“I Love This Part!”: Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand Collaborating to See Writing and Writers Differently

• In Event: Rewriting the Narrative: Justice-Centered Professional Learning to Transform Literacy, Language, & Pedagogy

Abstract

This study investigated the experiences of teachers in a New Zealand Health School as they inquired into and adopted appreciative pedagogical practices and focused on responding to their students’ writing through an asset-based lens. Evidence was drawn from focus groups, learning inquiry group sessions, and individual interviews, and then thematically analysed. The findings indicate that when teachers collaborate to reflect on the perspectives that inform education policies and practices, they become more aware of how they may be inadvertently reproducing them. When the teachers employed appreciative strength-based strategies, they became less focused on predetermined standards and surface-level features, and looked at how students integrated out-of-school literacy knowledge and became curious about students' writing and processes.

Authors

• Tanya Gray, University of Waikato

• Jessica Cira Rubin, University of Waikato