Wicked Remedies and Wicked Repairs: Micromoments of Teaching Writing in a 12th Grade English Classroom

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Wicked Renewal: Reframing Problems of Writing Instruction in Secondary Classrooms (Table 3)

Abstract

Overview
Knowing what needs to happen and being able to make it happen is, according to Rittell and Webber (1973), a planning problem because of competing views – efficiency as a mechanistic problem-solution answer for every situation across society versus an ethical concern with “whether what we are doing is the right thing to do” (p. 159 emphasis original). Teaching writing in secondary classrooms requires teachers to both know how to teach writing and practice pedagogical caring within contexts that do not support teachers and students (Bazerman et al., 2017). Positive relational connections can help to establish a nourishing, trusting learning environment (Robinson, 2022) yet in the current, high-stakes test-focused climate, teachers “are micromanaged, forced to focus on standardized tests, and unable to teach as they see fit” (Will, 2019, para. 4). Teens “picked up on whether their teachers cared for them and…treated them like actual individuals” (Yu et al, 2018,p. 352). As Robinson (2022) observed, “When asked to describe their favorite teachers, students do not tell stories about effective curricula or gains they made on state tests” (p. 2061). They say things like the student in this study, Anthony (all names are pseudonyms) said about his teacher, Mr. O’Brien, in an end-of-school year interview:
‘Cause most of our teachers, they just give the assignment and let us go at it on the computer. Mr. O'Brien kind of helps me bring it down to my level where I can understand it. He’s not afraid to sit next to me and just break things down for me to where I can understand it.

Context, Data, and Analysis
This investigation serves as an instrumental case study, bound by the school year and situated in micro-moments of writing instruction (Stake, 2005) in an English class, at a diverse, exurban public high school in the southern US. Together, the stories of Anthony, a 12th grade Black student, who was confident and thoughtful and teacher, John O’Brien, a white male veteran educator, provide a portrait of a counter-narrative to a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching writing. The teacher’s race remains emblematic of the teaching force across the U.S. (Schaeffer, 2021) as does the diversity of the student body.

Analysis of video recorded writing conferences, interviews, and artifacts followed a constant-comparative method (Glaser, 1965) in which videos were reviewed and transcripts read multiple times. Using visual display of data (Miles et al., 2013), coding and theme development were iterative processes throughout.

Findings
Visible in this study are the micromoves of both toward mutual connection and trust. Anthony was willing, even at this late stage, to reconnoiter, establish his own boundaries, and then recognize Mr. O’Brien as an ally in his quest to develop his professional and personal identity. The conferencing that evidenced patience on both sides was the platform for a strong student-teacher relationship that fed into Anthony’s writing and feeling of academic success. This kind of conferencing can be a key tool to address the wickedity of writing in secondary classrooms.

Word count: 496

Author

• Annamary Consalvo, University of Texas - Tyler