thesisthoughts

I have been back at school for four months now and my writing is definitely suffering from lack of time. I always have the feeling that I am doing what is urgent instead of what is important.

Last week I had my fourth meeting of my course at N. There are still few participants but I think those who are with me are happy with their learning and their feedback is definitely positive.

Over the school holiday week, most of the participants of my two courses wrote their first narratives. Many expressed difficulty with the task and some called me on the phone and asked for some encouragement. One waited for the next meeting to discuss ideas with me face to face. I was happy with the results for a first try.  Last year it took a lot longer for the first participant to post her narrative and a large percentage didn’t post at all.

In the meeting at N. I was able to bring many of the narratives as examples in my recent lecture on the writing process. This was important as again I was connecting the two levels of the course – the level of the teachers and their professional writing and the classroom level.

The combination of face to face meetings and written conversations on the course web site is perfect. The teachers are expected to write throughout the course and as they write they reflect on their writing pedagogy and on what their pupils experience in the classroom.

I was fairly disappointed in the amount of discussion between the participants so I will allow time for that in the meeting. I was also surprised that few of the participants related to the reflection questions. We will discuss them in the next face to face meeting and then I will post a similar question to allow discussion in writing.

I was happy to read that several participants have increased the time they allow for writing in their classroom. Some have even chosen to give writing with their students “another go” after not daring to deal with it in recent years.

My experience in the past three weeks has proven, yet again, that writing is extremely hard work. To read narratives from 20 or so teachers and plan and write a response to each is tiring and draining. Despite being overloaded I am very happy that I gave the task so early on in the course. The narratives really do give me a good peek into the world of each of the teachers and show me where she is in terms of teaching writing. Now I have to connect each narrative with the face of the teacher who wrote it.

It is very satisfying to hear that questions raised in the course have already triggered changes in some of the classrooms and that many of the ideas I have presented are being experimented with in the field.  We have a long way to go yet but I am enjoying my interaction with both groups. 

After reading the article I’m not sure I know where to start, there’s just so much relevant material contained in these few pages. It worries me that I didn’t come across this article in my searches, there are probably many more…

Carter deals with the political contexts of story telling and issues of gender, power, ownership and voice in particular.

She points out that narratives “ have an implicit or explicit observer or witness who tells or recounts the events…” (p. 6).

 In my narratives,  I am telling my story, from my point of view. There is no doubt that other teachers would tell the same stories differently with different highlights and details.

“In constructing stories…authors attempt to convey their intentions by selecting incidents and details, arranging time and sequence, and employing a variety of codes and conventions that exist in a culture” (p. 6).

“…readers, in turn, seek coherence and causal connections among these incidents and conventions as they construct for themselves, often retrospectively, the meaning or theme of the story” (p. 6).

In 1986, Martin wrote:

“story represents a way of knowing and thinking that is particularly suited to explicating the issues with which we deal” (p. 6).

Carter explains that a story is “characterized by an intrinsic multiplicity of meanings” (p. 6).

The narratives I have written in the past few months are “coloured” by the intensive learning I have been doing.  As I learn new theories or gain new insights, I remember additional incidents and enrich my stories.

In teaching, knowledge is created through practice. “Teachers’ knowledge is, in other words, event structured (Carter & Doyle, 1987) and stories, therefore, would seem to provide special access to that knowledge” Carter (p. 7).

“teachers’ knowledge in its own terms is ordered by story and can best be understood in this way”(Elbaz, 1991, as cited by Carter, 1993, p. 7).

Olson contended that when teaching incidents are entered into narrative structure, they are made more understandable, lasting and presentable to others (1990, as cited in Carter, 1993).

Carter discusses using narrative to understand and develop thought. She quots Robinson and Hawpe (1986):

“Narrative thinking resembles other acts of comprehension and problem solving currently studied by cognitive psychologists” (p. 112, as cited in Carter, 1993, p. 7).

Carter uses the term “well remembered events” when describing significant teaching incidents.

Teachers store significant events as stories and through those narratives it is possible to recognize teacher knowledge and how it changes with additional experience. (Carter, 1993).

Most of the interest in teacher stories was in teachers telling their narratives to researchers or for research purposes. Carter (1993) cited Gudmundsdottir (1991) who encourages studying the stories told by teachers in everyday circumstances.

• Blogging would probably be a good example of this.

The focus on teacher narratives is a focus on voices previously unheard – teachers, rather than academics or administrators, women, rather than men, speaking out on the issues which really concern them. (Carter, 1993).

• Maybe again here, “somebody”  should be encouraging teachers to write these texts and in turn transform some of them to public texts (Parr, 2007).

Smith (19881, as cited in Carter, 1993) proposes that every story is created by a particular person in a distinctive context for a unique reason.

• It follows that stories are different if they  are produced for reseacrh or other purposes. \

Carter asks

• Do we tell our stories to support our theories or our research?
• Do we tell our stories in ways that are suitable in a particular context?

Carter raises the problem of making generalizations from individual teacher stories. What we can do, she explains, is to search for patterns emerging from teacher stories and try to reach professional understandings from them.

Although teacher stories are always created in a particular context, highlighting the practice of a particular educator, they always have the capacity to spark new reflection and the creation of new stories.

Carter – If we believe in story analysis as a means of creating a knowledge base for educators, significant efforts must be made to present ourselves as valid researchers in order to be accepted by academia and policy makers.

Carter, K. (1993). The place of story in the study of teaching and teacher education.  Educational Researcher, 22(1), 5-12. Retrieved from http://links.jstor.org/

While writing this thesis I was running a professional development program for teachers of grades two to six. The name of the twenty eight hour course was “Improving Literacy in a Heterogeneous Class”. The teachers voluntarily signed up.  I began the course by asking the fourteen teachers participating to fill in a questionnaire about themselves, their teaching experience and their expectations of the course. I included a list of possible topics and asked them to mark those most relevant and important to them. I was not surprised to find that the most pressing topic for all of the participants was the teaching of writing and supporting struggling writers.  I opened the third meeting by asking the teachers to write for ten minutes in silence, the topic being an experience they have had teaching writing. I told them that we would be discussing those pieces after the writing period was over.  One teacher immediately left the room, a toilet or coffee break I assumed. Another took out her cell phone and began clicking furiously. Others doodled quietly in their notebooks, began listing points or began to fill lines with Hebrew script.  I sat and watched them, uncomfortable with the squirming that was going on in several of the seats. Each minute that went past was like five, my watch didn’t seem to move. I forced myself to wait ten minutes, resisting my urge to cut the time down to seven or eight minutes.  Silence was kept in the room for most of the time, although occasionally there were embarrassed giggles or a whisper.  When the time was up, some of the teachers were still busily writing their narratives and were sorry to stop. Others looked relieved and were waiting to get on with the seminar.  In the discussion that followed I was interested in hearing what had happened to the participants in those ten minutes, what they had felt and what they had experienced and done in that time.  Many of the teachers commented that they are unused to writing on demand and that they felt uncomfortable. Some confessed that they are not used to writing at all. Several remarked that the time limit and the expectation of sharing their writing pressured them. At least two of the teachers didn’t write at all in the ten minute period. Only two or three confided that they enjoyed the writing experience.  We looked in detail at what had been done in that time and saw how the writing process is different for different people. Afterwards we discussed the implications for these differences in our classrooms. One of the teachers who didn’t write anything, an experienced grade six teacher, explained to the group that she isn’t a writer. “People are either born writers or they aren’t, I’m not” she said. The group discussed this statement. Is it true? If it is, what does it mean for the teaching of writing? I added that this is one of the major misconceptions held by struggling writers in our classes.  I asked the teachers if anyone was willing to share their text with us. Two of the first volunteers started to tell their story without looking at the page. I stopped them and reassured them that it is clear to everyone that this is the roughest of rough draft but that we want to hear what is on the paper.  Two of the pieces we heard were well structured, interesting stories. We were amazed by the writers’ style and clarity. At the end of the session I explained that our next meeting would not be face to face, that we would be meeting on the virtual campus. Each teacher was required to do three things, firstly to revise her story about the teaching of writing (or write another story) and to post it on the assigned private discussion board. The second task was to reflect on the teaching story and on the experience of writing one, I supplied possible directions for this. The third task was to read stories from other group members and respond.  It took ages and lots of encouragement for the first teacher to post a story. She wrote about a poetry anthology she had successfully produced at her school. The poems were all connected to Israel’s sixtieth birthday. This teacher told how she had created a poetry unit suitable for each different age group, chosen appropriate poetry to teach, and encouraged the children to write. Every child in the school had writing published in the festive booklet. She told her story modestly but proudly and expressed her personal excitement and satisfaction with the project. A few days after this story appeared, comments began to appear, most of them congratulating the teacher on her success in the project but also on being the first to contribute a story. Questions also appeared. Gradually a few other stories appeared on the site and the discussion was lively.  Unfortunately only five of the participants took part in the discussion. At our next meeting, I devoted time to the oral reading of those stories posted on the campus and gave those teachers time to share their experiences with the group. I was sure that my enthusiasm, together with showing the participants that it is possible to complete the task, would motivate the others to write and share their stories. A few weeks later, I am still waiting… Although I know that time is a central factor in any work I do with teachers, here I know that the type of task assigned was significant in the low rate of participation.  I am continually aware that these teachers have not been asked to write anything of this nature for a very long time, some of them since they were at school. Another factor is that in a twenty eight hour course many of the teachers do not know each other and may feel vulnerable as a result.  I have tasted this kind of work with teachers and find it far more meaningful than choosing a topic, planning a lecture or a workshop, giving them my knowledge or experience and going home.  When I read the stories written, I was greatly aware of what I have been learning, that every teacher has something to say, that each teacher possesses professional knowledge which can be a wonderful starting point for collaborative learning. S, a second year teacher, had been very quiet and reserved in the first two sessions. We discussed writing in the third meeting and I brought examples of authors talking about the writing process and about how laborious composition is. Suddenly, S shyly told the group that she keeps a personal diary and that because she lives alone she comes home and pours her day into writing. She confessed that writing is an important part of her day. The narrative S wrote and posted was written in very simple language but told a very powerful story of her battle to get her second grade pupils to write. She told us how she used to spend each Sunday morning hearing stories from her class about what they had done on the weekend. She was frustrated that it was always the same children who related experiences and that many remained silent. She told that it was difficult for many to choose just one experience to share.  One day, S gave her pupils special notebooks and told them that they were going to write what they wanted to share from their weekend and that afterwards those that want to can tell their story. She was shocked by the result. Firstly, everybody wrote, including those who usually don’t share and her struggling writers. Secondly, many more children were willing to tell their stories. S, excited by this lesson, decided to continue.  In the weeks that followed, S asked her pupils to write every Sunday morning and was happy that the children wrote willingly and that the texts produced were more and more complex. More and more pupils asked to share their work. As a result of the reflection S did when writing her narrative for our group, she started asking the class to write on other occasions, after recess for example. Another addition was that she herself started writing while her class was busy with their heads down. She used the time for reflective writing on teaching issues. In the weeks that followed, writing became an accepted mode of communication in S’s class. When children were involved in an argument or had a problem, she asked them to first organize their thoughts by writing them in the notebook and that afterwards she would be happy to listen to them. It worked. When S got to school after her day off, she would find a pile of notes waiting for her on her desk. Subject teachers who taught the class were surprised when they began to receive written communication from the young children.  S received positive feedback on her work from the members of our group and also heard ideas for continuing and expanding her work. I found it very satisfying that through this activity she realized that she has something significant to share with a group of experienced teachers. Many of the veteran teachers certainly had something to learn from this shy and nervous early career teacher. I realized that S was similar to her shyer pupils, those that only dared to share a story when they had it firmly on paper.  There is no tradition of composing teacher narratives and collaborating on them in this part of Israel. There are presently no formal options for professional learning through dialogic writing and discussion. Despite the fact that this small scale experience was only partly successful, I am optimistic that significant learning frameworks can be established for Israeli teachers in this direction.  In order to succeed, I believe teachers need to know ahead of time that this will be the framework of the seminar and that they know they will be committed to experience the writing and discussing of teacher narratives. A mix of experienced and early career teachers is likely to be preferable – building on the enthusiasm and burning need for collaboration amongst newer teachers and the experience and knowledge of veteran educators.  I have already taken the first few steps. I have surprisingly managed to convince the coordinator of language and literacy in the northern area of Israel, that this is the way we should be going in our PD for next year. Most of the courses we will be offering will deal with the teaching of writing and they will all be structured around teacher collaboration and the writing and sharing of narratives.  If we begin with a respect for the knowledge the teachers bring with them and their honest desire to raise the achievement levels of their pupils in writing, I hope they will sign up and then be open, flexible and active participants.