Inclusive Talk: Inquiries Into Teachers' Discourses About Literacy and Inclusivity

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The purpose of this session is to explore how literacy teachers across several contexts talk about teaching inclusively and supporting their students’ identities as capable literacy learners. In bringing together perspectives from discourse studies, disability studies, and literacy studies, the session examines the discourses about literacy and inclusivity that circulate in schools as well the ways teachers take up but also complicate these discourses as they navigate societal and institutional pressures. Our overarching purpose is thus captured in the phrase “inclusive talk.” The four inquiries presented examine teachers’ talk about teaching literacy inclusively, but, taken together, they suggest the need to assemble a more inclusive discourse about inclusion, one that considers the tension between local meanings and governmental policies.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Language and Social Processes

Chair

• Marjorie Siegel, Teachers College, Columbia University

Papers

• Disrupting Binaries in Teachers' Discourses on Teaching Literacy: Inclusion as Heteroglossic - Srikala Naraian, Teachers College, Columbia University; Marjorie Siegel, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Strong, Wise, Courageous Readers: Ableist Language in a Teacher's Talk About Reading - Mary Coakley-Fields, Manhattanville College

• Remixing Multimodal Literacies, Universal Design, and Standards-Based Curriculum: Reflections of a Fourth-Grade Practitioner Researcher - Lauren Bakian, NYC Department of Education

• "We're Just Raising the Question": Teachers' Peer Dialogues About Literacy, Inclusivity, and Multimodality - Kumbirai Khosa, Teachers College, Columbia University; Makila Meyers, Teachers College, Columbia University

Discussant

• Curt Dudley-Marling, Boston College