Negotiating Challenges of Distance, Desire, and Context in Constructivist Literacy Classrooms

• In Event: Researching the Humanities in PK-12 Classrooms

Abstract

Ball (1997) describes three challenges that teachers must overcome in attempting to discover what children know: distance (teachers’ and students’ differences in age, developmental level, and sometimes culture and language complicate communication), context (students’ understandings change from moment to moment) and desire (teachers’ strong desires for students to learn influence what they interpret from students).

This study applies Ball’s theory to primary-grades literacy teaching. The central issue is how two teachers use a sociocultural and cognitive approach to teaching and learning to negotiate these challenges in understanding their students’ literacy thinking and understanding. Four main strategies are used to overcome these challenges. This study provides a model of constructivist, reform-based literacy teaching that can be used for professional development purposes.

Author

• Elizabeth Hope Dorman, Fort Lewis College