Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: English Language Arts
- Creators: Blasingame, James
Description
Given the profound influence that schools have on students’ genders and the existing scholarly research in the field of education studies which draws clear implications between practices of schooling and sanctioning and promoting particular gender subjectivities, often in alignment with traditional norms, I conduct a critical ethnography to examine the practices of gender in one eighth grade English language arts (ELA) classroom at an arts-missioned charter school. I do this to explore how ELA instruction at an arts charter school may provide opportunities for students to do gender differently. To guide this dissertation theoretically, I rely on the process philosophy of Erin Manning (2016, 2013, 2007) to examine the processual interactions among of student movement, choreography, materiality, research-creation, language, and art. Thus, methods for this study include field notes, student assignments, interviews and focus groups, student created art, maps, and architectural plans. In the analysis, I attempt to allow the data to live on their own, and I hope to give them voice to speak to the reader in a way that they spoke to me. Some of them speak through ethnodrama; some of them speak through autoethnography, visual art and cartography, and yet others through various transcriptions. Through these modes of analysis, I am thinking-doing-writing. The analysis also includes my thinking with fields – the fields of gender studies, qualitative inquiry, educational research, English education, and critical theory. In an attempt to take to the fields, I weave all of these through each other, through Manning and other theorists and through my ongoing perceptions of event-happenings and what it means to do qualitative research in education. Accordingly, this dissertation engages with the various fields to reconsider how school practices might conceive the ways in which they produce gender, and how students perceive gender within the school space. In this way, the dissertation provides ways of thinking that may unearth what was previously cast aside or uncover possibilities for what was previously unthought.
ContributorsSweet, Joseph David (Author) / Carlson, David Lee (Thesis advisor) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Durand, E. Sybil (Committee member) / Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The purpose of this study is to determine the types of classroom instructional activities commonly used in teaching literature. Data were collected at ASU Preparatory High School. The study determined that literature-based lessons and activities fall under three categories: reading, writing, and discussion. Classroom observations revealed that reading, writing, and discursive activities were designed to promote higher-ordering thinking. These activities included silent reading, annotating text, reading aloud, keeping reading response journals, practicing essay writing, and participating in Socratic discussion. The teachers at ASU Prep used the listed activities with the intent to challenge their English students to engage in active learning, to improve reading, writing, and discursive skills, and promote critical thinking skills.
ContributorsSarik, Vivian Roathany (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This dissertation explored how a teacher learned to teach with and about unfamiliar (to her) media texts in her high school English classroom. This study also examined my role as the researcher/mentor in the teacher’s learning and development process. Through situated learning theories (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and discourse through identities (Gee, 2001; 2014a) theoretical frameworks, this study explored the ways the teacher accepted, resisted, and enacted her figured worlds and identities as an English teacher. Historically, texts in the English classroom consist of novels, poems, plays, and the occasional nonfiction book or essay, and English teacher education and development often keeps these texts at the center of English teachers’ content knowledge. However, research exploring students’ use of multiliteracies in out-of-classroom contexts advocates for a multiliteracies perspective within classrooms. Still, there is a lack of professional development opportunities for teachers to support multiliteracies practices in their classrooms. Further, teachers’ professional development is often provided in stand-alone experiences where teachers learn outside of their classroom teaching contexts. Taking place over a six-month time frame, this study is situated as one-on-one professional development mentoring and included researcher and teacher collaboration in multiple contexts including planning, teaching, and reflection. This qualitative case study (Merriam, 1998) sought to address a gap in the literature in how the collaboration of teachers and researchers impacted teacher learning. Using interpretive analysis (Erickson, 1986) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2014a; 2014b) I developed two assertions: (1) The process the teacher underwent from finding resources to teaching and reflection was complex and filled with many phases and challenges, and (2) I, as the researcher/mentor, served as a sounding board and resource for the teacher/learner throughout her process of learning about, teaching with, and reflecting on unfamiliar texts. Findings of this study indicate the teacher’s identities and figured worlds impacted both how she learned about and taught with unfamiliar texts, and how I approached my role as a researcher/mentor in the study. Further, findings also indicate collaborative, practice-based research models (Hinchman & Appleman, 2017) offer opportunities to provide teachers meaningful and impactful professional development experiences situated in classroom contexts.
ContributorsGoff, Maria Hernandez (Author) / Marsh, Josephine P (Thesis advisor) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Moses, Lindsey (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The purpose of this honors thesis project is to explore the origins of science fiction and fantasy in British literature and develop a unit for a high school Freshman English classroom. Focusing on science fiction and fantasy literature, technology, and literature circles, this is a complete unit in which all lesson plans, activities, and materials are derived from the PUHSD curriculum and support the AZ Career and College Readiness Standards. The design of this unit encourages analysis of literature and other medias as well as encouraging students to explore their own imaginations.
ContributorsJohnson, Taylor G. (Author) / Smudde, Christopher (Thesis director) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05