Transcript

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55(1) September 2011doi:10.1598/JA AL.55.1.3 © 2011 International Reading Association (pp. 25–34)

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The attitudes and beliefs

about reading that preservice

secondary teachers bring

to their undergraduate

coursework can shape

their futures as teachers,

sometimes to negative effect.

Mellinee Lesley

Understanding Resistance: Preservice Teachers’ Discourse Models of Struggling Readers and School Literacy Tasks

Concern over struggling adolescent readers has given rise to a recent ac-cumulation of research and policy statements (see Faggella-Luby, Ware, & Capozzoli, 2009, for a summary). Concomitantly, theories and methods for teaching these readers have become a major focus in content area literacy textbooks marketed for secondary-level preservice teachers (e.g., Irvin, Buehl, & Klemp, 2007). Even with this exigency for content area literacy methods, I have found preservice teachers to be less than enthusiastic about joining the crusade for efforts designed to meet the needs of struggling adolescent readers through content area instruction.

Over the past two decades, several studies have documented similar in-tractable attitudes toward teaching literacy exhibited by preservice teachers enrolled in secondary-level content area literacy courses (e.g., Bean, 1997; Draper, 2002; Nourie & Lenski, 1998). Similarly, several studies have been directed toward remedies for such negative attitudes (e.g., Beck & Feret, 2004; Bintz, 1993; Braunger, Donahue, Evans, & Galguera, 2005; Daisey, 1996; Lesley, 2004; Lesley, Watson, & Elliot, 2007; Stevens, 2002). Alger (2007) developed a content area literacy class predicated upon a view of lit-eracy for adolescents as a form of social justice. Similarly, Begoray (2008) noted the positive effects of adopting a multiple literacies perspective in con-tent area literacy instruction for music education majors. As part of the accu-mulation of such studies, a great deal of analysis has resulted in theories that examine the relationship between content and literacy instruction (Conley, Kerner, & Reynolds, 2005; Draper, Smith, Hall, & Siebert, 2005; Fisher & Ivey, 2005; Moje, 1996, 2010).

To address such pedagogical orientations of preservice teachers, Stewart (1990) contended teacher educators needed to examine the “complex and deeply ingrained beliefs” (p. 62) about literacy that preservice teachers possess. Similarly, Bean (1994) argued in favor of a constructivist approach to under-standing preservice teachers’ attitudes toward reading, which would allow for ref lective and individualistic views of literacy development. Hall (2005) noted, however, that teacher beliefs about teaching were difficult to change:

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55(1) September 2011doi:10.1598/JA AL.55.1.3 © 2011 International Reading Association (pp. 25–34)

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language, tools, texts, nonverbal behaviors, and other kinds of artifacts to describe life experiences under-stood through the lens of social and cultural groups. Using Gee’s theoretical construct, I set out to exam-ine the Discourse models fueling the literacy identities of preservice secondary-level teachers in an attempt to understand their generally negative predisposition toward content area literacy instruction and the pros-pect of teaching struggling readers.

In spite of many studies and theories, questions and space for conjecture remain about the causes of reading difficulty for adolescents. Thus, I turned to autobiographical writing about literacy acquisition to engage my students in examining notions of struggling readers vis-à-vis their own literacy histories. Bean (1994) viewed autobiographical writing about reading experiences as a key ref lective process in preservice teachers’ preparation in content area literacy methods. Alvine (2001) noted writing about one’s memories of literacy learning helped make explicit the ways one has lived literacy theories and thus supported devel-opment of a “more fully integrated knowledge base for teaching” (p. 10). Soliday (1994) referred to this process as “crossings” between two worlds—one lived and one examined—in which “self-translation” al-lows individuals to develop an “interpretive perspec-tive” and “see that reading and writing are not natural acts, but culturally situated, acquired practices” (pp. 511, 520). The act of rendering the details of one’s literacy acquisition into a story constructs an identity developed around “friction points” between being a student and becoming a teacher (p. 520). Cook-Sather (2006) noted that preservice teachers engage in more “imagining than enacting their identities as teachers” (p. 198), but Clark and Medina (2000) found “con-structing narratives of past literacy events made them visible and available for examination and critical re-f lection” (p. 69). The literacy narrative assignment I developed for preservice teachers was based on this body of work and is shown in Figure 1.

MethodologyThe methods of data collection I employed were consistent with qualitative research (Erickson, 1986), predicated on a practitioner stance (Baumann & Duffy-Hester, 2002). Methodologically, I grounded

As teacher educators, we have to remember that pre and in-service teachers are inf luenced by their expe-riences as former students, teachers, and the context they have or are currently experiencing.... Given this, it is important for us to understand content area teach-ers’ beliefs about reading instruction and how they view their role as teachers of reading. (p. 405)

All of these studies highlight the importance of ref lec-tion in shaping preservice teachers’ views of literacy.

Through the years I have been teaching content area literacy, I have come to question the part pre-service teachers’ literacy identities play in their de-veloping beliefs about the relevance of content area literacy instruction. The formation of literacy identi-ties for preservice teachers is a complex terrain de-lineated by social and cultural markers (Gee, 2005; Williams, 2004), many of which are derived from previous schooling experiences. I therefore set out to examine the literacy identities secondary-level preser-vice teachers presented prior to entering a content area literacy course.

The Impetus for My Research QuestionThe story of my research question began in 2007 when a preservice teacher wrote in her description of a les-son plan that, as an English teacher, she would call on her “smarter” students to answer questions pertain-ing to assigned readings. Her plan for teaching “mar-ginalized” students, struggling readers, and teenagers who were still learning English was to ignore them. At the end of the semester, I also received the follow-ing comment in my course evaluations: “I would have benefited more from learning how to do lesson plans, learn how to motivate and teach the smart kids (not just the slow learners).” These comments raised my awareness of a deeper philosophical orientation tug-ging at the seams of the course content.

To address such resistance to the idea of teaching struggling readers, I decided to examine preservice teachers’ Discourse models about reading (Gee, 2005). Gee defined Discourse models as the “largely uncon-scious theories” individuals hold about “texts and the world” that shape their actions (p. 71). Discourse models are “images” and “storylines” of “taken-for-granted assumptions about what is ‘typical’ or ‘nor-mal’” (p. 72). They are revealed through one’s use of

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I then went through a process of identifying re-curring models and linking models with similar pat-terns together to form a deeper understanding of the evaluative relationships between the Discourse mod-els, similar to a process of determining axial codes in a grounded-theory approach to data analysis (Harry, Sturges, & Klingner, 2005).

In analyzing the narratives, I compiled numerous preliminary Discourse models about literacy arising in the data. The following are examples:

1. Reading ability is fixed and represented through monolithic evaluative experiences in school.

2. Reading in school is an act of complicit behavior.

3. Authentic reading in school requires rebellion against the curriculum and authority figures.

From the connected models, I identified “master models,” or predominant Discourse models arising in the data. Gee (2005) defined master models as “sets of associated Discourse models, or single models that

this study in literacy theories that consider the so-cial practices and cultural perspectives of individuals as major contributors to constructing literacy (e.g., Heath, 1990/2004). Furthermore, language use is viewed as symbolic action (Gee, 2005). Through this sociocultural theoretical lens, I developed the follow-ing research questions to guide my inquiry:

1. How do preservice teachers enrolled in a con-tent area literacy course describe their read-ing and writing abilities and experiences for both in-school and out-of-school purposes in a written literacy narrative?

2. What kinds of Discourse models about read-ing and writing do secondary-level preser-vice teachers give voice to in written literacy narratives?

Data sources gathered to address these questions consisted of literacy narratives written by preservice teachers at the beginning of the semester in five sec-tions of a content area literacy course for secondary-level teacher certification. The literacy narratives were gathered at the beginning of each semester and thus captured my students’ views of literacy instruction prior to their participation in the content area literacy course.

I analyzed the data through an inductive process of identifying Discourse models present in each lit-eracy narrative. I analyzed each class set of literacy narratives separately as I taught the classes to estab-lish the Discourse models. I also engaged in member checking with the preservice teachers after analyzing each set of essays to confirm my interpretations of the students’ work and to establish trustworthiness in the Discourse models identified in the narratives. The preservice teachers were familiar with one another’s essays through engaging in writers’ workshop and a publishing activity, so they were in a good position to offer collective insights about recurring and discrep-ant models.

To code the literacy narratives, I created a unit of analysis that consisted of any cluster of sentences that rendered a judgment or insight about previous literacy experiences (e.g., “This type of writing caused me to be turned off to writing and affected my attitude to-wards these assignments as I advanced in school”).

Figure 1 Literacy Narrative Assignment

At the beginning of the semester, I would like you to write a narrative of your literacy development. You can think of this paper as a literacy autobiography in which you explore the origins of the ways you learned to read and write. You can also discuss your current beliefs about yourself as a reader/writer. These papers serve two purposes: (1) reflective analysis of your literacy histories and (2) an opportunity to get to know one another in this class.

I encourage you to experiment with a variety of formats for this assignment (e.g., interviews, lyrics, extended vignettes).

In developing this paper, you may want to explore some of the following questions:

(1) What are your earliest memories associated with learning to read?

(2) What are your earliest memories associated with learning to write?

(3) How do you currently approach reading/writing tasks?

(4) How do you feel about yourself as a reader?

(5) How do you feel about yourself as a writer?

(6) How do you use language in different settings?

This paper should be approximately 3–5 typed, double-spaced pages in length. Your paper will be published in a collective class archive.

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FindingsFrom my analysis of Discourse models in the literacy narratives, I identified five master models that cap-tured what literacy looked like and meant in school settings for the preservice teachers in this study. These master models also indicated the ways previous expe-riences with literacy forged the preservice teachers’ literacy identities. Table 2 is a breakdown by academic major of the frequency of master models referenced by the preservice teachers.

Master Model 1: School Experiences Have Greater Impact Than Home ExperiencesVirtually all the preservice teachers wrote positively about their home literacy experiences, but few found a seamless connection between what happened at home and what was required with literacy in school settings. School definitions of literacy eclipsed home definitions in the literacy narratives through the im-portance given to school literacy tasks. Also, school experiences with literacy played a significant role in determining the preservice teachers’ attitudes to-ward literacy, whether these attitudes were positive or negative.

Explaining the enduring grip school labels for reading ability possess, a male student majoring in ex-ercise and sports sciences wrote,

As I began kindergarten I found myself falling behind the others at my age, and after a while it became em-barrassing to me because of my strong competitive nature to be lagging behind the other students. The teachers and school didn’t really help this problem out any when they put me in a reading improvement class. This class was no different than a regular class; I learned nothing that helped my reading problem.... I thought I was finished with reading problems until I made the transition to Junior High in the sixth grade. I found myself in the same position I was in early el-ementary. Reading was not my strong subject and the teachers noticed, so it was back to “reading improve-ment” for me.

Often preservice teachers wrote of the ways fami-lies worked to help them become successful in school, though sometimes contradictions arose between home and school literacy practices. In either instance, school approaches, labels, and definitions trumped

help shape and organize large and important aspects of experience for particular groups of people” (p. 83). From an analytical perspective, the master models were similar to theoretical codes or assertions about the predominant Discourse models arising in the data. For example, the master model “Writing is rarely pre-sented as a tool for exploration, creativity, or think-ing in school” was developed by combining Discourse models of “Students receive little choice in construct-ing writing,” “Writing instruction was formulaic in genre and expectations,” “Writing instruction was driven by standardized test formats,” “Instruction in creative writing was rare,” and “Students enjoy being challenged with creative writing tasks.”

ParticipantsSubjects were 114 undergraduate students, 64 (56%) female and 50 (44%) male. Eighty-four percent were white, 14% were Hispanic, and 2% were Asian. Percentages of participants by academic major are listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Academic Majors of Study Participants (n = 114)

Exercise and sports sciences 21%

Music education 15%

History 13%

English 11%

Art 10%

Agriculture education 6%

Science 5%

Math 4%

Family and consumer sciences 4%

Spanish 4%

Communications 2%

French 1%

German 1%

Journalism 1%

Dance 1%

Theater 1%

Business 1%

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preservice teachers’ views. Even though they viewed schools as playing a primary role in students’ literacy development, ironically many non–English majors shrunk from the idea of taking on this responsibility themselves as teachers.

Master Model 2: Literacy Ability Does Not Change From Elementary SchoolPreservice teachers wrote about feeling resigned to their literacy attitudes, aptitudes, and identities be-ing fixed at an early age and incapable of evolving as they grew into adulthood. Those who identified themselves as “struggling” readers in their literacy narratives often did so with an attendant attitude of helplessness. Because literacy ability was viewed with few exceptions as a fixed phenomenon, it was also presented as a commodity or possession that one ei-ther had or did not have. The logic was if one did

home expectations and definitions over time, such that the preservice teachers who excelled at reading and writing in school articulated positive literacy identities while those who enjoyed reading and writ-ing at home but not at school did not. For instance, a female English major wrote,

My mother who is a high school English teacher tried very hard to help me read. She would take me into her bedroom at night and we would read simple books. Even though I was a bad reader and sometimes stum-bled over the words, it was more comforting to mess up in front of my mother than a bunch of students who would have made fun of me. My mother did help me to read, but she did not teach me.

This binary between reading at home and reading at school created a hierarchy of importance and risk, with school literacy tasks placed above home literacy tasks. Such hierarchical binaries were common in the

Table 2 Frequency of Master Models Cited by Participant Major

Academic major

Model 1

(school vs. home reading)

Model 2

(literacy ability is fixed)

Model 3

(narrow assessment of

literacy)

Model 4

(reading is forced)

Model 5

(writing assignments are

limited)

Exercise and sports sciences 83% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Music education 66% 88% 78% 100% 100%

History 80% 20% 100% 100% 100%

English 57% 100% 29% 43% 71%

Art 67% 67% 100% 50% 50%

Agriculture education 100% 0% 100% 100% 100%

Science 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Math 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Family and consumer sciences 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Spanish 100% 0% 100% 0% 50%

Communications 100% 100% 100% 100% 0%

French 0% 0% 0% 100% 100%

German 0% 100% 0% 0% 0%

Journalism 100% 0% 100% 100% 100%

Dance 0% 100% 0% 100% 0%

Theater 0% 0% 100% 100% 0%

Business 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

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Master Model 3: School Expectations Are Based on Narrow Definitions and Evaluations of Literacy PerformanceMany preservice teachers discussed the ways being evaluated as a reader and writer developed their en-during or core literacy identities and their understand-ing of the causes that lead readers to struggle in school settings. Virtually all of the preservice teachers de-scribed a restrictive culture of reading instruction that offered little room for variation in how literacy ability was defined and evaluated. With respect to a limited content area literacy curriculum, a male history ma-jor wrote, “I had to do handouts which developed the system of ping pong reading in me.” Similarly, a male communications major wrote, “Reading was simply a means to an end that related to education and nothing more.” References to evaluation of reading and writing captured an all-or-nothing approach. For example, a female Spanish major wrote, “Through seventh and eighth grade all my reading and writing energy was reserved for school. This included prepar-ing for the [statewide] test as well as reading in my reading classes.”

The majority of preservice teachers described the most prevalent form for assessing reading as centered on a multiple-choice test format (such as the Accelerated Reader program) and standardized testing.

An attendant Discourse model pertaining to the evaluative aspect of this master model was the be-lief that reading strategies were for struggling read-ers who did not score well on the dominant forms of reading assessment. Preservice teachers made specific references to literacy strategies only when describing struggling with reading. Relying on reading strategies was portrayed as emblematic behavior for a struggling reader. Through all of these examples, preservice teachers described highly limited purposes for and as-sessment of reading.

Master Model 4: Reading Is a Forced and Inevitably Boring Task in SchoolAlthough several preservice teachers described reading a book in English class that they loved and identified with, virtually all students wrote about becoming bored and thus disconnected from the majority of reading

not possess strong reading skills and struggled in el-

ementary school, one would struggle into high school

and even college. For example, a female English major

wrote of her unchanging reading identity:

How I feel about myself as a reader has not changed over the years. Earlier on I would have said I was an average reader. Now that I have matured into adult-hood I still think of myself as average. The only change is that of genres that interest me.

Similarly, a male music education major wrote the

following about the stagnation of his ability and at-

titude toward reading:

When I read, I have trouble with understanding what I read. I read the words but do not listen and often have to re-read the sentence a few times before I un-derstand it. This goes for everything I read, whether it is a textbook or a guitar magazine, I read without comprehending the texts.... I do not know if my at-titude towards reading and writing can change at this point or not.

Ref lecting over his school practices with reading, a

male science major wrote, “I’m still not the best stu-

dent that I should be.” Similarly, a female English ma-

jor wrote, “I am lucky that reading has always been

reasonably easy for me.”

Stories about transformation in literacy ability or

attitude were extremely rare across the narratives. A

few preservice teachers described seeing the impor-

tance of literacy as high school or college students, but

they rarely described a changed identity as a reader or

writer. For example, another male music education

major wrote,

I do regret not reading more and trying to get by without having to read, especially when I look at how smart I could be if I would have just read a little more. I know there are many advantages to reading but when I think about it I still do not care to read very often. I do not feel that I am strong at either reading or writing.

In all of these excerpts, preservice teachers de-

scribe a belief in the inevitable and unchanging nature

of their reading ability.

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preservice teachers’ interest in reading. A few described pleasure reading in school through sub-versive means. Some preservice teachers presented a school liter-acy identity and Discourse model of reading in school built around rebellion from reading required texts.

Preservice teachers who ex-pressed positive literacy identities and enjoying reading school- related books often simultaneous-ly noted their willingness to read texts that were of no interest to them. In essence, vir-tually all of the preservice teachers viewed reading in school as a “forced” and “boring” activity, either peri-odically or perpetually. However, those with positive literacy identities were able to tolerate the “chore” of boring reading materials and maintain an interest in reading in general. Also, there were several preservice teachers who connected with one particular required book in a high school English class and who described subsequently becoming intrigued by the prospect of reading. These were typically individuals who had been avid readers in elementary school, had become increasingly disillusioned with school reading tasks, but had somewhat miraculously became enamored with a book in middle school or high school that en-abled them to rekindle their love of reading, usually outside of school but sometimes also within.

Master Model 5: School Writing Is Rarely a Tool for Exploration, Creativity, or Thinking The preservice teachers who included references to writing assignments in school in their literacy narra-tives mentioned two predominant types:

1. Written responses to reading assignments (e.g., book reports, essays)

2. On-demand writing to prompts on standard-ized tests

Almost all the writing activities recounted came from English class assignments, suggesting writing experi-ences in school settings occurred in extremely nar-row content area venues. The writing most students

assignments presented to them in school settings. For example, a male music education major wrote of his ex-periences in middle school and high school, “Textbooks and required seemingly pointless and unnecessary read-ing eventually tainted my desire to read.”

Preservice teachers described engagement with reading in school most often when they were given choice as to what they wanted to read. Choice was cited as being extremely rare in school and usually oc-curred only in the occasional secondary-level English classroom. Describing the importance of choice, a fe-male family and consumer sciences major wrote,

In sixth grade this hunger for learning ended, I cor-relate it with my reading class. In this class, we had Accelerated Reader. I was forced to read a book a week. At the beginning I felt okay about this assign-ment. However, after I had read all the books I was interested in, I spent my week choosing books off a list of books that did not interest me. This is my first memory of reading becoming a chore, or me begin-ning to dislike reading.

Most preservice teachers struggled with bridging personal purposes for literacy with school purposes for literacy. They found it nearly impossible to locate venues for sharing their personal interests in and uses of literacy in school settings. Virtually all students who stated they enjoyed reading also listed titles and genres of books they identified with, but noted few of these titles were permitted in school settings—even during self-selected reading. For example, a female agricultural education major wrote,

I hated reading books for classes not because it was hard, because I had to. Something about having the choice of what I read and didn’t read made all the difference in my technique, mindset, and overall enthusiasm.

Capturing the importance of personal interest in reading, a male history major wrote, “How I feel about myself as a reader depends on what I am read-ing. It all comes back to what my interests are, and my interests are history and football.” Notably, not one preservice teacher stated they were interested in reading textbooks.

Feeling forced to read both textbooks and lit-erature almost always had the effect of suppressing

School definitions

of literacy eclipsed

home definitions

in the literacy

narratives through

the importance given

to school literacy

tasks.

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On balance, preservice teachers appreciated any op-portunity for writing governed by student choice and variety in genre.

Discussion and Implications for Teacher PreparationThe collective picture of schooling arising in the mas-ter models in this study portrays literacy instruction that has greatly shaped preservice teachers’ identities and expectations for reading and writing in school. With such experiences and expectations, preservice teachers arrive in a content area literacy class inclined to replicate these master models of school literacy in their imagined future instruction. Gee’s (2005) ques-tion, “What discourses are these Discourse models helping to reproduce, transform, or create?” (p. 93), highlights the enduring and inf luential nature of such master Discourse models.

With Gee’s question in mind, two points are im-portant to consider in light of the findings from this study. First, preservice teachers’ previous experiences with literacy in school settings must be addressed be-fore any meaningful content area literacy instruction can take place. Such ref lection, in fact, is essential if preservice teachers are to acclimate to learning about literacy methods designed to support the needs of struggling readers within content area instruction. Second, each of the five master models points to the origins of preservice teachers’ beliefs about teach-ing struggling readers as arising from their own past school experiences, where struggling readers were positioned as being essentially incapable of improving. These findings are consistent with Scharlach’s (2008) study of beliefs and behaviors toward tutoring strug-gling readers, in which she reported the majority of preservice teachers “did not believe they were capable of or responsible for teaching all of their students to read” (p. 170).

Content area literacy pedagogy needs to be ex-plicitly connected to these master models to help pre-service teachers disrupt such prevailing practices and beliefs about struggling readers. To do so, content area literacy classes should pair the five models with theo-ries and pedagogy that can counteract their deleterious effects. For instance, theories of multiliteracies (e.g., The New London Group, 2000) need to be paired

described being assigned in high school was highly formulaic and out of sync with student needs. For in-stance, a female English major wrote of her experi-ences with high school writing, “Writing assignments always seemed so overwhelming...topics were usually broad comparisons [and] seemed daunting, and gram-mar was confusing.” Echoing a similarly unengaged stance toward writing, a male mathematics major wrote: “I believe what really set my writing back was high school.” A female family and consumer sciences major wrote of her lack of interest in school writing assignments:

It was about my sophomore [10th grade] year that I began feeling as if writing was a chore. My sophomore year my English teacher made us write a paper a week, this does not seem like much, but it became a task. We had all these books to read and had to discuss them in a paper it became annoying.... I blame my lack of interest in reading and writing to the assignments I received while in School.

A female history major explained,

Today as a senior in college I am sad to say that I am not a good writer, or feel that I am not. When I hear that I have to write a paper my heart sinks. I dread it so much.... I believe I started feeling like this in high school.

Preservice teachers who articulated positive views about their writing experiences and abilities also re-ported that writing assignments outside these two predominant categories were uncommon. Although rare, when permitted to engage in a wider selection of writing scenarios, preservice teachers reported higher levels of enjoyment with writing. For example, a fe-male art major wrote, “It became fun to write because there was freedom and there were no guidelines.” A male music education major wrote,

Two things happened in high school that brought out a love for writing in me. The first was a new way of writing. I learned to write music in high school. I was able to take things and experiment with them mu-sically. The other was actually in my senior English class. I remember this because it was the first time I was required to keep a journal in a class that had abso-lutely nothing to do with what we were doing in class. The teacher had no other purpose for us keeping this journal than to write.

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Begoray, D. (2008). “There is def initely literacy in music”: Meeting the needs of band/choral teachers in a content area reading course. Journal of Reading Education, 33(3), 9–13.

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Braunger, J., Donahue, D.M., Evans, K., & Galguera, T. (2005). Rethinking preparation for content area teaching: The reading ap-prenticeship approach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Daisey, P. (1996). Promoting literacy in secondary content area classrooms with biography projects. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 40(4), 270–278.

Draper, R.J. (2002). School mathematics reform, constructivism, and literacy: A case for literacy instruction in the reform-oriented math classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(6), 520–529.

with the third, fourth, and fifth master models to help preservice teachers broaden their print-based views of literacy (Begoray, 2008), develop a deeper under-standing of writing in multiple genres (The National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges, 2003; Romano, 2000), and make visible the functions of disciplinary literacy (Moje, 2010). As part of content area literacy pedagogy aimed to redress the five master models, preservice teachers should also examine Alvermann’s (2001) typology of reasons why adolescents struggle with reading in school. Her con-structs will help preservice teachers further unpack their beliefs about struggling readers and anchor them to a broader theoretical framework.

Finally, preservice teachers’ belief in the inevita-bility of literacy tasks being boring and irrelevant helps to explain their lack of openness for adopting new lit-eracy methods in content area literacy classes. With so many negative associations and restrictive Discourse models about reading and writing experiences in school settings, is it any wonder that preservice teach-ers are not enthusiastic about learning methods of content area literacy in general and theories of strug-gling readers in particular? Until preservice teachers experience literacy learning that challenges the master models presented in this article, content area literacy instructors will struggle to gain their footing along a persistent path of student resistance.

ReferencesAlger, C.L. (2007). Engaging student teachers’ hearts and minds

in the struggle to address (il)literacy in content area class-rooms. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(8), 620–630. doi:10.1598/JAAL.50.8.1

Alvermann, D.E. (2001). Reading adolescents’ reading identi-ties: Looking back to see ahead. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(8), 676–690.

Alvine, L. (2001). Shaping the teaching self through auto-biographical narrative. The High School Journal, 84(3), 5–12. doi:10.1353/hsj.2001.0001

Baumann, J.F., & Duffy-Hester, A.M. (2002). Making sense of classroom worlds: Methodology in teacher research. In M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Methods of literacy research: The methodology chapters from the Handbook of Reading Research Volume III (pp. 1–22). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bean, T.W. (1994). A constructivist view of preservice teach-ers’ attitudes toward reading through case study analysis of autobiographies. In C.K. Kinzer & D.J. Leu, Jr. (Eds.), Multidimensional aspects of literacy research, theory, and practice:

Take Action!

Preservice teachers need to become aware of the Discourse models driving their dispositions to-wards teaching literacy. To develop this awareness,

1. Have preservice teachers write a ref lective nar-rative detailing their literacy experiences.

2. Analyze the Discourse models present in each literacy narrative.

3. Present content area literacy theories and peda-gogy that can disrupt inaccurate Discourse models and redress schooling practices that serve to create such Discourse models.

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Downloaded February 13, 2011, from www.collegeboard .com/prod_downloads/writingcom/neglectedr.pdf

The New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 9–37). New York: Routledge.

Nourie, B.L., & Lenski, S.D. (1998). The (in)effectiveness of content area literacy instruction for secondary preservice teachers. The Clearing House, 71(6), 372–374. doi:10.1080/00098659809599595

Romano, T. (2000). Blending genre, altering style: Writing multigenre papers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Scharlach, T.D. (2008). These kids just aren’t motivated to read: The inf luence of preservice teachers’ beliefs on their expectations, instruction, and evaluation of struggling readers. Literacy Research and Instruction, 47(3), 158–173. doi:10.1080/19388070802062351

Soliday, M. (1994). Translating self and difference through literacy narratives. College English, 56(5), 511–526. doi:10.2307/378604

Stevens, L.P. (2002). Making the road by walking: Transitions from content area literacy to adolescent literacy. Reading Research and Instruction, 41(3), 267–278.

Stewart, R.A. (1990). Factors inf luencing preservice teachers’ re-sistance to content area reading instruction. Reading Research and Instruction, 29(4), 55–63.

Williams, B.T. (2004). Heroes, rebels, and victims: Student identities in literacy narratives. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(4), 342–345.

Lesley teaches at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA;

e-mail [email protected].

Draper, R.J., Smith, L, Hall, K., & Siebert, D. (2005). What’s more important—literacy or content? Confronting the literacy- content dualism. Action in Teacher Education, 27(2), 12–21.

Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119–161). New York: Macmillan.

Faggella-Luby, M.N., Ware, S.M., & Capozzoli, A. (2009). Adolescent literacy—reviewing adolescent literacy reports: Key components and critical questions. Journal of Literacy Research, 41(4), 453–475. doi:10.1080/10862960903340199

Fisher, D., & Ivey, G. (2005). Literacy and language as learn-ing in content-area classes: A departure from “every teacher a teacher of reading.” Action in Teacher Education, 27(2), 3–11.

Gee, J.P. (2005). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Hall, L.A. (2005). Teachers and content area reading: Attitudes, beliefs and change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(4), 403–414. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2005.01.009

Harry, B., Sturges, K.M., & Klingner, J. (2005). Mapping the process: An exemplar of process and challenge in ground-ed theory analysis. Educational Researcher, 34(2), 3–13. doi:10.3102/0013189X034002003

Heath, S.B. (2004). The children of Trackton’s children: Spoken and written language in social change. In R.B. Ruddell & N.J. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 187–209). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. (Reprinted from Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development, pp. 496–519, by J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder, & G.S. Herdt, Eds., 1990, New York: Cambridge University Press)

Irvin, J.L., Buehl, D.R., & Klemp, R.M. (2007). Reading and the high school student: Strategies to enhance literacy (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Lesley, M. (2004). Looking for critical literacy with postbacca-laureate content area literacy students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48(4), 320–334. doi:10.1598/JAAL.48.4.5

Lesley, M., Watson, P., & Elliot, S. (2007). “School” reading and multiple texts: Examining the metacognitive development of secondary-level preservice teachers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), 150–162. doi:10.1598/JAAL.51.2.6

Moje, E.B. (1996). “I teach students, not subjects”: Teacher–student relationships as contexts for secondary literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 31(2), 172–195. doi:10.1598/RRQ.31.2.4

Moje, E.B. (2010). Comments on “Reviewing adolescent literacy reports: Key components and critical questions.” Journal of Literacy Research, 42(2), 109–114. doi:10.1080/10862960903340520

The National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges. (2003, April). The neglected “R”: The need for a writing revolution. New York: The College Board.

More to ExploreIRA Journal Articles■ “Content Area Reading Strategy Knowledge Transfer From

Preservice to First-Year Teaching” by Christianna Alger, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, September 2009

■ “Helping Preservice Reading Teachers Learn to Read and Conduct Research to Inform Their Instruction” by Alan M. Frager, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, November 2010

■ “Home and Away: The Tensions of Community, Literacy, and Identity” by Bronwyn T. Williams, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, December 2005


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