"I'm Not Teaching English, I'm Teaching Something Else!" Creating Curriculum in an Educational Reform Era

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Identity Exploration Through Critical Moments of Pedagogical Interaction in the Content Area

Abstract

This study presents how education students and beginning teachers design and teach a 7-12 Eng-lish Language Arts curriculum in urban schools during an era of educational reform. They work in schools driven by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), high stakes tests, and prescribed curricula. The participants also serve in schools which experience frequent administrative turno-ver and constantly changing curriculum mandates. This seven semester study, using the partici-pants’ reflective writings, records of daily teaching, and interviews, finds that they are not teach-ing the content or pedagogies they find effective or beneficial. They experience frustration with mandates imposed on them, and they find that what they are teaching bears little or no resem-blance to how themselves understand the English curriculum.

Author

• Arthur T. Costigan, Queens College - CUNY