SCET Journal 2020

Reconsidering

Our Practice

Methodology To learn more about the disconnect between novice and veteran teachers’ approaches to teaching writing, I gathered data in several ways, beginning with a review of the literature. I conducted roundtable discussions and gathered written responses on the topics at hand from the two groups. I met with vet- eran high school English teachers whose experience averaged ten years, followed up by an email invitation to respond to the interview protocol in written form. During the writing methods course in which I was the teaching assistant, I asked pre-service second- ary English teachers a similar set of questions. I also analyzed their double-entry journal responses to one of the course textbooks (Urbanski, 2005) in which the author, a veteran English teacher, discusses her journey and shifts in praxis in writing instruction. Field notes taken during the roundtable discussions with veterans, transcripts from the roundtable with pre-service novices, and the written responses from both groups were coded using in vivo descriptive and process coding methods followed by thematic analysis. Findings On Differences in Teacher Perspectives Recurring codes, categories, and themes emerged in the data to distinguish novice teachers from vet- eran teachers. The findings transcended my initial intent to focus exclusively on perceptions of and approaches to writing instruction to include much broader understandings of each group. In other words, I learned some about how each group ap- proaches the teaching of writing, but I learned far more about how the two groups differ. Furthermore, I realized that for almost every difference between the two I identified, I encountered nearly as many excep- tions; paradoxically, veterans and novices might be as similar as they are different. Once I identified the salient points regarding the differences in the two groups, I paired them. The fol- lowing is a discussion of the four paired themes. Academic vs. Personal Concerns Veteran teachers want writing tasks to be rigorous, to require hard work from students, to indicate what students know as dictated by the teacher, and to function as criterion-referenced measures of stu-

dents’ learning with little to no regard for how stu- dents feel or who they are as people. One indicator of the veterans’ concern for rigorous academic writing is the disdain for the types of writing referred to as writers’ notebooks, reflections, creative writing, or as one teacher called it “feel good writing.” Another veteran called this “low stakes writing.” The reduction of writers’ notebooks and creative writing as strat- egies for lower-level students reveals that teachers’ underlying belief that good, high-level writing is the opposite: rigorous, academic, text-based. The novice teachers observed similar attitudes in their coaching teachers (CTs). “My teacher doesn’t do a whole lot of writing that isn’t text- and evidence-based,” said one who later described the writing her CT did assign as “very academic.” Some veteran teachers do acknowledge the place that creative writing has for building comfort and confidence. “I get the idea that all of these fun and creative writing activities will help our students feel more comfortable with writing in general” wrote one veteran, “but I feel a pressure to prepare our students for the writing they’ll experience on the test.” While veterans might see purposes for creative writing, these purposes are less valued compared with aca- demic outcomes. Meanwhile, novice teachers want students to feel deeply, to feel comfortable and confident as writers, and to understand the many forms of writing. In brief, novices value personal growth. “We must cultivate a safe space within our classrooms where students feel comfortable sharing and celebrating,” one shared, and “Students need to be comfortable writing without the intimidating gaze of the teacher,” wrote another. They felt the same regarding confidence: “[Self-re- flection] allows students to reflect but also build con- fidence and be proud of what they have created; it’s time to help students enjoy writing again” wrote one novice. This evidence points to the novices’ concern for students’ feelings, enjoyment of the writing pro- cess, and opportunities to express themselves. Veterans and novices also differ on how much get- ting to know students is important. One novice wrote, “Knowledge of students is the most important aspect of deciding on instructional content.” While the con- cept of knowing students personally is hardly new, some novices say they failed to observe this among their CTs. One novice stated her CT “doesn’t make an

2018/2019

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