Getting It Right

As a secondary English methods professor, I wish I could get it right every time.  The truth is, I wish I could claim just one perfect year as a middle or high school teacher instead of a few near-perfect class periods or too many near-perfect disasters.  As many educators of any level might agree, it is the striving for perfection that keeps us moving forward: researching best practices, finding better resources, attending professional conferences, and meeting new colleagues as we continually shape and reshape our philosophical stance on teaching and learning.

Every week, my English methods students pose tough questions about numerous topics in education that experienced teachers struggle with daily.  Last week they asked, "How do we get students to actually read (or care about reading) during silent reading?  What does accountability for independent reading look like?  How do I manage student choice and grading?"  Channeling some of my best professors' strategies, I asked them to discuss their own classroom observations and what they have learned from their mentor teachers.  Most recently, however, during our discussion of Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and Deborah Appleman's Critical Encounters in Secondary English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents, one student stumped me with questions about grading: How do we assess scaffolding if one student needs more resources and assistance than another student?  How does the scaffolding enter into grading?  


Time limited our discussion that evening, which made it immediately clear that we needed more resources to help us grapple with these issues around grading practices.  Having experienced the depth of the Twitter professional network, I turned to #sbgchat and discovered #sblchat (Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST).  In just moments, I found a video by Rick Wormeli, proficiency grading guides, a website on all things standards based by Matt Townsley, and conversations archived by Garnet Hillman around grading theory and practice.  


Yes, my students' questions give me pause, more now that I realize how much there is to learn.  But knowing how to navigate these education resources moves me closer to being the professor my secondary teacher candidates need me to be.  I have an advantage over my first-year teacher self of twelve years ago: supportive professional networks that constantly teach me (how else would I have discovered teachers on Twitter?).  These networks include the National Council of Teachers of English (@NCTE), National Writing Project (@writingproject) beginning with the Louisville Writing Project (@LouisvilleWP) and continuing with the Illinois Writing Project (@IllinoisWP), the International Literacy Association (@ILAtoday), the Illinois Reading Council (@ILReadCouncil, and the Literacy Research Association.  Through these professional networks, I have learned the value of mentors, lifelong research, and constant investigation.  I have also learned the importance of wobbling on the edge of new challenges.  Without these experiences and the support of these associations--of mentors and friends--I wouldn't be able to show my future teachers how to get it right, even if it's only some of the time.

Terminal Degree as the Beginning

As I listened to Ashley Miller speak at the doctoral hooding ceremony about her fears of not graduating, of that dreaded email requiring one more course or one more draft, I realized how real my own fears had become.  The time-line of defending my dissertation at the end of March, addressing the committee's recommendations in early April, sending the revised draft to my adviser soon afterwards, submitting the final dissertation to the graduate school before April 22, and the ceremony on May 13, intensified these fears rather than relieved them.  And when I was in line to step onto the stage, I held back the urge to look inside the cardboard tube with the University of Louisville seal to see if anything was inside.

The ceremony marked the transition to "Doctor" as one to be taken with great responsibility.  Dr. Beth Boehm, vice provost for graduate affairs, assured our families that a terminal degree meant "the end"--no more coursework or dissertation drafts.  Yet, this journey is just beginning.  As doctoral students, we learned how to create new knowledge.  Through our doctoral programs, we discovered the needs within our communities.  Our new terminal degrees have positioned us as researchers, creators, and problem solvers.

Through courses in education and literacy theory, teaching writing, cognitive coaching, and qualitative research design and methods, I discovered the need for "small data."  I am prepared to analyze trends, identify learning gaps, and further disaggregate data as tiny lenses into education; yet, more exists to be seen and heard.  My dissertation research study narrated the stories of a teacher leadership team and the liaisons across the country who developed and implemented a Literacy Design Collaborative professional development workshop called Assignments Matter.  Narratives such as these show us effective ways into big data.  Teacher and student narratives help us see the faces behind the numbers.

Inspired by the speakers' encouraging words, my adviser Dr. Penny Howell's vote of confidence, and my professor Dr. Lori Norton-Meier's special congratulations, I enter the next phase of my education.  Empowered with the knowledge of how to create new knowledge, I attend to the literacy and professional development needs within education through organizations such the Illinois Writing Project.  And although I hesitated to add "Ph.D." to my C.V. until it was official, I now have a signed parchment that no one can take away from me--I'd like to see them try.

Leadership of Reflective Inquiry

As I viewed the responses this morning for my Advanced Reading Methods course, I felt my heart getting fuller with the depth of thinking and connections I found on the discussion board.  The graduate students wrote at length about classroom experiences and contexts that pushed them to dig deeper into studying what might work for their own students.  They highlighted excerpts from the Best Practices text, as would be expected in a reading response, but also shared their struggles with rising to the expectations teachers should have for themselves when using "best practices" in their classrooms. While the posts shared elements of "still trying" and "not there yet," the writings carried with them a sense of reflecting for the purpose of inquiring forward, of unmasking weaknesses in order to find strength in the community and the texts.  Peers have begun sharing resources and posing questions of each other, probing for more context so they can both understand and prompt for internally persuasive dialogue. 

My friend in the National Writing Project said she has witnessed teachers all over the country get together to figure things out.  Teachers in different content areas, grade levels, and departments have the capacity to think through issues and work towards solutions.  We see this in groups of teachers who know individually they do not have the answers, who see the group as being smarter than any one entity.

This brings me to the role a leader has in a class, organization, or small group.  A leader, whether he/she is a teacher leader, an administrator, or PD provider must understand the situation of the inquiry or problem, the interaction among the group members, and the continuity or time line for action.  A leader knows how these three elements intersect to create the dynamics of reflective inquiry.  If a leader is responsible for managing the moving parts, how can the leader also solve the problem?  In knowing the terrain, the leader within a school setting can make clear the path for teachers to do the hard work of reflecting, inquiring, testing, and analyzing.

My role in this course was assigning a text, setting up a discussion board, and designing a calendar of assignments.  Much of my syllabus is a credit to my friend and newly-graduated PhD.  My adjustments made the course more accessible to online learning but did not change the content or focus. But I must pause here to acknowledge a leader's role in a course.  The leader's preparation before the course begins builds the foundation for students to be participatory in the work of each class.  I believe the group is smarter than the individual. I especially believe any group I teach will be smarter in many ways than I will be as its instructor.

As a leader in the sense that I instruct classes, I need to acknowledge that it's okay to be the leader and not in charge of the learning. Sheridan Blau, a keynote speaker for a National Writing Project annual meeting spoke of research surrounding the proficiency of professionals in different fields.  What I need to remember is that research says having questions and feeling inadequate signals proficiency or at least the desire to get there.  If we think we are proficient, we probably aren't.  It makes me chuckle to think about my friend in the Writing Project who says she hopes feeling dumb is actually a sign of how smart she is--I laugh at this because she really is one of the smartest people I know.

My dissertation research into reflective inquiry has me questioning how group members work together with and as leaders to plan professional development.  I want to know what fosters or hinders reflective inquiry in our professional development planning.  At first, I thought the backtalk of authoritative discourse and internally persuasive discourse would be the static I would need to tune into.  Then I realized the backtalk of these discourses pushes thinking but does not necessarily hinder or foster inquiry.  I paused then to consider the leadership roles within our group and discovered the growth of reflective inquiry when clear leadership is present.  A leader who defines the context, poses questions, and trusts the members with the thinking process encourages and fosters reflective inquiry.  What happens sometimes, though, is people may enter the discussion without having hold of all the necessary intersecting elements in reflective inquiry.

To engage in reflective inquiry, one must look backward to dissect favorable and unfavorable events and experiences so that some may be repeated and others may (hopefully) never be seen again.  At the same time, a reflective inquirer must see enough value in the present work to want to see its positive effects in a different, future context.  If a future value cannot be determined or cannot be seen, whether personally, professionally, in part, or in whole, the inquiry can die before taking root.  A reflective inquirer recognizes adaptability in the problem, solution, and him/herself. Reflective inquiry is about seeking answers to future questions while solving present problems.

I do not know all the answers.  I ask questions, think deeply, ponder inadequacies, and learn constantly.  Am I a reflective inquirer?  I hope so.  My future in teaching will be bleak if I cannot re-envision past lessons and learn from all my previous experiences.  But once I know all the answers, I think I can retire from teaching and leading.

Story as a Fossil and the NCTE Proposal Title

As I struggle with the right conference proposal title, I think about the aha moment I had just an hour ago while reading Stephen King's On Writing.  I bought this book some years ago and enjoyed reading it then as I am enjoying a reread of it now.  But the section about fossils and symbolism made me pause:  "If you can go along with the concept of the story as a pre-existing thing, a fossil in the ground, then symbolism must also be pre-existing, right? Just another bone (or set of them) in your new discovery" (p. 198).  Stories, he said, are fully formed and need the proper excavation tools.  And maybe symbols and deeper meanings are much the same.

What this comes to is my narrative stance in research.  I want to study, to write about, inquire into the idea of transformation experiences in teacher development.  Why do certain professional development experiences transform some teachers and not others?  How might narrative inquiry help us know the entire story that answers that question?  It seems that there is a fossil that must be discovered, unearthed, and polished for us to understand why some teachers respond with renewed vigor for the profession and others decide that one more hoop just won't do it for them.  I suspect transformation has to do with the validation teachers finally feel as professionals when they attend learning opportunities that honor their capacity as leaders.

Recently, I learned about another kind of transformation.  By listening to interviews, reading transcripts, and focusing on the story being told, I found a thread running through many conversations between one teacher and myself.  I created a narrative research/literature review that uncovered an interesting element that could lead to the teacher's exploration of new classroom strategies.  Seeing the story of our work, the teacher realized our conversations, more than class reflections, were intelligent talk that moved learning and discovery forward. That story is still developing.  But it may be key to figuring out the transformation piece.  Perhaps the transformed teachers discovered a fossil--their mission, teaching story, or leadership ability, perhaps--and were able to polish it with renewed strength and insight with the right excavation [PD] tools.  That, too, remains to be seen.

There may be no easy formula to determine the best professional learning opportunity.  It most likely is dependent on the disposition of the attendee and his or her context.  If that is true, even the well-designed PD may fall short of delivering (or deliverance).  This inquiry goes deeper than examining professional development feedback databases or administering surveys.  The story begins at the fossil, in the classroom before the professional development experience.  Either polishing happens or it doesn't, but we have to know the fossil from the beginning.

So I am still stuck with no title for my NCTE proposal and am only a  little clearer on my narrative stance in research.