Learning to Teach Writing by Apprenticing Within a Community of Practice

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: Memory, Community, and Healing Through Writing With Preservice and In-Service Teachers (Table 3)

Abstract

Because future teachers regularly lack fieldwork experiences and university coursework focused on teaching writing, we propose offering them access to "third spaces" (Soja, 1996) in which they work as apprentices alongside mentors in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). This paper offers a description of a design experimentation process (Cobb et al., 2003) that resulted in a pre-service field experience and a teaching of writing framework. Coupled with reflective writing, the framework offers future teachers a way to conceptually describe, organize, and analyze their field observations, experiences, commitments, and intentions for teaching writing. They begin to imagine a future teaching practice in which writing functions as a tool for learning, praxis (Yagelski, 2012), and humanization (Johnson & Sullivan, 2020).

Authors

• Tom Meyer, SUNY - New Paltz
  Presenting Author

• Mary H. Sawyer, SUNY - College at New Paltz
  Presenting Author