"We're All Different, and That's a Great Thing": Challenging the Academic-Vocational Divide in an ELA Classroom

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Fresh Takes on Equitable ELA Instruction

Abstract

This case study of an English language arts class in a career-technical (CTE) high school examines how the teachers and students co-construct a classroom environment that challenges commonly held ideas about the academic-vocational divide. The study is framed through an understanding of literacy as a social practice where students offer and accept different literacy roles in different contexts. In the ELA classroom, through an emphasis on large and small group discussions about literature, the teacher and students use literacies to practice what they call “participating in a democratic society” while valuing multiple ways of knowing. Additionally, the students draw on their lived experiences as CTE students to help them make sense of literature.

Author

• Suzanne G Lewis, The Ohio State University - Columbus