thesisthoughts

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

Smiles and Short discuss the importance of teacher voice in professional literature. The authors present the assumptions made by Crowe (1992):

“Because teachers are important partners in the creation of knowledge about education, their writing for publication benefits the field by improving teaching and the profession, developing teachers’ credibility, and broadening understandings of the teaching profession” (p. 134).

As I have learned from my recent reading, this belief that teacher knowledge is valuable in educational research isn’t always agreed on. In this article it is an assumption standing firmly at the base. The authors cite Hubbard and Power (1999) in their call for more teachers to overcome the fear of writing and write for journals and educational books.  They also mention the work of Monroe (1992) who claimed that teachers can feel like “insiders” and can gain professional satisfaction through writing and publication.

“Teachers who write for publication have the opportunity to reflect deeply on their practice by exploring the beliefs, values, and images that guide their work” (p. 134).

The authors admit that teacher research does not have to be published in order for it to be worthwhile and Hubbard and Power (1999) acknowledge that many teachers are not interested in preparing and presenting their work for publication.

The authors also acknowledge that the process of writing for publication is definitely frightening for teachers new to this practice. 

The main message of this article is that “effective support can be offered, but that this work involves learning a particular genre of writing and making a personal time commitment for both editors and authors” (p.134).

In this project, the authors mentored teachers in the writing-for-publication process and helped them through the challenging stages.

Difficulties faced by teachers trying to publish their work:

• the peer-review process is unfamiliar
• difficulty in responding to reviewer comments
• teachers do not know which journals are relevant and available
• teachers are usually not members of supportive writing communities
• Often pieces are written in inappropriate formats, many in the form of assignments
• “Too much description and not enough reflection on the data” (p. 135)

 Teachers need help in:

“using a teacher voice, writing from a point of tension, integrating theory within the manuscript, reflecting on research findings, having a central focus, using supportive classroom examples, avoiding teacher heroism, and considering the broader implications of the research” (p. 136).

Sounds like me! Having a list of the “hard parts” is a help though.

“The most important lesson learned from this project was the power of establishing personal relationships with teacher writers as a way of supporting them in working toward publication. Tracy’s role as a writing buddy and her personal contacts seem to be what participants found most useful” (p. 140).  

This mirrors the effective practice of co-writing and mentoring (formal and informal) that I have been reading about lately. Here the emphasis is on writing for publication but I have come to believe that written conversations for personal learning and support can be equally significant.  

“We recognize the difficulty of returning to a context of full-time teaching where there is no time, expectation, incentive, or support for writing, and being able to resist those pressures to work on a draft to submit, especially when the chances of that draft being rejected remain so high for most peer-reviewed journals” (p.141).

It seems that this sentence sums up one of the main challenges for PD frameworks – to organise time, incentive and support for teacher writing.

Smiles, T. L., & Short, K. G. (2006). Transforming teacher voice through writing for publication. Teacher Education Quarterly, 33(3), 133-144. Retrieved from http://find.galegroup.com