The Influence of Teachers' Beliefs on Literature Instruction in the High School English Classroom
Author | : Laura Renzi |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : |
Release | : 2005 |
ISBN-10 | : OCLC:62301733 |
ISBN-13 | : |
Rating | : 4/5 (33 Downloads) |
Download or read book The Influence of Teachers' Beliefs on Literature Instruction in the High School English Classroom written by Laura Renzi and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: This research investigates how teachers' beliefs about literature, students, and pedagogy effect their literature instruction in the high school English classroom. What teachers choose to teach and how they teach within the context of a literature classroom is important. Teacher's perceptions of literature and literature instruction have been studied before, but this study adds to the current research in taking into account how community expectations, the school's expectations of students and teachers, and the teacher's own perceptions and beliefs work together to influence literature instruction within the classroom. This study is grounded in qualitative research traditions with a focus on an interpretive descriptive process of "thick description" to create three case studies of teachers' literature instruction in high school classrooms. Data sources included, interviews and stimulated recall sessions, observations, audio and video tapes of classroom instruction, researcher's field notes, and surveys of students. Analysis was conducted to construct a case study of each of the three teachers and to understand how their beliefs and community influences affected their literature instruction. Cross-Case analysis was then conducted to search for emerging patterns between the three cases. These case studies suggested that there are several influences on teacher's literature instruction in the high school classroom. Teachers' beliefs were mediated by personal experiences in educational settings, their experiences of teaching in general, and teaching particular students within a particular setting. Their beliefs about literature instruction were influenced by community expectations, departmental mandates for content coverage, and their personal relationships with the texts being taught in their classroom. Each of these teacher's beliefs about what worked in the classroom (beliefs about pedagogy) and what students could and could not do (beliefs about students) were directly related to what their purpose for literature was in the classroom (beliefs about literature). The success of their instructional practices depended largely upon whether the teacher was apt in his or her beliefs about students.