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and skills. For these reasons, as we reflect on our roles as teacher educators
and mentors, we wonder whether our efforts are worthy of our students’
trust. We find ourselves contemplating whether our efforts to prepare future
ELA teachers warrant the trust of our students and others who care equally
about their induction into our profession. By trust, we mean our ethical
responsibility to future teachers as they navigate the uncertain waters of
the teaching profession and the confidence in our ability to support them
toward independence.
For us, these ethical and practical concerns became even more pressing
in the university context where we have worked together over the past few
years. Our concerns surfaced in a familiar conversation with a first-semester
undergraduate in our teacher education program at the University of Michi-
gan. Dan (all names are pseudonyms) described his early perceptions of what
he would learn during three semesters in the program:
I think that a lot of the theory we’re going to get here [in this program] is
going to be really helpful to apply it, but to be a successful English teacher
I have to have different ideas of what I could do with things—certain lesson
plans, or how I should approach . . . how to organize the chalkboard, chairs
in the room, something I don’t know if I’m going to get [here]. I haven’t
heard of other people getting that kind of thing at [this university], but I’ve
had friends that go to [another university] and they often say specifically,
“This is how you do this.”
There it is: the common complaint about how theory can overshadow prac-
tice in teacher preparation. Dan was not alone in his feelings of uncertainty
about being underequipped for navigating the complexities of ELA classroom
instruction. His colleagues shared concerns about not having read enough
young adult novels, not having been introduced to the best classroom man-
agement techniques, and not knowing how to respond to students’ diverse
learning needs. Theirs were rightful concerns about the day-to-day realities
of classroom life and their developing role as teachers in those classrooms.
Two semesters later, another conversation with Dan resulted in this
reflection about his learning:
At this point I feel comfortable with my knowledge of English and writing
and reading that I can probably teach my own concoction of how I would
want to approach it in the classroom, but I wouldn’t have anything else
to base it off of, just my own intuition of how should I approach this or
how I should approach that. I don’t know if I’m going to get a whole lot of
different, um, explicit approaches . . . as opposed to a general overall, um,
theology, about it. . . . I had some of the fears of content knowledge, those
faculty and staff in the Ed School have done a great job of assuaging those
and saying, “Look, it’s more about the students than it’s about the content.”
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We could see growth in students like Dan, such as how he moved from being
concerned with placement of desks and specific content to understanding
that interacting with his students is an equally important concern. Clearly
his confidence increased through his experiences in the program, and we
all want our new teachers to have some confidence, right?
Yet, Dan’s comments that he plans to base his pedagogy on “intuition”
and his “own concoction” point to the limits of how we prepare teacher
candidates in three short semesters. Despite Dan’s developing trust of his
background content knowledge—attributed at least in part to his teacher
educators—Dan worries about his ability to make use of this knowledge.
When we honestly reflected on Dan’s thoughts, we questioned whether we
had sufficiently helped the Dans in our classes make use of their knowledge.
How can we build trust that teacher-candidate preparation provides a solid
starting point even while we seek to open up questions about the complexity
of classroom life to push them beyond their tacit schooling experiences? On
some level, we realized later, we were grappling with the ethical question of
whether or not we deserved students’ trust; had we prepared them enough?
Our students’ questions and uncertainties proved a humbling proposition.
What would it mean to provide students like Dan with enough that they could
use as new teachers in the countless unique contexts they would encounter?
As we listened to Dan and other methods students, we wondered on
one hand whether we had failed the students we worked with and on the
other hand whether we could ever equip them with everything they would
need to know to navigate the uncertainty. We felt the nagging that comes
with concern and compassion for doing right by our students in that we want
them to leave with a sense of preparation and stance of growth as they open
their classroom doors for the first time and simultaneously enter the political
landscape that increasingly complicates the work of teaching. And as our
English education colleagues such as Cathy Fleischer (Rush & Scherff, 2011)
echo the need for illustrations of “theory-driven practice,” we felt obligated
to assume greater responsibility for developing possible answers to questions
about how to prepare well-started beginning English teachers.
Background: Our Teacher Education Site
Beginning our journey toward possible answers meant working with the
unique context we all shared. At the University of Michigan, undergraduate
students enter the teacher education program as juniors after they complete
core coursework in the English department. The teacher candidates tend
to mirror national demographic trends for future English teachers, and
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cohorts are often largely white, middle class, and female. As a cohort, they
are enrolled in the same sequence of courses for three semesters (with a
few exceptions). In their first semester, students participate in a fieldwork
practicum while taking courses, such as Reading and Writing in the Con-
tent Areas and Educational Foundations in a Multicultural Society. In the
second semester they take our English methods course and an Educational
Psychology course, along with another practicum experience in the field.
The practicum and methods course are somewhat integrated due to ongoing
instructor collaboration, the collection of records of practice from the field,
and shared conversations about practice and theory. The third semester’s
focus is student teaching. During candidates’ first semester the focus is
on planning and implementing single lessons; in the second semester the
emphasis is on designing lesson sequences and planning longer theoretical
units in which these sequences are embedded. By the third semester of stu-
dent teaching, the emphasis is on whole-unit planning and implementation.
Students’ field placements for the practicum in the first two semesters
situate them in range of middle schools and high schools in urban, rural,
university town, and suburban districts. The attempts to diversify these
experiences—and to provide a range of placements—creates a generative
effect in course discussions. Students in each practicum section share their
experiences across these different sites. Their varied experiences with ELA
in these schools and with diverse groups of students add to methods course
discussions about what it means to “teach English” in such a wide range of
contexts and at different grade levels.
In relation to this sequence, we have taught as field instructors for the
two semester practicum courses, taught the methods courses, collaborated
with other course instructors in the cohort sequence, and supervised student
teaching. We also have been involved with research on equity, the impact of
racialized identities, and preservice teacher development (Buehler, Haviland,
Gere, & Dallavis, 2009; Gere, Buehler, Dallavis, & Haviland, 2009; Haviland,
2008). This involvement sparked our engagement with program discussions
and revisions that took place over the last few years.
Responding to Ethical Dilemmas: Uniting Practice and
Interactional Awareness
Part of the dilemma we faced in responding to the questions that students
like Dan rightfully raised about their preparation was in knowing where to
begin—how to examine more intentionally our own teaching when the task
seemed so daunting and far-reaching. We share here our evolving journey
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to develop a response that meets students’ need for practical how-tos and
theory in ways that prompted us to question how we build their trust in us,
trust in their abilities to meet their students’ needs and support meaning-
ful ELA learning in their future classrooms, and trust in the community of
ELA teachers they are preparing to join. We see reciprocity between theory
and practice, as theoretical understandings of practice involve a symbiotic
dance in which one doesn’t come before the other; rather, practice is always
informing the theoretical understanding and vice versa. We are the first to
say that these early attempts are not without room for improvement, and we
welcome critique. Still, we share our journey to explore the potential benefits
and challenges of engaging deeply in the ethical challenges students raise
within the local contexts in which we work.
Teaching Practice: How, When, and Why It Matters
At the University of Michigan and other research university schools of edu-
cation, teacher education leaders have argued for the primacy of practice:
Teacher preparation needs to foreground the actual tasks and activities of
teaching to extend a focus on developing beliefs, dispositions, and knowledge
(Ball & Forzani, 2009). Our institution has worked with classroom teachers
and scholars around the country to identify a set of crucial or “high leverage”
practices for teacher candidates to study, practice, and demonstrate. These
“high leverage practices” include leading a discussion, establishing norms
and routines for classroom discourse central to the subject-matter domain,
and setting up and managing small-group work. Each subject area has been
tasked with elaborating these practices as they pertain to subject-specific
knowledge and pedagogy. The result—definitions of how each practice is
enacted by teachers in each subject area—led to redesigned coursework and
field experiences that prioritize opportunities for students to learn how and
when to implement each practice.
Since the four of us of have been involved at varying degrees with
articulating these practices for the ELA teacher education program, this
focus on practice led to complicated tensions for us as we worked to identify
a place to begin taking up students’ concerns and our own questions. We
knew that we needed to be responsive and engaged in our institution’s com-
mitment to practice; but, as we will describe, we also felt conflicted about
how the emphasis on practice might make it difficult for us to help students
unite these practices under a larger theoretical umbrella that could provide
the rationale for why these practices support meaningful and equitable ELA
teaching and learning. Without knowing how to enact effective professional
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practice, teachers can undermine their commitments and/or resign them-
selves to mediocre or ineffective teaching.
In the past, for example, we had observed how student teachers some-
times planned discussions about meaningful and sociopolitically grounded
issues, but ineffectively led the actual discussion. For example, student
teacher Shelby planned and taught a unit about prejudice that included
study of The Giver, and as emphasized in the methods course, she centered
the unit around engaging inquiry questions and included many participation
structures, creative assessments, and layered texts. But in a key discussion
of prejudice, she was unable to intervene when her students argued that
prejudice is inevitable if humans honor differences, and indeed is preferable
to the alternative of everyone being the same. In the discussion, she avoided
asking students to reconsider their views and did not meet her lesson’s goals
to raise students’ critical awareness. One way of reading this interaction is
that Shelby’s struggles were due to our teacher education program’s lack of
attention to the practice of leading a discussion through targeted observation,
analysis, rehearsal, enactment, and reflection. Shelby had a heartfelt belief
that she wanted to be a teacher who helps her students stand up against
prejudice; despite that commitment, she had not learned how to interact
with students through classroom discussion in ways that promoted critique
and confrontation of societal injustice. Her case provides one example of
the problem of not focusing on practice more overtly in a teacher education
program. If we are successful in convincing students of the benefit of insti-
gating discussions about important moral and ethical ideas, don’t we have
an obligation to help them practice managing the unpredictable nature of
classroom interactions?
Our teacher education colleagues’ emphasis on practice enabled us to
see that we had assumed teacher candidates’ practical competence without
directly defining, debriefing, and asking students to try out such practices for
university feedback, reflection, adjustment, and another chance to enact now-
improved practices. In short, we realized that we had done well at discussing
practice theoretically, but our students were right to question whether we
had helped them to enact and revise these practices in action. Their questions
about how-to and their uncertainties about whether they were prepared to
respond to the dilemmas they might face in their future classrooms seemed
to result from the murky space between university classroom, which they
perceived to be a theoretically rich space, and their classroom in the field,
which they perceived to be a practice-rich space where their cooperating
teachers demonstrated the how-to details they desired.
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Interactional Awareness: How, When, and Why It Matters
Though convinced that we could better prepare students by focusing on
practice, we were also wary of losing our longstanding efforts to enable stu-
dents to see how interactional awareness helps ELA teachers navigate every
aspect of their professional roles, including the practices they employ. We
feared that a cobbled together collection of disparate practices might ignore
the complex matrix of decisions and actions that influence how strong ELA
teachers choose to enact particular practices for particular purposes and
outcomes, which interactional awareness can illuminate.
Our commitment to fostering students’ interactional awareness draws
on approaches to English education in the ELA teacher preparation program
and in CEE’s recommendations for contextualized English education in
methods courses (“What do we know”). We view “interactional awareness”
as a resource for helping teachers carefully analyze their classroom talk
and patterned actions that influence what “we and our students can say
and how we respond to each other” (Rex & Schiller, 2009, p. 154). Through
this lens, we see the classrooms and schools we are a part of and work in as
multilayered sites of interaction between teachers, students, and content.
Our commitments emerged from the context of our English education
program’s commitments to NCTE principles, interactional awareness, and
equity. For instance, the integrated methods course had been shaped by at-
tention to backwards design; attention to context, culture, and community;
and professional engagement (i.e., in NCTE) as a way to sustain teachers
(Gere & Berebitsky, 2009).
With particular regard to our dilemmas about choosing a beginning
point to help students access the complexity of theory-driven ELA practice,
we see interactional awareness as a tool for helping the students and future
teachers we work with to develop equitable instruction by understanding
how their interactions can open and close opportunities for learning. Given
this commitment, we engaged students in discussion of how teachers’ inter-
actional and discursive awareness—ability to analyze discourse in classroom
interactions—can enable them to consider more carefully how their actions
and choices about practices meet the needs of students from varied back-
grounds (Rex & Schiller, 2009). Our aim in using this approach has been to
facilitate dispositions that will help graduates analyze their own classroom
interactions to make informed choices about future practices.
However, we know the challenges of helping students plan for, respond
to, and reflect on the multiple interactional layers that shape each classroom
community. With Shelby, for example, our own interactional awareness
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helped us notice that she had avoided asking students to reconsider their
views, and thus implicitly sanctioned views that countered her critical lesson
goals. We struggled to help candidates enact this awareness in the moment
as they taught lessons and interacted with students in the field. They often
became consumed with planning for their role as
teacher, rather than exploring how the lesson ob-
jectives and activities intersect with the complex
classroom context to affect their interactions with
students. Students like Shelby and Dan eagerly
engaged in methods conversations about the complexity of classrooms and
equitable instruction, but they also became overwhelmed as they sought
ways to enact these understandings in their own classroom teaching and
interactions. Their lack of language for naming the instructional practices
and interactional choices they were making in the classroom may have en-
couraged the belief that they were concocting lessons from a random bag
of tips and personal experiences.
In three short semesters, we wondered, is it possible to do more than
plant the seeds of interactional awareness? Yet, we also believed that if
future teachers could begin to see how their choices about ELA teaching
practices play out dynamically in the interactional contexts of their class-
rooms and schools, then they could respond more flexibly in the moment
and in the analysis of their teaching to open future learning opportunities
for all students.
The Lesson Architecture: Providing Access to Practice and
Interactional Awareness
To identify an access point for students in the second semester of their teacher
preparation and, honestly, to find a manageable starting point for our own
efforts to unite these seemingly divergent conversations, we focused on
their initial efforts to plan and teach single lessons. The lesson architecture
we used (see Figure 1) embeds a series of key ELA teaching practices built
on minilessons and other similar lesson frameworks (e.g., Atwell, 1987;
Calkins, 1994). Our use of the lesson architecture, we hoped, would serve as
a scaffold for helping students respond to the complexity of ELA classrooms
by developing and adapting lessons responsive to the school context and
interactions that shaped their early teaching experiences in the field. We
saw the lesson architecture as a foundation for introducing students to ELA
teaching practices that were explainable, demonstrable, rehearsable, and
assessable. Establishing a common name and definition for each practice in
Is it possible to do more than
plant the seeds of interactional
awareness?
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E n g l i s h E d u c a t i o n , V 4 7 N 1 , O c t o b e r 2 0 1 4
Figure 1. The Lesson Architecture: Key Elements and Rationale Handout
CONTEMPLATING TRUST IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY
29
Figure
1.
The
Lesson
Architecture:
Key
Elements
and
Rationale
Handout
The
Lesson
Architecture:
Our
Collaborative
Case
for
Why
Key
Elements
Possible
Connections1
that
Provide
a
Rationale
Learning
objective
Tell
students
exactly
what
the
learning
target
or
objective
is
for
the
day’s
work.
This
should
be
framed
in
terms
of
what
students
will
know
and
be
able
to
do
as
a
result
of
the
day’s
lesson.
There
is
one
sole
focus
for
each
mini-‐
lesson
so
that
it
is
clear
to
you
and
the
students
exactly
what
you
are
trying
to
learn
in
the
lesson.
Explicit
Connection
to
Prior
Learning
This
is
teacher-‐focused
talk.
You
explain
how
what
you
are
doing
in
this
lesson
connects
with
what
they’ve
done
before
–
what
led
you
to
take
this
particular
focus
today?
How
does
it
advance
their
learning
towards
larger
goals
or
projects
or
questions
you
are
working
on?
How
does
it
connect
to
what
they’ve
already
learned
or
experienced
with
you
this
year?
Modeling
You
will
visibly
enact
the
strategy,
skill,
or
process
targeted
in
the
lesson.
You
don’t
just
tell
them
about
it
or
explain
it.
You
actually
do
it
in
front
of
them
so
they
can
see
the
process.
Some
options
for
how
you
can
do
this
include
think-‐aloud,
role-‐play,
or
modeling.
Guided
Practice
You
are
working
together
with
students
on
a
task
similar
to
what
you
just
modeled.
In
the
moment,
you
are
able
to
hear
what
they
are
taking
from
your
explanation
and
modeling
and
to
reteach
and
refine
as
you
see
what
they
are
giving
you.
This
could
be
whole-‐class
or
it
could
be
in
small
groups
or
in
a
think-‐pair-‐share
structure,
but
it
should
come
back
to
a
teacher-‐led
whole
class
focus.
Invitation
to
Independence
Now
students
work
independently
on
the
learning
objective.
During
this
time,
you
are
conferencing
with
students
individually
on
the
task.
You
are
individually
teaching
and
re-‐teaching
and
refining
their
understandings
of
the
task.
You
need
to
have
anticipated
the
kinds
of
questions,
issues,
and
challenges
to
expect
during
this
time.
If
you
find
that
enough
students
have
similar
problems,
you
may
choose
to
interrupt
individual
work
time
to
reteach
or
address
the
issues
that
are
being
raised.
Independent
Work
&
Conferencing
Wrap-‐up/Review/Sharing
a
Think
about
connections
to
our
discussions
as
well
as
learning
from
other
coursework
and
practicum
experiences
from
this
and
previous
semesters.
the architecture with students enabled them to reflect on their own teach-
ing more adeptly and to offer more specific feedback to one another. Asking
students to construct a rationale for each practice by connecting ideas and
discussions from their coursework and fieldwork enabled them to begin
articulating a set of beliefs and dispositions toward ELA teaching.
CONTEMPLATING TRUST IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY
29
Figure
1.
The
Lesson
Architecture:
Key
Elements
and
Rationale
Handout
The
Lesson
Architecture:
Our
Collaborative
Case
for
Why
Key
Elements
Possible
Connections1
that
Provide
a
Rationale
Learning
objective
Tell
students
exactly
what
the
learning
target
or
objective
is
for
the
day’s
work.
This
should
be
framed
in
terms
of
what
students
will
know
and
be
able
to
do
as
a
result
of
the
day’s
lesson.
There
is
one
sole
focus
for
each
mini-‐
lesson
so
that
it
is
clear
to
you
and
the
students
exactly
what
you
are
trying
to
learn
in
the
lesson.
Explicit
Connection
to
Prior
Learning
This
is
teacher-‐focused
talk.
You
explain
how
what
you
are
doing
in
this
lesson
connects
with
what
they’ve
done
before
–
what
led
you
to
take
this
particular
focus
today?
How
does
it
advance
their
learning
towards
larger
goals
or
projects
or
questions
you
are
working
on?
How
does
it
connect
to
what
they’ve
already
learned
or
experienced
with
you
this
year?
Modeling
You
will
visibly
enact
the
strategy,
skill,
or
process
targeted
in
the
lesson.
You
don’t
just
tell
them
about
it
or
explain
it.
You
actually
do
it
in
front
of
them
so
they
can
see
the
process.
Some
options
for
how
you
can
do
this
include
think-‐aloud,
role-‐play,
or
modeling.
Guided
Practice
You
are
working
together
with
students
on
a
task
similar
to
what
you
just
modeled.
In
the
moment,
you
are
able
to
hear
what
they
are
taking
from
your
explanation
and
modeling
and
to
reteach
and
refine
as
you
see
what
they
are
giving
you.
This
could
be
whole-‐class
or
it
could
be
in
small
groups
or
in
a
think-‐pair-‐share
structure,
but
it
should
come
back
to
a
teacher-‐led
whole
class
focus.
Invitation
to
Independence
Now
students
work
independently
on
the
learning
objective.
During
this
time,
you
are
conferencing
with
students
individually
on
the
task.
You
are
individually
teaching
and
re-‐teaching
and
refining
their
understandings
of
the
task.
You
need
to
have
anticipated
the
kinds
of
questions,
issues,
and
challenges
to
expect
during
this
time.
If
you
find
that
enough
students
have
similar
problems,
you
may
choose
to
interrupt
individual
work
time
to
reteach
or
address
the
issues
that
are
being
raised.
Independent
Work
&
Conferencing
Wrap-‐up/Review/Sharing
a
Think
about
connections
to
our
discussions
as
well
as
learning
from
other
coursework
and
practicum
experiences
from
this
and
previous
semesters.
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At first we listened to their rationales and observed their ability to
enact lessons developed with the architecture for a university teaching
demonstration presented to peers and program leadership at the end of the
semester. In this teaching demonstration, students “taught” one minilesson
that integrated practices and that was taken from a larger unit of study they
had planned in the methods course. These early efforts with the architecture
enabled us to assess which understandings were more obvious to students,
which tacit understandings persisted, and which theory-driven understand-
ings were missing.
Our initial use of the architecture met some students’ desires for
something concrete to cling to as they began to see the complexity of theories
related to ELA teaching. But, we began to worry that our early efforts to use
the architecture might be suggesting a lock-step formula for designing lessons
estranged from contextual complexity and responsiveness. We wondered,
how could we help students see themselves as architects of lessons who value
flexibility in planning lessons with carefully chosen practices for particular
students in particular contexts and who are able to flexibly adapt these les-
sons in the moments of teaching? How could we create opportunities for our
students to transfer understanding about ELA practices across contexts—both
within and beyond their preparation in our program?
Initial formative feedback and reflections helped us to see the necessity
for extending work with the lesson architecture within and across students’
three semesters in our program. We began asking teacher candidates to con-
sider a new angle or application that could deepen their understanding of
each practice by first reviewing examples, including in-class demonstrations
and video examples of other teachers. Then, we asked students to rehearse
these practices to gather feedback, reflect, and adjust their instruction. Over
time we began including at least a few cycles of this process for each practice
so that students could rehearse and gather feedback on their implementation
of individual practices first with peers and instructors before rehearsing
with students in their field placements, and finally putting these practices
together in lesson sequences and units they planned for their field place-
ments and student teaching.
As we reflected together and with students on this iterative process
across weeks and semesters, we began to notice the benefits. We were able
to see students’ growing ability to enact the practices that had previously
remained isolated in class discussions or activities before we moved on to
another syllabus topic seemingly estranged from fieldwork and other prac-
tices. As we journeyed with students to observe and debrief their enactment
of practices in their field classrooms, we noticed their ability to transfer
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conceptual understanding and rehearsal feedback into stronger enactments
over time. In course conversations about their growing understanding of
ELA practices, students began to use this same language to talk about each
other’s questions. They talked with increasing expertise about how Amy’s
use of guided practice might look different in her urban middle school
classroom—where students struggled to stay focused on academic work af-
ter one classmate’s parents had just recently been murdered—from Mark’s
suburban classroom where the range of seventh-grade readers challenged
his ability to choose an appropriate instructional text for whole-class work.
We were excited about what we were seeing as students’ confidence grew
in their ability to employ ELA practices with flexibility in the range of their
field placements.
As with many exciting possibilities, opening new doors revealed new
dilemmas. After watching students’ enactments in university coursework
and in their field placements, we joined them in conversations where they
reflected on their efforts. Often, they grew frustrated with gaps in their teach-
ing. The benefits of their developing abilities to name and analyze practices
meant that many of them became impatient with their own growth as teach-
ers. They questioned their abilities to respond in the moment to the situations
they had earlier brought to our university classrooms as they observed their
mentor teachers: How do we deal with the kids who are not on task? What
do we do when a student says something homophobic in a class discussion?
Because these questions emerged from their varied field placement contexts,
our reflective conversations benefited from their diverse experiences; but
these conversations also increasingly prompted students’ questions about
their preparation to adapt and transfer learning to future heterogeneous
school contexts where they would student teach and acquire jobs.
Amy’s and Mark’s classmate Alex offers one such example. During his
first semester in the program, Alex arrived as an eager student who loved
reading and writing and who was committed to sharing his passion for
literary practices with secondary students in urban and challenging school
contexts. During that first semester Alex videotaped himself thinking aloud
as he read a passage from a young adult novel for his practicum course class-
mates where the lesson architecture was introduced for the first time. In his
reflection, Alex recognized that his think-aloud meandered through a litany
of different methods for making meaning of the text. He considered why and
how his approach might be confusing for students in his high school field
placement where he worked in a ninth-grade English classroom co-taught
by an ELA teacher and a special education teacher. As he used the lesson
architecture conversations and language to reflect on his first attempt at
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M c B e e O r z u l a k e t a l . > Co n t e m p l a t i n g Tr u s t i n T i m e s o f U n c e r t a i n t y
modeling, Alex’s reflection demonstrated his growing ability to assess the
effectiveness of his modeling as a teaching practice. The lesson architecture
enabled him to identify space for improving in subsequent opportunities to
enact modeling that semester and beyond. In this way, the lesson architecture
provided Alex with space to imagine forward possibilities for transferring
his ability to model as an ELA teaching practice.
From the beginning, Alex talked about his desire to teach at an urban
or “challenged school.” He often expressed his commitments to educational
equity and saw his role as a future secondary ELA teacher as centrally con-
nected to social justice. Conversations about adapting ELA teaching practices
to meet contextual needs and opportunities in his first semester enabled Alex
to talk about how his field placement at a suburban/rural high school chal-
lenged his thinking: “I see now that diversity is present in all communities,
even those typically thought of as homogeneous.” At the same time, however,
the lesson architecture also enabled Alex to question his abilities to meet the
needs of students in the schools where he imagined student teaching and
seeking employment. During his interview at his future urban high school
student teaching placement site, Alex learned from one student that “People
think we’re stupid and that we’re not going to amount to anything; and that’s
just not true.” Alex returned to our university course conversations with real
questions about how his ELA teaching might best respond to these comments
and to the interactions between students he had observed that day.
We realized that in our initial focus on practice with the architecture,
we had insufficiently helped students—Alex included—deal with these in-the-
moment dilemmas that are central to preparing them for consideration of
how interactions and language construct everyday classroom life. Making
ELA teaching practices accessible to our students seemed a much easier
task than making discursive and interactional awareness accessible as a re-
source for adapting their instruction to respond to the complexities of every
day—and every hour—of classroom life. So, how, we wondered, could we help
students improve their practice by focusing on the analysis of classroom talk
and interaction using the lesson architecture?
In response to these initial observations and interactions with our
students, during one later encounter with the architecture in the second se-
mester methods course, we introduced the interactional layer, which invites
consideration of how each practice is actualized through classroom talk (see
Figure 2). We asked students to map course readings and conversations about
the role of their language choices in the lessons they planned and taught onto
their growing understanding of the architecture as a tool for understanding
classroom complexity. We revisited others’ teaching this time through the
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E n g l i s h E d u c a t i o n , V 4 7 N 1 , O c t o b e r 2 0 1 4
interactional awareness lens by asking students to log discursive moves in
particular moments of a lesson in our university courses and then in their
field experiences. We asked students to log specific language choices as they
observed a teacher who taught a minilesson about inviting others’ contribu-
tions during class discussions, for example. Some looked for teacher language
Figure 2. The Lesson Architecture: Interactional Language Handout
CONTEMPLATING TRUST IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY
30
Figure
2.
The
Lesson
Architecture:
Interactional
Language
Handout
Lesson
Architecture:
Possible
Language
It’s
important
to
consider
how
our
language
as
teachers
positions
students
in
our
classrooms.
The
language
we
use
has
the
potential
to
open
or
close
opportunities
for
students’
learning.
Consider
here
how
your
language
during
the
mini-‐lesson
can
open
possibilities
for
all
students
to
learn
and
to
signal
for
them
the
purpose
of
your
collective
efforts
and
actions.
We
share
these
phrases
as
options
for
you
to
choose
from,
but
we
suggest
that
you
consider
how
each
might
work
most
effectively
for
the
particular
groups
of
students
you
are
currently
working
with.
Key
Elements
Possible
Language
Learning
objective
Tell
students
exactly
what
the
learning
target
or
objective
is
for
the
day’s
work.
This
should
be
framed
in
terms
of
what
students
will
know
and
be
able
to
do
as
a
result
of
the
day’s
lesson.
There
is
one
sole
focus
for
each
mini-‐
lesson
so
that
it
is
clear
to
you
and
the
students
exactly
what
you
are
trying
to
learn
in
the
lesson.
“Today,
we’re
going
to
.
.
..
“
“The
focus
of
our
work
today
is
.
.
.
because
independent
readers/writers/speakers
.
.
..”
“Reader/writers/speakers
use
.
.
.
in
order
to
.
.
..”
Explicit
Connection
to
Prior
Learning
This
is
teacher-‐focused
talk.
You
explain
how
what
you
are
doing
in
this
lesson
connects
with
what
they’ve
done
before
–
what
led
you
to
take
this
particular
focus
today?
How
does
it
advance
their
learning
towards
larger
goals
or
projects
or
questions
you
are
working
on?
How
does
it
connect
to
what
they’ve
already
learned
or
experienced
with
you
this
year?
“Yesterday,
we
learned
to
(fill
in
with
what
students
learned
to
do).”
“I’ve
noticed
that
(reference
something
that
you’ve
noticed
in
students’
earlier
work—something
they
struggled
with,
something
they’re
doing
well).”
Modeling
You
will
visibly
enact
the
strategy,
skill,
or
process
targeted
in
the
lesson.
You
don’t
just
tell
them
about
it
or
explain
it.
You
actually
do
it
in
front
of
them
so
they
can
see
the
process.
Some
options
for
how
you
can
do
this
include
think-‐aloud,
role-‐play,
or
modeling.
“I’m
going
to
show
you
how
.
.
..”
“Notice
how
I
.
.
.
when
I
.
.
..”
Guided
Practice
You
are
working
together
with
students
on
a
task
similar
to
what
you
just
modeled.
In
the
moment,
you
are
able
to
hear
what
they
are
taking
from
your
explanation
and
modeling
and
to
reteach
and
refine
as
you
see
what
they
are
giving
you.
This
could
be
whole-‐class
or
it
could
be
in
small
groups
or
in
a
think-‐pair-‐share
structure,
but
it
should
come
back
to
a
teacher-‐led
whole
class
focus.
“Okay,
let’s
all
practice
(the
skill,
strategy,
process
just
modeled.”
“Now
I
want
you
to
turn
and
.
.
.
with
your
partner.
Be
sure
to
.
.
.
like
I
did
when
I
(refer
them
back
to
what
you
just
modeled).
When
I
listen
in
to
your
conversation,
I’m
looking
for
.
.
..”
Invitation
to
Independence
Now
students
work
independently
on
the
learning
objective.
During
this
time,
you
are
conferencing
with
students
individually
on
the
task.
You
are
individually
teaching
and
reteaching
and
refining
their
understandings
of
the
task.
You
need
to
have
anticipated
the
kinds
of
questions,
issues,
and
challenges
to
expect
during
this
time.
If
you
find
that
enough
students
have
similar
problems,
you
may
choose
to
interrupt
individual
work
time
to
reteach
or
address
the
issues
that
are
being
raised.
“So,
readers/writers,
now
you
know
that
.
.
..
When
you’re
reading/writing
today,
I
want
you
to
(ask
them
to
do
something
explicit
related
to
the
focus
of
the
lesson).”
“I
may
ask
you
to
share
with
me
how
you
.
.
.
when
I
come
around
during
conferencing
today.”
CONTEMPLATING TRUST IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY
30
Figure
2.
The
Lesson
Architecture:
Interactional
Language
Handout
Lesson
Architecture:
Possible
Language
It’s
important
to
consider
how
our
language
as
teachers
positions
students
in
our
classrooms.
The
language
we
use
has
the
potential
to
open
or
close
opportunities
for
students’
learning.
Consider
here
how
your
language
during
the
mini-‐lesson
can
open
possibilities
for
all
students
to
learn
and
to
signal
for
them
the
purpose
of
your
collective
efforts
and
actions.
We
share
these
phrases
as
options
for
you
to
choose
from,
but
we
suggest
that
you
consider
how
each
might
work
most
effectively
for
the
particular
groups
of
students
you
are
currently
working
with.
Key
Elements
Possible
Language
Learning
objective
Tell
students
exactly
what
the
learning
target
or
objective
is
for
the
day’s
work.
This
should
be
framed
in
terms
of
what
students
will
know
and
be
able
to
do
as
a
result
of
the
day’s
lesson.
There
is
one
sole
focus
for
each
mini-‐
lesson
so
that
it
is
clear
to
you
and
the
students
exactly
what
you
are
trying
to
learn
in
the
lesson.
“Today,
we’re
going
to
.
.
..
“
“The
focus
of
our
work
today
is
.
.
.
because
independent
readers/writers/speakers
.
.
..”
“Reader/writers/speakers
use
.
.
.
in
order
to
.
.
..”
Explicit
Connection
to
Prior
Learning
This
is
teacher-‐focused
talk.
You
explain
how
what
you
are
doing
in
this
lesson
connects
with
what
they’ve
done
before
–
what
led
you
to
take
this
particular
focus
today?
How
does
it
advance
their
learning
towards
larger
goals
or
projects
or
questions
you
are
working
on?
How
does
it
connect
to
what
they’ve
already
learned
or
experienced
with
you
this
year?
“Yesterday,
we
learned
to
(fill
in
with
what
students
learned
to
do).”
“I’ve
noticed
that
(reference
something
that
you’ve
noticed
in
students’
earlier
work—something
they
struggled
with,
something
they’re
doing
well).”
Modeling
You
will
visibly
enact
the
strategy,
skill,
or
process
targeted
in
the
lesson.
You
don’t
just
tell
them
about
it
or
explain
it.
You
actually
do
it
in
front
of
them
so
they
can
see
the
process.
Some
options
for
how
you
can
do
this
include
think-‐aloud,
role-‐play,
or
modeling.
“I’m
going
to
show
you
how
.
.
..”
“Notice
how
I
.
.
.
when
I
.
.
..”
Guided
Practice
You
are
working
together
with
students
on
a
task
similar
to
what
you
just
modeled.
In
the
moment,
you
are
able
to
hear
what
they
are
taking
from
your
explanation
and
modeling
and
to
reteach
and
refine
as
you
see
what
they
are
giving
you.
This
could
be
whole-‐class
or
it
could
be
in
small
groups
or
in
a
think-‐pair-‐share
structure,
but
it
should
come
back
to
a
teacher-‐led
whole
class
focus.
“Okay,
let’s
all
practice
(the
skill,
strategy,
process
just
modeled.”
“Now
I
want
you
to
turn
and
.
.
.
with
your
partner.
Be
sure
to
.
.
.
like
I
did
when
I
(refer
them
back
to
what
you
just
modeled).
When
I
listen
in
to
your
conversation,
I’m
looking
for
.
.
..”
Invitation
to
Independence
Now
students
work
independently
on
the
learning
objective.
During
this
time,
you
are
conferencing
with
students
individually
on
the
task.
You
are
individually
teaching
and
reteaching
and
refining
their
understandings
of
the
task.
You
need
to
have
anticipated
the
kinds
of
questions,
issues,
and
challenges
to
expect
during
this
time.
If
you
find
that
enough
students
have
similar
problems,
you
may
choose
to
interrupt
individual
work
time
to
reteach
or
address
the
issues
that
are
being
raised.
“So,
readers/writers,
now
you
know
that
.
.
..
When
you’re
reading/writing
today,
I
want
you
to
(ask
them
to
do
something
explicit
related
to
the
focus
of
the
lesson).”
“I
may
ask
you
to
share
with
me
how
you
.
.
.
when
I
come
around
during
conferencing
today.”
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that clarified purpose. Others tracked the teacher’s language choices that
positioned students as capable participants in the observed class discussion.
Still others looked for how the students’ contributions were taken up or
closed off by other students and/or the teacher. In the conversations that
followed, students cited particular evidence from the lesson to further their
own understanding of the lesson and how the teachers’ interactions affected
students’ participation in the discussion. Watching through these particular
lenses—and logging the specific language used—enabled students to consider
the layers of interaction and the multiple moves that the teacher made to
open space for learning and for supportive classroom community. This
grounding provided an entry point for our students as they grappled with
theories about how talk in classroom interactions—both over time and in
the moment—is shaped by (and shapes) teaching and learning (Lin, 1994;
Rex & Green, 2008).
Initially we invited these conversations and observations in our uni-
versity courses, but later we began to see the value of including this focus in
students’ field observations and teaching. First, students would sit alongside
us as together we logged classroom interactions and discourse in field notes.
Then, immediately afterward, we would talk about what we noticed as con-
nected to the lesson architecture and to course learning about classroom
discourse and interactions. Later, we would use the same format to log stu-
dents’ interactions and discourse in the lessons they taught in this same field
placement class. Through these recurring efforts to ask students to identify,
log, and reflect on classroom interactions and discourse choices, students
began to consider the kinds of discursive moves that ELA teachers and they
themselves can employ to open space for learning, assess student learning,
and adjust in-the-moment instruction. And we began to think further with
them about how interactional awareness allows us to understand choices
and transfer understanding about which practices to employ when, where,
and why as well as the ways those choices influence student learning.
Efforts like these to focus on interactional and discursive choices with
our students through the lesson architecture have provided us all with a
way to layer and therefore deepen our awareness of how teachers respond
to and shape daily classroom life and learning. As we’ve tracked students’
understanding and use of practices across semesters, we see students like Alex
develop their ability to make instructional choices that respond to unique
contextual demands. During the methods semester after rehearsing, enact-
ing, and reflecting repeatedly on particular ELA practices, Alex planned a
unit of study that he would teach during his student teaching at the same
school where he earlier interviewed. He talked about how the students’ com-
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E n g l i s h E d u c a t i o n , V 4 7 N 1 , O c t o b e r 2 0 1 4
ments during his interview conversations and classroom observations “neces-
sitated his unit choices” so that “students could reconstruct positive images
of themselves and the area they call home.” He saw the unit he designed as
“aligning with something that students pressingly need: an opportunity for
them to challenge opinions at large, construct a counter argument, and, in
the face of adversity, prove that they can think critically and demonstrate a
sense of community that others have counted out.”
As merely an artifact of the multilayered approach we have taken in
using and developing an instructional tool for our teacher candidates, the
architecture could be used in a lockstep, toolbox way that would not incor-
porate interactional awareness. The key for our students and us has been
in how we use a layering approach to working with the architecture. What
began as a scaffold for guiding an end-of-term performance assessment dur-
ing one semester has become an umbrella that orients our guiding vision
for how we work with and support teacher candidates across semesters to
unite practice and interactional awareness.
Fostering Trust in Times of Uncertainty by Uniting Practice and
Interactional Awareness
We realize the lesson architecture itself as an artifact is nothing revolution-
ary; English educators and mentor teachers we admire and draw on have
developed powerful instructional scaffolds that help beginning and veteran
teachers alike respond to the complexities of their classroom. The benefits
for us as teachers and for our students as future teachers have been in con-
sidering how we use the architecture to create a space for uniting practice
and interactional awareness and therefore for navigating the complexity of
making instructional choices—both ours and theirs.
Perhaps the most rewarding benefit for us professionally has been the
fact that students’ questions and uncertainties have challenged us to question
whether they have cause to trust that our efforts are preparing them for their
next steps professionally. Our efforts to begin using the lesson architecture
have not fully answered this question, and we’re grateful that this question
continues to inform our choices as English educators and mentors.
We consider in the sections that follow how our efforts have invited us
to rethink the ways we invite students to put their trust in us, in their own
knowledge and abilities, and in the future of ELA teaching as a professional
community. We offer these possibilities to open space for thinking about our
ethical responsibility to help students respond to the uncertain realities and
joys of ELA teaching at the same time that this ethical responsibility also
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M c B e e O r z u l a k e t a l . > Co n t e m p l a t i n g Tr u s t i n T i m e s o f U n c e r t a i n t y
calls us to reconsider our approach to collegial conversations with other
teacher educators.
1. Living Up to Our Preservice Teachers’ Trust in Us
The lesson architecture helps elaborate the tensions and the reciprocal
nature—of knowing theory and enacting ELA practices—faced by teachers
(whether in secondary or teacher education classrooms). Building trust
is perhaps at the heart of encountering these
tensions as we work with new teachers’ worries
about lack of preparation or the lesson that falls
apart in action. Engaging in conversations about
these tensions could be one way of building trust
and tackling worries that we may not have pre-
pared new teachers with the right methods and dispositions to teach ELA
responsibly and/or resist trends to teach irresponsibly. The lesson architec-
ture opened up these conversations, allowing us to voice why we needed to
better scaffold our students’ learning and desired them to have theory-based
tools as interactionally aware architects.
Primarily, we are building this trust through our attempts to reconsider
notions of practice in relation to interactional awareness. We have noticed
how the ability to name, or give language to these practices, has enabled
candidates to come to “aha!” moments as they unpack the complexity of
their decision-making and interactions that before we would have had to
lead them to. Beyond typical methods discussion and examination of ELA
practices through observation, the lesson architecture has invited us to more
explicitly name the following:
> What specific practices we teach in methods and field experiences
> Why we teach those practices by connecting them to current
theories and knowledge about secondary students in local school
contexts
> How we adopt and adapt specific practices to support diverse learn-
ers’ needs and strengths by analyzing the classroom interactions
that result from teachers’ choices about which practices to enact
and how to respond to students’ interactions
This focus on practice, however, has also enabled us to build students’ trust
in our ability to help them respond to the inherent uncertainty of what they
will face in their future classrooms because they have better resources for
Our use of common language has
strengthened teacher candidates’
ability to evolve their practice
over time.
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analyzing their choices about practices and interactions to adjust to the
contextual complexities of their classroom and school.
Before, what students like Dan read as highly theoretical conversations
about classroom interaction have benefitted from closer connection to ELA
practices because students are able to analyze their practices and interactions
symbiotically through the concrete world of particular lessons, moments,
and classrooms. If, as we hope, our efforts promote our conception of ELA
as a complex, political, interpersonal discipline that honors, at its core, the
potential of language to empower individuals to understand, interpret, act,
and communicate with others, then it behooves us to make transparent for
students our efforts to wrestle with their questions and experiences in mak-
ing decisions about how best to prepare them. Their trust in us rests largely
on taking these steps forward as mentor learners first.
2. Establishing Preservice Teachers’ Trust in Their Abilities
It seems particularly important to bolster students’ confidence about what
they know and can use as new ELA teachers—and their ability to analyze a
plethora of approaches—given that the current climate promotes paternalistic
storylines of teachers as mindless and in need of standardized intervention.
Integrating practices, rationales, and considerations has provided students
and instructors alike with tangible ways to analyze the interactions we
participate in, the choices we make, and the actions we take in support of
student learning. The lesson architecture has deepened conversations about
interactional awareness, as it bridges theory and enactment in ways that
Dans and Shelbys can access in future teaching contexts.
But the interactional awareness conversations, we believe, also have en-
hanced the considerations of practice as they have helped students navigate
the unknown, becoming more confident that they can analyze and respond
to uncertainty with flexibility and thoughtful inquiry. Including interac-
tional awareness as a unifying thread of the lesson architecture has helped
students understand how practices overlap with one another and intersect
with specific school cultures and classroom communities. Additionally, the
lesson architecture has given candidates the space to reflect on the recipro-
cal nature of practices and interactions as they shape one another through
classroom talk. Instead of merely asking candidates to be more transparent
in their teaching (by announcing a lesson objective, for example), the lesson
architecture gives candidates a means for talking about how their language
choices in the opening moment of their interaction with students have tre-
mendous power and potential.
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Moments like this embedded within the lesson architecture make
visible for students how their discursive choices matter. Their rehearsal
of the language choices and responses they use as teachers has given them
space to reflect on how they invite or impede learning. Our use of common
language has strengthened teacher candidates’ ability to evolve their prac-
tice over time.
3. Promoting Trust in the Value of Inquiry-Driven Professional
Learning Communities
As we have evolved our use of the architecture as one way of responding
to their questions and concerns, our students have also helped us see the
significance of its use as a tool for promoting their professional interactions
with one another. Now, for example, you will find students circled around TV
monitors where they view video clips of their teaching during the methods
course and second-semester practicum, posing questions for one another
about their own teaching practices—the practices they have seen us model
earlier, engaging in dialogue about these questions with one another using
discursive protocols that we have piloted and adjusted in class, and shar-
ing their plans for revising each practice as they return to the classroom
to continue refining their teaching practices and interactions. While we
circulate between groups, we participate in this process. In this way, they
gain experience with professional inquiry with colleagues to grow their own
practice, understanding, and professional capabilities.
At the end of our ELA methods course, first semester teacher can-
didates join methods colleagues who teach live lessons planned using the
architecture to colleagues, instructors, mentor teachers, and school of educa-
tion leaders. Then, the student teachers facilitate a dialogue much like the
one they have participated in throughout the semester to gather feedback
about the strengths of their practices, as well as possible considerations for
further reflection and lesson adjustment. In her reflection on this experi-
ence Deborah explained,
The lesson I demonstrated initially involved the revision of a student
constructed newspaper article. But after [my teaching] demonstration,
through a conversation about non-judgmental language . . . my colleagues
pointed out the potential confusion students might have delineating be-
tween quotes and dialogue in a newspaper article. One of my colleagues
was “concerned about ‘fictional quotes’” and this was a concern I hadn’t
realized until my colleagues brought it up.
For students like Deborah, these collegial collaborations provide invaluable
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feedback that helps them revise their practice and reconsider interactions in
support of student learning. Their collaborations around the lesson architec-
ture have given them a shared language to offer that feedback to one another,
to consider the role of language and interaction in relation to particular
practices, and importantly to appreciate the value of ongoing professional
interactions and feedback. These were outcomes we had not anticipated
as we considered where to begin in responding to students’ questions and
dilemmas. But in journeying alongside them as teachers and learners, they
have helped us reconsider how preparing them to enter the profession is also
about how we foster trusting professional relationships with them and invite
them to do so with one another early on. Jack described his take-aways after
two semesters of using the lesson architecture:
The thoughtful collegial conversations and reflections undertaken about
the range of issues and topics in secondary English education [with my
peers] have proved truly insightful in shaping my evolving philosophy
as a young educator. In light of my beliefs that such strong collaborative
communities in education foster growth through diversity of perspective,
I hope to create similar communities of learning among my future col-
leagues as we all strive to become better educators.
4. Building Trust in ELA as a Powerful Teaching Profession
Jack and his peers have helped us realize implications for preservice teach-
ers’ enactments, reflection, and conversations as they seek professional
communities that will sustain their teaching practices beyond teacher edu-
cation courses and into their careers. The lesson architecture seems to fos-
ter opportunities to move beyond hearing about practices to enacting and
analyzing those practices. This is the deeper understanding that encourages
us, especially as we share the concerns of so many about recruiting strong
future teachers and addressing the exodus of early-career teachers who too
soon become frustrated and fried by the political pressures that compromise
their commitment to effective, equitable teaching.
Take, for example, Alex, who is currently student teaching in an
urban public high school where students’ low test performance and aca-
demic struggles are combined with quick fixes that jeopardize instructional
continuity and improvement. In some ways Alex is afforded real freedom
in planning and teaching lessons, but in other ways the school’s project-
based curriculum challenges his ability to enact the range of practices he
continues to evolve. In particular, Alex laments that his students are not
regularly afforded opportunities for learning and practicing how to enact
ELA understandings and skills because, among other factors, teachers do not
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regularly model their thinking. In conversations with us, Alex shares how
he believes this instructional omission prevents students from developing
identities as capable readers, writers, and thinkers. Because Alex believes
that reading, writing, speaking, and thinking can provide all students with
powerful means to express themselves and to contribute to the world, he
talks often about the frustrations of working in the school; but the lesson
architecture has enabled him to make instructional choices that prevent the
resignation that often accompanies the overwhelming realities of challeng-
ing school contexts. The architecture enables his critique and informs his
means for resisting and responding to these tensions in everyday teaching.
He has identified ways to work within the school’s existing curriculum and
still to infuse more instructional modeling and increase opportunities for
students’ reading.
For new teachers like Alex, it is exciting to see their growing confi-
dence in their abilities to contribute to these crucial conversations about
equitable and effective ELA teaching. We are also thrilled to see the ways
that engagement with interactional awareness has provided them with
sensitivity to context in ways that support calls to promote a social justice
or critical view in ELA. As we know, this awareness is vital as new teachers
move into increasingly multicultural contexts for teaching ELA. Concerns
about how teacher discourse frames opportunities for learning have left our
students with questions about equity and their teaching moves. In addition to
an inquiry stance, they also walk away with understanding about how larger
institutional contexts affect in-the-moment classroom interactions. They
end up with ways to question and explore complexity, as well as tangible,
theory-driven practices that they can use as well-started beginning teachers.
These promising outcomes accompany questions, such as the extent to which
the integration of practice and interaction has positioned our students to
respond to the complex teaching realities they face as beginning teachers.
Why This Conversation Matters: Shaping Uncertain Institutional
Contexts with Practice and Interactional Awareness
This leads to a broader conversation: How can the lesson architecture shed
light on other institutional and policy constraints we face as English teacher
educators? The combination of interactional awareness and practice in the
architecture can offer a starting place for English educators to articulate
how and why preparing English teachers requires both. We have noticed
the ways the lesson architecture provides possibilities for responses to the
crucial questions about practice, assessment, and new teacher learning that
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are at stake in the increasingly standardized context in which we work. For
us, the combined conversation provided a way to have some institutional
push back, as we used teacher education’s current focus on teaching practice
as a useful concrete means through which to explore new ways to activate
interactional awareness for preservice teachers. Now as some of us work in
other teacher preparation contexts, new uses of the lesson architecture in
new institutional spaces remind us to consider the implications of infusing
interactional awareness. The focus on practice reminds us to do more than
talk at our students about all the wonderful theory-based methods they could
or should use. The interactional component reminds us to avoid simply teach-
ing practices outside of an awareness of interactional contexts.
And what are the implications for current institutional conversations
about how to measure teachers’ efficacy? For instance, can an insistence on
the importance of interactional awareness help us talk back to the edTPA
assessments and other “practice”-based assessments? How can we point to
what may be missing and/or oversimplified in other preservice or inservice
assessments focused on background content knowledge and pedagogy? These
times bring much uncertainty. Yet, uncertain times also may be changeable
times.
In our case, we have not yet had opportunities to shape these assess-
ments directly, but we have shaped the conversation as English educators
with students by revisiting and being explicit about the reciprocal theory/
practice conversation in relation to our ethical responsibilities to new ELA
teachers. Some of us work to develop teacher assessments to match new CAEP
or other standards. In each new institutional context, the lesson architecture
provides an opportunity to raise questions about assessing deeper preservice
teacher learning about building interactionally aware lessons. Is it enough
for preservice teachers to write up a lesson plan, to give a well-structured
PowerPoint presentation, or to see teacher educators model best practice?
Does the process need to involve joint inquiry—equipping new teachers not
just with the what of the architecture but also with dispositions and ways
of being? How do we construct formative and performance assessments
that help students understand their own practices and interactions as well
as others so that they can jointly grow their practice over time and beyond
their time in our university and field-based classrooms? How do we best as-
sess discursive and interactional awareness—which we feel equips teacher
candidates to deal with the uncertainty they worry about and to offer key
interventions in the teaching of ELA for secondary students?
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Lesley Rex for her feedback on the developing manuscript. We also
thank the editors and reviewers for their thoughtful comments. Finally, we offer a
special note of thanks to our students whose experiences have shaped our learning
and inspired this work.
References
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linguistics (pp. 571–584). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Rex, L. A., & Schiller, L. (2009). Using discourse analysis to improve classroom inter-
action. New York: Routledge.
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and commentary with past editor Cathy Fleischer. English Education, 43(3),
219–224.
What do we know and believe about the roles of methods courses and field experi-
ences in English education? (2005). CEE Position Statement. Retrieved from
http://www.ncte.org/cee/positions/roleofmethodsinee
Melinda J. McBee Orzulak is an assistant professor at Bradley University
in Peoria, Illinois, where she coordinates the English education program.
Her current research focuses on linguistically responsive instruction and
writing teacher education, particularly integrating ELL students into the
ELA classroom.
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Danielle M. Lillge is a PhD candidate in the Joint Program in English and
Education at the University of Michigan. Drawing on experience as a high
school teacher, literacy leader, and professional development specialist, her
research explores teachers’ ongoing learning about the teaching of writing
within and across disciplines.
Steven John Engel is an assistant professor of English at Marygrove College,
where he teaches undergraduate writing courses. His current research
examines instructors’ and students’ attitudes and beliefs about plagiarism.
Victoria Shaw Haviland, winner of the 2006 NCTE Promising Researcher
Award, works for University of Michigan School of Education Detroit School
Partnership initiative. Haviland works with interns and inservice English and
arts teachers to develop and implement innovative curricula and teaching
approaches for students at the Detroit School of Arts.
Call for Nominations: James N. Britton Award
The Conference on English Education is now accepting nominations for the James N.
Britton Award for inquiry within the English language arts. This award, presented in
odd numbered years, recognizes exemplary studies published in any format/modality
during a given two-year period. The purpose of the award is to encourage English lan-
guage arts teacher development by promoting classroom-based research and reflective
inquiry in which teachers at any educational level raise questions about teaching and
learning in their own teaching/learning settings.
The nominated work should (1) represent classroom-based research conducted
by an English language arts teacher at any level—preschool through university; (2) be
focused on a systemic study of any aspect of the inquirer’s own teaching, including
collaborative research with other practitioners; (3) be published during the two-year
time period under consideration in any format/modality, including books, articles,
and digital illustrations of model practices in the field.
Nominations may be made by any language arts educator or by self-nomination.
Nominations for studies published between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2014,
must be received no later than May 1, 2015. Send nominations and materials to
CEE Britton Award, NCTE, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1010, or cee@
ncte.org, Attn: CEE Administrative Liaison. Winners will be notified in July 2015 and
announced at the 2015 NCTE Annual Convention in Minneapolis, MN.
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and skills. For these reasons, as we reflect on our roles as teacher educators
and mentors, we wonder whether our efforts are worthy of our students’
trust. We find ourselves contemplating whether our efforts to prepare future
ELA teachers warrant the trust of our students and others who care equally
about their induction into our profession. By trust, we mean our ethical
responsibility to future teachers as they navigate the uncertain waters of
the teaching profession and the confidence in our ability to support them
toward independence.
For us, these ethical and practical concerns became even more pressing
in the university context where we have worked together over the past few
years. Our concerns surfaced in a familiar conversation with a first-semester
undergraduate in our teacher education program at the University of Michi-
gan. Dan (all names are pseudonyms) described his early perceptions of what
he would learn during three semesters in the program:
I think that a lot of the theory we’re going to get here [in this program] is
going to be really helpful to apply it, but to be a successful English teacher
I have to have different ideas of what I could do with things—certain lesson
plans, or how I should approach . . . how to organize the chalkboard, chairs
in the room, something I don’t know if I’m going to get [here]. I haven’t
heard of other people getting that kind of thing at [this university], but I’ve
had friends that go to [another university] and they often say specifically,
“This is how you do this.”
There it is: the common complaint about how theory can overshadow prac-
tice in teacher preparation. Dan was not alone in his feelings of uncertainty
about being underequipped for navigating the complexities of ELA classroom
instruction. His colleagues shared concerns about not having read enough
young adult novels, not having been introduced to the best classroom man-
agement techniques, and not knowing how to respond to students’ diverse
learning needs. Theirs were rightful concerns about the day-to-day realities
of classroom life and their developing role as teachers in those classrooms.
Two semesters later, another conversation with Dan resulted in this
reflection about his learning:
At this point I feel comfortable with my knowledge of English and writing
and reading that I can probably teach my own concoction of how I would
want to approach it in the classroom, but I wouldn’t have anything else
to base it off of, just my own intuition of how should I approach this or
how I should approach that. I don’t know if I’m going to get a whole lot of
different, um, explicit approaches . . . as opposed to a general overall, um,
theology, about it. . . . I had some of the fears of content knowledge, those
faculty and staff in the Ed School have done a great job of assuaging those
and saying, “Look, it’s more about the students than it’s about the content.”
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