Teacher Study Group

Creating a Connected and Collaborative Community: Exploring Effective Literacy Pedagogy in and for a Richly Diverse School—A Continuing Teacher Study Group at Booker T. Washington Elementary School

Participation in ongoing study groups has been shown to be an effective educational change strategy (Birchchak, et. al., 1998; Allen, 1999). In such a collaborative space, teachers have the support to engage in critical reflection on their literacy practices. This study is currently in year two of a working teacher study group focused on collaborative learning to create increased opportunities for success with literacy for students who have been historically underserved. Group members are working to develop increased abilities to reach across boundaries of race and class—between the predominantly European American, middle class teaching force and the predominantly African American, Latino, and Hispanic student body, the majority of whom live at or below the poverty line—to meet the needs of the students and the families they serve. A long term goal is for study group participants to move into action research projects that speak to specific needs of BTW students, teachers, and families.

Since fall 2004 I have been working with teachers at the focal school as they have engaged in what Paulo Freire (Freire & Macedo, 1996) termed “epistemological curiosity” (p. 206)—the curiosity to engage in an examination of knowledge and the use of talk which demonstrates critical engagement with a topic. Participating teachers are exploring their pedagogical knowledge with regards to literacy and their socio-cultural and socio-historical knowledge with regards to issues of language and learning in the context of the multiracial and multilingual students they teach and the families that make up their school community. In this second year, the teachers, their principal and I are examining our understandings of literacy teaching and learning through reading professional texts, reflecting on the readings and on our instructional practice, and participating in dialogue with as professional peers. The group focuses on ways to use authentic culturally diverse literature, extensive modeling of reading practices, shared and guided reading and writing, independent reading and writing, teacher read-alouds, and student free choice reading as integral components of quality, multifaceted reading instruction.

For more information on this working group, please contact Karla J. Möller kjmoller@uiuc.ed