Reciprocal Positioning Between Preservice Teacher Writing Mentors and Student Writers in a Virtual Mentoring Environment

• In Event: Cultivating Responsive Practices to Foster Equity for All Learners

Abstract

We use positioning theory to investigate how preservice teachers serving as mentors in a virtual mentoring environment and their mentees reciprocally construct identities for one another in their interactions. We use mixed-methods, design-based research to investigate how interactions between mentors and their mentees position the youth mentees as writers, and the mentors as practitioners of humanizing writing pedagogy. We found that certain mentor moves functioned dually to (1) position mentees as agentive composers, with critical consciousness of audience expectations and the discursive resources to address those expectations; and (2) position mentors as responsive readers, attending to mentees’ experience as a resource for their composing. We also discuss how design features of the mentoring environment enabled and constrained this positioning.

Authors

• Sarah W. Beck, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Scott Storm, Bowdoin College
  Presenting Author

• Christina R. Rodriguez, New York University
  Presenting Author