Date of Completion
2-24-2017
Embargo Period
2-23-2017
Keywords
culture, diversity, writing, elementary, preservice, teaching, third space, hybridity, students
Major Advisor
Dr. Douglas Kaufman
Associate Advisor
Dr. Mary Anne Doyle
Associate Advisor
Dr. David Moss
Field of Study
Curriculum and Instruction
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Open Access
Campus Access
Abstract
Student diversity in U.S. classrooms is increasing at an unprecedented pace. In schools, the cultural disconnect between teachers and students can result in opportunity gaps, exacerbated by misunderstandings of students’ out-of-school literacies as valid; low expectations by teachers of diverse students; and differences in the ways students use technology as literacy tools (Au, 1993; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Langer, 1991; Kinloch, 2011; Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010). Implementing a culturally responsive or relevant pedagogy (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1994), or a funds of knowledge approach (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992) has shown success in learning about students’ cultural identities and leveraging them in the classroom. Yet, neither approach has been widely implemented in schools (Amaro-Jiménez & Semington, 2011; Au, 2001; Gay, 2000). Examining how particular instructional philosophies lend themselves to these approaches may provide the key to connecting teachers and their diverse students. Writer’s workshop is one such philosophy. It demands teachers become “learning historians” (Graves, 1994) in order to access and integrate students’ cultural identities into the writing curriculum. There is little evidence in the research to show how writer’s workshop assists in this process. Informed by cultural identity (Bhabha, 1994; Hall, 1990), hybridity (Bhabha, 1994; Moje, Ciechanowski, Kramer, Ellis, Carrillo, & Collazo, 1994), and third space (Gutiérrez, 2008; Moje et al., 2004), I investigated one suburban fifth grade elementary teacher’s writer’s workshop to explore the ways she accessed her students’ cultural identities, adapted her curricula, and encouraged or limited a third space in her writing classroom.
Recommended Citation
Dolan, Jennifer E., "The Space Between: An Investigation into the Ways an Elementary Teacher Accessed and Integrated Students’ Cultural Identities in the Writing Classroom" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 1384.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/dissertations/1384