thesisthoughts

 Peter Roop, an award winning teacher tells of his experience in teaching writing as a writer. He believes that his own personal knowledge of the writing process enables him to offer his students a deeper understanding of writing than teachers who do not write.

A central feature of Roop’s writing program is to share his writing with his classes. The aim of this is firstly to demonstrate that writing is enjoyable but requires great effort. Roop regularly shows his drafts to his students so that they will understand the different stages of composition and will accept the fact that they too will have to work hard on revision in order to succeed. According to the author, children are often surprised to see that teachers and writers also make spelling and grammatical mistakes and that they often write and rewrite several times.

Roop emphasises the use of words like author and proofread in the classroom. He believes “Using the language of writers helps to demystify writing”  (p. 283).

Roop concludes: “As more teachers write, personally and professionally, as more students become involved in writing, our students will become better writers” (p. 284).

Roop, P. (1990). The magic of writing: How a writer teaches writing. Childhood Education, 66(5), 281-284. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com 

  According to the author:

• When teachers write with their students and expose them to the teacher’s own writing processes, students are more positive about literacy and teachers feel more positive about teaching writing.
• “Teachers who take their own writing seriously understand that students’ personal writing needs must be honored in the classroom, and they are vigilant in searching out ways to promote the development of a strong writing voice in each student” (p. 91).

Beeghly Bencich, C. (1996). Review: Writing and teaching. The English Journal,85(3), 91-93. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org

 I have learned a great deal from this book, I think the material is well organized, the case studies and vignettes are extremely effective. Here I am relating only to the points relevant to my thesis.

“Ample research from the last decade shows that staff development is both a crucial element in school reform and a catalyst for change in building a school culture that supports a high level of adult and student learning” (p. 57). Citing Daniels, Bizar, and Zemelman, 2001.

“…teachers’ groups, professional communities variously defined, offer the most effective unit of intervention and powerful opportunity for reform…The path to change in the classroom core lies within and through teachers’ professional communities; learning communities which generate knowledge, craft new norms of practice, and sustain participants in their efforts to reflect, examine, experiment, and change” (p. 57). Quoting McLaughlin and Talbert, 1993.

“Schools need to be considered as places for teachers to lead scholarly lives/ I can’t imagine providing quality education for students if schools don’t take the teaching of teachers seriously…” (Harwayne, 2001, as cited in NWP & Nagin, 2006, p. 59).

“We cannot build a nation of educated people who can communicate effectively without teachers and administrators who value, understand and practice writing themselves” (p. 60).

Lieberman and Wood (2002) discuss two central elements of the NWP structure of professional development: “…a distinctive set of social practices that motivate teachers, make learning accessible, and build an ongoing professional community; and networks that organize and sustain relationships among these communities and produce new and revitalizing forms of support, commitment, and leadership” (p. 65)

In NWP PD programs writing teachers are required to write. Teachers are expected to do what they ask their students to do.

In a case study (p. 66), Joe Check asked teachers in a PD to write a short memory based memoir. He added that the teachers were invited to write in whatever language they felt most comfortable using. Some of the bilingual teachers found this significant and were very grateful for the experience of writing on professional topics in their mother tongue.

National Writing Project, & Nagin, C. (2006). Because writing matters: Improving student writing in our schools (2^nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

In this personal narrative, the author presents her own difficulty in learning to write and in writing for publication. She connects these experiences to her teaching of writing.

“From my own writing journey, I have learned some lessons about teaching writing…The best advice comes from experience. I have since learned that taking writing to the nth degree can produce a feeling of accomplishment and appreciation for others for a job well done. But it also requires wrestling with doubt, facing truths perhaps long hidden, and feeling rejected, a lot. Writers need to face fears.

In the classrooms where I teach, I’ve seen lots of kids paralyzed by fear. Most of them know, perhaps better than their teachers who have never written, just how hard the act of writing can be” (p. 355).

Laverick Harrington, S. (1997/1998). One teacher’s writing journey: Hey, I’ve been there. The Reading Teacher, 51(4), 354-355. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com  

Found this map on the “leadingfromtheheart” blog:

http://leadingfromtheheart.org/2008/03/31/constructivism-mind-map/

The content of this mind map is taken directly from Marcy Driscoll’s map, found on p. 384 of Psychology of learning for Instruction (2005).

 Jumping to the one of the questions in the diagram of the lit review…

When trying to answer what the political implications are in this topic I find myself facing questions relating to teacher professionalism.

Who decides what teachers need in their professional development?

Why are teachers often left out in discussions about the state of education and it’s future?  

Do teachers really have a say? Are they encouraged?

How is teacher knowledge valued and respected – in the academic community? among teachers themselves? in the wider community? This is about “seeing teachers as valuable producers of knowledge about teaching and learning” (Bulfin & Mathews, 2003, p. 48), ssing them as “legitimate knowledge producers”(Bulfin & Mathews, 2003, p. 49).  

Parr (2003) presents the writing of Apple (1995) which discusses the forces in action “deskilling” teachers through prescriptive PD programs.  Parr not only agrees with Apple, he concedes that these worrying changes are becoming more and more relevant.

Parr wrote:

“On a professional level, Lieberman and Miller (2001) see multiple voices seeking to deprofessionalize the profession by devaluing ‘teacher experience, discretion, and knowledge’” (p. 68). This quote appears on page viii in the introduction of the book.

The work of Stokes (2001) is also cited. Stokes claims that teachers are very seldomly encouraged to reflect on their work.

Parr concludes that there are factors preventing teacher professional learning in the field and that in addition, there are teachers who are unaware of the value of individual professional inquiry.

Parr, G. (2003). Teacher professional learning and transgression? Inquiry on the boundary. English in Australia, 138, 63-79. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au

Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (2001) Introduction. In A. Lieberman, & L. Miller (Eds), Teachers caught in the action: Professional development that matters (pp. vii-x). New York: Teachers College Press.

Some of the points raised in this written professional conversation seem relevant to the things I have been reading, thinking, writing and learning about.

Bellis wrote:

“I have spent many, many hours with a couple of my colleagues reading and discussing student work, sharing ways to approach various texts, sharing ways to approach various texts, talking about our practices-what seemed to be working well, what wasn’t, what we think subject English is and should be…the list goes on. Even though I was the ‘newbie’, it wasn’t as if ‘the knowledge’ (whatever that means) was flowing in one direction-in the act of discussion we are required to question and reconsider what we think we know because we are attempting to articulate our understandings. It is impossible to equate the learning that transpires in  these sorts of professional relationships to one individual teacher”  (p. 41).

Bellis was lucky enough to not only find teachers who regularly engaged in professional dialogue, but for them to include her as an equal in those conversations. Unlike Bulfin and Mathews, Bellis felt from the beginning that she is an equal in the production of knowledge through dialogue with her peers.

The article emphasises the tension between the notion of teacher collaboration in learning and the present emphasis being placed on individual teacher performance. Parr discusses the need to concentrate on the quality of teaching rather than on the ability of individual teachers. I agree with his conclusion that it is impossible to assign credit to a single teacher working in an educational framework. Teachers interact with each other, and with students in so many different ways and it is impossible to determine what exactly contributes to any particular breakthrough.

 Bellis, N., & Parr, G. (2005). Responding to the forum: a professional conversation. Idiom, 41(2), 39-45. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au

Bulfin and Mathews wrote this article as early career teachers, it deals with the production of professional learning and teacher identity.

The authors point out that “it is easy to forget that teachers are learners and should in fact understand “learning” better than most…Perhaps while knowing a lot about “learning”and what can help it along, we forget to hold ourselves up to the mirror and ask the same questions” (p. 48).

The authors ask the important question:

“How might we, as beginning teachers, create a physical and metaphorical “discursive space” in a meaningful way when our work and teaching conditions often appear pre-determined, inflexible and isolating?” (p. 49).

In my opinion, this question is just as relevant and crucial for experienced teachers.

I applaud Bulfin and Mathews and  admire the way they took responsibility for their own professional learning.

“we have undertaken a collaborative and dialogic approach to our own professional learning. We have…actively listened, talked, read, written and theorised our experiences, we have come to know and see them differently and more powerfully” (p. 49).

Bulfin and Mathews felt that as early career teachers it was problematic to see themselves as legitimate creators of professional educational knowledge. I believe that many experienced teachers (if not the majority), feel the same way.

The authors believe that a major barrier is that “teacher learning is generally conceptualised as an individual and psychological process only” and they present the recent literature which disagrees and encourages teacher learning to be dialogic in nature.

“There is plenty of talk that goes on inside schools, but there are also many barriers that do not encourage the kind of sustained intellectual conversations we believe are important for the professional development of teachers” (p. 51).

In her personal journal, Mathews wrote:

“It seems people already know and they want to tell me the answer rather than talk about the possibilities” (p. 52). This extremely important statement, which may not be immediately relevant to my thesis but is central to my work with teachers (beginning and experienced). I want to try to explore this feeling (which I know reflects the reality) with my colleagues in a written conversation…you have to start somewhere. Here is an example where beginning teachers can actually stimulate the professional learning of experienced educators.

What did the authors achieve in their collaborative dialogic learning?

• “we stretched the boundaries of our understanding, challenging each other to look further than we could see alone” (p. 52).
• “we came to better understand the problems we encountered” (p. 53).

 Bulfin, S., & Mathews, K. (2003). Reframing beginning teachers as knowledge producers: Learning to teach and transgress. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 2(3), 47-58. Retrieved from http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/files/2003v2n3art4.pdf

In this article which is directed at librarians, the author argues that writing for publication in professional journals is an effective form of PD.

An important claim presented here is that although learning to reflect on one’s practice is not simple, it can be learned.

“…writing can become a creative dialogue with oneself, drawing out the better professional within – and by doing so one can become a true ‘reflective practitioner’ ” (p. 5).

The author continues to describe writing as a means of creating a dialogue with peers and “connecting and interacting with the profession at large” (p. 6).

Joint admits that in writing for publication you are presenting your practice for the inspection by others and that this in itself stimulates the writer to produce higher quality work.

Joint, N. (2006). Enhancing professional development by writing for publication in library and information science. Library Review, 55(1), 5-7. Retrieved from www.emeraldinsight.com

This useful article discusses what we have learned about writing in the last 20 or so years. Although there is nothing really new here, the article is well organised and I will definitely use it in my work with teachers.

Points relevant to my thesis are:

1. Rief emphasises the importance of teachers doing research  the classroom. She stresses the worth of what teachers have to say.
2. “…not every teacher and student is as engaged in writing as they could be, or should  be. University courses and staff development for teachers must offer more opportunities for teachers to write if the goal is to produce the best teachers of writing” (p. 38).
3. Teachers “need to write – with passion, with conviction, with honesty, with voice – to show what does and does not work with our students. Writing gives voice to the educators who know kids best, because we work with them every day. Our own writing lets us understand what we are asking our students to do. Writing puts energy back into our teaching lives because we have real reasons to write for a real audience” (p. 38).

 Rief, L. (2006). What’s right with writing. Voices from the Middle, 13(4), 32-39. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com