teachers

who have had varying amounts of teacher preparation.

The current policy debate over whether teacher education matters is often fought

in policy and research circles with statistical analyses in which studies look at

correlations or run regressions with teacher certification information and student

achievement data (e.g. Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, Vasquez Heilig, 2005).

Other research endeavors, such as work by Teachers for a New Era, went a step farther

by trying to look at teacher preparation, teacher practices, and student outcomes.

Qualitative work on the question has included a number of studies, often done by teacher

educators, that look at small groups of individual teachers and observe their transition

from teacher education into the early years of teaching (Ensor, 2001; Fox, 1995). These

studies have offered descriptions and explanations for why some of the lessons learned in

teacher education do not become a part of the beginning teacher‟s practice. Studies have

11

highlighted factors that might have limited teachers‟ appropriation of the practices

emphasized in teacher education such as the teacher candidates‟ adherence to images of

teaching from their previous schooling experiences referred to as the “apprenticeship of

observation” (Lortie, 1975) or how teacher candidates‟ entering beliefs regarding

teaching or learning can serve as a filter to teacher education experiences (Feimen-

Nemser, 2001; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon, 1998).

Studies have also traced lessons from teacher education to the first years of

teaching to show how teacher education matters. In her case study of 3 graduates from

teacher education and three teachers without formal teacher education, Grossman (1990)

described the differences in the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers with and

without preservice preparation. The case studies provided examples of how teachers with

teacher preparation conceptualized the teaching of English differently from the teachers

without formal preservice training. The teachers also differed in that the teachers with

preparation had a greater capacity to make sense of and reflect on what they were

experiencing in the classroom.

Other studies have also looked at how teachers experience concepts and ideas

from teacher education is related to what they might instantiate in their practice. For

example, in a longitudinal study of 10 beginning teachers, researchers found that the

conceptual tools that had been “buttressed” with practical strategies in their teacher

education “seemed to be the most influential” in the practice of novice teachers

(Grossman, Valencia, Evans, Thompson, Martin, & Place, 2000, p.1). This particular

study also found that teachers were better able to implement tools from teacher education

in their second year of teaching. Another example of a study that focused on how

teachers‟ teacher education experiences influenced their practice is Paula Ensor‟s (2001)

longitudinal study of seven secondary math teachers. Ensor‟s study followed the teachers

through their methods course into their first year of teaching. The major findings of the

study are that the beginning teachers reproduced a small number of discrete tasks and a

“professional argot” or way of talking about mathematics teaching and learning from

their preservice methods course. However, the author suggests that the methods course

did not provide the student teachers with recognition rules or realization rules. Stated

differently, the course did not provide students with the experiences to recognize the

12

preferred or “privileged” repertoire of teaching practices and to realize them in teaching

through modeling or trying to create their own tasks for a classroom setting. The

research looking more closely at how teacher education might be related to the practices

of beginning teachers show that perhaps how we conceptualize teacher learning and

whether we look short or long term will have ramifications for the answer to whether

teacher education matters.

Although there has been debate over the merit of teacher education, there has

been less discussion over whether school context matters. Research has consistently

noted the significant impact the school setting has on the practice of teachers. For

example, the importance of “context” on teaching has been documented by scholars

interested in teaching reform. Talbert, McLaughlin, and Rowan (1993) have looked at

the influence of school context effects on teaching for understanding. The contextual

features highlighted by Talbert, McLaughlin, and Rowan included the classroom, the

subject matter, tracking/ teacher assignments, the social class of the community the

teacher works in, the high school department and teacher collegiality, and broader

contexts such as professional networks, and influences from district and state levels often

in the form of centralized curricula or standardized testing. The work by Talbert,

McLaughlin, and Rowan highlights the embedded nature of the multiple contexts

teachers work in and the influence they can have on teachers‟ practice, specifically for

how the need to negotiate multiple contexts might encourage teachers to “stick with

known practices”(p.62). Although the line of research on context on teaching was

focused on experienced teachers, the importance of the multiple embedded school

contexts can be even more influential when one considers that the first years of teaching

not only influence how long teachers will stay in the profession but how they will teach in

the future (Rust,1994 as cited in Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon,1998). Five of the

studies of the first year of teaching reviewed by Wideen. Mayer-Smith, & Moon (1998)

“suggest that beginning teachers actually learn how to teach when they enter the

classroom during their first year” (p. 158). Rust (1994)‟s study of two beginning teachers

(as reported by Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998) found that the new teachers,

overwhelmed by their first year of teaching, reverted to deeper belief systems regarding

and teaching and learning. The literature on beginning teachers and learning to teach

13

cites the phrase “praxis shock” or “reality shock” for what occurs as a teacher takes in the

responsibilities of classroom teaching as a reason that teachers do not instantiate the

lessons learned from their teacher education. During this reality shock, “missionary

ideals formed during teacher training” collapse due to the “harsh and rude reality of

everyday classroom life” (Veenman, 1984, p.143). Studies of new teachers have also

highlighted the influence of factors in the context such as teaching assignments (pupils

and classes) and level of autonomy over what to teach (Kagan, 1992). The research has

also noted the stark contrast between the ideals presented in preservice education and the

conceptions of teaching and learning novice teachers encounter in schools (Wideen,

Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). The overwhelming nature of entering into one‟s own

classroom and the often conservative effect of the school help to explain why teaching

often seems to look the same as it always has. Hargreaves and Jacka ((1995) as

summarized in Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon (1998)) believe that teacher education

reform “will continue to be frustrated until there is fundamental change in the in the

culture and contexts of schooling” (p.159). This perspective highlights the fact that if one

wants to see the impact of teacher education on teaching practice, we must work for

greater congruence between teacher education and the schools teachers will enter.

As noted earlier, the notion of the “wash out effect” (Zeichner and Tabachnick,

1981), or discontinuity in beliefs and practices from teacher education, has often pivoted

around the argument that teachers simply revert to earlier notions of teaching gleaned

from their own experiences as students or that teachers are more impacted by the school

in which they begin to teach than their preparation experiences. What this ignores is that

the two issues are not separate. In his report entitled “Educating School Teachers”,

Levine (2006) characterizes the debate over the type of preparation needed to be a

“highly qualified” teacher as the difference of thinking of teaching as a “profession” that

requires “rigorous preparation” or a “craft” in which one learns on the job. Such a

characterization divides teacher development and preparation into two separate arenas,

either before entering the classroom through a teacher education program or learning to

teach while in one‟s own classroom. This dichotomy ignores that learning to teach is a

developmental process beginning in teacher education (or some claim even before) and

lasting through years of classroom teaching.

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In an article entitled From Preparation to Practice: Designing a Continuum to

Strengthen and Sustain Teaching, Feiman-Nemser (2001) suggests a continuum for

teacher development that begins with preservice teaching and lasts into inservice

professional development. Feiman-Nemser notes that developmental models estimate

that learning to teach can take at least seven years or even longer. If we think of learning

to teach as a developmental continuum spreading over many years, researchers would

broaden their lenses to look at the experiences teachers are given in their first years of

teaching and see how they further develop the ideas introduced in teacher education. A

recent study, conducted by the National Research Center on English Learning and

Achievement (CELA), of beginning English/Language Arts teachers from preparation

through their first three years of teaching did exactly this. The reports not only pointed

out how teachers from the same program came to have different conceptions of teaching

writing based on their teacher education experiences but also highlighted the role of

district policies or curriculum in teacher development (Grossman & Thompson, 2004;

Grossman, Thompson, & Valencia, 2001). Such studies provide a more detailed look at

how the initial teaching context can develop and influence a beginning teacher‟s

understanding and practices in the teaching of their subject matter.

Although research endeavors such as the CELA work have added to our

understanding of how the school context is important in teacher development, we still

need to know more about how to create school contexts that better foster development of

the research-based practices such as those encouraged by teacher education. Most of the

case study designs on new teachers generally begin by focusing on the teachers and

tracing the impact of teacher education throughout their beginning years of practice. If

we acknowledge the importance of school context and the importance of alignment, we

should strive to understand how different teaching contexts support the development of

novice teachers. In such a design, we would begin by focusing on the school settings.

For example, would schools with similar conceptions of teaching to the teacher education

program help novice teachers maintain and develop concepts and strategies introduced in

their teacher education program? With the growing emphasis on school and university

partnerships, will we find that teachers that enter into schools that have a strong

relationship with universities and/or have a high concentration of alumni from the teacher

15

education program will help maintain and develop the practices encouraged by their

teacher education program? Simply put, would we find that teacher education matters

when it aligns with the school contexts in the way Feiman-Nemser (2001) and

Hargreaves and Jacka (1995) suggest? To document if and how this occurs would help

answer whether teacher education “matters” (novice teachers are able to enact practices

introduced by and encouraged in their preservice training) when it is supported over time

and can expect that the school setting will not contradict messages from the preservice

program.

In the model proposed by Feiman-Nemser (2001), teacher preparation includes

preservice education, induction, and inservice professional development. In such a

model, one would assess if teacher education were successful by looking at development

of teachers as they went through the different phases. The CELA reports looking at the

impact of curriculum materials or the district as a teacher educator (Grossman &

Thompson, 2004; Grossman, et al., 2001) allow us to look at teacher development during

the first two phases. Although the research has given a more in depth look at the role of

particular features, the studies have not presented the findings in a way that allows the

reader to consider the multiple messages sent in the new school settings regarding

teaching and learning. Just as the research on teacher education has highlighted the

importance of coherence in teacher education programs (Levine, 2006), we must seek to

understand the varying conceptions of teaching emphasized by the different and

overlapping induction experiences novice teachers participate in. As the induction

research has generally focused on the features needed for quality induction programs

such as reduced preparations or mentoring, research that looks in depth at the salient

elements of teachers‟ induction experiences would help us in learning how to create

induction experiences that build off of and deepen teachers‟ understandings from

preservice education. The recent push for mandated formal teacher induction programs

through legislation such as SB 2042 which requires that new teachers complete a two

year induction program to earn a professional (clear) teaching credential serves as public

acknowledgment of learning to teach as a long process that requires support. What is not

as clearly understood is how mandated induction programs or the multiple experiences

that are a part of teacher‟s induction to the profession are congruent with the messages

16

from teacher education and with the other developmental influences within the school

context such as department or district guidelines or professional development courses.

More detailed study of teachers‟ induction experiences will help ensure that such

formalized measures are implemented in a manner that aligns with the practices

encouraged by teacher education and the school contexts themselves.

In essence, research shows that school context matters. What we need to figure

out is how to garner the power of the school context and the first years of teaching to

prepare high quality teachers that can transform teaching and learning. Essential to this

question is an understanding of the role context plays in teacher learning.

Preview of Study

This dissertation presents the methodology, results, and implications of a

qualitative study examining the influence of school settings on the practices of beginning

teachers. In Chapter 2, I present the conceptual framework for the study and the

principal research questions. Chapter 3 describes the study design and methods used for

data collection and analysis. Chapters 4, 5, 6 provide a detailed description of the 2

school settings in which the study took place and the preparation and practices of 7

beginning teachers who participated in the study. These data chapters serve as evidence

and support for the cross case analysis presented in Chapter 7. The study concludes

with a discussion of implications for theory and practice in Chapter 8.

17

CHAPTER 2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Redefining “Context” as “Activity Settings”

Many of the studies cited in the review of learning to teach literature in Chapter 1

used the word “context” to refer to contextual features or working conditions of the

teacher‟s first job such as job assignment, departmental or staff collegiality, or the degree

of autonomy of the teacher over their curriculum. The work by Talbert, McLaughlin, and

Rowan (1993) employ context to refer to “any of the diverse and multiple environments

or conditions that intersect with the work of teachers and teaching” such as the “school,

subject area, department, district, higher education, business alliance, professional

networks, state policies, community demographics” (p.46). The authors defined a context

effect as “the influence of particular context conditions-values, beliefs, norms, policies,

structures, resources, and processes-on teaching and in turn, students‟ educational

outcomes” (p.47). Although research on contextual effects helped to identify factors that

supported or constrained teachers‟ practices in teaching for understanding, the definition

does not focus on the process of teacher learning.

In more recent research on learning to teach, scholars are applying a sociocultural

view of learning which reframes the definition of “context” in terms of “context for

learning.” This expands the definition of context beyond just the initial school setting to

looking at the learning opportunities/experiences presented within an arena. Using such a

definition for context also allows us to then to look across settings in which teachers learn

to teach such as student teaching placements or professional development settings. In a

discussion of new views of knowledge and teacher learning, Putnam and Borko (2000)

discuss the use and implications of a situated model of knowledge in research on teacher

learning. The authors describe the situative perspective briefly and broadly in three

conceptual themes: Cognition is “(a) situated in particular physical and social contexts,

(b) social in nature, and (c) distributed across the individual, other persons, and tools” (p.

4). A model of teacher learning that draws on the situated or distributed cognition posits

that how a person learns something and the situation in which it is learned “becomes a

fundamental part of what is learned” (p.4). A situated, social, and distributed model of

learning places an emphasis on the contexts and people with whom and what a teacher

interacts as they learn to teach. If we see teaching through a situative lens, the

18

“disjuncture” between preservice teacher education and the teaching practice of new

teachers is more broadly framed as a learning question and focuses our attention on the

fact that the practices encouraged in teacher education may not have a reinforcing culture

when new teachers enter the workplace (Sykes and Bird, 1992 as cited in Putnam and

Borko, 2000). Thus, the sociocultural framework gives insight into how and why the

school context is so significant in teacher development.1 This study is framed in terms of

concepts from a sociocultural/situative perspective of learning, and more specifically is

based on activity theory.

In the conceptual framework I present here, I draw off the work of activity

theorists such as Michael Cole and Yrjö Engeström and more specifically from the

conceptual frameworks based on activity theory used by educational scholars such as

Pam Grossman and Peter Smagorinsky in looking at how teachers learn to teach. In

activity theory, what educational research has often referred to as context is defined as a

setting. Cook, Smagorinsky, Fry, Konopak, and Moore (2002) define settings “as the

contexts for human development” (p.393). Each setting has a motive or outcome which

specifies what goal should be maximized in the setting. In learning to teach studies,

pivotal settings might include teacher education courses, professional development

workshops, or collaborative planning meetings.

The activity theory framework is particularly useful for looking at the process of

learning to teach as it allows for the fact that an individual moves across many settings

and can participate in embedded settings. During the process of learning to teach,

teachers go through multiple activity settings, some which are embedded within each

other. The principal activity settings can be broken down broadly into teacher education

and the initial teaching position. However, embedded within these settings are other

important settings whose importance will vary by teacher since “settings” are defined by

participants themselves. In teacher education, the different settings would include

teacher education coursework (e.g. educational psychology classes, methods courses

focused on the teaching of particular subject matter, classroom management), field

placement, or meetings with a supervisor from the program. Once teachers enter their

1 A socialization model also highlights the importance of context but seems to leave it out the elements of

agency and variation that are observed in teacher development and the studies that document the practices

19

own classrooms, they might participate in other settings such as department meetings,

planning meetings with grade level teams, in-district and outside professional

development meetings, and/or meetings with mentors. These embedded settings, or what

is sometimes referred to as subsettings, are significant in that they may be in tension with

other settings. I will return to the idea of “tensions” later as now I will move to a

description of the model.

In the basic activity setting framework, an activity setting includes a subject, an

object, and mediating artifacts which are signs and tools. Thus in a simple model, a

teacher candidate/new teacher would be the subject whose goal of becoming a competent

teacher would be mediated by the artifacts or tools gleaned from the various facets of

teacher education and/or their initial teaching setting with the motive of becoming a

competent teacher (object).

The basic model depicted above describes an activity setting at an individual level. In a

more complex model that takes into account both individual and group activities (referred

to as a collective activity settings), there are also rules, a community, and a division of

labor (Engeström and Miettinen, 1999). A teacher‟s learning is therefore mediated by the

activity setting in which he or she participates. For instance, a teacher in one setting may

have a very different vision of what the aim of teaching is and the tools reach that goal

than a teacher participating in a different activity setting.

Mediating Artifacts

New Teacher (Subject)

Becoming a Competent Teacher (Object)

Based on model found in Cole & Engeström, 1993

Figure 2.1 Basic Model of Activity Setting

20

Figures 2.2 and 2.3 represent the two main collective activity settings in which

many beginning teachers learn to teach. The first activity setting (see Figure 2.2) is

teacher education. Upon entering the program, teacher candidates come into the long-

standing practices associated with teacher education and become a part of a community

that is constrained by certain norms and rules particular to the local teacher education

program. The motive, or implicit outcome, of the setting of teacher education is to

prepare teacher candidates to become competent teachers. In a coherent program, the

student teachers participate in coursework and field experiences and reach different levels

of appropriation2 of the tools that are encouraged in their teacher preparation programs.

As learning to teach can be thought of as a continuum that moves from teacher

education to the early years of teaching (Feiman-Nemser, 2001), the first teaching job can

be considered the next broad collective activity setting in which teachers are learning to

teach (See Figure 2.3). Although there are multiple goals in the initial teaching job such

as an emphasis on student learning, for the purposes of this study, the primary object

2 Grossman et al. (1999) define appropriation as the process through which the teacher candidates adopt the

tools for use in the school or teacher education program and internalize the ways of thinking associated

with the practices that are encouraged in the setting.

Tools (Conceptual, Practical)

Rules of Community

Division of Labor (Coursework, Supervisory, Cooperating Teachers)

Community

Object: Preparing to be a competent teacher

Subject: Teacher Candidate

Figure 2.2 Activity Setting: Teacher Education

Based on model found in Cole & Engeström, 1993

21

considered is the further development of teaching practices. As noted earlier, the school

setting also contains multiple embedded settings. These can include the district, subject

specific departments, or professional development settings that are both generic and

subject specific. Given the focal goal/object under consideration, this study will focus on

the embedded settings in which the primary object is teacher learning. The school itself,

and each of the embedded settings in the initial school setting, has its own community

with its own norms and rules and tools for instruction. Each of these features as well as

the tools and division of labor will differ by school site and might vary by each embedded

setting. For example, a content specific professional development may be composed of

different participants and privilege different tools for teaching than the subject specific

department at the school.

+

The Role of Tools

In activity theory, the subject‟s goal or motive is mediated by tools. In Grossman,

Smagorinsky, and Valencia (1999), the authors define and describe two types of tools

teachers use to guide and realize their practice. The authors define conceptual tools as

“principles, frameworks, and ideas about teaching, learning…that teachers use as

heuristics to guide decisions about teaching and learning” (p.11). The examples of

Tools (Conceptual, Practical)

Rules of Community

Division of Labor (District, Admininstration, Departments, Induction mentor, Professional Development)

Community

Development of teacher practice

New Teachers

Figure 2.3 Activity Setting: Initial Teaching Job

Based on model found in Cole & Engeström, 1993

22

conceptual tools provided by the authors vary from broad theories such as constructivism

to theoretical principles such as instructional scaffolding. In my own work as a teacher

educator, we emphasized the conceptual tool of alignment or backwards design in

curriculum planning. In contrast to conceptual tools, practical tools are defined as

“practices, strategies, and resources” that have “more local and immediate utility” such as

journal writing or curriculum materials (p.12). It is important to note that in using an

activity theory framework, the appropriation of both types of tools is dependent on the

subject‟s active role in the practices (p.13). In the examples above, I highlighted tools

used by teachers for instruction. When thinking in terms of settings focused on teacher

learning, we must consider how practical and conceptual tools can also mediate teacher

learning.

Figures 2.2 and 2.3 highlight the importance of tools as mediating factors in

teacher learning. Tools which mediate teacher learning in settings with the goal of

preparing teachers can include artifacts of teaching practice such as model unit plans,

case studies documenting dilemmas of practice, or examples of student work. Given that

the goal of both teacher education and school settings is ultimately concerned with

student learning, tools in teacher education and school settings can also include tools for

instruction such as curricular materials, handouts, or strategies that can be used in a

classroom. In professional preparation, the tools for preparation (e.g. artifacts from

teacher education) would often overlap with tools used in the practice (artifacts to be used

in the classroom) itself. As such, tools used in preparation settings not only mediate

teacher learning but the appropriation of privileged tools for instruction are also the goal

of the setting.

Activity theorists speak specifically about practical tools that move across

settings. These are known as boundary objects. The practical tools provided in various

settings such as lesson plans or handouts for students are examples of practical tools that

teachers might appropriate and carry across settings.

Redefining “Learning” and “Practice” as Tool Appropriation Given the emphasis in activity theory on the appropriation of tools and the

purposes of this study, we can redefine teacher “learning” as an appropriation of practical

and conceptual tools. The depth of learning can then be characterized by the level of

23

appropriation of the tool. Grossman, et al. (1999) outline five degrees of tool

appropriation: lack of appropriation, appropriating a label, appropriating surface features,

appropriating conceptual underpinnings, and achieving mastery. How deeply a teacher

appropriates practical and conceptual tools can depend on a number of factors. Among

these factors that influence appropriation, the writers include the following: the social

context of learning in which tools were introduced and used (How were the tools

introduced to them in the setting? Did the teachers have a chance to see the tool in action

or were they presented with the conceptual underpinnings?); the individual characteristics

of the learner such as their apprenticeship of observation (how were they taught?) and

their personal goals and expectations for teaching (Is it about the students and/or the

subject?); and their knowledge and beliefs about the content they teach.

A related point to note is that according to this framework, what we commonly

refer to as teaching practice can be described in terms of the conceptual and practical

tools used by teachers.

Tensions Within and Across Activity Settings

In using an activity theory model, it is also important to consider that there are a

number of overlapping activity settings and motives that could be at tension for the

novice teacher. For example, during teacher education the student teacher might be

unable to enact the practices modeled in her teacher education program due to the

constraints in her field placement. Tensions could also between other elements of the

setting such as tools. For example the tools privileged in professional development for

student learning might support different goals than those supported by the school in

which a there is a focus on increasing test scores on a particular measure. In his

discussion of expansive learning (2001), Engeström describes tension, or what he refers

to as “contradiction,” as the driving force of change in activity. Over time, the

contradictions such as the one described here might result in a transformation of the

activity.

Learning to Teach Across Activity Settings

The use of activity theory allows analysis of the types of tools, the individual and

social context of learning around the tools, levels of appropriation, and possible tensions

within and between activity settings and how that influences tool appropriation. These

24

features allow researchers to look both across and within settings in which teachers learn

to teach to better understand the practices observed in their first years of teaching. The

ability to look across settings also raises the question of how tools travel across settings.

Figure 2.4 highlights the activity settings of interest to researchers interested in

looking at the process of learning to teach and particularly to those interested in subject

specific teaching. The first setting, labeled “apprenticeship of observation,” refers to

Lortie‟s (1975) term that refers to the images and beliefs teachers have regarding

teaching from prior schooling experiences. Also, this is not a setting per say, this first

triangle refers to the multiple classrooms and experiences that provide tools and norms

for teaching. A teacher enters teacher education replete with images from his or her own

apprenticeship of observation. For secondary teachers, this entering conception of

teaching may be based on their subject-specific courses in high school or college.

In a traditional teacher education program requiring both subject specific

coursework and field placement, a beginning teacher is introduced to more subject

specific tools both in a methods course and through student teaching in a classroom.

Through these experiences, teachers are generally introduced to practical and conceptual

tools through a variety of tools for teaching learning. This can include course readings,

modeling from the methods course instructor, or completing assignments that ask

teachers to enact practices for domains of teaching such as lesson planning. Teachers

then enter classrooms nested in departments, schools, or districts that have their own

norms and preferred tools.

25

Given Feiman-Nemser‟s description of a continuum across the settings, one

would imagine that the closer aligned the settings, the higher the probability of

appropriation/learning. Unfortunately, as has been noted in the review of literature

presented in Chapter 1, the story is often not so simple and there is a need for further

investigation of teacher learning to better understand the process of learning to teach as

teachers move across settings. It is this problem that drives this study.

Research Questions

The study described in this dissertation is based on the activity theory framework

outlined here and is guided by the questions below:

1. What are the emergent practices of beginning teachers?

2. What practices are privileged in the settings where teachers learn to teach?

3. What factors influence appropriation or the degree of appropriation of conceptual

and practical tools?

4. How is the degree of appropriation of practices related to the degree of

congruence between settings?

Embedded Settings: Methods

course

Student teaching

Embedded Settings:

District, School, Dept,

Professional development,

BTSA, Classroom

Embedded Settings:

Content Prep High School

and college

Apprenticeship of

ObservationSubject specific

teacher education

Initial school context

Figure 2.4 - Learning to Teach:

Development of Subject Specific Tools for Figure 2.4 Learning to Teach

Across Activity Settings

Development of Subject Specific Tools

26

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

The study explores the influence of school settings on the practice of beginning

teachers by considering the factors that influence the appropriation of tools by beginning

teachers as they move across settings in which they learn to teach. In this chapter I

outline the study design and methods used to investigate this question from a

sociocultural lens and specifically an activity theory framework. The chapter includes a

discussion of the study design, data collection procedures, data analysis process, and the

limitations of the study.

Study Design

Given the nature of the research questions and the conceptual framework outlined in

Chapter 2, the study design needed to take into account the multiple activity settings

teachers participate in as they learn to teach and allow a direct comparison of teachers

from the same teacher education program in different school settings. Given that the

study was based on a sociocultural framework, and specifically on activity theory, the

study design needed to allow the researcher to learn about the settings from the subjects

themselves and provide the researcher with knowledge about the subjects (participants),

the goals of the settings, the tools that the community uses, the rules and norms of the

group, and the cultural historical background of the community.

As such, I designed a comparative embedded case study of the teacher education

and induction experiences of beginning teachers in two school sites. The case study

design allowed for the investigation of a “contemporary phenomenon within its real-life

context” which was at the heart of the study (Yin, 2003). The original design of the study

was to follow graduates from the same program into two contrasting school sites. As

such, the first step would be to choose a focal teacher education program. After the

choice of a focal program, the school sites would be the principal sampling decision. To

better understand the relationship between tensions between activity settings, the original

design was to include a school site that was considered a reinforcing site for the

privileged tools of the focal teacher education program and another site that was

considered non-reinforcing. The choice of sites would also be based on the availability

of recent graduates from a focal teacher education program in one subject area

department.

27

The two school sites were to be comparable as far as size and student demographic

information and would vary primarily on the reinforcing or non-reinforcing “culture” of

the subject department as compared to the practices privileged by the focal teacher

education program. The two sites would be identified by the methods course instructor in

the focal teacher education program (FTEP) as one site that reinforces the practices of the

course/program and another site that historically has not been as consistent or congruent

in keeping with the practices privileged by FTEP. The majority of the study participants

would come from the focal teacher education program. This would allow a look at the

practices of graduates from the same program in two different school sites. The

remaining participants at each site would be new teachers from different teacher

education programs. The inclusion of graduates from another program would allow a

cross case comparison of how the settings influence teachers from different teacher

preparation backgrounds. This comparison design would allow a parsing out of which

practices were related to a teacher education program and which features of practice may

be more connected to settings and influences from the school site. Having more than one

teacher at a school from both the focal and non-focal programs would also allow the use

of replication to address the rival hypothesis that differences in appropriation between

school settings were due to individual differences or preferences.

In order to minimize variability and maximize my ability to look in depth at the

different activity settings, I looked at teachers in the same content area and in this case

English-Language Arts. In order to further focus the classroom observations, I chose to

focus observations and analysis on comparable courses such as the survey courses

traditionally offered to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors at the high school level. The

decision to focus on a content area also allowed me to focus my data collection and

analysis on the settings in teacher education and the initial teaching placement whose

goals or “objects” were to prepare or develop teacher practice around the teaching of

English Language Arts. In order to further minimize variability and increase

comparability, the participants were to be all their in their first and second years of

teaching which are commonly included as the years of experience referred to as

induction. All participants would also be graduates of a university-based teacher

credentialing program so as to minimize variation in teacher preparation.

28

Focal Program Selection

As I was trying to focus most on the school settings, I had to be sure to address

the rival hypotheses that a lack of appropriation was due to a weak teacher education

intervention or lack of participant content knowledge. Therefore, the focal teacher

education program I selected was a program with a strong focus on subject specific

pedagogy. The program offered a three quarter course dedicated to curriculum and

instruction in the teaching of English-Language Arts in which students were introduced

to and given opportunities to enact subject specific conceptual and practical tools.

Additionally, this program‟s candidates generally had a solid academic preparation from

strong undergraduate institutions.

Site Selection

The choice of the Jennings University Teacher Education Program as the focal

program guided my choice of school sites. As proposed above, possible school sites were

identified by the principal English methods course instructor at Jennings. After

generating a list of “reinforcing” and “non-reinforcing” sites, I narrowed down the school

selection by the number of recent Jennings graduates at each school and the availability

of other new teachers from different programs at the school site. This process led to the

selection of Highland and Clark High School as the two school sites.

As proposed, I selected the two school sites, Clark High School and Highland High

School, based on the methods course instructor‟s recommendations for a reinforcing and

non-reinforcing site. However, upon entering the two school sites, it was quickly

apparent that Highland High School, which was identified as non-reinforcing site,

privileged some of the same practices privileged at the Jennings Teacher Education

Program but was not as coherent or consistent in the reinforcement of tools privileged in

the Jennings methods course as Clark High School. As such, the two sites were really a

more (Clark) and less reinforcing (Highland) site.

Table 3.1 provides basic demographic information about the school site. A more

detailed description and discussion of the tools privileged for English-Language Arts

instruction will be provided in Chapter 4.

29

Table 3.1: Descriptive Statistics3 for School Sites

Percent of student

population

Clark

API4 -734

Highland

API – 709

American Indian .3 .5

Asian 22.9 17.6

Pacific Islander 1.5 1.0

Filipino 7.2 12.6

Hispanic or Latino 30.2 36.6

African American 4.5 4.7

White (Not

Hispanic)

31.2 26.9

Multiple or No

Response

2.1 0.1

On free or reduced

lunch

33 28

English Learners 19 23

Reclassified Fluent

English Proficient

16 16

Total population 1,879 1,878

http://www.cde.ca.gov/

The two schools, located in the same county, were large comprehensive schools

with student populations of about 1,880 students each and a relatively similar

demographic make-up. Although both Clark and Highland had similar numbers (low to

mid-700s) on their Academic Performance Index, one of the important distinctions

between Clark and Highland, not apparent in the chart above, was the difference between

student growth on standardized tests/assessments. In contrast to Clark which met

expected growth targets on state accountability measures, Highland High School was

under threat of going under Program Improvement status due to not meeting the growth

standards for overall growth and growth of students in particular (minority) subgroups.

The pedagogical implications of this difference are discussed in Chapter 4.

Participant Selection, Recruitment, and Description

After identifying the two school sites which were comparable as far as size and

student demographics, I approached the two school principals for permission to conduct

the study at their school sites. Upon receiving written principal consent, I contacted all

3 Chart reports statistics from the 2006-2007 school year. 4 A school‟s Academic Performance Index or API, is a score between 200 and 1,000 that indicates how

well students in a school performed on the previous spring‟s tests. The number includes a weighting

system that takes into account the various tests taken by pupils at the schools.

30

eight of the new English teachers (in their first and second year of teaching) at the two

school sites. Teachers were first contacted via an e-mail providing a written description

of the study and required level of involvement. The e-mail provided an opportunity for a

scheduled in-person meeting to hear more about the study. Seven of the eight teachers

responded. During the in-person meetings, I provided a printed and oral description of

the study and answered teacher questions. After the in-person meetings, all seven of the

teachers agreed to participate in the study and signed consent forms.

Of the 7 participating teachers, 4 were Jennings graduates that were distributed

evenly across the two schools. The remaining 3 participants completed their methods

course at Abbott State College and Bennett State University, with the two Abbott alumni

at Highland High School and the Bennett graduate at Clark High School. Table 3.2 (See

page 31) provides brief background information on the 7 participants. The first letter of

the teacher‟s first name corresponds with the first letter of the program they attended and

the first letter of their last name corresponds with the name of the school site. All 7

teachers held a Bachelors degree in English or a variation such as Comparative Literature

from a four-year university. Abby differs from the remaining participants in that she

entered Highland High School as the teacher of record on an emergency credential when

she should have been completing her long term placement. As such, she completed her

methods course while already in her school setting. Although the inclusion of a non-

traditional preparation route5 was not in the initial design, Abby‟s case allowed fruitful

and relevant comparisons given the research questions and current policy questions

around teacher preparation. A more detailed description of the background, preparation,

and practices of the teachers are provided in Chapters 5 and 6.

The distribution of the teachers by school and program allowed for the types of within

program and within school comparisons outlined in the study design. Although initially

the goal was to have a balance of first and second year teachers across school sites for a

cross-sectional design, the fact that the majority of the teachers were in their second full

5 Abby differs from participants in many alternative certification routes in that she was in a traditional

teacher education path until there was an emergency opening at Highland at the time of her long term

student teaching placement. As such, she completed many teacher education courses and a short term

placement prior to entering the classroom as the teacher of record. Her experience was similar to a teacher

in an intern program where teachers complete coursework but enter the classroom as the teacher of record

with a reduced load in lieu of student teaching and still receive some sort of coaching or support.

31

year of teaching actually strengthened the design. First of all, the analysis of practice of

second year teachers addresses the alternate hypothesis that differences or lack of

evidence of appropriation were due to praxis shock (Veenman, 1984). In addition, in

their study of the practices of beginning English teachers, Grossman et al. (2000) found

that teachers may be able to draw more on what they were exposed to in their teacher

education program in their second year of teaching. As such, the second year of teaching

may be a better indicator of the appropriation of tools from a teacher education program.

Table 3.2: Participants by Site

Clark High School Highland High School

Teacher Teacher

Preparation

Program

Years of

Experience

Teacher Teacher

Preparation

Program

Years of

Experience

Jade

Carter

Jennings 2 Jackie

Ha

Jennings 1

Janice

Connelly

Jennings 2 Joanna

Harper

Jennings 2

Barbara

Casper

Bennett

State

2

1st year at

site

Abby

Halston

Abbott State

College

Entered with

Emergency

Credential

2

Shading indicates Jennings graduates Andrea

Haggart

Abbott State

College

2.5

Data Collection

The majority of the data collection for the study was conducted during the 2007-

2008 academic school year. A few follow up interviews were conducted during the

2008-2009 school year. As the study was organized by the different activity settings in

which teachers participated, Table 3.4 (See end of chapter) lists the data sources and the

types of sources that were collected by setting. As noted in the chart, data sources

included semi-structured interviews, fieldnotes of classroom observations, observations

of presentations and meetings, and documents and artifacts from practice. The chart

shows the multiple sources of data available by setting and in particular the triangulation

of data possible for the settings of the methods courses and school settings.

32

Interviews

I conducted semi-structured interviews with the lead methods course instructors,

department heads, and mentor teachers in each program and school setting. I conducted a

series of three to four interviews (See Appendix A for protocols) with each of the seven

teachers to learn about their prior experience with the subject area, their supports in the

school setting, a teacher education card sort, and a final card sort on professional learning

opportunities during the study. The card sorts were stimulated recall tasks that included

cards with the titles of courses from teacher education or professional development

opportunities. Teachers were asked to sort the cords and explain their categorizations. In

addition to these interviews on the settings in which they learned/were learning to teach, I

also conducted pre and post observation interviews with the seven teacher candidates.

The pre-observation interviews were conducted with by phone prior to the observation or

a few minutes before the class. Post-observation interviews, when conducted, were

conducted shortly after the class observed either in person or by phone. Although

attempts were made to conduct pre- and post-observation interviews for each classroom

observation, the teachers‟ schedule often constrained the ability to conduct the interviews

in a timely manner. All interviews listed in Table 3.4 (See page 36) were digitally

recorded with the permission of the participants. In addition to the digital recordings, I

also took detailed notes during the interviews. The notes provided documentation of the

interview in case of any technical recording problems but also allowed the quick review

of notes and asking of clarifying and probing questions during the interview. To allow

for comparability of data, I began interviews with common questions, asking follow up

questions as needed. The notes and digital recording were then reviewed and recordings

selectively transcribed.

Fieldnotes/Observations

In addition to interviews, data on the different learning settings also included

observations of mentor meetings at Clark High School, observation of methods course

sessions at Jennings and Abbott during the year of the study, and of professional

development opportunities such as a Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA)

trainings at Highland High School. For each of these settings, I took detailed notes on

what was said, tools presented, and manner of presentation. Although there were not

33

consistent amounts of data across each of the settings, the data from artifacts and teacher

interviews helped triangulate the data and create a more complete picture of the settings

teachers participated in.

I also created detailed field notes from 57 classroom observations of teacher

practice spanning 50-90 minutes each. Each teacher was observed between six and ten

times across the span of the year. This included observations spanning three-four units

per teacher. In trying to capture the whole of a unit, I tried to schedule observations at

the beginning, middle, and end of a unit but was constrained in accomplishing this by the

need to conduct multiple observations at a school on the same day. In order to capture a

better sampling of teacher practice, I included observations during at least three

instructional units presented at different points in the academic year. For each

observation, I took detailed field notes in which I created an agenda with the outline for

the day‟s lesson, then filling in each section with descriptions of teacher practice and

teacher and student interactions. At the beginning of the study, I digitally recorded

teachers while they were teaching to better capture the lesson. I ceased recording lessons

shortly into the year as it was determined that the level of detail surpassed what was

needed for the purposes of the study. As the observational data for a unit often included

one to two consecutive days of instruction rather than the arc of instruction I had hoped to

capture, I supplemented observational with interview data regarding goals and tools

enacted in the unit. Table 3.3 (See page 35) lists the number of observations by teacher

and the texts/units the observations targeted. Review of the chart reveals the similarity

between the units/texts taught across teachers and schools. This similarity allowed for a

cross-case comparison of tools used for units on the same text. For example, five of the

seven teachers were observed during units based on Sandra Cisneros‟ House on Mango

Street.

Documents/Artifacts

During the year of the study, I also collected documents for the various settings

for learning to teach included in the study. This included course syllabi from all 3

programs, course assignments and lesson plans from the Jennings course, district

materials for new teachers at Clark High School, and professional development materials

from the Literacy Workshop. In addition to materials from the learning settings, I also

34

collected artifacts from the practice of the 7 teachers. I collected instructional materials

used by teachers during the classroom observations. When possible I also collected

materials that were intentionally provided to new teachers at the school setting and the

materials teachers had access to through the department and district. This included

materials such as district curriculum guides and common materials available in resources

such as departmental binders.

35

36

Table 3.4: Data Sources by Setting Setting Embedded

Settings

Interviews Fieldnotes/

Observations

Documents/

Artifacts Apprentice-

ship of

Observation

Prior

experiences with

subject matter

Interview with teacher Questions focused on

previous coursework

and/or experiences with

subject matter

(Appendix A:

Apprenticeship of

Observation Interview

Guided by Courses

Taken)

Teacher

Education

Methods Course Interviews with teacher Protocol was similar to

Grossman (1990).

Interview was focused

on take-aways and

formative experiences in

teacher education with

relation to the teaching

of English/Language

Arts

(Appendix A: Interview

Guided by Courses

Taken)

Interviews with

methods course

instructors

Interviews focused on

what they wanted

students to know about

the teaching of the

subject matter and

course assignments/tasks

(Appendix B: Protocol

for Methods Course

Instructors)

Program description

and course listing

Course descriptions,

Course syllabi

Course assignments

Supervisory Interview with teacher

Asked teacher about

goal of setting, any

attributions of tools, and

take-aways

Student

Teaching/ Field

Placement

Interview with

cooperating teacher

and/or teacher

Emphasis was on tools

used for instruction,

available supports for

teacher learning, and

major take-aways

37

Setting Embedded

Settings

Interviews Fieldnotes/

Observations

Documents/

Artifacts

Initial

Teaching

Context

District Interview with

department head

Emphasis on

district/subject specific

goals and tools,

supports for new

teachers

(Appendix B: Protocol

for Department Heads)

Interview with teacher

Emphasis on

district/subject specific

goals and tools,

supports for new

teachers

District curricular

materials

Department Interview with

department head Asked about their role in

the department, tools

privileged in department,

supports for new

teachers

(Appendix B: Protocol

for Department Heads)

Interview with teacher

Emphasis on supports

for new teachers,

privileged tools for

instruction, norms,

professional

development

opportunities

Observations of faculty

meetings, department

meetings

Course descriptions

Intructional/

Curricular materials

Lesson plans,

calendars, assignment

BTSA/Induction

Support

Interview with mentor

teacher (s)

Asked about their role,

support provided, tools

shared, observations

about teachers‟ practice

(Appendix B: Protocol

for Mentors)

Observations of

mentor meetings and

BTSA seminars

Professional

Development

Interview with teacher

Asked about the goals,

methods, and take-aways

(Appendix A: Final Card

Sort)

Observations of

professional

development

opportunities

Field notes taken during

the observation paying

close attention to

elements of instruction

such as activities, tasks,

grouping , facilitation of

discussion, etc, Attn to:

conceptual and

pedagogical tools.

Motive of subsettings,

opportunities for

participating in practices

Documents from

professional

development

opportunities

38

Initial

Teaching

Context

(Cont.)

Classroom

(Current

Practice)

Pre-post observation

interviews over the

course of the year with

the teacher Interviews focused on

description/objective of

current unit, objective

for lesson, how and why

these objectives were

chosen, what resources

teacher used to develop

the materials, to what

experiences did they

attribute the ideas and

activities they used,

reflection on

instruction/unit/student

learning

(Appendix A: Pre-

Observation and Post-

Observation Interviews)

Lesson observations

spanning multiple units

over the course of the

year

Observations captured

teaching during 3-4

units. Observations

were spaced across the

school year to try and

capture teacher

development. Field

notes were taken during

the observation paying

close attention elements

of instruction such

activities, tasks,

grouping , facilitation of

discussion, etc, Attn to:

conceptual and practical

tools and describing tool

appropriation

Course descriptions

Intructional/

Curricular materials

Lesson plans, calendars,

assignment descriptions,

handouts

39

Data Analysis

The process of data analysis began with the fleshing out of field notes following

interviews and classroom observations. Short analytic memos were created at the end of

the documents in which I noted emergent patterns across teachers, schools, and programs.

The analysis process continued with the organization of the data by program, school, and

teacher in the Atlas.ti coding software. The documents were loaded into “document

families” by teacher that could then be combined into “superfamilies” to look for patterns

by school or program.

The creation of codes and coding of data was an iterative process. First, I created

an initial list of codes based on the traditional areas of teaching for English-Language

Arts such as reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary. I then consulted with a methods

course instructor and content area expert for refinement of these codes. In addition to

area specific codes, I also included common tasks in teaching such as assessment and

planning. For the purposes of the study, I combined the areas of English Language Arts

instruction and the more generic tasks for teaching under the umbrella term “domains.” I

used the one term “domains” to describe both the skills for Language Arts and skills for

teaching due to the fact that both the subject specific areas and more generic instructional

tasks are addressed in settings for teacher learning and in teacher practice. As the study

progressed, I included additional codes for areas that were emphasized in specific

settings. For example, I included literary discussion as it was the focus of multiple class

sessions and assignments in the Jennings methods course. Another example of data-

informed codes were codes for isolated and contextualized vocabulary instruction. This

specific addition was due to the emphasis on vocabulary instruction at Highland High

School. The final list of codes included broader conceptual tools such as “teaching

grammar/vocab in context” to specific practical tools observed across settings such as

Silent Sustained Reading. Although there was variance in grain size of tools across the

domains, the codes allowed me to capture important distinctions between schools,

programs, and teachers. Most of the domain codes are represented in the charts of

teacher practices (See Table 6.3). In addition to codes for practical and conceptual tools,

I also coded how tools were presented in teacher learning settings (i.e. explicitly

40

modeled, presented via course readings) to see what features might support tool

appropriation.

The analysis of data moved in stages. First, I used Atlas.ti to code interview and

field note data regarding practice and preparation to teach, moving through the data one

teacher at a time. Then, I moved into a stage of analysis in which I concentrated on

patterns of teacher practice. I used the code reports from ATLAS.ti to identify the

number of times codes appeared and then looked for qualitative differences/ distinctions

between the implementation of tools within the domains. This data helped to create

charts in which I listed evidence of practice by teacher, domain, and school. The charts

were then used to write analytic memos. I started the coding and memo writing process

with the teachers from Abbott and Bennett on whom I had less data and then moved to

the Jennings teachers so as not to work from a normative view of practice based on the

focal program. Once I had detailed accounts of practice by teacher, I wrote memos on

the practice of teachers by school. Then I wrote memos on the similarities and

differences within teachers at the same school, comparing their practices by teacher

education program.

After identifying patterns of practice, I then explored the preparation of each

individual teacher. I began with analytic memos on each teacher, noting the preparation

experienced across settings and instructional domains. Next, I compared preparation

experiences to current practice to highlight possible relationships between the two. This

yielded a case write-up of each teacher concluding with a chart in which I identified

where tools had been presented across the activity settings in which teachers learned to

teach and their current setting and practice. Table 7.3 of Jade‟s preparation and practice

is an example of this analytic work. The last level of analysis was a cross case analysis in

which I looked across each of the analytic memos by teacher to identify patterns in

appropriation across teachers and settings. This analysis focused on identifying

influential settings, features common to those settings, and patterns regarding

reinforcement across settings. I provide a list of the research questions and analysis

questions that guided the analysis process in Table 3.5. The results of this analysis

process are reported in Chapters 4-7 and draw on the variety of the data sources collected.

41

Table 3.5 Data Analysis Questions and Data Sources Research Questions Analysis Questions Sources of Data

What are the emergent

practices of beginning teachers?

What pedagogical and conceptual

tools are teachers using for the

teaching of English?

What are the emergent practices

of beginning teachers? How do

the practices for teaching ELA

compare to teachers from the

same teacher education program?

To teachers from different

programs? To teachers in

different schools?

Fieldnotes and audio recordings

from classroom observations and

interviews

Artifacts from teacher practice

What practices are privileged in

the settings in which teachers learn

to teach?

What pedagogical and conceptual

tools are privileged in each setting?

How are teachers introduced to these

tools? (face, transparency, explicit,

implicit, opportunity for practice)

Interview data from teachers,

methods instructors, supervisors,

CTs, mentors, department chairs,

district curriculum personnel

Artifacts from methods course,

teacher education program (e.g.

unit plans), professional

development, curriculum, teacher

practice

Fieldnotes from observations of

methods course, mentor

meetings, professional

development meetings

What factors influence the

practices teachers appropriate

or the degree of appropriation?

What level of appropriation do

teachers demonstrate?

(lack of appropriation appropriating a

label, appropriating surface features,

appropriating conceptual

underpinnings, achieving mastery),

How might personal

background/features be related to

appropriation?

What types of experiences in the

multiple settings correlate with

different degrees of tool

appropriation?

What is the degree of alignment

between different activity settings

beginning teachers participate in

as they are learning to teach?

Are there any tensions between the

goals/outcomes of the different

settings?

How is degree of appropriation

related to the degree of

congruence between settings?

Artifacts from teacher practice,

department curricula

Interview data from teachers,

mentors, department chairs, etc.

42

Limitations of the Study

Although the study design allowed for interesting comparisons that can inform

theoretical discussions, the small number of participants and settings and the case study

design limits the generalizability of the findings. Generalizability is also limited by the

fact that the teachers and schools were not chosen randomly. Thus the design does not

allow for any causal claims and a different sample of teachers (e.g. from different

programs or school types) might have yielded different findings.

An additional limitation of the design is the retrospective nature of the interview

data from teachers on their preparation experiences. Given the interpretive nature of

human memory, the study would have would have been improved through the inclusion

of observations of the actual settings in which the teachers participated as they were

moving through preparation into practice. In addition, prior research has noted the

“unacknowledged knowledge growth” of teachers to their teacher education coursework

(Grossman & Richert, 1988). As such, I triangulated the teacher interview data on

preparation with interview data from methods course instructors and course documents.

In addition, when possible, I conducted observations of the methods course. As the

research questions were focused on the influence of school context, it would have been

difficult to do a longitudinal study of teachers starting with preparation not knowing

where teachers would start their careers after completing the credential.

In terms of reliability of the study, I was both the data collection instrument and

the researcher. As such my subjectivity entered both at the field noting process and the

coding process. As such my personal experiences, including my background in teacher

education and stance on the importance of subject specificity in teacher preparation, are

lenses that influenced how I collected and interpreted the data. The coding scheme and

emphasis on description of teacher‟s tool use in the classroom were efforts to minimize

the influence of subjectivity.

In addition, my relationship with the two schools and the focal teacher education

program in the study (Jennings) provided me with greater access and knowledge of these

settings and in particular to the Jennings teachers. This led to an asymmetry in the data.

I tried to address the asymmetry in the data, particularly across the three teacher

education programs, through more in-depth interviews with Abbott and Bennett

43

instructors and graduates and by conducting observations of the current methods course

when possible. This relationship with Jennings may also have influenced the willingness

of Jennings teachers to share their classrooms and experiences with me. Knowledge of

my affiliation with the university and the program might have influenced teachers‟

interview data or classroom observations. I tried to address this possibility through the

triangulation of data and the scheduling observations with little advance warning to

emphasize that I just wanted to observe what teachers would normally do.

An additional limitation related to sampling was that the programs and schools in

the sample were not randomly selected or necessarily representative of the programs and

schools in the United States. The Jennings program in particular is highly selective and

unique in the 3 quarter methods course design. In addition, both Highland and Clark are

large suburban schools with more resources for hiring and close relationships to the

teacher education program at Jennings. As the study was designed around where Jennings

graduates went to work, it must be noted that a sampling of graduates from more

representative programs and/or schools (including schools that are under resourced or

working under different constraints) might have yielded different results.

As the sole researcher, time was a constraint for data collection and analysis.

Time constrained the ability to do consistent observations of activity settings such as

professional development or co-planning meetings. Data from teacher interviews and

documents helped fill in noticeable gaps. Time also constrained my ability to return and

flesh out fieldnotes and notes on the day of observations and interviews. For areas for

which I wish I had captured a specific detail, I was able to refer to digital recordings

and/or accompanying documents.

Some of the limitations described above are due to the nature of case study

research. I tried to directly address other methodological issues when possible through

measures such as the triangulation of data.

44

CHAPTER 4 CLARK AND HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOLS

In this chapter, I provide a description and analysis of Clark and Highland High

Schools as settings for learning to teach English-Language Arts. The two schools, both

large comprehensive high schools located within miles of one another, were comparable

in many ways. As noted in the previous chapter, Clark and Highland served

approximately the same number of students and had similar student demographics. Both

schools were organized into subject specific departments and offered similar English

courses in which students worked with common high school texts such as Romeo and

Juliet or The Crucible. Although similar on many surface level features, the Clark and

Highland English departments varied in their approach to the teaching of English-

Language Arts and their departmental norms for supporting new teachers. In general,

Clark High School provided new teachers with a coherent and explicit approach to

teaching encapsulated in the department‟s curricular materials and supported by norms of

collaboration. This was in strong contrast to the disjointed and intentionally open

approach to English-Language Arts instruction that characterized the Highland English

department and the practices of those in the department.

In the sections that follow, I give a description of each school highlighting

important features of each department focusing mostly on privileged conceptual and

practical tools for English-Language Arts instruction. I conclude with an analysis of the

features of the two schools that foster or hinder tool appropriation.

Clark High School

Clark High School was described by the lead methods course instructor as a

reinforcing setting for the practices privileged by Jennings University. Although the

school was not a professional development school, the methods course instructors had a

close relationship with the English department at Clark High School. Jennings often

placed student teachers with cooperating teachers in the Clark English department. The

student teachers from Jennings were often hired into the school the following year if there

was an opening.

45

At the time of the study, Susan Olanski had been at the school for 22 years and

had been the department head for many years. When asked about her vision of good

English-Language Arts instruction, Susan replied as follows:

It‟s [English] performed. It‟s got an audience. It‟s got a purpose. It‟s not on a

sheet of paper with numbers necessarily. It‟s that you are producing something.

You‟re putting the play on its feet…It‟s also being able to command a room,

being able to articulate what you‟re thinking, being able to edit your own work

when you‟re done, being able to find books to read that you love…That [students]

have critical sense –that they speak up for themselves, that they are aware of

when they are being fooled and they do it by looking at a lot of different media

and that they do it by being able to create critical response that suits the medium,

that they appreciate art… (Interview, 5/08/08)

When prompted to describe what this kind of teaching looks like, Susan responded:

Modeling, thinking out loud, [students] get to witness critical sense,

written models, visual models, art, responses to art. So if you read Kafka‟s

The Metamorphosis, then you do something in another medium. You

compose something or you write something. Graphic responses help kids

remember what it is they‟re analyzing. Using rubrics so that they know

what a good thing – the ingredients in a good performance or good essay

are, what the ingredients are… (Interview, 5/08/08)

In Susan‟s response we see an emphasis on the use of models, explicit instruction

through tools such as a think-aloud and rubrics, and the importance of art in the English

classroom as both a medium of expression and a medium worth responding to. In

general, the practices privileged by Susan aligned with the practical and conceptual tools

highlighted at Clark High School. Susan exerted strong instructional leadership through

her creation of course materials, provision of professional development opportunities that

supported the vision of teaching described above, and most notably her mentoring of new

teachers. Susan often served as a cooperating teacher for Jennings student teachers. As

such, she often modeled many of the privileged tools for student teachers who were then

hired into the school. Of importance to the study, Susan served as the cooperating teacher

for Jade Carter. Susan was also the cooperating teacher for Janice Connelly‟s

cooperating teacher (CT), Jessica. In an interview, Janice noted that her CT, Jessica,

closely followed the same lesson plans as Susan, creating a family line of teaching

46

practices and tools, running from Susan to Jessica, and then on to Jade and Janice. In

some ways, Susan serves as the unofficial matriarch of a “family line” of teaching

practices that have come to characterize the practices of Clark teachers.

In addition to the student teaching setting, Clark‟s privileged tools also “traveled”

to the department and new teachers through co-planning. Although the interview data

indicated a divide in the department that caused great tension and stress around issues

such as scheduling, data also revealed a strong emphasis on collaboration and

instructional support, particularly for new teachers. Susan stated that she usually

“attach[ed] a person to a partner for each of the subject areas” (Interview, 5/08/08). As

such, each of the three beginning teachers at Clark were paired with other teachers,

usually a Clark veteran, for co-planning. Aside from the veteran co-planner, there was no

central location or easy access to existing curriculum materials. For more detailed

curriculum materials or resources, teachers generally talked to their colleagues. Susan

shared that teachers just asked each other when they needed materials for a specific

unit/text and others were happy to share. The new teachers in the study confirmed

feeling they could ask for help or materials if needed. In addition to the local resources,

when new teachers entered the district, they received a “Literacy Toolkit.” The Toolkit

was essentially a binder containing a potpourri of information such as sample unit plans,

and model essays with scores. The Toolkit provided evidence of a strong district

emphasis on backwards design and integrated and scaffolded instruction focused on

writing but it was unclear from interview data how often teachers used the resource.

The description below gives a quick synopsis of tools/practices privileged at

Clark High School organized by domain.

Importance of Writing as a Domain

An important distinction between the two school sites in the study was around the

domain of writing. The Clark English department and the district in which it was located

placed a strong emphasis on the domain of writing instruction. This emphasis on writing

was evident in the district and school assessment practices, privileged tools, and offerings

for professional development.

The district in which Clark High School was embedded administered a district-

wide writing assessment each April. The assessment was designed by teachers and

47

district administrators to be comparable to the English placement test given at the state

universities. The prompts and themes for the writing assessment varied by grade level.

The assessment was scored by district teachers who met to calibrate the scoring of the

assessments. The scoring was closely based on the College Board exam scoring system

for writing. The themes/prompts selected for the district-wide write informed teachers‟

choice of texts and writing prompts in their curriculum planning. Embedded in the

preparation and implementation process of the district-writing assessment was an

emphasis on writing assessment with rubrics, the importance of calibration, and

backwards planning from an assessment.

Practical tools for writing privileged at Clark included a running writing portfolio

and in-class journal writing. Clark High School had students keep a running writing

portfolio throughout their high school experience. Students selected and compiled pieces

to include in the portfolio at the end of each course/school year. As part of the portfolio

process, students wrote a reflection on themselves as a reader, writer, and thinker.

Another privileged tool for writing at Clark was journal writing in which students

“[could] write what they want” (Interview, 5/08/08). Susan noted that in addition to

journal writing, students are also asked to do writing “tied to reading” and “pre-reading

writing.” In this last statement, we see the integration of reading and writing instruction.

The course materials support this general conclusion. The materials passed on to teachers

in the department demonstrate a close attention to writers‟ choices/design in a text. For

example, one of the activities with Of Mice and Men was to analyze Steinbeck‟s word

choice in describing two characters. The importance of understanding “writer as an

artist/designer” is apparent in lessons/practical tools such as a Matisse papercut activity.

This activity, modeled by Susan and part of Jade and Janice‟s repertoire, was intended to

highlight the importance of making artistic choices. The teacher then would then draw a

parallel to choices made by writers.

The other course materials used by the teachers in the study and created by Clark

teachers, usually former Jennings graduates, demonstrated the availability and use of

practical tools that carefully scaffolded and supported student writing through a process

approach. Feedback procedures included departmental rubrics. In general, Clark took a

process approach to writing, closely integrating reading and writing in their units that

48

prepared students for the district-wide write. The school emphasized “reading like a

writer” which was a concept Jennings graduates had been exposed to in methods course

readings and discussions.

In addition to the practical tools, Clark‟s emphasis and approach to writing was

also supported through the departmental professional development opportunities

organized by Susan. The department head had a close relationship with the local writing

project and often sent her teachers to their writing-focused professional development

opportunities. Each year, Susan also sent teachers to a state-wide professional

development for English teachers.

Reading for Pleasure

Another significant domain of English-Language Arts instruction at Clark was

reading. In contrast to the strong emphasis on explicit strategy instruction we will see at

Highland, the emphasis at Clark was more on having students “reading for pleasure.” In

her interview on 5/08/08, the department head noted that students “reading books they

love” is a part of good English-Language Arts instruction. In speaking of reading, Susan

touched on the “social aspect of literacy” and stated that “choice is essential.” During an

observation of Susan‟s ninth grade class, the department head took a portion of class to

talk through new novels she had just read/purchased for her class library that might be of

interest to the students.

The importance of “reading for pleasure” was made explicit in department

documents and the practical tools used within the department. On the departmental

syllabi for English classes at Clark, there was a section specifically addressing “Reading

for Pleasure.” This 2-paragraph section outlined the purpose and procedures for outside

reading which was seen as “an essential part of [the] English program” (Ninth Grade

English Syllabus, Clark HS, 2007). The department assessed students‟ “reading for

pleasure” through the use of monthly reading logs in which students had to note the

number of pages read for a grade. Teachers also kept a running set of notecards on each

student on which students recorded the different books they had read over their time at

Clark High School. The notecards and reading logs were practical tools used throughout

the department.

49

The importance of reading was visible not only in the department but also in the

larger school community. The school participated as a whole in the practice of silent

sustained reading, allotting 35 minutes in the bell schedule three days a week for

independent reading time. The librarian also supported the emphasis on reading by

offering $5 gift cards to a local bookstore to students reading young Medal6 books.

The emphasis on reading and selecting texts that students can relate to and enjoy

was in line with the materials Jennings graduates read in their program. The practical

tools privileged at Clark highlighted the element of choice and pleasure which was at the

heart of practical tools such as the booktalks that were discussed, modeled, and enacted in

the Jennings methods course.

Importance of Backwards Planning

Both the district and Clark department head modeled “backwards design” as a

conceptual tool for planning. As mentioned above, the Literacy Toolkit teachers received

when they entered the district contained sample unit plans following the backwards

design model of Wiggins and McTighe (2005). The units were organized around themes

and essential questions that related closely to the possible prompts for the district writing

assessments. The prompts/themes for the district-wide write informed the curricular

choices and texts chosen by the teachers. As Susan mentored both Jade and Jessica,

Janice‟s CT, I asked Susan about her approach to mentoring. In talking about her

mentoring of new teachers, Susan touched on her approach to the practice of planning:

I did some units for Wiggins and McTighe – backward planning –

“Understanding by design” I guess is the new term for it. And it‟s very helpful to

say, “here is an overwritten unit over a number of days with these expectations

and these measurements.” “Do you want to cannibalize it?” That helps to be able

to hand over a whole unit of material… (Interview, 5/08/08)

These model units passed on by both the district to new teachers and Susan to her

student teachers demonstrated careful scaffolding of tasks throughout the unit that

integrated reading and writing. The “during reading” tasks done while reading the focal

6 The California Young Reader Medal Program is a program that encourages recreational reading by

California students. Students both nominate and vote for the recipients of this award. The website states

that the interest and enthusiasm of students has demonstrated the program‟s effectiveness in meeting it‟s

goal of introducing students to “the enjoyment of reading purely for pleasure” (http://www.cla-

net.org/awards/cyrm.php).

50

text for the unit often helped students collect quotes and commentary in preparation for

the final essay. The plans and course activities often also included opportunities for

student reflection. The unit plans demonstrated integrating the different domains so as to

develop students‟ abilities as “readers, writers, and thinkers” (Ninth Grade English

Syllabus, Clark HS, 2007).

It is important to note that the Clark units were planned around full texts as

opposed to textbooks. In talking about planning, the department head said:

I‟m not a believer in anthology based instruction. I think we need to parallel real

life as best we can and that means I‟m not ever going to say to students or say to

somebody “I do chapter 3 and then 7.” So I‟m practicing the expectation and set

of principles myself. (Interview, 5/08/08)

In addition to the district wide write, planning at Clark was also influenced by

other common assessments. Clark High School had common midterms for 9th

and 10th

grade, the AP classes, and the Honors classes. The use of common assessments further

highlighted the close collaboration and alignment of instruction throughout the Clark

department.

Little Emphasis on Grammar/Vocabulary

Although there were specific and well-articulated conceptual and practical tools

for the domains of reading and writing, Clark had few shared tools for vocabulary

instruction. In her interview, Susan noted that the department/district was moving

towards incorporating academic vocabulary throughout the K-12 curriculum “so that kids

would learn the definition for academic words as ninth graders that the 10th

grade

teachers would rely on” (Interview, 5/08/08). However, at the time of the study the move

to an emphasis on isolated academic vocabulary instruction was still in the planning

stages.

As for grammar instruction, there was no mention in the interview with the

department head of department-specific tools or practices for the teaching of grammar.

Little Emphasis on Discussion

51

In contrast to other settings that will described later, the department head and

district teacher induction materials at Clark did not mention or provide specific tools for

literary discussions.

Summary

In summary, Clark High placed a strong emphasis on explicit instruction and

instructional scaffolding mostly for the domain of writing and added a few distinctive

characteristics in its strong and emphasis on “reading for pleasure,” the use of models for

writing and final products, opportunities for student self-assessment/reflection, and the

place of art in the curriculum. In later chapters, we will see how the privileged tools at

Clark overlap or complement the approach to English-Language Arts instruction

presented in the Jennings Teacher Education Program.

Highland High School

The primary methods course instructor at Jennings University identified Highland

High School as a less-reinforcing7 site for the practices privileged in the Jennings English

methods course. Although as a professional development school site Highland High

School as a whole had a close relationship with the Jennings program, there was not a

close relationship between the Jennings methods course instructors and the English

Department at Highland High School.

Although the two schools in the study were similar in size and general

demographics, the significant distinction between Clark High School and Highland High

School was the student achievement context. As Highland did not meet the state progress

goals the year prior to the study, there was concern, particularly at the school level,

regarding the threat of the school falling under program improvement policies of the No

Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. The policy context was noteworthy in that it

affected school and departmental decisions and practices around specific domains of

English-Language Arts.

7 Although the school as a whole has a close relationship with Jennings, the methods course instructor did

not view the Highland English Department as closely aligned with the conceptual and practical tools

privileged in the Jennings methods course. During the course of the study, data showed that the English

department at Highland High School supported a few of the key concepts and tools from the Jennings

Program, specifically around the domains of reading and discussion. Therefore, rather than a non-

reinforcing site, Highland is in general a “less-reinforcing setting” for Jennings students/alumni when

compared to Clark High School.

52

A feature of the Highland setting that was related to the concern regarding

Program Improvement was the implementation of school-wide five year plan. The

principal‟s five year plan included a Literacy Initiative, which though aimed at the whole

school, had a significant impact on the English department. Most notably, the Literacy

Initiative included sending teachers to a Literacy Workshop/Professional Development

series. Many tools mentioned by the study participants at Highland were tools privileged

in the Literacy Workshop. Although reading was the primary focus of the workshop, the

workshop also provided participants with tools for other domains of Language Arts such

as fostering discussion. Secondly, the Literacy Initiative also meant a departmental focus

on the interpretive essay and logical form in writing as opposed to a concentration on a

breadth of genres. As part of the emphasis on writing instruction, administrators had

asked the English department to create rubrics for writing. During the year of the study,

the department was engaged in creating and refining these rubrics. The Literacy

Initiative also had school-wide implications that impacted the practices of the English

teachers. At the school level, the different departments agreed to support the Literacy

Initiative by having students write for 10 minutes a day. As such the English teachers

were to do a ten minute opener at the beginning of each class. In addition to the cross-

subject emphasis on writing, literacy strategies were distributed across the whole school

to help address the fact that many of the students‟ reading levels were below grade-level.

In contrast to the long-standing instructional influence of Susan at Clark, the

Highland department head, Harry, had taken over the position of department head 2 years

prior. Harry came into this role upon the retirement of the former department head. In

contrast to Susan who exerted instructional leadership along with her other administrative

duties, Harry saw his role as mostly administrative. He took care of issues such as

ordering supplies and served as the liaison between the department and the administration

and other departments.

Prior to retiring, the previous department chair at Highland had pushed to

coordinate the lesson plans for the Freshmen and Sophomore English classes. As part of

this effort, the former department head had created binders for the 9th

and 10th

grade

containing detailed day-by-day lesson plans and activities. Harry said that previously

many teachers felt “stifled” by the binders (Interview, 3/06/08). In contrast to the

53

previous approach in which people were scared to move far from the binder, the

Highland department now encouraged, but did not mandate, that teachers follow the

binders.

Instead of co-planning for their different courses as they did at Clark, Highland

teachers worked in grade-level teams (all 9th

, all 10th

) and also domain-specific teams

(e.g. reading, writing). Organizationally, Highland built time into the schedule on Friday

mornings to meet as a staff. Half of the time was designated as departmental time. This

time was sometimes used for departmental meetings and at other times for grade-level

meetings. According to the study participants, the grade-level meetings were generally

used to just check in and see what other teachers were doing and where they were at in

the current unit. When the department met as a whole, the focus was on whatever issues

were coming up such as developing protocols for looking at student work or presenting

departmental training on literacy strategies. During this time, the department also created

required content/skills benchmarks by grade level but Harry stated that the lists of skills

were fairly general. The only common assessment at Highland was an in-class essay on

Romeo and Juliet for 9th

graders that was to be used as a diagnostic assessment for

writing.

According to the department head, there were no formal policies for instruction.

Instead all activities were “suggested.” Below I describe Highland‟s “suggested”

approaches and tools by domain.

Reading as the Central Focus

As noted earlier, there was a strong emphasis on reading as a domain at Highland

High School. Most of the common practices at Highland fell into this domain. One of

the suggested practices specifically mentioned by the department head was to have

students “talking to the text” (textual annotation) as a tool for engaging students in the

reading.

The Highland department also suggested outside reading books done as some

variation of literature circles. The binder materials included roles and assignments for

literature circle but Harry said that he had seen more and more teachers move away from

using formal literature circles, a mandated practice under the old department head.

According to Harry, teachers were now doing variations of the practice. For example,

54

teachers were doing book clubs in a format similar to literature circles but with a less

formalized structure. Although teachers tried to give students some choice in their book

club selection, there was not a strong emphasis on student choice or the push for “reading

for pleasure” that was apparent at Clark High School.

As noted earlier, the emphasis on reading was part of the Highland‟s Literacy

Initiative. As part of this initiative, a group of teachers were attending the Literacy

Workshop. The Literacy Workshop was a 4-day professional development opportunity

provided by an outside professional development group that provided both conceptual

and practical tools for the teaching of metacognitive reading strategies for adolescent

learners. The framework for the professional development series was centered around

“metacognitive conversations” that make visible “the invisible meaning-making process

of reading by showing how readers ask questions, form images, make analogies, make

predictions, and identify areas where they are having trouble and need to use strategies to

restore comprehension.” (Literacy Workshop Materials, p.1) The tools presented in the

workshop included “think-alouds,” reading strategy lists, double and triple entry journals

for readings, and “talking to the text” which “capture the reading process in writing” (p.1)

Within the trainings, facilitators generally modeled the tools with teachers in the role of

students. The workshop also provided guided practice opportunities done within the

professional development setting before teachers were asked to enact the tool in their

classrooms. Teachers from the Highland English department who attended the

workshop came back and passed on what they had learned to the department through

formal presentations. In the department meetings, the focus in the presentation was on

how to enact the practices. Harry described the focus as “here‟s how it‟s done”

(Interview, 3/06/08). This focus on enactment indicated an emphasis on the instructional

routines in absence of the theoretical underpinnings of the strategies. At the time of the

study, two thirds of the teachers had attended the 4-day training and participation in the

training was not mandated by the school.

Writing as a Neglected Domain

Compared to Clark High School, Highland had a less explicit and defined

approach to writing as an instructional domain. Course materials in the curriculum

binders created by the previous department head included descriptions of assignments but

55

gave little attention to writing instruction or scaffolds for the final task. In fact, there was

often not a clear final writing task or emphasis for the unit. For example, for the short

story unit, the 9th

grade binder included handouts describing two very different final

assignments for the unit. The first was to create a “Growth Chart” poster. For this

assignment, the handout alluded to one of the “universal questions” for the unit which

was “How does an adolescent become an adult?” On the “growth chart poster” students

were to make a poster illustrating where they would place four adolescents or children

from the stories by their maturity level. (Someone of more height would be more

mature.) Students were to include a paragraph on each character explaining the

placement and providing evidence from the story supporting their evaluation of the

character‟s maturity. The second assignment for the short story unit was to write a 2-3

paragraph essay on “What does it mean to be an effective parent?” It was not clear from

reviewing the curricular materials what skills were to be emphasized or what instruction

provided. Although the handouts for the unit assessments included allusions to a process

approach to writing in that there were dates for drafts and revisions, the binder did not

include handouts or materials to help develop or strengthen specific aspects of student

writing. In general, the resources in the binder for writing instruction were handouts that

provided information on format or organization for a type of essay. These materials were

often discrete and generic handouts that were not specifically tied to a unit or text.

In contrast to Clark where model texts and scoring rubrics were readily available

to teachers, the Highland binders did not include scoring rubrics for essays. Although

the department had recently developed writing rubrics for each grade level at the

principal‟s request, interview data and classroom observations revealed that none of the

study participants were using the generic departmental rubrics for instructional purposes.

The course description in the binder and the journal topics in the lesson plans

indicated that journal writing was a privileged tool at Highland High School. In contrast

to the goal of journal writing at Clark, journal writing at Highland was more concerned

with helping students process or move into the topic for the day‟s lesson than

encouraging self-expression through writing. For example, during the short story unit,

the lesson plans included journal writing time as an activity to take place after the class

went through a handout entitled “Good Readers/Poor Readers.” The journal prompt was

56

“Which techniques do you practice regularly? Which ones do you need work on?” This

prompt was representative of most journal prompts in that they were often closely

connected to the lesson for the day. In the binder, the self-evaluation form for journals

stated: “Journals will be graded on both quantity and content. On most topics you should

have enough to write at least half a page.” Although the handout went on to say that

students could write more at home, the paragraph ended with the caution that “Your

teachers will not be fooled by large handwriting or extremely wide spacing” (Journals:

Self-Evaluation, Highland High School). The use of a specific topic and emphasis on

minimum length for journal entries contrasted sharply with Clark‟s motive of creative

expression with journal writing.

Discussion

As noted earlier, the school binders included practical tools to support the use of

Literature Circles. Materials from the Literacy Workshop and interview data revealed

that teachers who attended the Literacy Workshop and BTSA trainings were also exposed

to other tools/formats for discussion such as Socratic Seminar and Fishbowl. There was

no indication in either departmental materials or teacher practice that the materials from

the workshop were widely distributed or used by teachers beyond those who had attended

the Workshop.

Grammar/Vocabulary

The materials in the binder indicated that both grammar and vocabulary were

taught in isolation. Few lessons addressed grammar and the handouts in the binder that

touched on grammar topics such as teaching suffixes and prefixes did not integrate

closely with the unit in which they were embedded. Handouts included generic

worksheets such as one entitled “Quotations in Narrative” which showed an example

from a comic strip and then generic sentences to illustrate how to punctuate the quotation

in the context of a narrative.

Both the 9th

and 10th

grade curriculum binders included lists of vocabulary to be

taught and corresponding quizzes. Quizzes were generally fill-in-the blank sentences

with a word bank at the bottom.

57

Planning

In contrast to Clark High School, lesson plans and curriculum for 9th

and 10th

grade courses were clearly articulated and readily available in binders which were

centrally housed in the Highland English Department office. In contrast to the model unit

plans in the Literacy Toolkit distributed to new Clark teachers or available from the

department, the Highland curriculum binders read like “scripted” curriculum in that they

included day-by-day lesson plans and all supporting materials for the lessons. The lesson

plans in the binder were not organized around essential questions and there was little

evidence of close scaffolding to the final products. At the time of the study, the former

and more hands-on department head had been gone for two years and returning teachers

were enjoying the autonomy and freedom from the 9th

and 10th

grade binders. Similar

materials did not exist for the upper grades and elective English courses such as

Mythology.

Similar to Clark, the Highland English department did not use textbooks but

instead assigned novels and short stories. The department had agreed on core novels by

grade level but the texts were not mandated.

Highland as a Changing Activity Setting

Although there was little conceptual overlap in the departmental materials

available to Highland teachers and the tools privileged in the Jennings English methods

course, there were multiple and ever growing connections between Jennings and

Highland that seemed to be bringing about a change in the instructional approach and

privileged tools in the Highland activity setting. The relationship with Jennings was

strengthened through the growing number of Jennings student teachers and graduates at

Highland and the leadership of Jennings alumni in the department. For my particular

study, this was important mostly in the English and History department who were starting

to work together for the piloting of a humanities-like course entitled “World Studies.”

The creator of the course was a Jennings graduate, John Houston. During the year of the

study, John not only sat on in the World Studies planning meetings but was also serving

in a new role as the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) support

provider for the new teachers at Highland. John‟s “charges” included all the study

participants at Highland, including the Jennings alumni.

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Another important factor was the collaborative nature of the Jennings graduates

within the department. During the year of the study, there were three Jennings teachers

working in the Highland English department who were often planning together and

collaborating with other new teachers in the school. Two of the three Jennings alumni,

worked on the 9th

grade team that was working on reorganizing Highland‟s 9th

grade units

around essential questions and skills. Over the course of the study and especially into the

year following the study, there was a notable shift to more practices privileged by the

Jennings program such as the increased use of rubrics and emphasis on strategic reading

instruction that I address more fully in Chapter 6 and 7.

Instructional Differences by School Site

Although similar in the number of students they served and the texts taught at the

different levels, Clark High School and Highland High School differed in their approach

to the teaching of English-Language Arts. Table 4.1 (See page 59) highlights these

differences. Most notably, the two schools provided differential support for the teaching

of reading and writing. The prominence and support for developing writing instruction at

Clark High School through instructional materials that would prepare students for an

annual district-wide writing assessment contrasted with the reading-focused professional

development opportunities and tools (e.g. “talking to the text”) emphasized at Highland

High School in hopes of decreasing the achievement gap on state tests. This difference

highlights again the importance of the accountability settings the schools were embedded

in. There was also a strong contrast in the support offered at each school in the domain

of instructional planning. Although Highland‟s curriculum materials, particularly for 9th

and 10th

grade courses, were more readily accessible through the binders, the Clark

materials shared through the setting of co-planning and working with colleagues provided

more coherent and more carefully planned models of English-Language Arts instruction.

Both Clark and Highland High Schools had relatively weak approaches and limited tools

for the teaching of vocabulary and grammar. Neither Clark nor Highland privileged the

explicit teaching of norms and tools for student-led discussions, an important pedagogy

in English classrooms.

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Table 4.1 Privileged Tools for English-Language Arts Instruction by School Clark Highland

Writing Conceptual tools: Integrated and

scaffolded writing instruction through

process approach

Practical tools: Journals focused on

expression, mini-lessons, rubrics for

feedback, model texts

Conceptual tools: Process approach

Practical tools: Lesson focused journal

writing, Isolated and discrete handouts

for writing instruction

Reading “Reading for Pleasure”

Practical tools: SSR, Teacher

booktalks, monthly reading

log/calendar,

Strategic Reading Instruction

SSR/Book Clubs

Discussion No specific tools Book clubs with less formal structure

than literature circles

Tools modeled in the Literacy

Workshop: Fishbowl

Planning Backwards designed around essential

questions, plans work towards a

specific writing assessment

Day by day plans with isolated and

discrete materials, multiple “universal”

questions and emphases for units

Vocabulary

/Grammar

Little attention to vocabulary but

moving to Kinsella word lists at district

level

Little attention to grammar

Isolated vocabulary lists and

corresponding quizzes

Little attention to grammar

Features of School Settings that Influence Tool Appropriation

Aside from the differences in approaches to particular domains, the two schools

also differed qualitatively in the tools available for teacher learning and the norms

surrounding the tools and the norms around collaboration.

Although less accessible by not being available in binders, the practical tools

available at Clark High School encapsulated the conceptual approach to English-

Language Arts instruction articulated by Susan at the beginning of the chapter. Rather

than a series of isolated and discrete handouts for instruction found in the Highland

binders, the curricular materials at Clark had an undergirding set of principles that were

articulated and supported and explicated through the department head and professional

development settings. In addition, the artifacts of practice became a living and embodied

60

set of resources through the co-planning process and modeling provided at Clark High

School. The instructional handouts and activities created by Susan and other Jennings

graduates carried in them an integrated and scaffolded approach that moved students

from “reading as writers” to “writing like readers.” For example, the materials for the

teaching of Of Mice and Men had students look at Steinbeck‟s word choice to help

prepare them for doing a comparison essay on how the characters contrasted in terms

their roles in society. In contrast, the Highland materials were organized chronologically

by text, incorporating reading strategies seemingly at random. The units were often more

activity driven and the plans did not make explicit how the activities were moving

students to develop a series of connected skills or knowledge. The availability of weak

and discrete curricular materials at Highland would make the training and the background

of the teachers using the materials more important. We will see the difference in

appropriation of tools in the upcoming chapters.

The induction of new teachers into the English department at Clark was further

supported through the embedded setting of co-planning with more experienced peers. All

three new teachers at Clark were either paired with the department head or another

teacher, often other Jennings alumni, who shared the same approach to English-Language

Arts instruction. For instance, Jade was paired with both Susan (the department head)

and Janice (a Jennings peer) to plan for her AP and 9th

grade English classes in her first

year of teaching. Hiring from the student teacher pool also ensured that the new teachers

were already familiar with the school materials and had seen some of the lessons modeled

in the same school context prior to becoming the teacher of record.

The co-planning was particularly useful to teachers who came in from other

school settings. Barbara, a second year teacher but first year teacher at Clark, was paired

with Judith, a Jennings alumna, who introduced Barbara to tools such as Socratic

Seminar and shared all her course materials with her. The emphasis on collaboration

contrasted sharply with the emphasis on the norms of autonomy at Highland. As noted

earlier, although there was time allotted for team meetings, Highland‟s departmental time

was often used to share what teachers were using rather than a co-planning setting where

there was detailed discussion of the tools and implementation.

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In looking across the features of the schools and embedded settings that foster or

hinder the learning of new teachers, one of the most notable differences between the two

school sites was Clark‟s emphasis on collegiality around a clear instructional philosophy

as opposed to Highland‟s emphasis on teacher autonomy. This difference was also

reflected in the different roles played by the two department heads. Susan clearly saw

herself in a role of instructional leadership through the collaborative structures put in

place and the use of common instructional and assessment tools. In contrast to an explicit

discussion and institutional support of domain specific tools by the Clark department

head, Harry used the term “suggested” to describe the tools privileged by the department.

Although there were clear domain-specific tools that were preferred by the school and the

English department, Harry viewed his role as more of a manager who did not want to

impose on the norms of autonomy within the department. The emphasis at Highland on

voluntary participation, especially in the area of professional development, would lead to

a range of knowledge around the tools privileged in the department and therefore allow

for a broad range of tool appropriation observed in teachers at Highland.

In this chapter, I have highlighted the two main school settings for the study,

noting in particular the privileged tools at each setting and the features of the setting that

influence the patterns of appropriation I will describe in later chapters.

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CHAPTER 5 JENNINGS GRADUATES

In this chapter, we look specifically at the preparation of the four Jennings

graduates and “the things they carried” into practice from the different activity settings in

which they learned to teach. In the sections below, I describe the Jennings methods

course and the preparation and practice of Jade, Janice, Jackie, and Joanna. The

interview and observational data of the Jennings graduates demonstrate that regardless of

their current school context, all four teachers appropriated many of the practical and

conceptual tools for the teaching of English presented in the Jennings methods course.

This occurred not only in Jade and Janice who began their teaching careers in a setting

aligned to their methods course but also in Jackie and Joanna who started their careers in

a less aligned setting. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of features of learning

settings such as domain specificity, the emphasis on conceptual tools, modeling, and

reinforcement across settings/enactment that fostered tool appropriation in the Jennings

graduates.

Jennings Methods Course

The Jennings Teacher Education Program is a 5th

year Masters and credentialing

program situated in the School of Education at a highly competitive private research

university. The one year teacher preparation program, certifying 75-80 students per year

across subject areas, begins in early summer and ends the following June. All candidates

seeking a credential in the secondary education program complete 9 courses including

traditional teacher education courses such as Adolescent Development and Learning,

Classroom Management, and a student teaching seminar in which they are supported by

their other classmates and their teaching supervisors. Most significant to the study as it

looks specifically at the teaching of English-Language Arts, the teacher candidates at

Jennings participate in a Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) course for the teaching of

English-Language Arts. In contrast to most subject-specific methods courses which are a

single course in the program, the teacher candidates at Jennings University participate in

a 3-quarter methods course, spanning from the first quarter in the summer through the

winter quarter of their credential program.

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In addition to coursework, Jennings‟ teachers are also involved in a concurrent

field placement throughout the program. During the summer, the teacher candidates

observe and assist teachers in a middle school summer school program in a nearby

district. Beginning in the fall, teacher candidates complete their year-long field

placement in a secondary school with the majority of students working in high school

English classrooms. This design allows for Jennings teacher candidates to be

consistently participating in overlapping settings of a methods course and an English

classroom.

Jade, Janice, and Joanna were all second year teachers who were members of the

same teacher education cohort at Jennings University. Jackie, a first year teacher, was in

the Jennings cohort of the following year. As the syllabi for the course remained fairly

stable, Jackie‟s experience in the methods course was fairly similar to the other three

graduates.

Course Features

The principal course instructor for the Jennings methods course, Dr. Sara James,

was a full-time faculty member whose research interests included English education and

teacher education. The other instructors for the course were graduate students with prior

experience as secondary English teachers who were seeking doctoral degrees in

Curriculum and Teacher Education. Dr. James designed and created the main course

design described in this section.

The Jennings methods course design was closely aligned to Dr. James‟

understanding of teacher development. When asked about how teachers learned to teach,

Dr. James said that teachers learn to teach “through a variety of ways” (Interview,

12/18/07). In addition to their prior experiences in educational settings, Dr. James

highlighted that graduates learn from underlying principles presented in the course and

the importance of “opportunities to kind of see those play out.” James went on to say

“that‟s one of the reasons we have the model lessons because we again can‟t count on

what they‟re seeing in their field placements.” In addition to providing in-class models,

James noted that the teacher educators “also try to make reference to what they [teacher

candidates] might be seeing.” Course instructors would often ask if the teacher

candidates had seen examples of the principles and tools privileged in the course in their

64

school settings. In addition to underlying principles, and modeling, James also thought

enactment was an important part of the learning process.

I think they learn by doing so I think it‟s very important that they have

opportunities to enact umm some of the practices that we are trying to teach them

so we give them lots of opportunities to get and then get feedback on them. So to

plan, to get feedback on that. To lead a discussion and get feedback on that.

(Interview, 12/18/07).

Noteworthy in James‟ description was that the Jennings methods course was intended to

be the primary setting for conceptual tools and models for English-Language Arts

instruction. Rather than depending on the student teaching placement to provide models

and opportunities for feedback, the Jennings course instructors embedded these elements

in the methods course.

The Jennings course closely mirrored the learning theory James outlined above.

In describing the course, Dr. James began with an articulation of the two important

principles or conceptual tools for teaching English which undergirded the entire three-

quarter sequence. The “central underlying principal across the three quarters is

scaffolding.” The course definition of scaffolding was drawn from the work of Lev

Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner. The other underlying principle of the course was “explicit

instruction” (Interview, 12/18/07). James described this principle saying, „It is not

enough to just tell kids how to do something. You actually have to figure out how help

them learn to do that.” The course instructors consistently modeled explicit instruction

and scaffolding in their own teaching by providing models, opportunities for guided

practice, independent practice, and feedback as part of preparing teacher candidates for

each course assignment. The two principles were further reinforced by the assignments

themselves as they required teacher candidates to demonstrate explicit instruction and

scaffolding in their own teaching in the different domains of English-Language Arts

instruction.

In addition to the two overarching principles, the course also presented conceptual

tools for each of the major domains of English-Language Arts. This was accomplished

through domain-specific units presented across the three-quarter course. During each

quarter length segment, the instructors focused on one to three domain-specific “units.”

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Table 5.1 (See page 68) provides a description of the different tools and activities

presented in each unit. The activities for each unit were organized around a domain-

specific principle or conceptual tool (e.g.“teaching grammar in context”) and a major

assignment. For each unit, teacher candidates read and discussed articles intended to

provide a theoretical foundation and research support for the approach taken to the

domain. The conceptual tools/principles were then supported with course instructors

modeling practical tools that could be used with students in the secondary classroom.

Teacher candidates were asked to apply and practice the tools and embedded skills

through approximations of practice8 in the methods course. As noted above, each unit

culminated in an assignment in which teachers had to do a more integrated approximation

that brought together theory and practice and often asked teacher candidates to create and

enact tools that could be used in their student teaching placement.

Writing as a Representative Unit

A representative domain-specific unit was a unit on writing instruction that was

presented during one week into teacher education program. During this first

“installment” of the course, the class met every day for two weeks and focused

specifically on the teaching of writing. According to Dr. James, the domain specific

principle for the first course was the idea of “writing instruction rather than giving

assignments” and the major task/assignment for the writing domain was to create a

carefully scaffolded 12-step writing assignment that followed the writing process

(Interview, 12/18/07). In talking about the writing assignment task, the lead methods

instructor described how the overarching principles of the course play out in the writing

instruction assignment.

So the in the summer we had them do that [12]-step writing assignment partly to

kind of really get them to think what would you have to teach in order for students

to be successful…that you can‟t just give them the assignment, you actually have

to teach them things and secondly it introduced the concept of scaffolding and

where do you provide support and where are all the different places you could

provide support to students because students will be different.” (Interview,

12/18/07)

8 Grossman and her colleagues refer to as “approximations of practice” as “opportunities to rehearse and

develop discrete components of complex practice in settings of reduced complexity” (Grossman &

McDonald, 2008).

66

To prepare teacher candidates for this task, the course instructors had teacher

candidates participate in an entire sequence of the writing process with an

autobiographical narrative task. During this process, teacher candidates were writing

their own narrative draft and moving through the entire writing process including drafting

and revising. The course instructors modeled and provided tools that could help scaffold

student success in the writing process through setting clear expectations through the use

of model texts and scoring rubrics. The in-class activities also provided opportunities to

build up their knowledge and proficiency with embedded skills within the domain such as

creating writing prompts, providing feedback through rubrics, and conferencing with

students. During this quarter, teacher candidates were also asked to interview a student

about writing to get a better understanding of student misconceptions and difficulties in

the domain of writing. The in-class modeling and practice of the selected elements of

writing instruction were accompanied by course readings such as a educational research

article by Langer and Applebee (1986) on scaffolding. The readings and in-class

debriefing allowed teacher candidates to bring an analytical lens and teacher perspective

to the practice of teaching writing and a conceptual and research background to the in-

class models.

In addition to modeling the conceptual tools of scaffolding, process writing, and

explicit writing instruction, the summer course also provided specific practical tools.

Embedded in the “writing unit” were also practical tools or boundary objects that could

be directly “carried” into teaching such as the model Autobiographical Narrative task, the

task created by the teacher candidates, an activity on teaching the concept of imagery in

which the lead course instructor demonstrated a carefully orchestrated “gateway activity”

that had students use words to describe a emotion in writing and having their partner

guess the emotion. The practical tools also included different writing rubrics introduced

in the methods course such as the 6-traits rubric and materials created by the teacher

candidates for the unit plan assignment assigned in the last quarter of the course.

Summary

The writing unit, similar to other units, was based in the research literature and the

overarching principles of explicit instruction and instructional scaffolding providing

teacher candidates with a conceptual foundation on which to “hang” the practical tools

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introduced in the course. In addition to being practical examples of how to apply the

conceptual tools, the in-course models and related practical tools presented in each of the

units provided teacher candidates with a beginning repertoire of practical tools for many

of the major domains of English-Language Arts. Although the course addressed five

separate domains, each of the domains was not equally addressed. Dr. James admitted

that grammar and vocabulary though addressed, were areas that received less attention in

the course and would be potentially weak areas for Jennings graduates.

In the sections following Table 5.1, I provide a description of the Jennings

graduates and “the “things they carried” into their current school contexts.

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69

Jennings Graduates at Clark High School

I begin this section with a description and analysis of Jade Carter and Janice

Connelly. The two teachers are for analytic purposes quite similar in that they were

Jennings graduates who completed their student teaching and started their careers at

Clark High School, a school that privileged many of the same conceptual tools as the

Jennings program.

Jade and Janice’s Background

Jade Carter, a second year teacher at Clark High School, is in many ways the

“ideal” case in her strong content preparation and the close alignment of the tools

privileged across the settings in which she learned to teach. Daughter to an artist/art

historian and attending a Waldorf School till high school, a love of reading, writing, and

art were cultivated from a young age. For high school, Jade attended a public arts magnet

school due to her strong interest in drama. Upon graduating from high school, Jade went

on to major in English Literature at Jennings University. As part of her undergraduate

work she completed an honors thesis on a 12th

century poet, did a semester at Oxford

working specifically on a series of literary analysis essays, and worked as a Humanities

tutor helping fellow students with their writing.

Jade decided she wanted to be a teacher in her junior year of college. During her

senior year, Jade took Education 101and a young adult literature class with one of the

English methods course instructors in the Jennings Teacher Education program. Jade

entered the Jennings Teacher Education Program the following year. Jade completed her

student teaching with Susan Olanksi, the Clark department head. She was then hired as a

teacher at Clark High School.

Janice, a soft-spoken biracial woman in her midtwenties with short with curly

brown hair, was also in her second year of teaching at Clark High School during the

study. Similar to Jade, Janice‟s love of reading and writing stemmed from an early age.

Being very quiet and shy, escaping through books and expressing herself through journal

writing were an important part of Janice‟s childhood that continued into adulthood. For

high school, Janice attended a small private girls‟ school that privileged a more

traditional approach to English instruction. Janice recalled sitting in rows, having the

teacher tell them “truth” about the texts, and working through “prescriptive” lessons in a

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vocabulary workbook (Interview, 9/27/07). For college, Janice attended a large

competitive state university where she majored in English Literature and Language, a

program specifically designed for people interested in teaching English, and minored in

Education. Unlike Jade, Janice struggled and had limited support in terms of her

academic writing. She shared that she received a “C” on her first English paper in

college and felt inadequate in relation to her writing till she had a professor/advisor later

in her college career who finally helped her find her voice and appreciate her own

writing.

In contrast to Jade, Janice knew early on that she wanted to teach saying, “I had

known forever that I wanted to teach…I used to want to be a kindergarten teacher and

wanted to be a high school teacher I decided when I got to high school and realized that I

love English.” (Interview, 9/27/07). Having skipped a grade earlier in her academic

career, Janice felt too young to go directly into teaching after finishing her Bachelors

degree. As such, Janice decided to pursue the Masters and credential program at

Jennings. Like Jade, Janice student taught at Clark and then moved into a full-time

position after graduation. Her cooperating teacher was a former Jennings Teacher

Education Program graduate who had completed her student teaching under Susan

Olanski, the department head.

Teacher Education

Although Jade and Janice had different prior experiences in their high school

experiences with English with Janice coming from a more traditional approach to

teaching and Jade experiencing a more student-centered approach to English, both

teachers demonstrated a very similar approach to teaching. They both attributed their

approach mostly to their Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) course which was the title of

the Jennings methods course for the teaching of English.

In the teacher education card sort, I asked Jade to sort the courses from her

teacher preparation in terms of how they influenced her in terms of how she thinks about

the teaching of English. Jade responded, “Definitely C&I class is first” (Interview,

9/26/07). When talking about what she took from the class, Jade went into detail, noting

specifically the opportunities/assignments for approximations of practice in the different

71

domains and the practical tools she carried from the course into her practice at Clark.

The level of detail of her description can be seen in the following excerpt:

The backwards planning idea is huge and that‟s something that came mostly from

C&I although we did talk about it in I think practicum. That was one of the little

modules but C&I is where we really used it and practiced that with our unit. And

I also really practiced tying everything into some kind of learning target. We

learned a lot about how to lead discussion. That was I think Winter C&I…That

was really helpful especially because we had to videotape ourselves leading

discussion and then we led a discussion in C&I and practiced that. (Interview,

9/26/07)

In talking about the methods course, Jade also went on to describe very specific

practical tools that she carried from the course into her practice at Clark. Most of the

tools that became boundary objects or tools that spanned settings for Jade were modeled

by the instructors in the methods course. These included more generic activities such as

booktalks to more content-specific lessons such as the writing activity on imagery.

Janice‟s descriptions of her preparation were similar to Jade‟s. During the teacher

education card sort, Janice described the course as follows:

By effectiveness in terms of influence it had on me and my teaching …C&I was

the number one. I mean my field placement student teaching was great but I

would still put C&I above that anyways because I couldn‟t have done my student

teaching as effectively without C&I. (Interview, 10/03/07)

Similar to Jade, Janice noted the importance of the course assignments and

enactments saying. “I feel like that was the class where I felt like I learned the most and I

felt like I was doing something productive with every single assignment” (Interview,

10/03/07).

Student Teaching

Jade and Janice both completed their student teaching at Clark High School with

Jade working directly with Susan and Janice working with Jessica Chi who had student

taught under Susan a few years prior. Both Jade and Janice acknowledged conceptual

overlaps for English instruction between Jennings and Clark, mentioning specifically

conceptual tools for reading, writing, and planning. Jade said “Susan really emphasizes

that we are teaching students to be „readers, writers, and thinkers and that‟s a phrase that I

72

use a lot and I think that C&I class was based around that as well” (Interview, 10/03/07).

When asked to describe the image of good English-Language Arts she got from Jessica,

Janice responded, “well she came from Jennings so I think a lot of it was similar.”

Jade and Janice both described their student teaching as the second most

influential setting from their teacher education experience and attributed specific tools to

their work at Clark. In talking about what she took away from her placement, Jade

attributed to Susan specific conceptual and practical tools that were aligned closely to

Susan‟s description of practices and tools privileged at Clark High School. This included

larger concepts such as student self-assessment and reflection on their writing as well as

practical tools such as the Clark reading charts or activities such as the gallery walk.

Although Janice worked with a different cooperating teacher, Susan was still a strong

influence on her practice. Janice said “…Jessica follow[ed] really, really closely what

the head of the department Susan does” (Interview, 10/03/07). In addition to using the

same materials and seeing the same pedagogy modeled by Jessica, Janice also

participated in planning meetings with Susan which supported the appropriation of many

of Susan‟s practical and conceptual tools for English-Language Arts instruction.

Jade and Janice’s Current School Context

During the year of the study, Jade taught 9th

grade English, AP English, and

Journalism and Janice taught 9th

grade English, Intermediate ELD, and an AVID course.

For the purposes of comparability, I focused the observations and analysis on the 9th

grade course and observed Jade and Janice during the same four units. The two teachers

planned with one another for their 9th

grade class and participated in the professional

development opportunities offered by Clark High School such as local writing project

workshops. In line with the school practice of team planning, Jade and Susan co-planned

the AP course and Janice worked with another teacher in the school for her ELD course.

Jade and Janice’s Practice

Given Jade‟s coming out of a Waldorf school and feeling well supported and

confident in her writing abilities and Janice attending a traditional high school

emphasizing discrete vocabulary instruction and lacking confident in her writing skills,

one might expect very different classroom practice from these two teachers. However

this is not the case. Although Jade and Janice came from different “academic

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backgrounds” as far as their apprenticeships of observation, they both appropriate similar

tools with the slight variation being attributable to personal attributes such as Janice‟s

shyness or Jade‟s love of drama. The chart of classroom practices by teacher and school

in Table 5.2 (See page 76) demonstrate that both teachers appropriate tools from Jennings

and add in the complimentary conceptual and practical tools emphasized by their

cooperating teachers/department head at Clark such as the use of models or integrating

art into the language arts curriculum. Both teachers exhibit deeper levels of tool

appropriation and more consistent use of tools in domains where the tools were

privileged in both the methods course and the school setting such as planning and

writing. The two teachers enact a close appropriation of practical tools for discussion but

the limited use may be connected to the lack of reinforcement or availability of practical

tools in the student teaching placement and school setting at Clark. The minimal

attention to grammar and vocabulary in the classroom observations echo the minimal

attention given to these domains in both their methods course and Clark.

The plans for the Of Mice and Men unit are a representative picture of the general

patterns exhibited by Jade and Janice throughout the study and highlight the deep level of

appropriation of backwards design and the integrated nature of the units. Prior to the start

of the unit, I observed one of the planning meetings between Jade and Janice. During this

meeting, Jade and Janice decided to use a different essential question than they had used

in years prior. This decision was based on the similarity of responses they had received

in the previous year‟s essays and students not really understanding the essential question

focused on characters‟ dreams. The teachers decided on the following as the new

question: “How do the roles we play in a community determine the life we live.” As

they chose a different essential question from years prior, Jade and Janice had to plan

different activities from those used in previous years and create new materials for the

unit. The planning discussion demonstrated Jade and Janice‟s ability to create new

questions and then backwards plan around the new question.

For this unit, both teachers prepared students to write an analysis essay on social

roles of characters in the text by having them keep a reading log in which they collected

evidence on each of the main characters, participated in the “Taking a Stand” activity

modeled in the methods course, and completing a group activity in which students put

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characters on a “social ladder” (a graphic representing a social hierarchy) using textual

evidence to support their ordering. At the end of the unit, students would write an

analysis essay focused on social roles. During the unit, both Jade and Janice presented a

series of mini-lessons on quote integration, explicitly addressing and providing models of

how to insert quotes into interpretive essays. The unit also included a mini-lesson on

mood. Similar to the structure of the mini-lesson modeled in their Jennings course, the

lesson moved from a hook in which students described the mood in two paintings to the

presentation of a definition transitioning then to careful scaffolding of students to write a

paragraph on the mood in Steinbeck‟s novel. Jade and Janice‟s units were identical

except for the prompt for the final essay which altered some of the practical tools used in

supporting the essay writing process. Both teachers implemented the larger conceptual

tool of a process approach to writing by providing opportunities for pre-writing,

presenting mini-lessons replete with models on appropriate topics such as writing thesis

statements, and providing feedback through rubrics. In this unit, Jade and Janice

demonstrated their appropriation of other conceptual tools from Jennings such as

integrated reading and writing instruction, explicit writing instruction, and attention to

discussion in a backwards planned unit. They also scaffolded student learning at both the

lesson and unit level towards their expected outcomes. The unit also showed the

appropriation of specific practical tools such as the “Taking a Stand” activity in which

Jade and Janice both paid attention to norm setting and language for discussion and

carefully scaffolded mini-lessons that moved from guided to more independent practice.

Similar to their general practice, the unit described above highlights the

appropriation of most of the conceptual tools and some practical tools from Jennings with

their deepest appropriations being in the domains of reading and writing where similar

tools were reinforced across settings. Being placed in a highly reinforcing student

teaching and teaching setting provided Jade and Janice with more models and

opportunities for enactment of the practical and conceptual tools privileged at Jennings.

As such, one counterargument to my claim that features of the program fostered tool

appropriation might be about the importance of the student teaching setting. Another

counterargument might be that the teachers appropriated these tools from the school

setting itself. To address these counterclaims, I now look to two Jennings graduates who

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began their careers at a less reinforcing school setting and vary in the degree of alignment

of their student teaching placement with the Jennings methods course.

In the next section, we look at the English department at Highland High School

and the practices of Jackie and Joanna, two graduates of the teacher preparation program

at Jennings University, who went on to teach at a less-reinforcing school setting.

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Jennings Graduates at Highland High School

In this section, I provide an analysis of the practices of Jackie Ha and Joanna

Harper, two Jennings graduates who went on to work at Highland High School.

Although Jackie and Joanna had varying levels of alignment in their own training and

their student teaching and the Jennings course, Jackie and Joanna‟s practice demonstrate

an appropriation of many of the tools in the Jennings practices, even when in tension with

the tools privileged at the school site.

Jackie Ha, an outgoing, East Asian woman in her mid-twenties, was in her first

year of teaching at Highland High School during the study. In contrast to Jade and

Janice, Jackie‟s beginnings with English began at age eight when she immigrated to the

US from an East Asian country. However by high school, Jackie, like Jade and Janice,

was in the higher tracked classes in high school, including AP English. She described her

school experiences with English as pretty traditional and remarked on the contrast

between her own experiences as a student and the view of English teaching presented at

Jennings. “When I got to Jennings, there wasn‟t anything that I said, “Wow, we did this

in high school! None of it was done in high school. So I had a very traditional

education” (Interview, 9/07/07).

After high school, Jackie went on to complete a BA in English with a minor in

Education at a large, reputable state university. Jackie recalled that her college courses

were “discussion based” and that she did not receive any formal writing instruction. She

said, “We were never formally taught how to write. It was just “here‟s the prompt, “go.”

(Interview, 9/07/07). As for the texts she read, Jackie describes her previous ELA

experiences as traditional, focused on the canon which she described as the works one

would find in the Norton Anthology. Jackie admits that she did not particularly

understand Shakespeare or Milton and connected more with the styles used by ethnic

authors that she encountered in college. Jackie said she connected with the ethnic authors

and texts in ways she did not get anywhere else. She stated that her love is “in things that

are non-traditional because I‟ve always had the traditional.” This last statement

demonstrates the pattern in Jackie‟s prior academic experience with English as a subject

area. Her high school and college training emphasized a traditional approach to English

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as far as text selection and discrete teaching of domains such as vocabulary. Her prior

experiences contrasted with the conceptual and practical tools for teaching English-

Language Arts introduced and modeled at Jennings, in both the methods course and the

student teaching placement.

Jackie‟s interest in teaching stemmed from her love of kids rather than her interest

in the subject area. She said she possibly discovered her love for teaching when taking a

class for the education minor that required field work. After completing her

undergraduate degree, Jackie worked for two years in an elementary school as a

paraprofessional, co-teaching 2nd

grade. She realized during this experience that she

could better use her degree and training with high school students. This led Jackie to

apply to the secondary English program at Jennings.

Joanna Harper, a vibrant, tall, African-American woman in her late 30s, was in

her second year of teaching at Highland High during the year of the study. Similar to

Jade and Janice, Joanna recalled loving to read from a young age. However, in contrast

to the others who had strong family support for literacy, Joanna said her love for

literature was mostly an independent venture and one that her single mother did not know

how to foster.

In high school, Joanna moved into honors classes at the suggestion of one of her

teachers who noted she was not applying herself in the lower tracked classes. Joanna

recalled reading “great stuff” such as Portrait of an Artist and Tess of the D’ubervilles

during her AP courses in her junior and senior year but also admitted that was usually up

late finishing her English papers at the last minute with the aid of Cliffs Notes. In terms

of writing instruction in high school, she recalled getting papers back with grades on

them with no real feedback or “if I got feedback, I ignored it” (Interview, 10/27/07).

Joanna participated in drama and debate while in high school but her involvement was

limited due to her religious affiliation which restricted her from participation in after-

school activities.

In contrast to the other teachers from Jennings, Joanna followed a very non-

traditional path to college and teaching. “I didn‟t go to college like everyone else went to

college. I had nobody else to show me” (Interview, 10/27/07). Due to low SAT scores

and lack of knowledge of the college system, Joanna did not pursue college after not

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getting into the one college she applied to. She married at age 19 and divorced a few

years later. As for her academic trajectory, although Joanna knew she wanted to teach

English due to her love of the subject around age 19, it took her many years to

accomplish this goal. Joanna started working as a legal secretary at age 20. At age 25,

Joanna returned to a community college taking one course at a time. It took her close to

4 years to complete the credits for an Associates degree. Around age 27, Joanna decided

to quit her job as a legal secretary to go to school full time at a community college. At

age 31, she transferred to an academically rigorous and reputable state school, double

majoring in English and Spanish.

Joanna‟s English coursework at the four-year university included traditional

seminar courses on topics such as World Literature or Comparative Literature in which “I

remember the professor lectured, we took notes, and then we spoke with a [graduate

instructor] about the details, our questions and they read out papers” (Interview,

10/25/07). Joanna also noted that “State University is where I first found out I was not a

good writer.” In contrast to the “formulaic five-paragraph essay with the thesis at the

end,” the “State Way” was “kind of a more holistic approach to writing, strengthening as

you go, draft after draft after draft.” While at the school, Joanna recalled an emphasis on

brainstorming and outlining that she now works on with her students but that she

consistently received Bs on all her papers.

After graduating with her Bachelor‟s degree, Joanna worked at a law firm. Two

years later, Joanna entered the Jennings Program to obtain her Masters degree and

teaching credential.

Teacher Education

In contrast to Janice and Jade, Joanna and Jackie varied on their descriptions of

their learnings from the Jennings methods course and student teaching experiences. As

we noted earlier, Jackie mentioned that the model of teaching presented in the Jennings

methods course was very different than the more “traditional” approach to English-

Language Arts instruction she experienced as a student. Reflecting on her methods

course, Jackie admitted that she did not like the course and that she had a hard time with

the assignments. She felt that the course advocated practices that would not work in “real

schools with real kids” (Interview, 9/07/07). Although Jackie had a hard time in the

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program and admitted specific differences of opinion with the program around domains

such as teacher feedback, she also highlighted important and fundamental learnings from

the program that are central to her current practice. Jackie‟s attributions echo the larger

conceptual tools such as explicit instruction and instructional scaffolding and more

practical tools such as the use of rubrics or timed writing assignments for writing

instruction. “I can take something and break it down…Again that‟s something I didn‟t

have before Jennings. I can anticipate [students‟] needs. If I am going to expect them to

do something, always have an example, rubric (they know what her expectations are),

(Interview, 9/07/07). She also stated, “I can teach anything and a lot of that confidence

comes from Jennings.” Even though Jackie was explicit in her complaints about the

course such as the fact that she felt the coursework should have been “differentiated

based on [their] placements,” when asked what she took from the course she said, “I

mean just the process of lesson planning, creating calendar, being organized, calibration-

like calibrating timed writing…” Though hesitant to admit it, Jackie‟s descriptions above

highlight important take-aways from her methods course particularly in the domains of

planning and writing.

In contrast to Jackie who was hesitant to appropriate her current practice to the

methods course, Joanna credited most of her practice to the Jennings methods course.

During the teacher education card sort interview, Joanna stated, “Without [C&I], I would

not have been able to make it through” (Interview, 4/17/08). When prompted to talk

about what she learned, Joanna began, “Tacit learning versus explicit learning. Student-

led discussion which has become one of my core essential teaching practices…Unit

planning which I am still struggling with working on, backwards planning, teaching

drama, teaching Shakespeare…” Similar to Jade‟s description of the methods course

quoted above, Joanna‟s discussion of her take-aways from the course aligned closely to

the main emphases outlined by Dr. James, the Jennings methods course instructor.

Joanna‟s response highlighted domain-specific conceptual tools such as backwards

planning around standards and the importance of classroom discussion. Joanna‟s detailed

description of what she learned from the methods course also implied the appropriation

of practical tools for teaching drama, a self-created unit plan for the commonly taught

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text To Kill a Mockingbird, a commonly taught text, and specific tools for literary

discussions such as literature circles.

Although Jackie and Joanna differed in their acknowledgement of their

knowledge growth in teacher education, in general both teachers attributed the most of

their principal practices to the Jennings course. For Jackie, this was in terms of writing

instruction and planning for instruction. For Joanna, the focal areas of practice were

planning and classroom discussion.

Student Teaching

The student teaching placement is the setting in which Joanna and Jackie

experienced drastic differences as far as alignment to the Jennings course. Jackie

completed her student teaching at Cunningham High, which similar to Clark High

School, had a close relationship with the English methods course at Jennings. Jackie‟s

cooperating teacher, Jessy, was a Jennings alumna with a Ph.D. and Masters in English.

During her time at the program, Jackie‟s cooperating teacher also served as one of co-

instructors for the Jennings “Heterogeneous classrooms” course. As such, Jessy was not

only Jackie‟s cooperating teacher but also her professor. These overlapping roles

provided a reinforcing setting for the conceptual and practical tools presented at Jennings.

However, the overlap in the settings had a negative effect on Jackie affectively. Jackie

stated that the cooperating teacher (CT) made her insecure. “She was my judge, jury, and

lawyer at the same time.” (Interview, 9/07/07). She went on to say, “I always felt like

there was extra set of eyes upon another set of eyes because she was my CT and my

professor.” Even though Jackie shared that she felt uncomfortable and scrutinized in the

placement, she often cited the student teaching setting as where she learned the most

about teaching her subject area.

Jackie‟s student teaching placement with Jessy was in a course similar to the 9th

grade literature and writing course she taught during the year of the study at Highland

High School. In an interview at the beginning of her first year of teaching, Jackie said

she was grateful for the student teaching experience “because it definitely informed this

year” (Interview, 9/07/07). “I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I‟m very

comfortable with the ninth grade class.” As she was teaching the same course at

Highland, Jackie was able to use many of the practical tools from her student teaching

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placement in her new position, making the specific curricular tools boundary objects that

moved from Cunningham to Highland High School.

In contrast to Jackie who had access to many models, practical tools, and

opportunities of enactment for the practical and conceptual tools privileged in the

Jennings program, Joanna completed her student teaching in a mixed 9th

and 10th

grade

Humanities class that was mostly History focused and offered few tools or models for the

teaching of English-Language Arts. In her placement at Justice High, Joanna worked

with her cooperating teacher, Angie, and a team of teachers that were mostly Social

Studies teachers. In describing her student teaching experience Joanna said, “I didn‟t

start learning about real English stuff - I wasn‟t learning real English - I was learning

about doing really good Social Studies activities that obviously transferred into the

English as well” (Interview, 6/09).

When there was more overt attention to English instruction, Joanna shared that

Angie modeled discrete and isolated writing and grammar instruction rather than the

more integrated approach supported at Jennings. In describing Angie‟s practice, Joanna

said, “Angie was sort of teaching discrete skills. On one hand, it was helpful but on the

other hand I can see the harm. She was teaching from separate worksheets which is

something we weren‟t trained to do” (Interview, 6/09). Joanna also noted that Angie‟s

Angie had gone to a specific state college “so she had completely different ideas” about

teaching (Interview, 4/17/08). In her interview data, Joanna noted some tension around

Angie‟s plans which she described as sometimes “outdated” and not language focused.

Although Angie provided few models of the kinds of tools privileged at Jennings,

Joanna‟s placement at Justice High, a professional development school with a close

relationship to Jennings, allowed her the freedom and opportunities to enact what she was

learning without having full responsibility for the class. As such, the object of the setting

was to try out what she was learning in her methods course. Joanna‟s interview data

points to the fact that her cooperating teacher possibly learned about how to better

integrate grammar instruction and titles of alternative texts students might read from

observing Joanna in action. As such, Joanna was not just learning from her student

teaching placement setting but actually changing it.

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Even though the history emphasis in the placement provided limited examples of

English specific tools and models in the student teaching placement, Angie‟s openness to

Jennings practices made the Humanities teaching experience an overlapping activity

setting in which Joanna could approximate the practices and apply what she was learning

at Jennings in a less high stakes environment. In describing the relationship between the

settings, Joanna said, “I was always doing mini-lessons. There was never anything I

couldn‟t do that wasn‟t from C&I” (Interview, 6/09/09). As she had few models and

tools from within the placement, Joanna drew most of her tools from her C&I course.

Right after the previous quote, Joanna said, “I mean I was a fish out of water [meaning

any English thing she did had to be from C&I – her only English specific teaching] so I

just did whatever they [methods course instructors] gave me and whatever I felt

comfortable with – whatever I liked” (Interview, 6/09/09). In contrast to Jackie who

credited most of her tools to the student teaching placement, Joanna repeatedly described

the importance of the work at Justice High School in relationship to the methods course.

Below Joanna talks through the rankings she gave to her field placement and methods

course in the teacher education card sort interview:

Field placement obviously getting the one on one experience…definitely had to

have field placement. But couldn‟t have successfully done or understood what

was going on in the field placement without obviously curriculum and instruction

in my content area which is learning how to teach English and that pretty much

was the best place for me to get it. Everything adds to practice from Curriculum

and Instruction. (Interview, 4.17.08)

Joanna‟s description of the methods course echoes closely the Janice‟s description of the

course.

Jackie’s current school context and practice

In her first year of teaching, Jackie was assigned to teach three sections of 9th

grade Literature/Writing, an ELD course entitled “Global Literature,” and was also

coaching badminton in the Spring semester. Jackie also served as a sponsor for a club

focused on empowering and fostering leadership potential in young women. Having

taught summer school at Highland prior to the start of her first official year of teaching,

Jackie felt very comfortable and like part of the community at Highland when the

academic year started. Similar to the procedure followed with other participants, I

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focused my observations on the 9th

Lit/Writing survey course rather than the ELD courses

for comparability.

During the year of the study, Jackie participated in the first year of Beginning

Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program with a school based mentor, attended

district wide ELD planning meetings and professional development, and went to the

weekly 9th

grade team meetings. When talking about her stance on her departmental

interactions for the first year, Jackie stated, “My main goal for this year is not [to] make

any noise in the department” (Interview, 10.12.07). In expanding on this comment,

Jackie said that she did not feel she had enough expertise to provide insight on what to

do. She had decided to take handouts, process them, and then decide if she wanted to use

them or not which seemed to align with the norms of the Highland department which

presented tools as merely “suggested” activities.

Her practice from her first year of teaching demonstrates that similar to the other

Jennings graduates, Jackie appropriated many of the conceptual and practical tools

privileged in her methods course. However, in contrast to her counterparts, Jackie

attributed most of her learning to her student teaching placement rather than the methods

course. Jackie‟s classroom observation and interview data provide evidence that she

appropriated many of the practical tools used in her student teaching placement and

blended them with selected tools from Highland High School. Although Jackie attributed

much of her teaching practice to her student teaching placement, her interview data also

show that she used conceptual tools from her methods course as general decision rules on

which tools to appropriate from the new setting. This occurred mostly in the domains

(e.g. writing and vocabulary) in which the tools from Highland were in tension with those

emphasized at Jennings and the student teaching placement.

Jackie‟s level of appropriation shows a close implementation of the tools from

student teaching with some adaptation attributed to the current context such as the

incorporation of activities from the “binder” and other Highland teachers. However, the

level of appropriation shows a less developed understanding of the undergirding

principles behind some of the tools such as rubrics than we saw in the practice of Jade

and Janice who were in a highly aligned student teaching placement/school setting. In

addition, Jackie‟s practice again provides evidence of the alignment of weaknesses across

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the settings of teacher education and the student teaching placement, particularly in terms

of practical tools for grammar and vocabulary instruction.

Joanna’s current school context and practice

During the study, Joanna was in her second year of teaching and taught three

sections of American Literature and two sections of 9th

Literature and Writing. As she

had only worked with freshmen and sophomores in the previous year, the 11th

grade

American Literature was her new course during the year of the study. As both courses

were survey courses incorporating both literature and writing similar to those taught by

others in the study, I included and analyzed data from both of Joanna‟s courses.

Within Highland High School, Joanna participated in a number of embedded

settings in the arena of the school including formal grade level team meetings,

department meetings, district selected professional development, and informal

discussions with Jennings graduates in the English department. During her first two

years of teaching, two overlapping/embedded settings Joanna identified as significant for

her practice were a professional Literacy Workshop and her Beginning Teacher Support

and Assessment (BTSA) induction support seminars. According to Joanna, both BTSA

seminars and the Literacy Workshop settings provided her with tools that reinforced tools

that were privileged in the methods course, particularly in the domains of discussion and

reading.

Classroom Practice of Jennings Graduates at Highland High School

Although the two teachers had very different student teaching placements, one

more closely aligned to the methods course than the other and then went on to work in a

less reinforcing school site, both Jackie and Joanna still demonstrated at least a level

basic level of appropriation of the major conceptual tools from the Jennings course. The

classroom observations and interview data revealed an appropriation of integrated writing

and reading instruction with units following the Into/Through/and Beyond model for

instructional units presented in their Jennings course. Both centered their units around

essential questions, that similar to Jade and Janice, were always posted and visible in the

classroom. The teachers often started units with supplemental texts or “Into” activities

modeled in the Jennings such as Anticipation Guides, followed by Through activities

such as reading logs, journals, or diaries, and ending with a culminating writing

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assessment. Although in general there were fewer instances of writing instruction,

Joanna‟s and Jackie‟s lessons still privileged explicitness, a process approach, and the

provision of feedback via rubrics. Both Jackie and Joanna implemented rubrics from

their methods course and/or placement even though Harry, the department head noted

that very few teachers were using the newly created departmental writing rubrics.

The two teachers are notable in that they maintained their Jennings practices even

when in direct tension with tools privileged at the school. This was particularly

significant in the domain of vocabulary and grammar instruction. Although Highland

privileged isolated vocabulary lists and quizzes, both Jackie and Joanna chose instead to

integrate vocabulary usage into daily use, citing the conceptual tool of teaching

vocabulary in context that was emphasized in the Jennings program. Jackie highlighted

this tension in her interview data. When asked about the 9th

grade team meetings, Jackie

responded as follows:

Every time we meet, we go over vocabulary lists. So they want the kids-so you

do a word each day. And then at the end of the week, you give a vocabulary

quiz…I‟ve read Marzano - again it‟s me being Jennings. That‟s not how

vocabulary is [taught]. (Interview, 06/09/09).

Similar to Jackie, Joanna‟s interview data and pedagogical choices demonstrated

a “conceptual override”9 of the isolated and disconnected approach to vocabulary

instruction privileged at Highland. Instead of quizzing students on the words that

appeared in the pre-existing lists, Joanna chose to take the more integrated approach

favored in her methods course, incorporating grammar and vocabulary instruction into

the larger literature-based units. For instance during a unit centered around Cisneros‟

House on Mango Street, Joanna started the unit with a poem entitled “Moving.” Joanna

had students work through the poem in groups of three or four, looking up and defining

words they did not understand that were present in the poem. During the unit on The

Crucible in her 11th

grade class, Joanna mentioned in her preobservation interview that

they would be doing a new thing she called “buzz words” which were intended to “boost”

the students‟ vocabulary. The words would include: bias, objectivity, subjectivity.

9 “Conceptual override” is a term used to describe when a teacher uses the conceptual tool from one setting

in choosing not to appropriate a tool(s) from another setting.

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Throughout the lesson/class discussion, there was evidence of student uptake of the “buzz

words” such as “bias” and “scapegoat” as they discussed the different characters in the

play.

Although there was limited evidence of grammar instruction across both teachers,

this domain again highlighted the importance of conceptual tools from Jennings as a filter

for Highland practices. In talking about her approach to teaching parts of speech, Joanna

stated:

Number one I come from Jennings. I was not trained to teach worksheets, teach it

as discrete, separate I‟ve always been taught to teach it as part of the writing

experience and at this point and juncture in my practice, it – needs to be more

than taking their papers and asking them what they did wrong.” (Interview,

6/09/09).

This quote was remarkable in that discrete and isolated grammar instruction was also

modeled in Joanna‟s student teaching placement. Although she had few models outside

of the course, the Jennings methods course gave Joanna domain specific tools that acted

as a conceptual override of tools in direct tension with the Jennings model.

The example above is representative of an important pattern. There was a

repeated discussion by both Joanna and Jackie of instructional tools that they associated

with “coming from Jennings.” Although Jackie and Joanna had contrasting student

teaching experiences as far as alignment with the methods course, both had a clear sense

of the conceptual tools and enacted a repertoire of practical tools attributable to the

Jennings program. The fact that both teachers carried these tools into the new setting

even when under fire points to the strength of the pedagogies and models utilized in the

methods course.

Although both teachers appropriated tools from the Jennings course, the

differences between the levels of appropriation and consistency of use between the two

teachers relate to the opportunities for modeling and enactment there were available to

Jackie and Joanna in their student teaching placements. For example, Jackie, although a

first year teacher, implemented strong backwards designed units around essential

questions and included careful scaffolding in her writing instruction. There were two

domains for which modeling and opportunities for enactment were present in her student

teaching placement. Jackie was the only teacher in the study that did not use SSR or give

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much attention to reading strategies. Although this was discussed and modeled in the

Jennings methods course, these were not tools or domains that were privileged in her

student teaching placement. As such, Jackie had limited opportunities to see the tools

implemented in a school setting. Similarly, Joanna‟s strengths and weaknesses coincided

with the domains for which practical tools were modeled and enacted in the student

teaching placement. As she was in a history placement, Joanna had more “exposure” to

tools for discussion but less models for scaffolded and writing instruction. I will return to

this issue of reinforcement across settings as a factor for appropriation later in Chapter 7.

In the next section, I explore in depth the features of the course that supported the

“carrying of tools” across the boundaries of teacher education into the school context.

Program Features that Foster Appropriation

Table 5.2 (See page 76) presents a thumbnail sketch of the practices of the

participants of the study over the course of the year. As noted throughout the chapter,

patterns in the classroom practice of Jennings graduates reflect a close alignment to all

the domain-specific conceptual tools and practical tools presented in the teacher

education methods course. The practices and interview data of the four Jennings teachers

demonstrate a pattern in the attributions and practices that align with specific design

features of the course detailed at the beginning of this chapter. This pattern suggests that

tools provided in the context of a methods courses organized around explicit conceptual

tools, providing both conceptual and practical tools by domains of instruction, models,

and opportunities for enactment are more likely to travel to new settings.

In looking across the preparation of the four teachers, we see a consistent

discussion of learnings from the methods course in terms of specific instructional

domains. Three out of the four teachers ranked their methods course as the most

influential on their current teaching of English-Language Arts, placing it before their

student teaching placement. When prompted to discuss the course, Jade, Janice, and

Joanna launched into detailed and domain specific descriptions of the course and its

influence on their practice. All three highlighted the influence on their planning

processes and Jade and Joanna touched on the importance of the discussion unit. The

fourth teacher, Jackie, ranked her student teaching experience as most influential, but

even Jackie who was hesitant to credit her knowledge growth to the methods course,

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admits that the course provided her with both conceptual and practical tools for domains

such as planning and assessment.

Although no causal claim can be made, the teachers‟ attributions and the stark

similarity of tool use across domains and settings speak to the strength of the domain-

specific model of teacher education. Of particular importance in the “things they carried”

were the conceptual tools explicitly stated and modeled for the Jennings candidates. This

was particularly significant in the case of teachers who went on to teach at a school site

that had a less coherent and principled approach to the teaching of English. Joanna and

Jackie‟s discussions of tools they would not appropriate due to their identity as Jennings

graduates pointed to the importance of conceptual tools as decision rules or “filters” for

less than desirable practices in school settings.

The appropriation patterns of Jade, Janice, Jackie, and Joanna also point to the

importance of modeling as a feature that supported boundary crossing/appropriation.

Many of the tools that were modeled in the Jennings course often carried over and were

attributed to the methods course. Table 5.3 shows the use of these modeled tools by

Jennings teachers across both school settings.

Table 5.3 Practical Tools Teachers Attributed to Models from Jennings

Tools Modeled at

Jennings

Clark High School Highland High School

Autobiographical Writing

Task

Jade, Janice Joanna

Gateway Activity on

Imagery

Jade Joanna

Mini-lessons Jade Janice Jackie

Feedback Process for

Writing

Joanna

Booktalks Jade, Janice Joanna

Think-alouds Joanna

Levels of Questions Joanna

Quaker Reading Jackie

Crossing the Line Activity Jade, Janice Janice

Anticipation Guides Jade, Janice Jackie, Joanna

Essential Questions Jade, Janice Jackie, Joanna

Improv Tools for Drama Jade, Janice Jackie, Joanna

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What is interesting to note is that many of the tools were implemented by Jackie

and Joanna in the less-reinforcing setting and most by Joanna who had few models to

draw from in her student teaching setting. As the data suggest that modeling seems is a

powerful tool, it is important to note the features of the Jennings models. The tools

modeled in Jennings class, including conceptual tools such as explicit instruction or

scaffolding, were always explicit in that even if teacher candidates experienced the tools

as students first, it was always followed by a debriefing in which they were asked to

identify and discuss features and applications of the tool as teachers. The thinking behind

model lesson activities was further made explicit by providing teacher candidates with

detailed lesson plans or instruction in which teacher thinking and the parts of the practice

were made clear. The models included not only models enacted by the course instructors

but also videos or artifacts of practice highlighting expert practice. I outline these

features of the Jennings models as they contrast with the models presented in the methods

courses I describe in the next chapter.

One example that is representative of the implementations I saw across teachers

was Joanna‟s appropriation of the booktalks which was modeled by the Jennings course

instructors in the course. During one of the classroom observations, 3 of Joanna‟s

students presented booktalks on texts of their choice. The format for the booktalks in

Joanna‟s class followed the exact structure of the booktalks modeled in the Jennings

course. Joanna even used the exact handout provided in the Jennings course.

The booktalks also highlight another important aspect of the Jennings course that

teachers cited as important. In addition to modeling the booktalks in the course, the

instructors had each of the teacher candidates present and react to a booktalk within the

fall quarter of the methods course. As such, the teachers required teachers to enact the

practices they were learning within the course and often also in their student teaching

placement. Each teacher cited the importance of specific course assignments/enactments

in their development of practice in specific domains. All four teachers, including Jackie,

talked in depth about the culminating unit planning assignment and its importance in their

planning processes. In three out of four cases, the unit plans created for the assignments

became boundary objects in that they were implemented in the new school setting. Jade

specifically cited the importance of the discussion unit and assignment. Joanna also

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noted the importance of the discussion unit as providing her with a principal part of her

practice.

In the next chapter, we will look at the practice of teachers whose formal

preparation to teach English included less domain specific conceptual and practical tools

and opportunities to approximate practices for teaching secondary English classes. In

contrast to Jennings graduates, the Abbott and Bennett graduates demonstrate a broader

range of practices aligning more to their current school setting than their methods courses

or student teaching placements.

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CHAPTER 6 ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES

In Chapter 6, I provide an analysis of the preparation and practices of Andrea,

Abby, and Barbara who completed their teacher education programs at Abbott and

Bennett State Universities. In contrast to the Jennings graduates whose practices were

fairly similar and aligned to their preparation experiences, the classroom practices of the

Abbott and Bennett graduates aligned more closely to the settings they participated in at

their school settings than their methods course and/or student teaching experiences. I

argue in this chapter that the goal/object to the methods course and division of labor in

these programs for teacher learning prepared teachers to look to outside settings for their

tools, making teacher candidates more vulnerable to the features of the settings within

each school.

I begin the chapter with an analysis of the Abbott and Bennett State methods

course and how the goal and pedagogies contrast with the Jennings course. I then move

into a description of the preparation and practices of Andrea, Abby, and Barbara, noting

the relationship between their current practice and the settings outside of teacher

education in which the three teachers learned to teach. The three cases highlight the

limited learning from their methods courses, the resultant range of teacher practice even

within the same school and program, and the features of both school settings that fostered

or hindered the appropriation of tools for the teaching of English-Language Arts.

Abbott State College and Bennett State University Teacher Education Programs

Abbott State College, where Andrea and Abby completed their teacher credential,

serves approximately 30,000 students annually and is located in the heart of a large urban

area. The secondary program offers both a single subject credential program and an

intern single subject teaching credential. Teachers in the former take classes full or part

time and complete two student teaching experiences under the supervision of a resident

teacher. These experiences include a short five-week placement with three weeks of

teaching and a long-term placement in which teacher candidates teach two

courses/preparations for a semester. Teachers seeking a credential through the intern

program work at least 60 percent as the teacher of the record under the supervision of

coach of an “onsite coach” and a university faculty member while completing their

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coursework. The Secondary English methods course, which serves both the single

subject and intern students, has between 18 and 20 students per semester averaging at

least 36-40 students credentialed each year.

Barbara graduated from Bennett State University, also a large school that serves

approximately 30,000 students per year. In contrast to Abbott, Bennett is located in a

rural area with relationships with local school districts, many of which are under program

improvement and use prescriptive curriculum. The Bennett School of Education offers a

5-quarter credential and MA program. For their Master of Arts in Education degree,

Bennett graduates are required to do a Masters project. The project, completed during

two or more quarters after the credential year, is an inquiry project based on a teacher

research or action research model. Similar to the Abbott graduates, teacher candidates at

Bennett participate in two student teaching placements, one short-term placement, often

at the middle school level., and a long term placement usually at the high school level.10

.

In contrast to the larger, less cohesive structure of Abbott, the Bennett English group

averages 18-20 students annually who move through the program as a cohort, meeting

weekly with their supervisor throughout the year.

Although there are some basic programmatic differences between the programs,

the analysis for this study focuses on the preparation of the teachers for the teaching of

English. In this regard, the two programs are strikingly similar.

Course Instructors

Similar to the Jennings instructors, the Abbott and Bennett instructors had deep

content knowledge and years of experience which they brought into their role as course

instructors. The Abbott methods course had been taught for over twenty years by Dr.

Michael Anderson. Anderson, whose scholarly preparation was mostly in writing

education, said his perspective on English teaching was influenced by important names in

English instruction such as Lucie Calkins and Peter Elbow. In addition to serving as the

methods course instructor, Anderson co-directed the local writing project which provided

writing focused professional development and served as a supervisor for teacher

candidates in the program.

10 Teachers who want to teach middle school might opt to switch the placements and do their long-term

placement at a middle school.

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The Bennett instructor, Penny Barrow, was a veteran teacher from a nearby

school district who came to the position at Bennett 17 years ago through her professional

development connections with the local writing project. In addition to serving as the

methods course instructor, Penny helped place and supervise the Bennett English teacher

candidates in their student teaching placements. Although not of the same academic

preparation as the Jennings and Abbott instructors who held or were pursuing doctorates

in the field, the Bennett instructor had many years of classroom teaching experience and

had served in various support positions for Language Arts teachers in school districts.

Methods Course Structure

Both Abbott and Bennett required that candidates take a series of courses on

general topics such as cultural diversity and literacy development for second language

learners. Similar to Jennings, Abbott and Bennett relegated the specific preparation for

the teaching of English-Language Arts to a subject specific methods course. However,

unlike Jennings, which offered a three quarter course that corresponded with a student

teaching placement, the Abbott and Bennett courses were much shorter and offered at a

time when opportunities for modeling and enactment from the student teaching

placement were limited. In addition to basic differences in sequence and duration, the

Abbott and Bennett courses also contrasted with the Jennings course in terms of the

course goals and the division of labor within the program for teacher learning.

In contrast to the Jennings course goal of providing teachers with domain specific

conceptual and practical tools for teaching English-Language Arts, the Abbott and

Bennett programs had as the goal of the methods course to present broad overviews of

key concepts and processes for the teaching of English. The Abbott course syllabus

stated explicitly that the purpose of the course was to “introduce [teacher candidates] to

classroom practices suited to the teaching of English at the middle and high school levels

in California, with particular attention to working with English Language Learners.”

(Anderson Syllabus, 2008). Similar to the Abbott course, the objective of the Bennett

methods course was for students to “construct a broad understanding of current research

in the teaching of language arts” (Barrow/Bennett Syllabus, 2007).

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Unlike the Jennings course that incorporated readings with models of practical

tools of how the conceptual tools would apply in the classroom, the Abbott and Bennett

courses presented the broad principles or conceptual tools for teaching through a series of

course readings debriefed and discussed through student presentations without

accompanying models of practical tools. Anderson stated that the “basic content” or

“knowledge base” for the Abbott course was supposed to be laid out through course

readings debriefed via student booktalks/chaptertalks (Interview, 4.29.08). The instructor

referred to this the use of booktalks as a “very quick” and “superficial” way to give

students an overview on readings that ranged from chapters from the state standards to

the introductory chapters of a text entitled Shakespeare Set Free containing detailed

practical tools for teaching different Shakespearean works. The Abbott

booktalks/chaptertalks were presented over the course of the beginning three weeks of a

semester long course and were not arranged thematically. The talks were presented back

to back, with as many as 4 presentations in a 2.5 hour class session. During this broad

overview portion of the course, teacher candidates read about tools and concepts such as

literature circles and book clubs, 6 traits writing assessments, and integrating technology

in the English classroom but were not given chances to observe or enact the tools

presented.

Rather than booktalks on texts read by secondary students, teacher candidates at

Bennett were asked to do 30-minute presentations that would “engage the rest of the class

in some activity that [would] illuminate key concepts and understandings from the

assigned reading” (Bennett/Barrow Syllabus, 2007). Although the Bennett class sessions

were organized thematically by focusing on a topic/domain such as “language

development research” or “understanding and applying literature research and theory,”

similar to the Abbott course, conceptual tools were still not accompanied with many

models or practical tools.

Abbott and Bennett’s Division of Labor for Teacher Learning

Similar to Dr. James at Jennings, both Anderson and Barrow stated that teachers

learn to teach through models and that teachers learn to teach by teaching. However, the

three programs took different stances on the responsibility for modeling and providing

opportunities for enactments. Due to the inability to know/control what teachers would

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see in the field, the Jennings methods course instructors strived to provide models and

opportunities for enactment within the methods classroom. In contrast, the instructors at

Abbott and Bennett looked to practicing teachers and peers to provide most of the

modeling and the student teaching placement to be the principal setting for enactment.

Although specialists in writing and reading instruction, Dr. Anderson and his

colleague Dr. Martha Ansell, felt teachers who were currently in the field were better

models of instruction. In talking about how teachers learn to teach, they cited their own

distance from the classroom and highlighted the importance of the “practicing teachers”

for teacher development. Regarding the importance of practitioner models, Dr. Ansell

shared the following:

All of us, [Anderson] and I, and the retired high school teachers [supervisors] are

getting farther away from our high school teaching…nor were [we] necessarily in

the same context. I have said (in reference to ELLS) I want someone who is

working with English language learners right now… (Interview with Anderson

and Ansell, 4.29.09).

In the course of a 17-week course, Dr. Anderson presented one workshop on his

own with activities for engaging students with the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The workshop materials provided an agenda and student reflections on a previous

presentation of the workshop rather than detailed lesson plans. Rather than thoughtful

models such as those presented and debriefed by the Jennings course instructors, the

majority of models and practical tools came from invited practitioners or peers.

Although the presentation by peers and practitioners could have been fruitful, the lack of

debriefing or connecting of the models or practical tools to a larger frame did not provide

novice teachers with a schema for how to categorize or evaluate the tools presented.

Unlike the Jennings instructors who provided thoughtful and detailed models

accompanied with handouts detailing teacher thinking, Anderson invited practicing

teachers into the methods classroom to present a series of workshops on topics such as

“Using Multi-genre writing in the classroom” or “Blogging in the classroom.” The

workshop materials were more focused at the practical tool level and there was no

indication of explicit debriefing either in the workshop materials or in the course

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discussion of how the teacher presentations connected to the course readings and larger

conceptual tools.

In addition to four weeks in which practitioners presented models, there was an

additional five weeks in which peers presented demonstration lessons on assigned scenes

from Romeo and Juliet. The demo lessons presented by Abbott teacher candidates

included lessons by experienced teachers seeking a formal credential after years of

teaching to teacher candidates with no classroom experience. The demo lessons lasted

from 20-40 minutes each with length depending on if students worked in pairs or not.

Anderson stated that he tried to more closely approximate real time practice by placing

up a large clock to indicate “bell to bell” instruction and had the teacher candidates play

assigned roles to create a “mixed ability” 9th

grade classroom. During my course

observations, the presentations moved in scene order through the play and there was no

running conceptual thread through the lessons. This made the presentations another

venue for transmitting practical tools and reinforced the idea of lesson planning over

backwards designing unit plans. The lessons that seemed to be of higher quality were

from teacher candidates who already had extensive classroom experience. Although the

lead activity with the demonstration lessons was to provide an opportunity for an

integrated enactment of course principles, the presentations also served as models of

specific practical tools the teacher candidates could use in their own classrooms. Again,

there was no explicit debriefing of if or how the models drew on course materials or

principles presented in the first 3 weeks of the class.

Similar to Dr. Anderson at Abbott, Penny Barrow at Bennett also felt that

modeling was important and a feature of teacher preparation that was under the purview

of practicing teachers and peers. Barrow‟s response regarding how teachers learn to

teach is below.

I think the modeling and working closely with other teachers is a big part of it…I

would like to think that supervisor feedback is also a part of that but I think

honestly we‟re just a small part really. I think they get a lot more, because they

spend a lot of time with the resident teachers, certainly a big influence. Also

working with peers is a big influence too. (Interview, 5/09/09)

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Rather than bringing practitioners into the methods classroom, Barrow thought

teachers would get models, which in this case seemed to be a synonym for practical tools,

from their student teaching placements and from informal collaboration with peers.

In terms of “learning by doing,” the Jennings course had teacher candidates

approximate practices such as such as facilitating a think-aloud or a classroom discussion

in both the methods course and their student teaching placement. In contrast, the Abbott

and Bennett methods courses were offered before all the teachers in the course might

have had prior teaching experience or a concurrent teaching setting in which to enact

tools presented in the course. Instead enactment was supposed to come as part of the

student teaching placement. The few opportunities for enactment integrated into the

Abbott and Bennett courses gave more attention to the domain of planning. Although this

seems logical given that planning demonstrates an integration of other conceptual and

practical tools in the course, the focus in both the Abbott and Bennett courses were

planning at the lesson level. The Abbott course privileged the Objective, Set, Procedures,

Evaluation (OSPE) structure for lesson planning. The Bennett methods course and the

accompanying seminar course focused their attention and feedback on weekly lesson

plans. The concentrated attention to planning provided graduates with few practical tools

for other domains of practice. Table 6.1 (See page 100) summarizes and provides

additional details on significant contrasts between the methods courses at Jennings,

Abbott, and Bennett.

Summary

The methods courses at Abbott and Bennett provided teachers with a “quick” and

“superficial” presentation of concepts for teaching and few strong and clear models of

how to enact the conceptual tools in practice. The dependence and use of practitioners to

provide practical tools in learning settings where conceptual.tools were not highlighted

implicitly taught Abbott and Bennett graduates to look to their settings for needed tools

and to appropriate practical tools with little attention to conceptual tools. The Abbott and

Bennett courses also did not provide opportunities for enactment beyond the domain of

planning. As such, Abbott and Bennett graduates entered the classroom with few tools

and domains “under their belt” and looking to the school setting for domain specific tools

with few explicit conceptual tools to guide their choices as they moved across settings.

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This course design also did not provide teachers with a basic repertoire of tools should

the school not have a well articulated and privileged set of tools for important domains.

In summary, the two programs did not provide teachers with the basic essentials they

would need as they traveled across settings nor clear principles on how to choose what

tools might be the best for the journey. In the next section, we look at the practice and

preparation of Andrea, Abby, and Barbara, who in contrast to their Jennings counterparts,

attribute most of their current tools to the school setting.

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101

Abbott and Bennett Graduates in School Settings

In this section, I analyze the preparation and practices of the three Abbott and

Bennett graduates. Table 6.2 (below) highlights the principal settings for teaching

learning as identified by the participants. Table 6.3 (See page 102) presents a thumbnail

sketch of the practices of the three graduates as they compare to the school and to the

Jennings graduates. In this chapter, I address three interesting patterns. In general, all

three teachers appropriate many of the tools privileged in the school with little attention

to the quality of the tools. For example, all three appropriate isolated vocabulary

instruction even when their Jennings peers do not. A second notable point is that there

are more gaps by domain in the Abbott and Bennett graduates than in the Jennings

graduates. A third and very noticeable pattern is the contrast between Abby and Andrea.

Although these two teachers completed their coursework at Abbott and then both went on

to work at Highland, they exhibit a range of classroom practice that includes one of the

strongest (Andrea) and weakest (Abby) instantiations of English-Language Arts

instruction in the study. It is here that I start my discussion. After a detailed analysis of

Andrea and Abby, I provide a brief description of Barbara Casper at Bennett as an

additional example of the patterns we see in Andrea.

Table 6.2 Principal Settings for Teacher Learning for Abbott and Bennett

Graduates

Teacher Academic

Preparation

Embedded School

Settings

Principal settings

for current

practices11

Andrea H. BA in English,

Creative Writing

Emphasis

Co-Planning setting

with history

teachers, Team lead

for 9th

grade group,

Literacy Workshop

Literacy Workshop,

Planning with

colleagues

Abby H. BA in English,

minimal training

Mandatory team

meetings

Highland -

Curriculum binder

Barbara C. BA in Comparative

Literature, MA in

Education

Co-planning

meetings with

Judith, Professional

Development on

writing, department

meetings

Co-planning with

existing Clark

curriculum

11 Attributions are from teachers themselves.

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103

Abbott Graduates at Highland High School

Andrea Haggart, a soft-spoken but confident woman in her midtwenties, was in

her second full year of teaching at Highland High School during the year of the study.

Andrea entered Highland at mid-semester after completing all her credential requirements

and multiple teaching experiences including student teaching placements at two separate

local high schools as part of the Abbott program. Abby Halston, a confident woman in

her early 30s, was also in her second year at Highland during the study. Abby, a second-

career teacher completed her coursework, including her methods course, while working

at Highland. Entering as an emergency hire, Abby entered her own classroom at the time

when she should have been starting her long term student teaching assignment. Similar

to an Abbott intern, Abby received supervisory support from the teacher education

program during her first semester of teaching. The cases of Andrea and Abby highlight

the range of practices that result from a methods course such as Abbott‟s should teachers

move into a school that is equally less-specified or offers tools of varying quality. The

contrast between Abby and Andrea‟s subject matter preparation and prior experiences in

the classroom also suggests how prior learning settings and experiences might influence

what teachers can take from the same school settings.

Apprenticeship of Observation/Prior Experiences with English

Although both Andrea and Abby majored in English, Andrea and Abby differed

greatly in their prior experiences with English with Andrea receiving more explicit

instruction for the process approach to writing and opportunities to enact the types of

critical thinking and analysis privileged in the secondary English-Language Arts

curriculum.

Andrea loved reading and writing from early on in her school experiences. In

high school and college, Andrea specifically described many opportunities to learn to

write within a process approach. For instance, in high school, Andrea spoke at length

about her senior level AP teacher. This senior course was “time [she] remember[ed]

learning to write the most” (Interview, 9/27/07). She noted that the teacher really had her

look at her “writing and the steps of writing.” The AP course also developed Andrea‟s

literary analysis skills. The teacher would have students read poems and write analysis

paragraphs, encouraged students to reduce the length of the writing to encourage

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preciseness. The attention to writing in high school was further supported in Andrea‟s

undergraduate preparation.

After high school, Andrea went to a small, private, and reputable women‟s

college where she completed a degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing.

As the school was so small, Andrea said the professors knew her by name and could

reference specific things she had written. With the creative writing emphasis, Andrea

took a core series of classes that moved students from the short story, to short novels, to

supporting them through their thesis writing in which they had to create/complete a piece

of writing. For Andrea‟s thesis, she revisited a story she had written in 4th

grade and took

it to “it‟s adult phase,” completing a section of it with a longer prologue for the course

(Interview, 9/27/07). In addition to her thesis, Andrea‟s college experiences also

included many opportunities to write the types of interpretive essays she now asks her

students to create. Andrea noted that some of the courses were more mainstream in that

she would read a novel and then write an essay. Of these courses she said, “It was good

and I always felt like I was prepared. [The courses] always pushed me.” She recalled

doing seven or eight drafts of an essay “to make it perfect.” Andrea said she really loved

college because it gave her an “excuse to read and to do what I love with [texts] which is

analyze and write about them.”

Abby‟s description of her prior experiences in English contrasted greatly with the

passion for the content and level of preparation present in Andrea‟s account. Noteworthy

in Abby‟s content preparation is that she attended Highland High School as a student.

Having completed her short and only student teaching experience at Highland, Abby‟s

only model or experience with high school English teaching was the setting she herself

attended. In high school, Abby took the standard courses that are still offered at

Highland. This included courses such as 9th

grade Literature and Writing, American

Literature (Am Lit), Public Speaking, and British Literature. Abby did not take AP level

courses and shared that she did not understand Macbeth and faked reading Canterbury

Tales with the Cliffs‟ Notes in her British Literature course. In talking about her current

teaching, Abby mentioned that she had kept notes from high school she thought might be

useful such as her interactive notes from her high school Am Lit class. “When I actually

taught American Lit last year, I used my notes that I had I taken on F. Scott Fitzgerald

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and based my lecture on that because I figured not a ton had changed” (Interview,

9/25/07). This quote demonstrated that much of Abby‟s thinking of high school English

teaching was predicated on the model she had experienced at Highland and also

highlighted that the setting for her “apprenticeship of observation” overlapped with her

current school setting, perhaps limiting her thinking about practice.

After high school, Abby attended a local community college. Upon completing

her Associates‟ degree, Abby transferred to a larger state university with plans of

becoming an elementary school teacher. Part of the elementary school program at the

state college was to take courses in multiple subjects. At the time she decided she did not

want to teach elementary school and needed to focus on one subject area for her

secondary credential, Abby was taking an English course she liked and as such decided to

major in English. In talking about this decision, Abby said, “I think if I had had a real

inspirational history teacher at that time, I would be teaching Social Studies right now”

(Interview, 9/25/07). Shortly after changing her major, Abby transferred to Abbott State

College where she would later complete her credential. In describing what she

remembered about her literature classes at this school, the teacher said, “I didn‟t like most

of the ones I took at Abbott State College. They were boring and I didn‟t do the

reading.” She went on to say “there w[ere] more people in the Abbott State classes”

which made it harder to have the kind of discussions she had like in her initial college

English course. In talking about her Abbott English experiences she referred to “really,

really old literature” taught through “more lecturing and writing papers and no real

activities.” When prompted, Abby mentioned that she had taken a mandatory writing

class in which they “did a lot of practice before they lead up to the paper” and that every

class had some paper you had to write but that they tended to be more research based.

Abby mentioned few examples of writing assignments and that most assignments

involved turning in one final version which contrasted with the multiple drafts of

interpretive essays mentioned by Andrea in her own preparation. In general, Abby‟s

description of her courses privileged the types of activities and creativity used by the

teacher more so than the content of the courses. In summary, Abby‟s subject matter

preparation reflected a traditional, regular track preparation in high school followed by a

college experience that reflected little interest in literature and weak content preparation.

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Entry into Teaching

Like many of the study participants, Andrea knew she wanted to teach early in

life. She officially decided she wanted to teach language arts in her junior year of high

school and went into college wanting to study English with the explicit notion of being a

teacher. Unlike the other teachers in the study, Andrea had a wealth of experience in

classroom settings before formally entering a teacher education program. Andrea began

teaching in a summer school math program in her junior year of high school. Andrea

worked as a teacher and program assistant for the program serving low-income, urban

youth from high school through college. These experiences, in addition to an

undergraduate teaching internship in a local high school English classroom in which she

assisted for 3-4 class periods (ELD and American Lit) every other day for a couple of

weeks, made her feel ahead of fellow teacher candidates in her teacher education courses

at Abbott.

In contrast to Andrea, Abby did not decide she wanted to teach until college.

Abby entered teaching more for her love of working with children than the subject area.

In her discussion of the teachers she thought were best, one of her criteria was the

teachers care/concern for students. When asked about the kind of teacher she wants to be,

Abby first mentioned wanting her classes to be a little more rigorous but that academics

was not her primary concern. “First and foremost I want [students] to know that people

do care about them…I think I am willing to sacrifice academic rigor in order to make

sure they all know that” (Interview, 9/25/07).

Methods Course

When asked about the methods course, both Andrea and Abby felt the course was

useful as it was the only course specific to English teachers. However, their descriptions

highlighted the limitations of the course structure and the emphasis on practical tools and

student models/enactments of instruction.

Both Andrea and Abby noted that the course provided specific practical tools

mostly for Romeo and Juliet. Andrea shared that the course was useful because

“[teacher candidates] created lessons that [they] could take right into the classroom and

use” around texts they would probably teach (Interview, 4/23/08). Andrea gave the

specific example that the course was focused on Romeo and Juliet “which most [of us]

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had to teach so we were willing to do it.” Abby also commented on the presentation of

materials for a specific text. However in contrast to Andrea, Abby felt the emphasis on

specific texts was less useful or transferable to other settings. In describing the course,

Abby said, “The [course] didn‟t go into specific books other than R&J which I‟ve never

taught…so anything that I got for a specific story is useless to me” (Interview, 4/23/08).

The contrast in these descriptions of the same feature of the course highlighted not only

the difference between teacher candidates and their aims for the course as they related to

their overlapping settings (e.g. did they have to teach Romeo and Juliet?), but more

generally highlighted the importance of debriefing the conceptual tools embedded in the

practical tools for a specific text.

Andrea and Abby‟s interview data also confirmed that the course offered little in

terms of conceptual tools specific to English-Language Arts instruction. When asked

about the conception of good ELA teaching the methods instructor held, Andrea

responded, “Umm it‟s organized, and deliberate, should have high expectations, should

be interactive and engaging, and it should be flexible depending on the students that you

have” (Interview, 5/01/08). When asked if there was a particular approach to reading and

writing supported by the course, Andrea responded, “I don‟t think so. …just like the

same as starting with an outline or pre-write and then doing it and revising it and then

turning in a final.” Although the course was taught by Dr. Anderson, an expert in writing

instruction, Andrea left with mostly a generic picture of English-Language Arts

instruction. The emphasis on generic rather than subject or discipline specific conceptual

tools for teaching was even more evident in Abby‟s responses. In talking about her

subject specific methods course, Abby said, “I mean it was useful but it wasn‟t like „this

is the most useful class I‟ve ever taken in my life‟ so no I guess I don‟t think there‟s too

much to know about ELA teaching specifically” (Interview, 4.23.08). When asked about

her take-aways from the course, Abby responded, “I don‟t know that I took away a lot

specific to teaching English. In some ways, I still feel like I‟m not all that good at

teaching English.”

Both Abby and Andrea also commented on the models of teaching presented in

the course, noting the range of quality in the models presented by their peers which

comprised almost a third of the total instructional time in the course. Andrea and Abby

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noted that the quality of the demonstration lessons for Romeo and Juliet depended on the

prior teaching experience of the teacher candidates in the class at the time. Andrea stated

that the course was not as useful at some points because the teacher candidates in the

class were at different levels of familiarity with the classroom with some teachers being

veterans clearing their credentials alongside “people who had never stepped foot in the

classroom” (Interview, 5/01/08). Abby noted this same pattern and described the quality

of the models as a “crap shoot” (Interview, 4/23/08). She said she was lucky the year she

took the course as many of the people in her class were in the intern program and were

“teaching in some capacity already.” “That was a lot more helpful than people who had

no classroom experience or people who were doing their Phase I student teaching (only 3

weeks in front of students).” Abby went on to say that some of the lessons worked with

adults who were humoring the teacher candidate but would not have worked with high

school students. (This pattern was true of the models I observed in the Abbott methods

course during the year of the study.) Abby stated that the workshop presentation by the

professor and the feedback and evaluation on the student lessons from Dr. Anderson were

useful. She went on to say, “[Anderson] knows a lot but for whatever reason thinks it‟s

better for the students to share…I would have gotten a lot out of a lecture from him if he

had chosen to do that.”

In general, Andrea and Abby‟s interview data support the argument made here

regarding the Abbott methods courses‟ division of labor (emphasis on models from peers

and practitioners) and limited attention to providing conceptual tools for the teaching of

English-Language Arts. There is an inherent irony in that Andrea and Abby felt the

methods course was more useful when experienced teachers were in the course. Their

data points to the need to for explicit debriefing of expert models and the limited role in

teacher learning of novice enactment of demonstration lessons within the methods course

setting.

Student Teaching

One of the notable differences between Abby and Andrea was Andrea‟s extensive

experiences in classrooms prior to and during her credential program. When she entered

teacher education, Andrea said, “I felt like in some ways that I had been doing it

[teaching]…so I felt like I had been in the classroom for about five years by the time I

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entered the teaching credential program” (Interview, 9/27/07). Prior to college, Andrea

had worked as a teacher and program assistant in a summer math program. She began

this job starting from her junior year in high school and continued each summer through

college. In addition to this annual summer experience, during college Andrea had also

interned at a high school in a struggling urban high school, taking primary responsibility

for the class.

As part of her credentialing requirements, Andrea observed and taught in

classrooms of three English teachers in courses ranging from 9th grade to senior level

English courses. In talking about her student teaching placements, Andrea stressed the

range of explicitness, modeling, and practices exhibited by her three cooperating

teachers. Her short-term placement with Penelope at Wilson High School was notable in

that Andrea worked in a “Teaching Academy” in which students in the class were

aspiring teachers. Andrea said that this experience made her more reflective about her

planning process as she and another student teacher had to provide students with the

agenda and rationale for each of their lessons, making their planning process visible to

the students in the class. A second significant placement was Andrea‟s work with Ginny

at Freedom High School. In addition to providing Andrea with a wealth of curricular

resources for texts often taught in the high school curriculum, Ginny would make explicit

the philosophy behind her teaching. As such, Ginny not only provided Andrea with

practical tools but made explicit her thinking about the tools and larger conceptual tools

for teaching. Andrea‟s overall take-ways from the placements included a plethora of

curricular materials for commonly taught English-Language Arts texts and a strong level

of reflection for planning decisions. As for domain-specific learnings, Andrea noted that

all three teachers varied in their use of the writing process with two of the three simply

assigning papers without opportunities for revision. She said that the feedback processes

for writing modeled were “loosey goosey” with teachers generally providing feedback

based on “intuition” (Interview, 6/15/09). Even though Andrea had the most prior

teaching experience of the study participants, classroom observation data and Andrea‟s

attributions of her current tools aligned more closely to the tools privileged at Highland

than to her student teaching placements.

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As noted earlier, Abby‟s only student teaching experience prior to starting as a

teacher at Highland was a short term student teaching experience also completed at

Highland. As part of this experience, Abby observed and worked with a World

Literature12

teacher who was about to retire from Highland. In describing her learnings

from this short and singular student teaching experience, Abby said, “A lot of what I took

away was sort of his personality because he‟s always so calm and so mellow so it was

kind of nice to sort of see that” (Interview, 4/23/08). As part of this student teaching

placement, Abby said she did not have to lesson plan but followed the cooperating

teacher‟s practice of using the curriculum and materials from the Highland 10th

grade

World Literature binder. As such, Abby learned early on to draw indiscriminately from

the existing materials and had few examples and opportunities to plan instruction prior to

entering Highland as the teacher of record. During the time when Abby should have been

student teaching, Abby interned at Highland in both World Literature and American

Literature and admitted that she struggled with planning. She said, “I really stuck to the

binder of curriculum for World Lit that semester.” She continued on to note there was

not a binder for American Literature. “I would wing it. [I ] got some stuff from other

teachers to the extent that I could, some off the internet, [and] just kind of put together

lesson plans that way really” (Interview, 4/23/08). Classroom observations of Abby

during the study confirmed the continued use of the binder as her primary resource for

planning even into the second year of teaching.

Although there was a strong contrast in the number and quality of student

teaching experiences between Andrea and Abby, neither teacher had a placement that

consistently modeled the conceptual tools privileged in the course readings for the Abbott

methods course.

Current school settings

Both Andrea and Abby had a quick transition into their positions at Highland.

Andrea completed her credential in December and was a mid-year hire. Abby was hired

the following fall as an emergency hire two weeks into the school year. Both teachers

admitted a strong dependence on the existing materials/binders (when available) in their

first year of teaching. By the time of the study, approximately two years into their

12 World Literature is the title of the 10th grade English course.

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careers at Highland, Andrea and Abby were involved in very different settings within the

school arena.

Although Andrea‟s primary support when she entered the school was the existing

curriculum, by the time of the study Andrea had moved from a dependence on the binder

to becoming a leader for curricular change at Highland. According to Andrea, she

“like[d] talking about teaching and therefore volunteer[ed] for lots of things” (Interview,

6/15/09). During the study, Andrea was teaching both 9th

Grade Literature and Writing

and a pilot World Studies class. As part of her work on the pilot class which was also

part of an inclusion effort for special needs students, Andrea met weekly with a team of

five teachers which included a history teacher, his/her student teacher, and two special

education teachers. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Andrea was also the team

lead for the 9th

grade team. Her responsibilities as team leader included putting together

the curriculum plan and structuring meeting times. As part of this position, Andrea was

working with the team to reorganize the existing day to day curriculum in the binder

around essential questions and “suggested activities.” During the study, Andrea was also

participating in the Literacy Workshop professional development supported by the

Highland department. I included observations from both Andrea‟s 9th

and 10th

grade

classes as they were comparable to the other teachers in the study.

In contrast to Andrea, Abby participated in few of the settings for teacher learning

that were embedded in the Highland English department. Abby did not participate or

volunteer for positions aside from those mandated by the department. Abby noted that in

her first year of teaching, she seldom left her room or collaborated with other teachers.

During the year of the study, Abby attended only the mandatory departmental and team

meetings. As she was no longer on an emergency/intern certificate, Abby was also in her

first year of support/mentoring through the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment

(BTSA) program. Although BTSA support from John Houston, a Jennings alumnus, was

also a support provided to the other teachers at Highland, Abby was the only teacher who

attributed tools observed during the study to the BTSA mentoring setting. The most

notable feature of Abby‟s current settings was that during the study, Abby had not yet

participated in the Literacy Workshop series that was a central component of Highland‟s

Literacy Initiative. During the year of the study, Abby was teaching 10th

grade World

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Literature and Mythology, an upperclassmen elective course. For the sake of

comparability, I observed Abby‟s 10th

grade World Literature class.

The contrast between Andrea and Abby described here highlights how Highland‟s

emphasis on teacher autonomy allowed for a range of participation in the different

professional development opportunities and settings available at Highland.

Andrea and Abby’s Practice

As noted earlier, Andrea and Abby‟s practice represents one of the strongest and

weakest instantiations of English-Language Arts instruction in the study. Although this

might be related to the differences in their content preparation and interest or prior

teaching opportunities, in this section, I highlight how their individual areas of strength

and weakness align with their professional development experiences at Highland.

In looking back at Table 6.3 (See page 102), we see that Andrea appropriated

many of the tools suggested by the Highland English department. This included tools for

strategic reading instruction, isolated vocabulary instruction, and the use of book clubs

for independent reading. In addition to school practices, Andrea also placed an emphasis

on student-led discussions. Most notably, Andrea‟s practice reflected the school‟s

attention to reading over writing even though Andrea‟s own apprenticeship of

observation included a strong preparation for writing instruction. The most notable

features of Andrea‟s practice were her close attention to strategic reading instruction and

the scaffolding and support for student led-discussions. Both of these were supported

through Andrea‟s participation in the Literacy Workshop and her planning meetings with

the World Studies team.

One of the “staples” of Andrea‟s practice was her strong emphasis on strategic

reading instruction. Andrea used many of the conceptual and practical tools explicitly

addressed and modeled in the Literacy Workshop. Most noticeable was her use of

practical tools directly from the workshop. Similar to Joanna, Andrea used many of the

materials from the workshop to frontload strategy use/instruction in the first few weeks of

school. Andrea also consistently encouraged the use of SSR, metacog logs, and “talking

to the text.” Her close fidelity to the model presented in the workshop is represented in

how Andrea implemented Silent Sustained Reading. Andrea began 9 of her 10 observed

classes with 15 minutes of silent sustained reading (SSR) time, at times modeling the

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behavior herself by sitting at the front of the room and reading a book. After the silent

period of reading, Andrea gave students five to six minutes to write in their “metacog

log.” The “metacog log,” a handout asking students to reflect on their reading process,

was an exact replica of a form in the professional development materials. This

appropriation of tools from the Literacy Workshop was further represented in her

consistent use of previewing and scanning the texts.

The other “staple” of Andrea‟s practice was her attention to student-led

discussion. Andrea attributed this to her work with the history teachers on the World

Studies teachers who privileged tools such as Socratic Seminar but also to the Literacy

Workshop that emphasized the conceptual tool of the importance of student/peer

discussion to improve reading comprehension. Similar to Joanna, Andrea often had

students “talk to the text” and create levels of questions as a way to prepare for in class

discussions. Andrea mentioned that she had been introduced to “fat and skinny”

questions in her methods course but primarily attributed her current use of these more

practical tools such as the levels of questions to the modeling and enactment

opportunities present in the Literacy Workshop.

Although Andrea paid careful attention to reading instruction which was

supported through her participation in the Literacy Workshop, she was less attentive to

writing instruction. As Highland did not have a clear and detailed approach to writing

instruction in either its materials or professional development opportunities, Andrea

followed the general process approach modeled in her undergrad and student teaching

experiences, providing feedback based on intuition. Andrea‟s wholesale appropriation of

isolated vocabulary instruction and lack of tools for feedback on student writing point to

the gaps in her practice for which Jennings graduates drew from the conceptual and

practical tools from their teacher education program.

Abby, who self-reported a lack of rigor and expertise in teaching English-

Language Arts, was generally the weakest teacher in the study. The classroom

observations revealed little in terms of defined practices. The most common and

consistent elements of Abby‟s practice were isolated vocabulary practice, activity

focused instruction, and the use of book clubs all of which were supported through the

disparate practical tools available in the binders. The most consistent practical tool in

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classroom observations of Abby was a “Vocabulary Jeopardy” game which had the goal

of helping students memorize/match words in preparation for their weekly vocabulary

quizzes. Having attended the departmental and team meetings, Abby had heard about the

suggested tools from the Literacy Workshop such as “talking to the text” or “levels of

questions” but had not had access to models or the conceptual tools undergirding the

Literacy Workshop. As such, her appropriations barely captured even the surface level

features. For instance, during one of the classroom observations, Abby had students

create and share their questions about a text on the board. The teacher went through the

questions on the board, not differentiating between types of questions nor providing a

format or structure for students to further their comprehension through discussion and

answering the questions themselves. Her lesson demonstrated a lack of attention on how

to scaffold the creation of questions which was modeled for Jennings graduates and those

who attended the Literacy Workshop.

Conclusion

Both Andrea and Abby reported little content specific learning from their methods

course which implicitly prepared the two graduates to look for practical tools for teaching

within the school setting with no clear conceptual tools to guide their selection. The

emphasis on teacher autonomy at Clark through providing suggested activities through

optional professional development opportunities led to a large range of practice within

the school illustrated most clearly by the large variation between Andrea and Abby.

Andrea is one of the strongest teachers in the study. Although her teaching is

probably supported by her strong content knowledge and numerous teaching experiences

prior to entering teacher education, Andrea‟s attributions of the tools she appropriated

point to the importance of the models and conceptual tools provided in the professional

development settings and resources embedded at Highland High School, specifically the

Literacy Workshop and her collaboration with colleagues. Andrea‟s case is an instance

of where the school setting seems to have generally provided and supported Andrea in

her appropriation of more research based tools for the teaching of English-Language

Arts. Although we cannot know if Andrea‟s appropriation patterns are related to her

strong content preparation or prior teaching experiences, the alignment between her

strengths and weaknesses with the settings she participated at in Highland suggest that

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these embedded settings such as the Literacy Workshop that included an emphasis on

conceptual tools, models, and enactments supported tool appropriation, at least for

teachers with strong content and pedagogical backgrounds.

Similar to Andrea, Abby had limited exposure to practical and conceptual tools

for teaching in the methods course. In addition, Abby had few chances for enactment or

modeling by not completing a long term student teaching placement leaving her even

more susceptible to the tools available at the school site. The emphasis on individual

autonomy over clear and coherent support for specific tools within the Highland

department allowed for Abby to not appropriate Highland‟s suggested tools. Abby‟s

case highlights the limitations of depending on the school as the primary setting for

learning to teach in one‟s subject area, particularly when the opportunities for

professional development are optional. Although we cannot know if Abby would have

demonstrated tool appropriation had she participated in the same embedded learning

settings as Andrea, her data reveal that the school features at Highland are fostering a low

level of appropriation of weak tools for teaching for a teacher who self-admittedly has

few subject specific tools for practice and a weak content preparation.

An additional pattern to consider is the alignment between Abby and Andrea‟s

weaknesses and how they align with the domains addressed in the settings where they

learned or are learning to teach. Abby and Andrea‟s weaknesses in the domain of

vocabulary and writing point to the gaps in their methods course preparation and the tools

available in the school setting. In contrast, Jennings graduates at Highland could draw

from the conceptual and practical tools from their teacher education program when there

was a domain related gap (e.g. writing instruction) for practical and conceptual tools at

the current school setting.

Bennett Graduate at Clark High School

In this last section, I provide a brief description of the case of Barbara Casper to

further illustrate patterns highlighted above. Barbara, a tall, confident woman in her mid-

twenties, came to Clark the year of the study after completing her first year of teaching at

a middle school within the same school district. Similar to Abbott graduates, Barbara‟s

tools reflected more closely the approach to English-Language Arts instruction at Clark

than those of her student teaching experiences or methods course. Barbara‟s

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appropriation of the Clark tools were facilitated by the setting of co-planning in which a

Jennings alumna shared and debriefed the practical tools used in the department.

Apprenticeship of Observation

Similar to most of the teachers in the study, Barbara‟s trajectory to teaching

included a strong content preparation in English-Language Arts. Although she began her

English studies when she immigrated to the US from Russia towards the end of the

second grade, by high school, Barbara was enrolled in the International Baccalaureate

program at her school. After high school, she went on to major in comparative literature

at a competitive state university working with texts in Russian, French, and English.

Barbara noted that her college courses followed the standard format of “read the book,

lecture, and then write analysis” (Interview, 9.12.07). In her freshman and sophomore

years in college, Barbara took seminar classes in which they taught you how to write. In

these classes, “the professor would actually sit down and go over with you what you did

well and not so well.” Like many of the other participants, Barbara experienced a fairly

standard English curriculum, with the assignments and courses privileging literary

analysis and interpretive essays.

Entry into Teaching

Barbara stated that her interest in teaching stemmed from the fact that she loved

literature and working with children. Barbara began taking coursework in education

during her sophomore of college. In speaking of this coursework, Barbara only discussed

one course in particular on advanced composition writing that was more of a writing

course that had to be focused on an issue of language. A more directly related experience

was that prior to entering teacher education, Barbara spent the year teaching English in

France.

Methods course

Similar to the Abbott graduates, Barbara‟s descriptions of what she learned in

teacher education were not very detailed nor very content specific. When asked what she

learned from teacher education, Barbara responded, “Just how to design curriculum,

how/when to call a student out and sometimes let it go, just sort of that playing the

teacher role” (Interview, 9/12/07). Barbara stated that the methods course “taught

[them] how to create lesson plans, how to keep standards in mind and the goal in mind.”

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Barbara said that the methods instructor‟s image of good English-Language Arts teaching

would be one in which “everyone would be involved” and where the teacher would

“catch everyone because in a big class everyone‟s at a different level.” In addition, the

methods course instructor‟s image of good teaching included the fact that the teacher

should be able to relate to everyone and should know how to teach the various standards.

Although these responses alluded to English specific topics such as how to teach to the

different standards or connect literature to students‟ lived experiences, Barbara did not

mention any specific or practical tools presented in the course. In contrast to the detailed

descriptions given by Jennings graduates also in their second year of teaching, Barbara

said she could not remember what had been taught in each course in her teacher

preparation.

Student teaching

Barbara‟s teacher preparation experience included two student teaching

placements. According to Barbara, her short term placement in the fall at a middle

school was not “a very good experience just based on the master teacher” (Interview,

9/12/07). “My master teacher was I think mentally not there. She made me go in front of

the class but then when it was supposed to be my unit, she would have to regain her

authority always…and I mean yeah, it was not very good” (Interview, 5/21/08).

Barbara‟s second student teaching placement was a long term placement at a large

comprehensive high school that was under program improvement status. This placement

was a dual placement in an ELD class and a junior level American Literature class. The

experience, though providing with her extensive teaching experience for the full Spring

semester, did not provide her with much modeling or feedback from her cooperating

teachers. She describes her long term placement below:

Now my long term placement, both of the teachers are like – „oh you‟re doing a

great job!‟ and that was it. It was like a free time for them so I didn‟t really get

advice. That helped me with the projects I had to do for school but there was no

like real observation – „here‟s what you‟re doing well…, here‟s where you‟re not

doing so well...” “Oh well you‟re a natural. Go ahead.” (Interview, 5/21/08)

The methods course instructor/supervisor, Penny Barrow, noted that during her

long term placement, Barrow placed Barbara with a young “strong” teacher but as

“Barbara didn‟t need much” they “just let her go” (Interview, 5/09/08).

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In addition to lack of teacher modeling or feedback, the long-term placement also

did not provide Barbara with the opportunity to create or enact original units. Both the

ELD and American Literature classes were textbook driven. For her ELD class, Barbara

said, “There was a textbook. I just worked from the textbook” (Interview, 5/09/08). As

for the American Literature class, Barbara shared that she had to use prescribed

curriculum because the school was “government regulated.” Barbara had to teach from

the HOLT textbook and outside literature included The Crucible and To Kill a

Mockingbird. When asked what she took from this experience in terms of teaching

English, the teacher responded, “I‟m sure I took a away a ton. What exactly? I‟m not

sure.” When prompted again to talk about the focus of the English-Language Arts

program she was doing with HOLT, the teacher responded that the focus was “just the

standards…We had a research unit, we had a literature unit.” This prescribed curriculum

contrasted greatly with the text/theme based curriculum Barbara would encounter at

Clark High School.

Similar to her discussions of her methods course, Barbara‟s interview data on her

placements revealed more general take-aways regarding teaching. This does not preclude

the possibility that Barbara was exposed to particular tools for Language Arts teaching

but does reveal that these were not significant experiences for the teacher candidate.

Current School Context

As noted earlier, Barbara began her teaching career teaching in a middle school

whose students would feed into Clark High School. She reported getting little help or

support at the school beyond “a binder with a skeleton of what she should be doing”

(Interview, 5/09/08) and support from a literacy coach that gave her some reprieve from

teaching as she was finishing up her Masters project for Bennett. When asked about what

she took from working with the literacy coach, Barbara replied that she had taken a lot

from the experience but could not describe any specific conceptual or practical tools.

During the year of the study, Barbara was in her second year of teaching but her

first year at Clark High School. Her job assignment included teaching a year-long 9th

grade honors class, and semester long Mythology and Expository Writing courses.

Barbara was given curriculum on CD for her expository and mythology classes. As per

the departmental policy, Barbara worked with Jenny, a veteran teacher and Jennings

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alumna, to plan for the 9th

Honors class. Also per departmental policy, Barbara

participated in the district inservice in which the teachers calibrated the district wide

writing assessment. Barbara also attended the English specific professional development

opportunities arranged by Susan that focused on topics such as writing instruction and the

use of art in the classroom. In contrast to the more open curriculum at Highland, the

semester exam and the district wide writing assessment were common assessments used

at Clark that influenced teachers‟ choices of themes and texts and assignments.

In the final card sort activity, Barbara mentioned that she had learned and

developed the most in her practice from working with her colleagues and from her own

teaching. The pre- and post-observation interviews revealed that the most significant

activity setting as far as observed practices was her co-planning setting with Jenny.

During these weekly meetings, Jenny would discuss lesson plans and share instructional

materials with Barbara. The handouts and materials passed on to Barbara by Jenny gave

the new teacher access to materials created by colleagues, many of which were created by

Jennings graduates. Through these meetings, Barbara mentioned learning about many

practical tools she had not been exposed to before like Socratic Seminar or reading logs/

dialectical journals. This sharing of practical tools was also accompanied with

opportunities for modeling and more explicit explanation of the tools used. For example,

when sharing materials for the Of Mice and Men unit, Jenny provided Barbara with an

accompanying handout detailing the thinking behind a Socratic Seminar and offered to

have Barbara come and observe her enact the tool. The norm of collegiality extended

beyond the co-planning setting. In addition to watching Jenny, Barbara was also

encouraged to observe other teachers such as Susan, the department head, for important

lessons or activities such as how to teach “show, not tell” writing. Rather than simply

having access to the practical tools as was done through the Highland binders, the co-

planning setting and the norm of collegiality provided Barbara with access to the thinking

behind the tools and when possible modeling of the tools.

Barbara’s Practice

As noted above, Barbara taught three different courses in her first year at Clark.

In order to maintain comparability with teachers both within and across school sites, I

focused on the data from the 9th

grade English course. The nine classroom observations

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spanning three different units revealed that Barbara was moving away from the isolated

and anthology based instruction she enacted in her student teaching placement to

instituting many of the conceptual and practical tools outlined by Susan as privileged

tools at Clark. This included journal writing, carefully scaffolded and integrated writing

instruction replete with models, teaching around full texts, and supporting “reading for

pleasure” through providing time and reading logs for Silent Sustained Reading. These

were the tools that were made explicit through the practical tools shared and explained by

Jenny through the co-planning setting and mandated for use by the departmental norms.

Below I describe one unit to illustrate Barbara‟s appropriation of many of the conceptual

and practical tools at Clark.

“Of Mice and Men” as a Representative Unit

When asked about what she had taken into considerations for the unit around Of

Mice and Men, Barbara noted that the focus for the unit and the lessons observed was

characterization and setting. She said she had chosen this because the relationships

between characters were crucial and related to the features of the setting such as

stereotypes and racism. Barbara also mentioned that the planning considerations

included the standards and the emphasis on literary analysis in the ninth grade. When

asked where she got the ideas for the lessons observed, Barbara noted that she had

planned her unit with Jenny. Unlike Abby at Highland who was unable to say much

about her planning process, Barbara could explain the thinking behind the backwards

design of the unit and the emphasis on character and setting.

The unit plan followed closely the Jennings model for unit planning, moving from

Into activities in which Barbara had students read shorter texts by Steinbeck and

background readings about the time period. Right before starting the novel, Barbara had

students complete an “Anticipation/Reaction Guide” in which students recorded their

opinion on themes/topics that would arise in the novel. Similar to the pattern in the units

of Jade and Janice, the two Jennings teachers at Clark, Barbara‟s unit carefully integrated

reading and writing and scaffolded students towards the final writing goal, a literary

analysis focused on characters and setting. While reading of the novel students were

asked to complete an assignment entitled “Follow that character!” Students were to keep

a “passage and response” journal on three characters in the novel noting quotes that

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provided responses to questions such as “What does the character look like” or “what do

others say about the characters.” The directions stated that the assignment would then

help students to “complete a larger chapter study project and a final literary analysis

paper” (Casper Course Materials, 2008). Later in the unit, students were asked to do a

close analysis of two related excerpts from the text describing Curley‟s wife at the

beginning of the novel and later in the text. The directions drew students‟ attention to

Steinbeck‟s choice of words to prejudice or encourage sympathy in the reader for the

character. Students then filled out a guided paragraph in which the sentence starters cued

students to discuss how Steinbeck portrayed the character differently in the two passages.

For homework, students were to find and analyze another pair of excerpts on a character

and write another paragraph, independently this time. The entire activity and homework

assignment was a preparatory exercise for the final assessment for the unit, a literary

analysis on characters in the novel. Students in Barbara‟s class moved through the full

writing process from prewriting to publishing with the literary analysis paper.

Barbara‟s unit on the Steinbeck text also included a Socratic Seminar around the

question “Was it ethical for George to kill Lenny?” Students spent the day prior

preparing for the seminar by looking at texts that discussed the definition of ethics and 5

different sources of ethical approaches and whether ethics can be taught. The day of the

discussion, the journal prompt was for students to write about how they were going to

participate in the discussion. Prior to starting the discussion, Barbara debriefed the

journal responses and reminded students briefly about language to use and norms for

participation. After the discussion that lasted eleven minutes, students returned to their

seats. The teacher then provided a few comments on the process and content of the

discussion before having students fill out a reflection on their participation in the

discussion. Though not expert, Barbara‟s facilitation included attention to language and

an opportunity for reflection that was common to the teachers at Clark.

The Of Mice and Men unit reflected closely the backwards design and integrated

and scaffolded instruction for writing privileged at Clark High School. Although

Barbara‟s practice demonstrated a lower level of appropriation of the tools in that she was

mostly using artifacts from previous years, her ability to describe the purpose of the

activities and implement them in a logical and coherent manner demonstrated that the co-

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planning setting and other supports within the department was supporting a fairly strong

appropriation of the main conceptual and practical tools privileged at Clark. This is

notable given the lack of previous models or opportunities for enactments of these tools

in Barbara‟s preparation experiences.

Summary of Abbott and Bennett Graduates

The cases of Andrea, Abby, and Barbara highlight that all three attributed little of

their current tool use to their methods course and instead looked to the school settings for

tools for the teaching of English-Language Arts. For Andrea and Barbara, the models

and practical tools with a strong conceptual foundation available through the professional

development and co-planning led to a strengthening of practice. In contrast, Abby, who

did not choose to participate in settings that provided models and conceptual tools,

appropriated the weak tools available through the Highland binders. Although the

contrast between Abby and the other two teachers in terms of content preparation and

teaching experiences may explain some of the variation, this drastic contrast in outcomes

of the three teachers points to the need to better understand the features both within and

across settings that can better prepare teachers before and after teacher education.

The fact that Barbara and Andrea‟s classroom practice begins to resemble that of

the Jennings teachers even though their preparation experiences were so different

suggests that it is not where teachers are introduced to tools but the context of learning

around the tools themselves that are worthy of focus. The following chapter looks across

all seven cases to better understand what features within and across settings can support

tool appropriation.

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CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION OF CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS

In Chapters 4-6, I outlined the practices of the seven teachers in terms of their

preparation to teach in both preservice and inservice settings. I highlighted key features

of the two school settings, Clark and Highland High School, that hindered or fostered the

appropriation of privileged tools for the teaching of English Language Arts. In Chapters

5 and 6, I focused on features of the methods courses at Abbott, Bennett, and Jennings

and the relationship of the learning features of the program setting with the patterns of

appropriation demonstrated by their graduates.

In this chapter, I further explore the patterns highlighted in previous chapters by

looking across the various settings in which teachers learned to teach and discussing in

more depth the features that fostered the “carrying” of tools into the classroom. The

chapter begins with a description of features that occur within settings focusing mainly

on the importance of conceptual tools, transparency, modeling, and enactment in teacher

learning and development. The latter part of the chapter presents features of learning

across settings that fostered deeper levels of appropriation of tools in beginning teachers

both within and across domains for the teaching of English-Language Arts.

Within Setting Features that Foster Tool Appropriation

In looking across the seven cases, teachers attributed most of their current

instructional tools to three principal settings in the study: the Jennings methods course,

Clark High School, and the Literacy Workshop professional development offered to

teachers at Highland. Table 7.1 highlights that there were four features that were

common to these three settings. These four features included a foundation of conceptual

tools, the use modeling as a principal pedagogy, transparency around the rationale or

implementation of artifacts of teaching, and a requirement for enactment either within or

in an overlapping setting. The shaded rows indicate the settings in which all participants

attributed tools the setting. In each of the sections that follow, I give examples from both

preservice and inservice to illustrate how these features are present across both teacher

education and school settings and how these instantiations may differ by setting.

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Foundation of Conceptual Tools

In Chapter 2, I defined “conceptual tools” as “principles, frameworks, and ideas

about teaching, learning…that teachers use as heuristics to guide decisions about teaching

and learning” (Grossman, Smagorinsky, Valencia, 1999, p.11). In this study, I use the

term to refer to the larger conceptual tools presented in the various settings such as

instructional scaffolding or backwards design but also to refer to the domain-specific

principles presented in the various settings such as a process approach to writing or a

metacognitive approach to reading instruction.

The emphasis on conceptual tools was particularly visible in the Jennings

methods course. Dr. James, the lead instructor at Jennings, described the course in terms

of the two foundational principles of instructional scaffolding and explicit instruction.

She also then outlined the domain specific principles for each unit such as “teaching

grammar in context” or the need to scaffold students to participate in classroom

discussions. The primacy of conceptual tools for teaching was made visible not only

through course readings and discussions but was additionally supported through the

instructors‟ consistent and explicit attempts to connect course models and tasks to the

larger overarching conceptual tools. For example, in their lesson plans, Jennings

instructors cued themselves to remind students of the main conceptual takeaways from

class tasks and assignments. In talking about strategic reading instruction, the instructors

included a note in their plans to stress “the fact that the special purview of Secondary

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English teachers” was to “teach students how to read and understand the art of literature”

(Jennings Lesson Plans, 2007). Immediately following the explanation of the special

purview of teachers to teach students how to make meaning of literature, the instructors

explained how the think-aloud assignments was connected to this larger concept/heuristic

for thinking of English teaching. In addition to verbal connections, the course materials

such as course assignments explicitly connected the task to the larger conceptual tools by

including rationales in the written assignment descriptions. In addition to this written and

verbal connection of theory to course activities, Jennings further privileged theory

through the process of providing models to show how conceptual tools can be

transferred/applied in the classroom.

As far as teachers‟ practice, the importance of the conceptual tools was most

visible in areas where there might be tensions across settings regarding privileged tools.

As noted in Chapter 5, both Jackie and Joanna noted that they chose not to appropriate

the tools for isolated vocabulary instruction privileged at Highland referring back to their

identity as “Jennings graduates” who had been taught that grammar and vocabulary

should be taught in context. Instead Jackie and Joanna chose to integrate academic terms

and vocabulary into their classroom instruction. For instance, during the unit on The

Crucible in her 11th

grade class, Joanna mentioned in her pre-observation interview that

they would be doing a new thing she called “buzz words” which were intended to “boost”

the students‟ vocabulary. Throughout the lesson/class discussion, there was evidence of

student uptake of the buzz words as they discussed the different characters in the play.

Jackie also chose not to use the vocabulary lists and quizzes in the binder choosing

instead to use academic terms more consistently in the context of class discussions of

literary texts. Jackie and Joanna‟s discussion of this choice highlighted an instance of

how explicit principles for instruction worked to provide a conceptual override of

incongruent practices as teachers moved across settings.

Similar to the Jennings course, the Literacy Workshop also explicitly highlighted

the conceptual basis of the practical tools they presented throughout the course. The

course readings and supplementary materials made clear the “apprenticeship framework”

undergirding the course, defining and highlighting the importance of metacognitive

conversations in the classroom and the importance of “making the invisible visible.”

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Similar to the Jennings course format, the modeling of practical tools for teaching were

modeled/nested within units on broader topics such as schema or questioning. The

materials and agendas from the Literacy Workshop demonstrated the primacy of theory

and conceptual tools for teaching both in the written materials in the organization of the

professional development meetings themselves. For example, the materials in the

Workshop binders were organized around concepts rather than just being a resource

binder full of plans for lesson activities.

The emphasis on the larger concepts in the workshop was evident in the way

Andrea and Joanna discussed their practice. For example, when talking about the

influence of the Literacy Workshop and tools such as the levels of questions, Andrea

stressed how this connected to helping students “create their own meaning.” Andrea‟s

practice, such as her consistent use of tools such as scanning and previewing and having

students share strategies, provided evidence of her understanding of the larger conceptual

frame of metacognitive conversations. For Joanna and Andrea, these conceptual tools

supported teachers and particularly, Andrea, as she decided which tools to use and how to

adapt them for use in her classroom. For example, Andrea noted in later interviews that

she did not think she would use all the materials from the course again at the beginning of

the year, but appropriated the more overarching concept of the importance of student talk

for comprehension which she incorporated through the use of the questions to foster

student discussion in both small and whole group formats. As such the conceptual tools

from the workshop were helping her negotiate how to re-contextualize the tools from the

course within the school setting.

“Model Models”

All three methods course instructors privileged modeling as a pedagogy for

teacher learning as did the Literacy Workshop. However, classroom observations and

teacher interview data revealed that the modeled tools that were appropriated were mostly

attributed to the Jennings methods course and the Literacy Workshop. In this section, I

describe the combination of features that comprise what here is referred to as “model

models.” In contrast to the models presented at Abbott by practicing teachers or near

peers, the models that most supported appropriation were enacted by experts, were

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explicitly connected to the conceptual tools for teaching Language Arts, and were “ready

to carry” directly into the classroom.

One of the distinguishing features of models in the Jennings course and the

Literacy Workshop was that they were enacted by experts. In contrast to the Abbott

course that privileged demonstration lessons presented by near peers, the Literacy

Workshop and Jennings instructors presented the models themselves, having teacher

candidates experience the tools as students before asking them to debrief the tool as a

pedagogical tool. Although the Abbott course also had practicing teachers who worked

with the local writing project present workshops for the beginning teachers, data did not

indicate that the practical tools were actually modeled/enacted within the methods course

or connected to conceptual tools as was the case with Jennings models and the models

presented in the Literacy Workshop. The primacy of conceptual tools was not

highlighted in the Abbott discussions and was more left to chance in the Bennett course

design which relegated models of practice to the student teaching setting. It would be

dependent on the cooperating teacher‟s approach to mentoring whether teacher

candidates would be supported in connecting theory or conceptual tools to the pedagogies

and practical tools modeled in the classroom. The problem with this approach is visible

in Barbara‟s case in which she actually had few opportunities for modeling or feedback in

either her short or long term placement. The enactment by experts allowed for a

thoughtful connection to the conceptual tools of the program which is another feature of

“model models.”

In contrast to the practical tools presented and modeled in the Abbott methods

course by peers which were not explicitly connected to the larger principles presented in

the first three weeks of the course, the models at Jennings and in the Literacy Workshop

were always presented as examples of practical tools that helped teachers better

understand how to enact the conceptual tools in the classroom. In the Jennings course,

the models were embedded in domain specific “units” that were organized around very

explicit conceptual tools for the teaching of Language Arts. For example, the modeling

of a think-aloud occurred after students had read about the importance of explicit strategy

instruction for students for whom the invisible process needed to be made visible. In

another lesson, the Jennings instructors presented a model of a mini-lesson on active and

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passive voice. The mini-lesson model was a practical tool that could be used as a way to

teach grammar in context of a larger instructional unit. The modeling followed course

readings and discussions of excerpts from Constance Weaver‟s text Teaching Grammar

in Context. This same pattern occurred in the Literacy Workshop. The sessions were

divided into topics and the models presented within those topics. The continual emphasis

on the core topics kept the conceptual tools in the foreground.

A third common feature of the models that were appropriated across settings was

that they were “ready to carry.” Being “ready to carry” included two central features.

One aspect of being “ready to carry” was that the concepts and texts used for models

were those that were common to most high school curriculum or reading levels. For

example, the Jennings course model lessons were around topics such as active and

passive voice or involved texts such as Kate Chopin‟s “Story of an Hour” or Charlotte

Perkins Gillman‟s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Literacy Workshop provided teachers

with model lessons and activities that were set at reading levels appropriate to high

school classrooms. Teachers could take the materials directly into the classroom to help

students identify and practice needed reading strategies. For example, Joanna used a

reading selection on a famous Native American hero directly from the Workshop to work

on reading strategies with her 11th

grade students. In addition to being closely related to

the content taught in high schools, “ready to carry” materials were also representations of

practice that gave more access to the teaching thinking and moves needed to implement

the practical tool. For example, the Jennings instructors always provided teachers with a

lesson plan outlining the steps and needed resources for an activity or unit. The

lesson/unit plans were this created to be boundary objects that would help teachers recall

not only the steps of the activity but the embedded conceptual components of the model.

This was also true of the Literacy Workshop materials given to the participants.

To better illustrate the features of a “model model,” I now turn to the Jennings

model of a mini-lesson. After discussion of readings on teaching grammar, one of the

course instructors role-played a mini-lesson on the active and passive voice in the context

of the methods course. The teacher candidates played the role of the students. The

instructor presented a mini-lesson on active and passive voice that started with a hook

and carefully moved students from a hook to independent practice. After the lesson, the

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instructors debriefed the mode, focusing on how the model connected to the discussion of

teaching of grammar in context and the conceptual tool of scaffolding. Teacher were

then given a handout of the lesson plan as a resource. The lesson plan was organized

around the following headings:

I. Provide a Hook to Introduce the Grammatical Concept to Students

II. Offer Positive and Negative Examples of the Grammatical

Concept

III. Come to a Clear Definition of the Grammatical Concept

IV. Offer an Opportunity for Guided Practice of the Grammatical

Concept

V. Provide Opportunity for Independent Practice of the Grammatical

Concept

VI. Offer Suggestions for Use of Grammatical Concept in Future

Work

(Jennings Lesson Plans, 2005)

Under each heading, the instructors provided an example appropriate to a mini-

lesson on active and passive voice. For example, the hook was a passage written in

passive voice. After this, the plans provided questions to foster student discussion of the

passage. The third step was provide an example of an active-voice passage from a

Stephen King novel. In this discussion of defining the terms, the instructors cued

possible areas of student confusion, areas to focus on, and the use of a definition from a

resource text. Step 4 was to have students practice sentence transformations of two

sentences from passive to active voice. Then students were asked to transform an entire

paragraph on their own. Finally the teacher would give the students an opportunity to

incorporate the structure into their own writing. The handout given to the teacher

candidates described not only the steps of the lesson but used headers that made clear the

structure of a mini-lesson, the clear connection to the conceptual tool of scaffolding, and

the practical tools that could be used for this specific lesson. The handout also made

clear the importance of anticipating and adjusting for student misconceptions and

connected to the larger conceptual tool for the domain of teaching grammar in context.

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The Jennings mini-lesson had the three components of being enacted by an

expert who connected the practical tools to the larger conceptual tools, and was “ready to

carry” in that it focused on active and passive voice which is a topic that is often taught in

secondary writing, and was accompanied by a handout that made clear the structure of

the practical tool and how and why to use it. Both Jade and Janice enacted mini-lessons

that followed this careful structure of scaffolding within their own classrooms on a

different grammar topic indicating not just the use of a practical tool but a higher level of

appropriation that could modify and adapt the mini-lesson tool presented at Jennings.

As noted above, the Literacy Workshop was similar in that the professional

developers often modeled an activity in class and then provided participants with a

materials binder included clear, step by step descriptions of how to implement practical

tools such as fishbowl or levels of questions. The descriptions of specific practical tools

came only after a description of the larger conceptual tool and included a section entitled

rationale. For example, one of the handouts for the Literacy Workshops was entitled

“Modeling and Practicing Think-aloud with Text.” This handout was part of a larger

packet on “Metacognition: Making Thinking Visible” The description of the purpose

included how the lesson fit into a scaffolding process for moving students from talking

about thinking to using metacognitive conversation with academic tasks. The handouts

from the Workshop contrasted greatly with the handouts collected from Dr. Anderson‟s

workshop on To Kill a Mockingbird that listed the practical tools involved but did not tie

the model back to larger conceptual tools or provide the rationale for particular decisions.

Instead, Anderson‟s materials provided models of the reflections on the workshop from

candidates of previous years which was seemingly included to help teacher candidates

craft their own written reflection.

The purpose and features of the “model models” presented in the Jennings

methods course and the Literacy Workshop played out differently in the context of a

school setting. I describe this below.

Transparency in and Around Artifacts from Practice in School Settings

In the section above I described how Jennings instructors and the Literacy

Workshop used models to help teachers see and understand how to enact practical tools

for the teaching of English-Language Arts in the context of larger conceptual tools. The

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important features of “model models” that helped teachers connect practical tools to

conceptual tools and helped teachers get a sense of how to enact tools were provided at

Clark through the transparency in and around artifacts of practice. The Clark approach to

reading and writing instruction was clearly visible in the departmental materials such as

course syllabi, privileged tools such as reading logs and student writing portfolios, and

the professional development opportunities that presented practical tools for supporting a

process approach to writing. The conceptual tools of instructional scaffolding for writing

and integrated reading and writing instruction were encapsulated in the existing

curriculum materials. For example, the handouts for Barbara‟s Of Mice and Men unit,

described in more detail in Chapter 6, included assignment sheets for collecting quotes on

characters and worksheets that moved students from working as a whole class in

discussing Steinbeck‟s word choice to a guided practice opportunity in which student

filled in sentence frame to create an analysis paragraph on Steinbeck‟s description of the

characters. The handout ended with a homework assignment to select and write about

contrasting quotes independently.

Although Andrea was able to use the handouts, it is clear that the co-planning was

also supportive of tool appropriation. Abby, who had access to the Highland binders,

was not able to articulate the thinking behind or even expertly wield discrete and

disparate tools for instruction. In contrast, Barbara who was a first year teacher at Clark,

was able, with the explicit debriefing of the practical tools provided by her co-planner,

Jenny, to describe the backwards design of her units and her implementation carefully

scaffolded students towards the larger unit goals and assessment. As noted earlier, the

co-planning meetings were collegial settings that went beyond the simple hand off of

practical tools to more detailed discussion of new tools and how to implement them in the

classroom. This included providing access to teacher models of the tool when necessary.

Although Barbara was new to the school, she was quickly able to appropriate both the

practical and conceptual tools privileged at Clark mostly through her co-planning setting

with Jenny whereas Abby admitted not understanding tools such as “talking to the text”

although she had been at Highland for two years and sat through presentations of how to

enact the practical tools presented in the Literacy Workshop. Required participation in

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aligned professional development settings also supported the understanding of larger

conceptual tools present in the Clark materials and approach to instruction.

The norms for Clark High School created a setting in which Barbara had access

not only to artifacts of practice but thinking behind it and Jenny‟s description of how to

implement the tools. This contrasted strongly to binders available to Abby and Andrea at

Highland High School. Abby and Andrea had multiple handouts and practical tools

from both the Highland binders and the workshops presented by practicing teachers

during their Abbott methods course. However, Abby and Andrea did not consistently nor

expertly appropriate these tools. The fact that the isolated tools were seldom

appropriated suggests that it is not about the artifacts themselves but features of the social

context for learning around these tools that foster appropriation.

Required Enactments

Modeling in both Jennings and the professional development were followed by

what I refer to as required enactments. These enactments often take the form of what

Grossman and her colleagues refer to as “approximations of practice” which are defined

as “opportunities to rehearse and develop discrete components of complex practice in

settings of reduced complexity” (Grossman & McDonald, 2008). In talking about

“enactments,” a key component is that there should be an opportunity for collective

analysis of the practice (Kazemi and Hubbard, 2008).

At Jennings, the required enactments took the form of approximations of practice

to be performed in both the methods course setting and the student teaching placement.

For example, during the discussion unit, teacher candidates read about the different levels

of questions students could use to improve reading comprehension. Then in methods

course, teacher candidates were asked to create levels of questions for “The Story of an

Hour.” This moved into an in-class discussion with the instructors providing time and

support through a modified fishbowl discussion format to reflect on which questions were

most productive in the discussion. The required enactments also included course

assignments in which teacher candidates tried out the tools in the overlapping setting of

the student teaching placement. Jennings students were required to choose a tool from

the unit such as levels of questions or an “Anticipation Guide.” Students then recorded a

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piece of the enactment and brought back the artifact of practice to their teacher education

colleagues for a discussion of an element or remaining question regarding the enactment.

Similarly, the Literacy Workshop followed the modeling of tools such as the

Think-aloud or creating levels of questions with opportunities to practice the tools within

the professional development setting. Like the Jennings course assignments, the Literacy

Workshop assigned tasks for which teachers had to enact tools from the professional

development and collect student data on the utility of the tools. During one of the

observations of Joanna‟s classroom, she was trying out a strategy and getting student

feedback for the purposes of a required enactment task for the Literacy Workshop. The

Literacy Workshop followed a similar pattern to Jennings in that it modeled different

strategies such as think-alouds and creating levels of questions and then required that

teachers try out the tools within the professional development setting. Teachers were

then required to try out the tools in their classroom. Although not approximations of

practice in that the teacher had full responsibility for the class, the professional

development assignments/tasks served a similar purpose in that teachers could try out a

practice and reflect on how it had gone.

Although Clark High School did not require formal enactments such as the course

assignments, the use of common tools such as final exams, monthly reading logs, and the

element of co-planning in essence required that Barbara enact the tools privileged in the

Clark department. As such the Clark norm of collegiality fostered a form “required

enactment” which in a school setting might be shared practices. This is made more clear

when we consider the importance of autonomy at Highland High School. The

department‟s emphasis on individual autonomy and simply “suggesting” tools left room

for teachers to opt out of enacting tools that were thought to be instructional

improvements in the site. Abby, who demonstrated a very low level of appropriation of

just a few of the suggested tools at Highland, is the clearest example of where such a

policy might be detrimental to both teacher and student progress/learning.

Summary

The examples from Jennings, Clark, and the Literacy Workshop highlight the

constellation of in-setting features that supported tool appropriation in the seven

participants. The consistent attribution of tools to these three settings suggests the

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importance of an explicit and conceptually driven approach to teacher preparation and

development. For pre-service or professional development settings this plays out in

terms of an emphasis on conceptual tools through readings and course discussions and

course materials, additionally supported by modeling, and required enactments of

practical tools. For the school setting, departmental norms of collegiality in tandem with

coherent and shared practices for teaching can support appropriation. Data suggest that

these features were not as supportive of appropriation in isolation but were most effective

when all elements outlined here were present. In the section below, I discuss the features

of a learning trajectory across settings that supported deeper levels of appropriation.

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Features of Learning Across Settings that Support Deeper Levels of Appropriation

The points in the previous section highlight the features of settings such as Clark

High School and the Literacy Workshop that supported teacher learning. Table 7.2 (See

page 143) illustrates that the practice of teachers from Abbott and Bennett, namely that of

Andrea and Barbara, were mediated by their participation in the embedded settings of

professional development and co-planning. Andrea and Barbara‟s practice not only more

closely reflected the school setting but was also beginning to look more like the practice

observed in Jennings graduates. Although this gives hope that school settings and

carefully designed professional development can support teacher development in areas

where teachers have few conceptual or practical tools or models for practice, the study

also shows that the deepest levels of appropriation were demonstrated in the areas where

teachers had reinforcement of the same tools for teaching across settings.

In general, “reinforcement” at the school level consisted of the same features

discussed in first section of the chapter. Schools that reinforced the tools presented in

other settings provided novice teachers with access to tools in which the undergirding

principles were made transparent through collaboration, provided opportunities for

modeling, and required enactments of the practical and/or conceptual tools presented in

other settings such as teacher education or professional development. In a way, the

schools provided a “spiral curriculum”13

in that teachers were given multiple

opportunities to observe, understand, and enact tools for the teaching of English-

Language Arts.

In addition to illustrating which tools were appropriated, Table 7.2 also illustrates

the levels of tool use. The numbers demonstrate evidence of use either in interview or

observational data with higher numbers generally indicating a higher use or

predominance of the tool in the teacher‟s practice. The general pattern is that an overlap

in privileged tools across settings generally corresponded with a more consistent use of

the tool. Although not as visible in the chart due to a 3-point rating system, the

classroom observations showed a strong contrast in levels of appropriation when there

was reinforcement of the tools across settings. In Chapter 2, I outlined the levels of tool

appropriation we might see in the teacher candidates. The range could be from a minimal

13 This is an appropriation of Bruner‟s (1960) term that I will discuss more in the next chapter.

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appropriation of surface features of a tool within limited contexts to a flexible use of a

tool demonstrating an understanding of the conceptual underpinnings.

As the Jennings program was more able to choose student teaching placements

that aligned with the tools privileged in the methods course, I illustrate the patterns in

practice seen when reinforcement was provided across settings by comparing the levels

of appropriation in Jennings teachers in domains that were more or less reinforced over

the settings in which they learned to teach. I look specifically at the practice of Jade and

Joanna as they mark teachers with the most and least amount of congruence across all

settings. The patterns present in the case of Jade and Joanna illustrate patterns seen

across all seven participants.

The patterns regarding consistent reinforcement across settings was most evident

in the case of Jade who completed her student teaching at Clark with Susan the

department head before joining Clark after graduation. Table 7.3 (See page 144) shows

the continual reinforcement of the same tools across the settings in which she learned to

teach. From her apprenticeship of observation to her time at Clark, Jade had repeated

cycles of modeling of instruction for writing and the feedback process. She received

conceptual and practical tools for the teaching of English Language of Arts that were

privileged in her methods and student teaching, and then school setting. By working in a

co-planning setting with Janice, another Jennings graduate, this setting provided

additional exposure and opportunities to enact and reflect on the tools privileged at both

Clark and Jennings.

In looking across the settings in which Jade learned to teach, there was significant

overlap in the tools privileged in her teacher education and at Clark where she completed

both her student teaching and entered teaching. Her classroom observations

demonstrated deeper levels of appropriation where the tools were privileged across

settings. For example a conceptual tool that was explicitly supported at both Jennings

and Clark was backwards design. During the course of the study, I conducted ten

classroom observations that spanned four of the units taught in the English 9 class. The

units were usually organized around an essential question for the unit, often closely

connected to the final writing assessment. The essential question was posted on the wall

and was often cited on the handouts for the unit, consistently focusing students on the

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guiding question. The choice of text and essential question were connected to both the

district writing prompts and student understanding of text. The units integrated lessons

on close reading and writing with the essential question and class activities working in

service of preparing students for the final writing assignment or project for the unit. The

unit for Cisneros‟ House on Mango Street was representative of the general patterns in

Jade‟s unit planning.

The unit on House on Mango Street was organized around the following essential

question: As we grow up, what do our responses to life‟s challenges reveal about us? As

students read the text, Jade had students keep a reading log in which they noted evidence

and commentary on the challenges characters face and how the characters react to the

challenges. The log would then be used to write a comparison and contrast essay on how

2 characters react to life‟s challenges. Within the unit, Jade integrated lessons for writing

and reading that were connected to the final assessment and the features of the text. For

example, Jade presented the mini-lesson on making inferences (a reading strategy) to

help students make sense of Chapters 3 and 4 in House on Mango Street which contained

many instances of symbolism for which the strategy would be useful. During the unit,

Jade also presented a mini-lesson on comparisons/contrasts. The unit was so closely

planned that each lesson was directly connected to the unit goals. As the curriculum

available at Clark encapsulated backwards design it could be argued that Jade was simply

instantiating existing tools but the data included instances in which Jade and Janice

changed and adapted the curriculum indicating a deeper level of tool appropriation.

For example, during the study, I observed one of the planning meetings between

Jade and Janice. During this meeting, the two teachers both Jennings graduates, looked

at the lesson plans from the previous year and discussed adaptations they wanted for this

year‟s unit around Of Mice and Men. Although Jade and Janice were drawing from

existing tools, their discussion demonstrated their deep level of understanding of

backwards design as a process that started with the end in mind. The planning session

began with a discussion of changing the essential question for the unit. They noted that

students had not really understood the previous year‟s question which focused on the

importance of dreams and that the students‟ essays had been very similar. Jade and

Janice debated options of possible questions in terms of the breadth of responses it would

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foster on the final essay and how they could bring in issues of social status. The teachers

decided on the following as the new question: “How do the roles we play in a community

determine the life we live.” After deciding on a question, the teachers moved into talking

about the specific activities they would need to include to prepare students for the final

essay. As the teachers had taught the Of Mice and Men unit starting during their student

teaching year, the discussion demonstrated both Jade and Janice‟s ability to create new

questions and then backwards plan around the new question. The pattern of strength of

appropriation as related to reinforcement of privileged tools across settings was also

present in Joanna.

Joanna demonstrated a deep level of appropriation of tools for discussion that

were supported at Jennings, her student teaching at Justice High School, and then in the

Literacy Workshop. Classroom observations demonstrated that one of the main

pedagogies and strengths of Joanna‟s practice was her emphasis and comfort with

facilitating student led discussions around texts. True to her self-report of her own

practice, “student-led discussion” had become one of her “core/essential teaching

practices” (Interview, 4/17/08). During the six classroom observations, Joanna provided

an opportunity for student-led discussions around texts in three of the lessons. The three

classroom discussions were scaffolded and supported through the use of rubrics,

assessment sheets, and time for reflection. The tools for discussion were enacted in both

her 9th

grade Lit/Writing class and her 11th

grade American Literature class. Within the

six observations that spanned 4 units in two courses, Joanna enacted a number of the

tools presented in the discussion unit in the Jennings methods course, with students

obviously at ease with the practice of creating level 1, 2, 3, and 4 questions, a typology of

questions similar to the one privileged by the Literacy Workshop and her methods course.

Other tools intended to prepare or facilitate discussions included anticipation guides,

Socratic seminars, and a Broadway Chorus Line. In addition to whole class student led

discussion, Joanna also provided opportunities for small group discussions around texts.

Joanna also had opportunities to observe and enact classroom discussion in her student

teaching placement. Although the formats varied from those used in English classes,

Joanna noted that discussion was an important domain in the history course at Justice

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High School. Students were constantly using what Joanna referred to as an “inquiry

method” for classroom discussions.

Joanna‟s use of various tools for fostering discussion with different texts and in

two different grade levels demonstrates a flexible use of the tools. This flexibility

indicates a deep level of appropriation in that it reveals an understanding of the

undergirding principle of discussion as a tool that deepens comprehension through

providing students opportunities to “struggle” with texts and come up with multiple

interpretations. Her own attributions of her tools for discussion confirmed the

importance of the various tools from three different settings (Jennings, Justice High,

Literacy Workshop) in which she learned to teach.

Analysis of practice across teachers across five domains of teaching English-

Language Arts also highlighted the importance of looking of patterns of appropriation not

only across settings but also across domains. Although Jade demonstrated a deep

appropriation of tools for planning, Jade was less adept with tools for facilitating

classroom discussion which though emphasized at Jennings was not a privileged domain

at Clark High School. In the ten classroom observations, there was only one instance of a

student led discussion. This discussion activity, a “Crossing the Line Activity” in which

students shared and discussed their opinions on statements regarding a chapter in Of Mice

and Men, closely followed the format used by Jade in previous years. Although the

implementation of the tools went beyond just the procedures of the practical tool in that it

included important features such as setting language and participation norms for

discussion and including reflection, in general there was little attention in Jade‟s

classroom to student led discussion. This pattern was also true for Jade‟s approach to

vocabulary instruction. Although she mentioned academic terms in the context of mini-

lessons, there was little attention to this domain for which Jennings and Clark had

provided few models and practical tools. The varying levels of appropriation across

domains in Jade was echoed in the practice of all seven participants. In looking by

teacher by domain, we see that the tools that were not reinforced across sites through the

provision of additional models, tools, or enactments were often related to a lower level of

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use and appropriation.14

This pattern helps explains the gaps or areas of weakness visible

in Table 7.2 (See page143). The gaps occurred when there was a lack of spiraling of

features such as modeling or enactment for tools across settings. For example, Jade and

Janice had multiple opportunities to see models and enact the tools for a process approach

to writing because they had access to models and opportunities for enactment in both the

methods course and their student teaching and teaching at Clark.

The pattern regarding domain-specific differences in appropriation was also

visible in Joanna‟s appropriation of the conceptual tool of backwards design, which

though a significant tool in the Jennings course, was less supported in her student

teaching and at her current placement at Highland High School. Joanna admitted that her

first instance of backwards design was her unit plan assignment for the Jennings course.

Until then, she had only been required to enact plans created by the predominantly

history-focused teachers at her student teaching site. Upon entering Highland, Joanna

admitted drawing heavily from the Highland binder of disparate lesson ideas and plans.

Classroom observations and pre and post observation interviews revealed that although

Joanna knew the overall trajectory of the unit and included elements from the school

setting and the methods course she rarely knew exactly what the final assessment would

be or closely aligned the unit to a final assessment. Unlike Jade who spoke at length

about the significance of backwards design for her practice, Joanna admitted during the

study that she was just beginning to feel more comfortable with the practice in her second

year of teaching. Although Joanna‟s units included many of the practical tools privileged

in her various learning settings, the activities were not as closely aligned to the final

assessment as the units observed in Jade‟s classroom.

For example, in her 9th

grade class Joanna taught a unit on Cisneros‟ House on

Mango Street. The essential questions for the unit were: “How does my environment

shape who I am? Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Joanna‟s unit

included Into activities such as an anticipation guide and supplemental readings by

author. While working with the core text, students were to read most of the text at home

but were assigned to specific vignettes they were supposed to talk about in class. While

14 The only exception to this pattern was Andrea‟s consistent use of the tools from the Literacy Workshop

which I attribute to the fact that the Workshop paralleled many of the learning features visible at Jennings

that also fostered a strong level of appropriation.

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reading, students were to write reflective diary entries to Esperanza, the main character,

asking “level 2” questions. Students were also to note instances of figurative language

and identify the theme of each vignette. The culminating assignments for the unit were a

vignette notebook, an exam, and an in-class essay. Each assessment had a different

focus. The use of three different assessments stressed a range of goals that led to a less

cohesive unit that those in Jade‟s classroom. Joanna‟s lack of enactments and models for

backwards design seemed to yield a less developed practice.

Patterns in Jade and Joanna‟s data also highlight the need to consider what

weaknesses may remain unaddressed across settings. For example, in the case of

Jennings graduates, although they had a strong conceptual understanding of needing to

teach grammar and vocabulary in context, Jade, Janice, Jackie, and Joanna had few

practical tools for vocabulary and grammar instruction. This was not addressed in the

other settings teachers participated in learning to teach. As such, all four gave little

instructional attention to the domain. For Abbott and Bennett graduates, having had few

models and opportunities to observe or enact tools for the teaching of English in their

teacher preparation, they were more likely to pick up the tools available at the site.

Andrea and Barbara appropriated tools that were privileged in the embedded settings but

were weak in areas that were not explicitly addressed in the site. Abby‟s case best

illustrates the dangers of leaving teachers dependent on learning from embedded settings

at the school site. Although Abby completed the methods course which provided some

attention to conceptual tools, she had no access to “model models” or opportunities for

enactment through the Abbott methods course nor a student teaching placement. She was

left without a strong conceptual base and/or a basic repertoire of tools for teaching in the

subject area. She was left with a gap across most domains that was then not addressed

because she was allowed to opt out of professional development at Highland.15

The stark contrast between the practice of Jade and Abby highlight the importance

of thinking through not only how to create learning settings that are more supportive of

tool appropriation but also how to create learning trajectories across settings for teachers

that will enable them to develop a strong repertoire of tools across the range of domains

15 As noted in the last chapter, it is possible that Abby‟s participation in the Literacy Workshop would not

have led to appropriation. A future study might look at teachers with and without strong levels of content

preparation and student teaching experiences to compare patterns in levels of appropriation.

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for English-Language Arts instruction. In the next chapter, I discuss the implications of

the study for those concerned with the theory, practices, and policies concerning the

preparation and development of new teachers.

143

144

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CHAPTER 8 IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

Discussion The principal question driving the study was regarding the role of school context

on the practice of beginning teachers. Using an activity theory framework, the study

investigated the experiences of beginning teachers around specific conceptual and

practical tools for the teaching of Language Arts across settings in which teachers learn to

teach. The first two guiding questions for the study focused on identifying the practices

of beginning teachers and those privileged in the settings where they learned to teach.

The comparison of the practices of teachers to their teacher education setting and current

school setting highlighted differences in appropriation that corresponded to the types of

programs attended by the participants. Jennings graduates appropriated many of the

conceptual and practical tools from the Jennings course. This occurred even when

teachers entered a less reinforcing school site with Joanna and Jackie appropriating

Jennings tools even when there was a lack of alignment with tools/goals at Highland. In

contrast, Abbott and Bennett graduates attributed very few of their tools to their teacher

education programs and were more susceptible to the tools privileged in their school site.

For Barbara who went from a less defined program to Clark High School with a well

articulated set of tools, there was an appropriation of tools for Clark‟s privileged domains

of writing and reading. Andrea and Abby, the Abbott graduates, were also susceptible to

the tools at the school site with Andrea appropriating many tools from embedded settings

at Highland for professional development and Abby staying stagnant due to weak and

less articulated tools within the departmental setting.

The latter two research questions focused more closely on the factors that

influenced appropriation, focusing specifically on the relationship between degree of

appropriation and the degree of congruence across settings. Although patterns in

appropriation aligned with specific programs and school sites in which teachers learned

to teach, the most consistent and deepest levels of appropriation corresponded more

closely to the context for learning surrounding the specific tools than either the practices

in the methods courses or school settings. Comparison of the appropriation of tools from

the settings included in the study highlighted three main settings that supported

appropriation regardless of the other settings teachers participated in. These included the

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Literacy Workshop, Clark High School, and the Jennings methods program. The three

settings shared a set of features around how they presented tool that seemed to be factors

supporting appropriation. The “within settings” features included the following:

1. Explicit provision of a foundation of conceptual tools in support of teacher

learning

2. Provision of models that were enacted by experts who connected the tools to

their conceptual foundations and provided specific practical tools, such as

handouts, that made the strategies “ready to carry” from the teacher-centered

setting into the student-focused classroom

3. Opportunities for tool enactment.

Appropriation of tools was most common when all three of these features were present.

An additional factor that was related to the observed patterns in tool appropriation

was the congruence between tools privileged across settings. This was most apparent in

at the domain level. Teachers such as Jade and Janice demonstrated deeper levels of

appropriation of tools such as backwards planning and a process approach to writing that

were emphasized through modeling and required enactments across all three settings they

participated in.

The findings of the study contrast with previous literature that focused on the

abandoning of tools when teachers entered the school site. Instead, the study suggests the

need to look both within and across settings in which teachers learn to teach to better

understand and improve professional preparation and development.

Implications In discussing the implications of this study, I return to the current policy context

around teacher preparation. As noted earlier, with the 2001 No Child Left Behind

legislation there is an increased emphasis on having “highly qualified” teachers in the

classroom. Although we agree that content preparation is an important part of being

“highly qualified” to teach, there is less agreement on if and how to prepare teachers for

classroom practice. As such there is still debate about the effectiveness of teacher

education programs with policy makers increasingly supporting alternative certification

programs that relegate most of teacher preparation to “on the job” training.

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At a basic level, the findings of this study support that this is a precarious

proposition that can lead to a great variation in the practice of the beginning teachers as

teacher development will then depend on the supports available in the school setting.

The dangers of depending on the school setting for teacher education are highlighted in

the case of Abby. As a second career teacher who entered the classroom without a long

term student teaching placement, Abby‟s pathway to teaching most resembled the

pathway of teachers who are certified through alternative programs that do not require a

extensive coursework or a student teaching placement before they enter the classroom.

Her lack of exposure to conceptual tools and practical tools for the teaching of English-

Language Arts from the lack of a placement and her limited content knowledge was

further exacerbated by lack of intentionality around teacher development at Highland

High School. Although the school offered professional development through the Literacy

Workshop and had “suggested” practices, the lack of an explicit and coherent approach to

Language Arts teaching left Abby‟s practice stagnant with her appropriating tools that

were most easily accessible in the Highland binder such as isolated vocabulary lists and

quizzes. Although Andrea, with a strong content preparation and multiple student

teaching experiences, was able to make the most of the resources available at Highland

such as the Literacy Workshop, the variation in the two highlight points to importance of

the field experiences and vast disparity possible when depending on the school site for

teacher preparation.

The variation in outcomes in teacher practice from the Abbott and Bennett

programs as they contrast with the Jennings program also points to the fact that not all

teacher education programs are created equal. In contrast to the variation and

vulnerability in Abbott and Bennett graduates to the tools privileged at the school site,

Jennings graduates appropriated a basic repertoire of tools that were present in their

practice regardless of whether their current school setting privileged similar practices or

not. Noting that there would be a variation in school practice even during student

teaching, the Jennings program provided conceptual and practical tools for teaching

within the methods course. The practices of Jade, Janice, Joanna, and Jackie and their

attributions of their practice to the methods course provide evidence that teacher

education can and did send these teacher candidates classroom ready with practical tools

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for teaching and conceptual tools that could help them decide what practices to

appropriate as they moved across settings.

The findings of the study also point to the features that could potentially help

teachers reach deeper levels of tool appropriation earlier in their careers. Recent studies

have shown that schools are a “leaky bucket.” Although schools are able to recruit

teachers, they have trouble keeping them. According to the National Commission on

Teaching and America‟a Future (NCTAF)‟s 2003 report No Dream Denied, it is

estimated that almost a third of new teachers leave in the first three years and after five

years, almost fifty percent are gone. As such, we do not have the luxury of putting

teachers into classrooms to “sink or swim,” taking multiple years to help teachers get

their sea legs. The cases of Janice and Jade demonstrate the depth of appropriation that

can be achieved even as early as the second year for teachers whose settings for learning

to teach have consistently reinforced the same tools through modeling that make explicit

the connections to larger conceptual tools and provided opportunities for enactment.

These initial implications described above for how to think about the individual

settings in which teachers learn to teach are one way to think about the implications of

this study. Given the conceptual framework and design of the study, the findings of this

study are most significant in how they inform how we think about teacher learning in

ways that span across activity settings. The findings of this study suggest a

reconsideration of the traditional framing of the discussion of learning to teach in terms

of teacher education versus school contexts. Instead of focusing on the “traditional

nature” of schools as an isomorphic force that impedes the implementation of tools or

approaches to instruction favored in teacher education courses (Zeichner and Tabachnick,

1981), this study highlights the importance of the learning context (i.e. foundation of

conceptual tools, modeling, opportunities for enactment) around tools for teaching in a

subject area as a lens to understand why tools are more or less appropriated by new

teachers as they move across the various activity settings in which they learn to teach. As

a small case study of seven teachers from one geographic area of the nation,

generalizations to the larger population cannot be made. Even so the detailed and

qualitative nature of the nested case study can inform the broader discussion among

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policy makers and practitioners on how best to prepare and support the development of

new teachers.

The discussion of implications of the study that span across settings begins with a

framework for a professional learning continuum for new teachers. I then move into a

discussion of the implications of this framework for policy and practice. I conclude with

a discussion of implications of the study for future research.

A “Spiraling Continuum” for Professional Learning In her 2001 article, Feiman-Nemser proposed a framework for a professional

learning continuum for teachers spanning from preservice to the first years of induction

that support “reform-oriented” teaching (p.1015). In this article, Feiman-Nemser

outlined the central tasks of each phase of the continuum, focusing more on the general

content of these different phases and the features and examples of corresponding settings

that best support teachers with the tasks of each phase. One of the central tasks of the

preservice phase was to provide teachers with a beginning repertoire of tools for teaching.

In this section, I consider a framework that focuses on this particular aspect of

preparation for teaching. The proposed framework, building closely on the findings of

the study, outlines a learning continuum to support the appropriation of the conceptual

and practical tools not only across settings but within different domains of a subject area

such as English-Language Arts.

The framework proposed below is not based on a particular approach to the

teaching of English-Language Arts but tool appropriation in general. As the schools and

programs in the study generally privileged similar conceptions of Language Arts

instruction, I focus more on the features of the learning setting that support appropriation

rather than the tools themselves. As such, I make no claims regarding whether the tools

appropriated through such a continuum would be an improvement of practice as this is

relative to the conceptions of teaching and goals of the different activity settings in which

teachers learn and work. Having said that, given the nature of curricular trends in

education, most of the settings, when there was a particular approach to a domain,

favored similar tools such as Silent Sustained Reading or a process approach to writing.

In general, the hope is that the goal of the settings and the continuum would be to support

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teachers in their appropriation of tools that align with our current knowledge and

understanding of practices that best support student development in the domains

addressed in English-Language Arts courses.

Features to Support Appropriation Within Settings

Previous research on teacher education and professional development has studied

the features within these settings that best support tool appropriation. For example, the

literature on teacher education has highlighted the importance of features such as the

“conceptual coherence” across the different courses and experiences embedded in teacher

education or the inclusion of integrated field experiences (Feiman-Nemser, 2001;

Darling-Hammond, 2006). Prior research has also looked at effective pedagogies in

teacher education. For example, there has been a discussion of the types of assignments

and representations of practice such as video or written cases that best support novice

learning.

Similar to the teacher education research, work in the area of professional

development has identified characteristics of effective professional development. The

lists of characteristics generally address the nature of the problems that should be tackled

and/or features that relate to the process (Wilson & Berne, 1999). In their review of

“highly regarded research” on professional development, Wilson and Berne highlighted

common themes in contemporary professional development such as “redefining” what is

considered teacher practice, “teacher learning ought not to be delivered but activated,”

(p.194) and the importance of teacher interaction (p.195). There is less discussion in the

learning to teach literature about the types of pedagogies that are common to these

settings for teacher learning. Below I describe the features that are part of the

“scaffolding” for tool appropriation suggested by the study.

“Scaffolded” Learning16

The findings regarding the common traits between the Jenning methods course,

the Clark High School English department, and the Literacy Workshop suggest that tool

appropriation within a specific setting can be supported through explicit support of

16

I use the term “scaffold” to invoke particular elements of Vygotsky‟s model of scaffolding. The use the

term to foreground the enactment of models by an expert to help a learner move from more guided to more independent

practice,

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conceptual tools for teaching through modeling and provision of opportunities to enact

supporting practical tools through either sheltered approximations of practice and/or the

required use of tools in the classroom setting.

Previous research on teacher learning has found support for each of these

elements. For example, the work of the CELA studies has shown that conceptual tools

that were “buttressed” with practical tools were those that were most often appropriated

by the ten new teachers in a study of appropriation of tools across settings for writing

instruction (Grossman, Valencia, Evans, Thompson, Martin, & Place, 2000). The

importance of models or representations of practice has been highlighted not only in

terms of what they offer for teacher learning in discussions by scholars such as Little

(2002; 2003) but also in terms of how they support tool appropriation in a specific

domain or for a particular tool (Williamson, 2006; Cook, Smagorinsky, Fry, Konopak, &

Moore, 2002). For example, in Williamson‟s (2006) study of learning to teach with

discussion, he found that teacher candidates appropriated many of the tools that were

“explicitly modeled.” Tools that were explicitly modeled were accompanied with access

to pedagogical thinking about the “purposes and pitfalls” of the tool (p.204). Studies

have also demonstrated the importance of what Grossman and MacDonald refer to as

pedagogies of enactment. In their cross professional study of pedagogies used to train

therapists, clergy, and teachers, Grossman and her colleagues (2009) highlighted the

importance of “approximations of practice” in which novices are given opportunities

within the course to start enacting particular aspects of a practice. The researchers

provide a continuum of features of less to more authentic approximations of practice with

the more authentic approximations being closer to being conducted in real time with

more participation by the novice (Grossman et al., 2009).

In contrast to previous research that has talked about these different elements

individually, the findings of the study suggest that tool appropriation might be better

fostered when a foundation of conceptual tools and opportunities for modeling and

enactment are presented together. This suggests a framework for presenting tools for

new teachers that is similar to the structure of a mini-lesson in writing or other scaffolded

lessons that move from the presentation of a concept or idea to guided practice and then

more independent practice. This model, though seemingly intuitive, contrasts with the

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goals of methods courses such as those at Abbott and Bennett that are under time

constraints and structural constraints such as where the methods course falls in relation to

teacher candidates‟ field experiences. The study suggests that scholars and practitioners

who work in settings dedicated to preservice and inservice teacher learning might

consider depth over breadth and focus on providing teacher candidates with a clear

picture of undergirding conceptual tools by interweaving explicit discussion of concepts

with models and opportunities to enact practical tools that illustrate the selected

conceptual tools.

Domain-Specificity

The cases described in this study also point to need to look at teacher practice

through a more focused lens that looks at teacher‟s development and practice by the

different domains in the subject area. For English-Language Arts the domains might

include areas of language arts teaching such as reading and writing or “tasks in teaching”

such as planning or assessment (Grossman & Thompson, 2008, p.2016). Although at first

glance, Jade, Janice, and Andrea had many tools for teaching across domains, there were

specific areas for which they had less practical and conceptual tools for teaching. For

example, Jade and Janice paid little attention to vocabulary instruction which was not

addressed across the settings in which they learned to teach. Similarly, Andrea

appropriated many tools for reading instruction but appropriated fewer tools for writing

instruction. This suggests that those committed to teacher preparation and development

might think about teacher preparation and development in terms of specific domains

within a subject area. In her work on teacher community, Little (2002) talks about the

faces of practice and the transparency around those faces. The holes and gaps in the

practices of the seven teachers in my study suggest thinking about teaching preparation

and development in terms of what faces and aspects of practice the settings have made

transparent in terms of specific domains. Both teacher education programs and schools

might reconsider how they will support teacher development in each of these areas. This

could include considering what representations of practice they make available to

teachers and what aspects they have asked teacher candidates to enact. For example, the

Abbott and Bennett courses provided few opportunities for enactment beyond the domain

of planning. All three graduates demonstrated fewer tools for other domains of

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instruction than their Jennings peers who had opportunities to enact tools across domains

within their methods course and/or their student teaching placement.

Reinforcement Across Settings

As noted earlier, the deepest levels of tool appropriation demonstrated in the

study were by the teachers who had opportunities to observe and enact tools over the

different activity settings in which they learned to teach. The “reinforcing” settings

included both student teaching experiences that supported and expanded on tools

presented in the methods course and the current school settings and embedded

professional development opportunities where teachers began their careers. This finding

suggests the need to think about how to “spiral” the features mentioned above across the

different settings for teacher learning around domain specific tools.

Previous research on teacher preparation has highlighted the importance of

thinking of professional preparation continuums that span settings. For example,

Feiman-Nemser (2001) concluded her piece on a professional learning continuum with a

discussion of how to build a system in which teacher educators, schools, and unions

would work together to provide more “connective tissue” between the settings in which

teachers learn to teach (p.1049). The creation of professional development schools and

internship models in which teachers work in schools in which they would gradually

assume more responsibility are efforts intended to create closer ties and relationships

between the different settings in which teachers learn to teach. Building off the prior

discussion regarding domain-specificity, I propose that the reinforcement should go

beyond a shared ideology of the purposes of teaching and conceptions of learning to

agree upon subject and domain specific tools privileged across sites. Although Highland

High School was a professional development school for the Jennings program, the

English department did not privilege the same tools as Jennings, leaving Joanna stagnant

in her appropriation of the tool of backwards planning. In contrast, Clark, not a

professional development school, was a reinforcing site for English teacher candidates at

Jennings due to the overlap between the two settings in conceptual and practical tools for

the teaching of Language Arts.

As outlined in Chapter 7, “reinforcement” will vary in terms of what it looks like

in preservice and inservice settings but should include explicit attention to theory or

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conceptual tools that are supported with models or other representations of practice that

make clear the rationale and enactment of the tools. I refer to this continuum as

“spiraling” to invoke the Bruner‟s idea of being able introduce and develop concepts

across the learning cycle. Similarly, the concepts that are presented early in a teacher‟s

preparation should be repeated or spiraled across settings to support deeper levels of

appropriation and the features should also be spiraled across the different domains of

teaching. For example, in Jade and Janice‟s case they were given multiple opportunities

to observe and enact the tools for teaching writing and for planning that were first

introduced to them in the Jennings methods course. They demonstrated deeper

appropriations in these domains than in facilitation of discussion which did not have a

similar spiraling across the settings in which they learned to teach. Abby‟s case shows a

contrasting case of a lack of scaffolding both in teacher education and in her current

school setting at Highland across a range on domains.

In their work, Bickmore, Smagorinsky, and O‟ Donnell (2005) define the features

of a “conceptually strong program” (p.27) According to the authors, a conceptually

strong program includes having a common vocabulary for teaching with related activities.

The spiraling continuum proposed here is in some ways an expansion on this idea. This

scaffolding and spiraling proposed here would be akin to a “conceptually strong

continuum” which scaffolds the learning of conceptual tools with “related activities” such

as opportunities to observe and enact related practical tools. The continuum outlined here

that focuses on subject-specific and domain-specific tool appropriation is not meant to

replace continuums that support the other tasks and needs in teacher learning goals

outlined by scholars such as Feiman-Nemser. Instead I hope it builds on such work by

further specifying the pedagogies and goals that might best support and expand teachers‟

repertoire of tools for teaching.

Implications for the Policy and Practice of Teacher Preparation The scaffolded and spiraled continuum proposed above is in tension with the

common practices in teacher education and the increasing trend in policy to prepare and

credential teachers through alternative certification programs that relegate the majority of

teacher preparation to the school setting. If teacher learning is supported through the

features described above, policy makers, teacher educators, and professional developers,

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and school and departmental leadership might reconsider their current thinking and

practice to think about how to better spiral and connect the features across these various

settings in which teachers learn to teach. Below I describe implications for each of these

groups concerned with the preparation and support of beginning teachers.

Implications for Teacher Education Methods Courses and Subject Specific

Professional Development In activity theory, the conscious goal or object is what distinguishes/defines

human activities. As such I begin with the goals of these settings as a starting place.

Both Jennings and the Literacy Workshop offered at Highland focused on providing

teachers not only with a set of conceptual tools to guide their instructional decisions but

also a repertoire of practical tools that demonstrated how to enact the conceptual tools in

the classroom. As such, the courses included modeling and enactments as a part of the

course structure and design. This contrasted greatly with the goal of the Abbott and

Bennett methods courses which had as a goal to provide a general overview of the major

principles and theories, relegating modeling and enactment to other settings which would

then separate theory from practice.

In working towards a more scaffolded and spiraling continuum, methods course

instructors and professional developers might consider how to organize their course

syllabi and agenda around goals that privilege the appropriation of conceptual and

practical tools for teaching by specific domains. Articulating more domain specific and

conceptual course goals would then require a reconsideration of the course activities and

assignments. The emphasis on enactment would require a shift from the textbook and

discussion oriented methods course to one replete with more in-course models and

enactments. Alternatively, programs or workshops that focused only on strategies would

need to focus on the conceptual bases for the strategies they promoted. Course

assignments might also move from primarily reflective papers to theory informed

reflections on enactments of privileged tools in the setting and/or in the classroom setting.

In addition to rethinking goals and pedagogies of the course, a spiraled and

scaffolded continuum would also require a close alignment and relationship between the

student teaching placement and the methods course. As was present in the relationship

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between Clark and Jennings, teacher candidates, cooperating teachers, and course

instructors had a common vocabulary and “toolkit” for teaching that not only allowed

cooperating teachers to highlight the relationship between their practices and those

privileged at Jennings but also provided teacher candidates with additional models and

opportunities for enactment by virtue of the overlap. Teacher educators and cooperating

might also consider how they can support each other in making more explicit the

rationale behind teacher choices and how pedagogical decisions and practical tools

connect to larger conceptual tools for teaching.

Some professional developers have tried to create stronger relationships between

the school and the programs through preparing specific teachers who have participated in

the trainings to be onsite school leaders for those trying to implement the tools from the

program. Although this is one structural feature that helps create ties between the two

settings, professional developers might consider how to better equip the teacher leaders in

making the conceptual tools a foundation and starting place for thinking and talking

about implementation of practical tools.

Implications for School Settings A scaffolded and spiraled continuum also has implications for school leadership

and in particular departmental leadership and norms. As part of the continuum, the

school is another setting for scaffolded experiences with domain-specific conceptual and

practical tools. The contrast between the norms of the Clark and Highland High School

English departments suggest ways that schools and departments can better support the

appropriation of privileged conceptual and practical tools for the teaching of a subject

area. Clark‟s emphasis on collegiality around a shared set of conceptual and practical

tools for language arts instruction suggests the importance of articulating and requiring

the enactment of domain specific tools as scaffolds for new teachers. The Clark

department head was intentional and explicit in the creation and distribution of tools,

highlighting through the embedded co-planning settings, department meetings, and

professional development opportunities a shared conception of practice. These

embedded departmental supports resulted in appropriation of the school‟s privileged tools

for English instruction by all three novice teachers. In contrast, the Highland department

emphasized autonomy at the cost of teacher development. Although the curriculum

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binder provided teachers with artifacts from teaching, the weak nature of the

representation of practice in terms of the seemingly haphazard choice of materials with

little explanation for new teachers, was miseducative for Abby who came with few

conceptual tools to help guide her choice materials or how to figure out enactment.

The findings suggest that departments begin to see themselves as an important

setting for teacher learning that provides opportunities that mirror the “scaffolded”

learning described above. As such, departments must first come to a consensus on the

privileged conceptual and practical tools that best meet the department‟s instructional

goals. The consensus should move beyond global ideas of teaching in a subject area to

more specified tools within domains of teaching. Consensus on target domains would

most likely be based on school/student needs. For example, the principal‟s 5-year plan at

Highland is an example of a school based focus on literacy that focused the work of the

department on the domain of reading. The importance of models and practical tools for

tool appropriation also suggests the need to consider the representations of practice that

are made available for teachers and/or the norms around the distribution of the existing

tools for instruction. The Clark norm of co-planning was an example of how a

department can embed supports for teacher learning. Departmental implications might

also include choosing professional development that is aligned to the conceptual tools for

teaching outlined by the department.

In the study described here, both Highland and Clark recruited teachers from

preservice teacher education programs and had money earmarked for professional

development. However, in many school settings, and particularly in underresourced

schools, teachers often enter the classroom with less content and pedagogical preparation

and similar to Abby will have a higher need for professional development. These schools

are also less likely to have funding for professional development. The findings suggest

that funding for professional development is perhaps most important in these school

settings.

Implications for Policy Makers and Program Designers Importance of overlapping embedded settings

The importance of reinforcement across settings and the role of enactment in tool

appropriation suggests the need to include overlapping settings in which teachers can

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observe and enact conceptual and practical tools for teaching. At the teacher preparation

program level, this suggests the importance of having the methods course offered at a

place in the course sequence when teachers would have more access to models and/or

participation with the tools. The program structure of Abbott and Bennett actually

precluded this option due to scheduling constraints which as reported in Chapter 6 led to

few if any attributions or appropriations to the methods course or the student teaching

placements.

For policy makers, the need for reinforcement and enactment highlight the

importance of including overlapping and embedded settings such as student teaching

placements or internships as part of teacher preparation. As alternative routes to teaching

often bypass the field experience, program designers and policy makers might consider

how to provide practicing teachers with the scaffolding and spiraling that can strengthen

teacher‟s depth of appropriation. This might be through more focused professional

development opportunities. As noted in the preceding section, such an initiative might

include allocating resources for professional development to schools where teachers often

enter with the least preparation.

Recent policy establishing new teacher induction programs are an example of

where decision makers are creating embedded settings that can support tool

appropriation. In 1998, California passed SB 2042, which in tandem with other

initiatives for teacher preparation, restructured the credentialing system to include two

years of induction support as a requirement for obtaining a California Clear Teaching

credential. Although well intentioned, the results of the program have not shown to be as

promising as once hoped. The possible pitfalls of the BTSA design and implementation

arise in this study.

At noted in Chapters 2 and 3, the BTSA induction setting was originally included

in the study design. As such, I attended and interviewed teachers and support staff

regarding the tools presented and/or appropriated from this setting. Most of the

participants attributed very few subject-specific learnings from attending the BTSA

workshops or meeting with their mentors. The data include many instances in which

teachers and mentors (particularly at Highland) cited the lead activity of the settings as

filling out paperwork. Teachers at Highland noted that John Houston‟s support and

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feedback was focused on more generic aspects of teaching such as classroom

management. (This was not surprising given that Houston was a history teacher.) In

addition, Houston was new to the position and was self-admittedly also focused on

compliance rather than content support. Being a Jennings alumn, Houston felt that the

Jennings teachers had already entered with strong preparation for teaching and had

already completed many of the tasks included in the induction curriculum. In this case,

Houston‟s knowledge of the Jennings setting was in tension with using the tools from the

BTSA program.

The lack of attention to content area support was less acute at Clark where the

current induction mentor was an English teacher within the Clark department. In this

setting, I observed Jade and Janice meeting with their induction mentor to complete a

series of tasks around formative assessment. The mentor‟s commitment to the induction

model and purposes presented a strong contrast to Houston‟s paperwork-focused motive.

The Clark mentor also subscribed to Susan‟s vision of teaching which provided a

common framework for her work with new teachers at the school site. As such the two

school sites presented evidence of the large variation possible in BTSA support and the

need for content-specific support. In addition to recommending policies that provide

financial support for embedded settings dedicated to teacher learning, I include this

example as a reminder that the setting can mediate these efforts and that attention should

be given to the goal and support provided in such settings and the possible tensions that

can arise (i.e. the context of learning within and across embedded settings).

Building a Cross-Domain Toolkit

The appropriation patterns in the study demonstrate that teachers are not easily

categorized as “good or bad,” “progressive or traditional.” The findings of the study

reveal that the tools appropriated and the depth to which they were appropriated were

related to the individual learning trajectories of each teacher. Namely, the depth of the

appropriations seemed to deepen with the number of times they had to observe and enact

domain specific tools as they moved across settings. According to Feiman Nemser

(2001) teachers need a basic repertoire in the first phase of preparation. However, the

study revealed that this is not often the case. Although Jennings graduates appropriated

tools for most of the domains of instruction, Abbott and Bennett graduates were

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dependent on the opportunities and tools available at the the school site, leaving teachers

like Abby “tool-less” in certain domains. Jennings teachers who had been in aligned

student teaching placements had a fairly sophisticated level of appropriation of

backwards design but had few tools for contextualized vocabulary instruction.

As new teachers enter schools with varying depths of appropriation, policy

makers and induction program designers might consider allowing for teachers to choose

the learning experiences that will best help them “fill the gap” (See Table 7.2) in their

toolkit. In thinking about how “fill the gap” policy makers and program designers might

consider how/when all the different domains can be addressed. For example, induction

programs and departmental professional development policies might be designed to allow

flexibility by teacher to better target areas not addressed or minimally addressed in the

methods course or alternative certification program coursework. An example of a policy

that addresses the entering variation is this individualized goal setting the induction

model at the New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). In this model,

new teachers create individualized learning plans with their mentors. Policies regarding

professional development selection might also benefit from a more individualized process

that allows teachers to target the areas of instructional need.

Implications for School Leadership The contrast between departmental features at Clark and Highland highlights the

role school and departmental leadership can play in the learning and development of new

teachers. Susan‟s strong instructional leadership in the creation and distribution of

common tools for teaching through co-planning and aligned professional development

provided beginning teachers with access to the tools and mandated enactments.

Observations of classroom practice revealed that all three teachers at Clark, including

Barbara whose student teaching had been in a high school using a prescribed textbook

series, had at least a surface level of appropriation of the tools favored by Susan and

Clark. This provided a strong contrast to Highland whose department head placed more

of an emphasis on teacher autonomy.

Although there has been discussion of the long-standing norms of isolation and

autonomy in teaching (See Lortie, 1975), work on professional community and

professional cultures by scholars such as Little and McLaughlin and Talbert has

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highlighted the role collegiality can play in teacher development and practice. For

example, Little (1982) found that students performed better in schools where teachers

worked as colleagues. More specific to new teachers, Kardos et al (2001) reported that

“integrated professional cultures” in which new teachers had sustained support through

working with colleagues from different experience levels were described as most

supportive of the learning of new teachers when compared to veteran or novice oriented

cultures. The article highlighted the role of the principal leadership in fostering

professional community. The findings of the study and particularly the contrast between

Abby and Barbara suggest that school leadership, specifically departmental leadership,

should provide strong instructional leadership in terms of curricular materials and

supports available to new teachers. This might include thinking beyond just scheduling

of time for meetings (as both schools had this) but more of an emphasis on the types of

collegiality found to be most supportive of new teacher learning.

I acknowledge that many of the recommendations outlined above will be hard to

implement given the goals and constraints of each institution involved in the learning to

teach process. The obstacles can range from concerns such as limited funding for

professional development to contrasting goals and privileged pedagogies given the

specific needs and priorities of each setting. Even so the continuum can help policy

makers and practitioners consider how they might move towards providing more

scaffolded and spiraled support for new teachers.

Areas of Future Research

Although the comparative case study presented here has suggested features both

within and across settings that support tool appropriation in new teachers, the study was

limited by the conceptual framework and design used to frame and conduct the study.

As noted in the conceptual framework in Chapter 2, activity theory and its emphasis on

collective activity settings makes it a useful lens for considering how school contexts

mediate teacher learning. However, this frame is one of many that can be used to

understand processes in learning to teach. A socialization frame or even work of scholars

such at Bandura who also looks at social learning theory, might have a different

explanation for the phenomenon described here. In particular, activity theory, though

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allowing me to consider patterns across groups, was less concerned with individual

cognition or the understanding of teaching highlighted in the teacher cognition and

decision-making literature. The descriptions provided here ignore teacher choices

between tools and gives little attention to the individual preferences and dispositions that

might have influenced their choices.

The study was also constrained by the design and tools used in the study.

Although interviews and course materials helped me better understand settings in which I

could not observe such as prior teacher education experiences, the ideal design would

have been a longitudinal study of the case study teachers from preparation through

induction. Additionally, the three-level coding scheme was too broad to capture the

levels of appropriation demonstrated by the teachers. Future research would more clearly

identify a smaller and more well-defined set of practices or tools with more specific

definitions of levels of appropriation. Having looked more closely with purposively

developed instrumentation for teacher learning settings would have allowed further

examination of the tools for teacher learning that supported appropriation.

The findings of this study suggest the need for additional research on the features

identified as supportive of tool appropriation. The three “within setting” learning features

require more observations and analysis, particularly in inservice settings. Returning with

a specified protocol to capture how departments, professional developers, and mentors

support tool appropriation will help provide practitioners with a clearer picture of how to

provide a foundation of conceptual tools, create and enact “model models, and plan

required enactments appropriate to the setting. As one of the distinctive features of the

study was that it traversed activity settings in which teachers learned to teach, in the

sections that follow, I outline future research that looks beyond a single setting.

Testing/Refining the Spiraling Continuum

As noted above one of the larger implications of the study for both theory and

practice is to view teacher preparation and development as a continuum that spans over

multiple settings. As such, policy makers, program designers, and practitioners should

work together to consider how to help strengthen teacher practice across the various

settings. We have commonly thought of theory as the purview of methods course which

should then scaffold teacher learning of tools from student teaching and school settings.

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This study suggests the importance of interweaving and connecting theory or conceptual

tools to more practical tools for instruction. A first area of research might be to study the

continuum itself. The case of Abby, a teacher with limited content knowledge and prior

experiences in teacher, raises an important question. Would Abby have appropriated the

tools from the Literacy Workshop as Andrea herself noted that was her wealth of

teaching experiences that allowed to pick up tools from settings as needed.

Another future area of research might be to look at which domains might be best

addressed when in the continuum or whether some more complex tools need multiple

cycles of observations and enactments before teachers can internalize them or

demonstrate a deep level of appropriation. More longitudinal studies spanning

preparation to practice on specific tools might help refine the continuum.

A related question would be would be to consider how the developmental needs

of teachers might influence the kind of scaffolding emphasized in each setting. For

example, is it the case that the conceptual foundation of scaffolding must occur in the

earlier phases of the continuum as we have traditionally done so teachers have a

conceptual frame on which to “hang” tools that they later observe? If so, how would we

then add on the layer of scaffolding and spiraling of related practical tools in an already

full methods course curriculum?

As this was a small study involving a small number of programs and school

settings, future research might look across a larger range of settings to consider what

other supports for tool appropriation might be possible or to further specify what the

supports such as “the importance of a conceptual foundation” look like, particularly in

school settings.

Tensions within the Continuum

The study presented here looked closely at the appropriation of tools presented in

the methods course, student teaching placement, and professional development sites.

Although the original study design incorporated looking at level of congruence and

tensions as factors influencing appropriation, the only direct tension observed was around

the privileging of isolated or contextualized vocabulary instruction. Highland‟s emphasis

on teacher autonomy provided Jennings teachers with the professional freedom to

override the tools used at the school site and continue to the use of tools privileged in

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their methods course. As such, it is hard to know if the appropriations demonstrated by

Jennings graduates would have occurred in more hostile territory. In this study, Highland

was not yet under Program Improvement and there were already curricular effects on the

English teachers due to the accountability context. The stronger emphasis on reading

rather than writing due to low reading scores was an indication of this. Future research

might consider how teachers fare in schools with similar and contrasting conceptions of

domain specific practices to see if the same patterns of appropriation hold. Studies

focused on understanding the role of tension and congruence might compare the

preparation and practices of teachers in school settings where there are more mandates or

common tools in school settings that are in tension with the tools supported in teacher

education. For example, the study of graduates from “conceptually strong” programs in

schools under constraints such as those enacted by program improvement would help

better explore whether it is the features of the learning setting or the lack of tension

between tools that best explains the tools that move across settings.

Bidirectionality and Transformation

One of the tenets of activity theory that distinguish it from socialization models is

that there is a bidirectionality between setting and subject. As such, the participants in a

setting can transform the setting itself. In her dissertation work, Jaquith (2009) explored

the role of “resource carriers” that spanned external and internal learning communities.

There was evidence in the data that the Jennings teachers were acting as “resource

carriers”for the Highland English Department as they were carrying practical and

conceptual from Jennings into the school setting. The appropriation of tools of Jennings

tools by Andrea suggests that the Jennings teachers were in fact changing the tools and

norms of collegiality of the Highland department.

The study presented here does not address how or if the carrying of tools from

other settings such as the Jennings methods course transformed Clark or Highland High

School. For instance, the Antigone unit implemented by Abby was passed on to her by

her BTSA mentor, a Jennings alumn. The mentor had these materials from a Jennings

student teacher he had worked with the year prior. An additional example was the use of

essential questions by Andrea who planned with Jennings graduates. The fact that

essential questions were not part of the tools for planning in her teacher preparation

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setting suggests that Jennings graduates were not only appropriating tools from their

program but also carrying tools into the school setting. Joanna acting as a resource

carrier of Jennings materials into her student teaching placement at Justice High School

provides additional evidence of bidirectionality. Such patterns suggest the need to look at

the role of new teachers as resource carriers to their school settings. Future studies might

look more in depth at the tools teachers bring into the settings and how and if the tools

are appropriated within the setting. Research might also explore what features in schools

and preparation programs support this kind of transformation.

As noted in the description of Highland in Chapter 4, Highland was increasingly

privileging tools used by Jennings graduates. A year after the study, Jennings hosted a

professional development workshop for local teachers. Many of the participants were

English and History teachers from Highland High School. These shifts in practices and

the increased connection to Jennings through the hiring of new graduates also suggests

the need for research on the process of transformation itself. Highland‟s history will be

an interesting one to watch to see if this bidirectionality will lead to a transformation of

features of the activity setting of Highland department beginning with the tools used at

the school.

Engeström‟s (2001) work on expansive learning is also related to the idea of

transformation. He posits the idea of “internal contradictions as [the] driving force of

change and development” (p.135). This leads one to wonder if the tensions experienced

by Jennings graduates and the tools they bring into the school settings will lead to a

transformation of the setting itself.

Conclusion The findings of this study challenge former assertions that teacher education does

not matter and challenge the growing support for teacher education to be relegated to the

school context. The comparative case study presented here, though limited in its

generalizability, demonstrates that tool appropriation is deepest when tools are reinforced

across settings in which teachers learn to teach. In addition, the study highlights the need

to look closely at learning to teach by focusing on specific domains of teaching across

settings. The learning features within and across settings identified here are still

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exploratory. Future research should focus on refining and describing the settings that

best support the learning and development of new teachers.

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APPENDIX A PROTOCOLS FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS17

Apprenticeship of Observation

Knowledge/Conceptions of English and Teaching English (From Grossman, 1990)

1. Can you tell me about your background in English?

Tell me about your courses.

Undergraduate and graduate

Favorite and least favorite

What areas did you concentrate on? Specialization?

What do you feel are your strengths in English?

What areas do you feel relatively weak in?

What areas were easy for you? Difficult?

Tell me about some of the most important English papers you wrote as an

undergraduate.

2. What do you think it means for someone to know English? If someone is a self-

proclaimed expert in English, what would you expect them to know?

3. Could you talk to me about the major areas that make up English as a field or

discipline? Tell me how the areas are related to each other. (Could you draw a map

of the different areas and their relationships?)

4. Now I‟d like to talk to you as an English teacher. What made you decide to become

an English teacher? [probe for both reasons for teaching and reasons for teaching

English]

5. Tell me about what you see as the reasons for studying English in high school. What

are your goals for your students? What areas would you want to cover in your

classes? [probe for conceptions if teaching both literature and writing]

Teacher Education Interview Guided by Courses Taken

(From Grossman, 1990)

1. I have written the names of the courses you said you took in college and the ones

you took in graduate school. Could you first sort the cards according to how they

influenced how you think about English? How did they influence your

understanding of English as a discipline?

2. Now could you sort the cards according to how they influenced your ideas about

how to teach English? How did they influence your ideas about teaching

English? [probe for both positive and negative influences]

3. Tell me about any other experiences you have had that that have affected how you

think about teaching English.

4. Tell me about the best and worst teacher you ever had.

5. Here are the titles of courses you took during your year of teacher preparation.

Could you sort them into categories that are meaningful to you? How have you

grouped them? Tell me about each pile. Are there other ways you might group

them? Tell me about the different ways.

17 Protocols for Pre and Post Observation Interviews and Final Card Sort were based on questions created

for the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy and Center on English Learning and Achievement

(CELA) studies that are referenced in the dissertation.

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6. Let‟s go through the titles one by one and talk about what you got out of each one.

[probe for both coursework and student teaching]

Pre-Observation and Post-Observation Interviews

Pre-Observation

1. What have you been doing in the class for the past week or so?

2. Describe what I will be observing?

3. How have you organized this lesson?

4. Tell me why you‟re doing this lesson.

a. What kinds of things did you take into consideration?

i. Why this content?

ii. Why this instructional approach?

b. Where did you get the idea for this lesson? This approach? (District, state,

school guidelines or materials, teacher education?)

5. How do you think it‟s going to go?

Post-Observation

1. What are your thoughts about the lesson?

a. What surprised you?

b. What was the most challenging for you?

c. How typical was the lesson? How does it compare to most other lessons?

2. Follow-up questions about specific aspects of the lesson…

3. At any point, did you change what you thought you‟d do? Why?

4. What do you think the kids got out of the lesson? How do you know? What

makes you think so?

a. What did you hope kids would get?

b. Which things (parts, ideas) did the kids get easily?

c. Which things (parts, ideas) were difficult for them?

d. Who do you think the lesson worked best for?

e. Who do you think the lesson did not work as well for?

5. What will you do tomorrow?

6. As you think ahead to next year, if you were teaching this lesson/unit again,

would you make any changes?

Tell me about your thinking behind that.

Final Card Sort

1. I have written on cards the following types of professional development:

Learning from your own practice

Colleagues

Individual reading or study

Professional publications

Conferences

School based inservice

University courses

Workshops of classes outside of the district

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District required inservice days/programs

District offered inservice days/programs

Other professional development

Teachers are asked to place the cards in a continuum based on how useful the

opportunities are. Then, teachers are asked to explain each type more fully.

2. What curriculum materials and resources have been most useful for you and why?

How have you used them? How often? Which have been most useful, and why?

Of these, what has been provided by the school or district? What have you found

yourselves? What, if anything, have you learned from these curriculum materials or

resources?

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APPENDIX B PROTOCOLS FOR OTHER PARTICIPANTS18

Protocol for Cooperating Teachers

1. Tell me a little bit about yourself?

a. What did you teach?

b. How long?

c. How did you become a cooperating teacher?

d. Did you work with a cooperating teacher?

e. What was that experience like?

f. Can you give me an overview of your role as a cooperating teacher?

Formal requirements? (observations, opportunities for practice, graduated

responsibility)

2. How do you think beginning teachers learn to teach?

3. From your perspective, what do you think are the biggest concerns/needs of

student teachers?

4. Tell me about how you worked with ____________ when she was a student

teacher?

a. What did you see as her strengths?

b. What things did you try to work on with ______________?

c. How did you decide on these areas?

d. What did you think was most important for her to work on?

e. Were there any particular ideas or strategies that you passed along?

f. Did _________ use any strategies/instructional approaches that were new

to you?

5. From your perspective what makes good language arts teaching?

(Prompt for reading, writing, literature, grammar/vocab)

6. What do you think a teacher needs to know in order to teach language arts?

7. What do you think are the challenges for beginning teachers in teaching language

arts?

Interview for Methods Course Instructors

1. Tell me a little about yourself and how you came to teach the course.

a. What did you teach?

b. How long?

c. How did you come to teach methods? How long have you taught the

course?

d. Can you tell me more about the program?

2. Is there anything that the program requires you to do?

3. What factors do you take into consideration when planning the course?

What is going on at the national or professional level that you pay attention to?

(state level or program level?)

4. How do you think teachers learn to teach?

18 Protocols listed here were based on questions created for the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy

and Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA) studies that are referenced in the dissertation.

171

5. What do you think a teacher needs to know in order to teach English/Language

Arts?

6. From your perspective, what does good Language Arts teaching look like?

(Prompt for teaching of reading and literature and writing)

Protocol for Department Heads

1. Tell me about yourself.

a. What do you do?

b. How long have you been here?

c. Tell me about how you came to teach at your school.

2. What are the hiring policies of your school?

Who participated in the decision to hire ____________?

3. What happened when your first year teachers arrived in the fall?

Were there any orientation activities for all teachers/first year teachers?

Probe: District/School level

4. Do you have any specific activities or practices/policies that are aimed at first

year teachers?

5. Is there anything that the district requires you to do? (e.g. evaluation)

6. How do you think beginning teachers learn to teach well?

7. What do you think are the biggest needs/concerns of first year teachers?

8. Was there any specific focus or particular school-wide activity at your

school/district this past year?

9. From your perspective what does good language arts teaching look like? (prompt

for domains like reading and writing)

10. Are there specific policies or practices at your school/department, either formal or

informal, that are focused on language arts?

a. Are there any instructional policies/practices? (Probe for grouping,

tracking, required instructional approaches)

b. What about curriculum? (Probe for materials, programs, required

content/skills?)

c. Assessment?

11. How are teacher assignments/schedules assigned?

12. What is going on at the district level that influences what you do or what you pay

attention to? (Probe: How about at the state level?)

Protocol for Mentor Teachers

1. Tell me a little about yourself.

a. What did you teach?

b. How long?

c. How did you come to be a mentor?

2. Can you give me an overview of the mentoring program in your district/school?

a. How does it work?

b. What are the formal requirements of the program?

c. What preparation are mentors given?

d. Who‟s involved in the program?

e. How many people?

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f. How many people per mentor?

g. What do you get from being a mentor?

3. How do you think beginning teachers learn to teach well?

From your perspective, what do you think are the biggest needs/concerns of

beginning teachers?

4. Tell me about how you worked with ___________ this year.

a. What do you see as _________‟s strengths?

b. What things do you try to work on?

c. How did you decide those?

d. What do you think was most important for them to work on?

e. Were there any particular ideas of strategies that you passed along?

f. Did ____________ use any strategies/instructional approaches that were

new to you?

5. From your perspective, what makes good language arts teaching? (prompt for

domains)

6. What do you think a teacher needs to know in order to teach language arts?

7. What do you think are the challenges of beginning teachers in teaching

language arts?

8. What is going on at the district level or central office the influences what you do

and what you pay attention to? How about at the state level?

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