Preservice Teachers' Sense-Making of Youths' Literacy Development: A Call for Relation-Based "Un-Teaching"

• In Event: Supporting Excellence and Equity and Literacy Education

Abstract

In this article we use theories of restoration and transformative justice (Winn, 2012, 2018) to analyze preservice teachers’ (PSTs) sense-making of students’ literacy development as they work to undo the harm traditional literacy ideologies have inflicted upon their students. Through our analysis of PSTs semi-structured interviews, we found a theme of literacy teaching for healing and restoration. Within this central theme, PSTs named two practices necessary to repair damage: relationship-building with students and actively teaching to reconstruct/re-narrate positive literacy identities.

Authors

• Kira LeeKeenan, California State University - Fullerton

• Thea Williamson, Salisbury University