Telling Stories in Book Clubs: Women Teachers and Professional Development

Telling Stories in Book Clubs

Mary Kooy

Telling Stories in Book Clubs Women Teachers and Professional Development

^

Spri ringer

Author: Mary Kooy Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

Cover Illustration: Wilhelmina Kennedy Cover Design: Meg Bortha Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 10: 0-387-33926-4

ISBN 13: 9780387339269

e-ISBN 10: 0-387-33927-2

e-ISBN 13: 9780387339276

Printed on acid-free paper

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006924686 © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now know or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if the are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed in the United States of America. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the women teachers of the book clubs who believed in the research and through their participation, demonstrated the powers of stories to teach and transform. Book Club 1: Bridget, Lesley, Louise, and Patricia Book Club 2: Evelyn, Helen, Kerri, Liz, Lucy, Melanie, Rosemary, Sandra, and Shelly

Contents

Foreword

ix

Acknowledgements

xi

Women Reading, Teaching and Learning

1

The Study: Re-plotting the Stories of Teacher Development

9

Analyzing and Re-presenting the Data

25

The Teachers in the Book Clubs

29

Book Clubs: Establishing Processes and Protocols

61

New Beginnings and Telling Stories

71

Lessons of Learning and Teaching

103

"Lead Kindly Light": Teachers Learning and Leading Together

133

"Crossing Borders": Stories of Teaching, Gender, and Identity

177

The Telling Stories of Teacher Book Clubs

209

viii

Contents

References

225

Index

241

Foreword

Sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we don't know what will happen. That's part of the mystery and pleasure of teaching. But we live in an age in which all teaching must be assessment driven. This is an age in which professional development consists of "one-shot" workshops designed to familiarize teachers with the latest package. This is an age in which education is in danger of being lost. Even at my own small liberal arts college, the pressure is on for assessment-driven teaching. Lost is the passion for learning and the desire to pass it on. The creative and exciting lesson plan must be sacrificed on the altar of assessment. However, reading this book, hearing the voices of experienced and novice teachers, I am inclined to hope. This book makes me think of my own literacy autobiography and about what has been important in my life as a student and a teacher. I think of the feminist theory reading group I joined as a new assistant professor. Those readings and those meetings saved my life. I read to save my life. This is a persistent theme in the stories of the teachers who populate this book. Despite the bureaucracy of schools, they retain their attachment to reading. And these are sensual, familial, and communal attachments. It's that that they would like to pass on to their students. When we read books important to us we want desperately to pass those books on to others. The center of education is communication around books and ideas. Communication implies community. What we encounter in this book is the formation of communities of nurture and care with books as the mediators. Just as in the classroom, there is an object between us that sustains our work in coming together. What comes through in the voices of all of these

X

Foreword

teachers is the impulse to care which is at the heart of women's impulse to teach. This book teaches us the importance of nurturing that impulse to care. There has, over the past couple of decades, been an interest in the use of narrative in educational research. Telling stories, hearing stories, we are inclined to look at our own teaching identities. That our work as teachers is central to our identities becomes clear when we hear the stories of the teachers in this book modulate from a discussion of the text into a discussion of their own teaching lives. The text, when read in the company of others, calls us to ourselves. For all of the teachers in this book, reading has been profound in making them the women we come to know. That they are women is no small part of their experience. They read as women and they teach as women. While they recognize that, it is a hard-won and sometimes destabilizing knowledge. A male student once said to me that he preferred to take courses with women because women are "easy." One of the novice teachers in this book worries about being perceived as the ''easy" teacher. Mary Kooy quite appropriately replies, "So what?" This is the kind of impertinent question that all of these teachers learn to ask of the texts and of their practice. Mary Kooy is a gifted writer and teacher. She takes the obvious truth that we read books with other people and turns it into a compelling work of professional development. We see the communities emerge and coalesce. We see the self-reflective questioning that is at the heart of all good teaching take shape through interaction and nurturing, "Books and Brunch." The brunch is not a trivial partner in this relationship. I don't know Mary Kooy, but I would like to. Jo Anne Pagano February 2006

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to celebrate and acknowledge the people and the research agency that supported this long and often arduous journey to the completion of this book. I received generous support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2000-2004). Throughout this research, I enjoyed and benefited from the participation, cooperation, and contributions of the teachers who participated in the study. They became co-researchers who continually affirmed, inspired, and encouraged the work. They taught me and provided opportunities to discuss the ongoing research. I want to particularly thank my colleague and research book club member, Dr. Lesley Shore, Assistant Professor at OISE/University of Toronto, who gave generously of her time and expertise at every stage of the creation of this manuscript. Other colleagues and friends provided inspiration, encouragement, and extremely helpful readings. Michael Connelly, Professor emeritus, OISE/University of Toronto, whose generosity in sharing his research in narrative and supporting my grant proposal, helped me shape the dream and reality of this research. Kelleen Toohey, Professor of Second Language Education at Simon Eraser University, read drafts and responded with incisive and challenging questions to guide my evolving thinking and writing. David Booth, Professor emeritus of Language Education at OISE/University of Toronto, provided unwavering encouragement and inspirational support. Each contributed invaluable insights to the research and my changing perceptions of teacher development as social and critical practice.

xii

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Caroline Cakebread who, as acting editor, read critically and made substantive comments that led each revision. Paul Steacy in the OISE computing centre and Dana Colaruso, my Graduate Assistant, contributed generously to the structure and editing of the final edition of this book. Finally, every writer knows the contributions and sacrifices made by friends and family members during the creation of a manuscript. My adult children Tracey, Kent, and Kurt, never forgot to ask, "How's the book coming. Mom?" which I learned to interpret as another form of the question they asked as children whenever we arrived at the end of our driveway on any given family trip: ''Are we there yet?" I am particularly grateful for the support and patience of my partner, Wayne Kooy, who endured not only my (considerable) talk about the teachers, the book clubs, and the research, but respected my need for space and the time to write. My family has given added meaning to the writing journey. This book is my creation in only one, though very important, sense. In another very important sense, it is the cumulative and collective work of those who supported my efforts to bring this book into being.

Chapter 1 WOMEN READING, TEACHING AND LEARNING

When I first began researching book clubs as a form of teacher development, I spoke about the work with colleagues and friends. Women strongly endorsed the work and often launched into their own spirited storiesof book club experiences and reading friends. Some referred to their book clubs as a life raft or a saving grace. My (mostly) male colleagues, however, often responded with: *'0h, yes, my wife belongs to one of those." The current book club phenomenontook hold in the 1980s (Long, 2003) and was set afire in the U.S. by Oprah in the 1990s. Primarily populated by womenand part of mainstream popular culture, book clubs have rarely been subject to serious academic inquiry (Long, 2003). Considering the social phenomenon and even how much book clubs mean to their participants, it seems extraordinary they have remained "so invisible to scholars" (Long, 2003, ix). In an attempt to redress this gap, this study applied the book club concept to educational inquiry to explore and understand women teachers' professional development. I argue that the study of teachers' groups provides insight into a significant but overlooked realm of experience, more closely related to what is recognized within the academy than previously thought and valued. Inquiry into book clubs as a manifestation of the larger body of research on communities of learning (Kremer-Hayon, 1987; Rogoff, 1990, 1994; Vygotsky, 1978, 1992) has the potential to destabilize conventional thinking and knowledge of women teachers and teaching. In the section that follows, I highlight three critical components of educational research that have, for too long, been waiting in the wings to be included in mainstream academic research: women reading, women teaching, and women learning.

2

1.1

Chapter 1

Women reading

I imagine walking into an art gallery. I head towards an exhibit of 19^ century paintings titled, "Woman Reading/La LiseuseT As I gaze around the room, I notice each painting portrays one woman, generally reclining, in relative comfort and comfortable surroundings, focusing intently on the book in her hands (19* century artists, such as Renoir, Monet, Faruffini, Innocenti, Heyerdahl, and, Perugini). Their bodies assume particular positions while they read. They curl up in a big chair, stretch out on a settee, or sit languorously under the massive branches of a tree. When the reader becomes "woman reading letter," (Vermeer, Yongkai, Raoux, e.g.), she stands or sits at a small desk. Most convey good breeding, expensive wardrobes, and classic Western appearances. Rarely do we see her in the company of other women; she reads alone^ Reading for a woman, the paintings suggest, is solitary practice, women's play done in the privacy of her personal space. Her reading is a breezy "pleasure reading" (uncritical, naive, escapist) of the featherweight novel in her hands (unlike the larger, weightier tomes in the hands of Rembrandt's male reader paintings, such as. Philosopher reading and Sepia man reading). While Barthes' (1975) Pleasure of the text highlights the almost autoerotic quality of the joy of reading, these women readers show no signs of embodied reading: eyes moving across the page, flinching in fear, spilling tears, the feel of a knot gathering in her stomach or a sensation in her groin. Gilligan (2002) suggests such pleasure is "written into our bodies; it is our experience of delight and joy" (159). Pleasure and placidity become problems only when art imitates life and the "picture" of the lived reality of women's reading remains "a realm of leisured bourgeois private time that is female and domestic" (Long, 2003, 13), Reading as simply and only personal pleasure and placid play is inconsequential, without promise, prone to be dismissed. Disrupting conventional images of "woman reading" to "women reading" identifies the social nature of reading and learning and becomes, "one kind of cultural practice, a form of behavior that performs complex personal and social functions for those who engage in it (Long, 2003, 22). The impact of such social reading allows women in book clubs to "remak[e] themselves in dialogue with others and with literary texts" (Long, 2003, 22).

^ Modem exceptions exist such as Picasso's Two girls reading and Ferdinand Leger's, The reading depicting two women reading together, for instance. I speculate this results from more modernist perspectives that include the changing views of women.

Women Reading, Teaching and Learning

3

This study investigates the *'telling" stories of the collective imaginations and learning of two groups of women teachers meeting in book clubs.

1.2

Women teaching

The gallery holds few paintings of women teachers. It is interesting to speculate why. Berger (1972) suggested that '*the ideal spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him" (64). Fowles (1996) observed that, "in advertising males gaze and females are gazed at" (204). Women teachers, it appears, do not qualify— even only as objects of the gaze. Teachers do, however, appear in books and film (Kereos, 1999). Women teachers in either genre are likely to be monstrous or muddled and are virtually never women of color. Representations of teachers in these genres tend to be code-breakers who charismatically both defy and embrace standards and conventions (The Dead Poet's Society, Stand and Deliver, e.g.). Most teachers fail to identify with or even recognize such stereotypes. Real teachers (both male and female) differ from fiction and film models. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie challenges and resists the conventions and as such. Miss Brodie becomes a subversive figure, perhaps even because she is a woman. The tension between reality and representation reveals society's ambivalence about power in the hands of women (Keroes, 1999). Long-held perceptions of teaching as "women's work" (Apple, 1995; Clifford, G., 1989; Sedlak, 1992) have constructed a familiar public image of the teacher. Like other traditional female professions (nursing, social work), teaching has been identified with an image of 'social housekeeping.' As "women's work," it is seen as an extension of the domestic sphere with a resulting loss of discretion, autonomy, and status. Such images have been problematic (Pagano, 1990). Yet, in spite advances in equity for women, their unabating predominance in the profession, women teachers' voices and knowledge have yet to be fully expressed and represented (Atwell Vasey, 1998; Clandinen, 1992; Grumet, 1988; Pagano, 1990).

1.3

Women learning

In schools, learning is conventionally conceived as solitary practice (rows of separated desks, for instance). For teachers this image of the solitary learner has been carried into models of professional development that mimic traditional conventions of school and are represented in the oneshot workshop (Clark, 2001; Goldenberg & Gallimore, 1991) performed by "experts." While such models and practices are being challenged (Freire, 1970, 1986; Vygotsky, 1992, 1986), only recently have alternatives been

4

Chapter 1

investigated (Churchill, 1996; Clark, 2001). More recent models include teachers learning together in small groups and socially constructing their knowledge. The impact of membership and learning together in small groups may explain the current phenomenon of book clubs (Oprah, for instance). The construct of book clubs seems to provide a suitable social context for teacher learning (Clark, 1996, 2001; Clement & Vandenberghe, 2001). I came to this research on women reading, teaching, and learning through personal experiences and a series of studies that led from my early work in reading with secondary students to eventually focusing on teachers, and in particular, women teachers. The episodic narratives that follow establish a landscape to demonstrate how this inquiry developed into the study reported in this book.

2.

THE JOURNEY TO THE STUDY: FROM THERE TO HERE

As I direct my gaze across the course of my reading life, my life in books, I conclude that it undoubtedly affected my decision came as the popular, expression states, by finding something I loved and finding a way to make a living at it. The idea of living with books and readers on a daily basis continues to inspire me as I teach the mostly young women who aspire to teach English. The journey to this study begins as I retrace the stories—a "stopping by" as Frost might call it—to glance back (in the past), to make sense of the present, and plans for the future (Clandinen & Connelly, 1995). Locating myself in the research allows me to recognize the implications: asking some questions and not others, focusing on teachers (not students), selecting only women, and making choices about content and process. I am a character in the research narrative.

2.1

Tracing the journey: Research with students

My first research project involved a study of how adolescent readers made sense of fictional texts—their reading processes (Kooy & Crowhurst, 1986; Kooy, 1988). I wondered how these young adolescent readers negotiated their encounters and "transactions" with their texts (Rosenblatt, 1938). In a study in my Grade 9 classes, I learned about the ways student readers questioned texts, constructed their knowledge, reacted to the events and characters in the logs they created as they read an unpredictable, complex text (Robert Cormier's, / am the Cheese). The less obvious and

Women Reading, Teaching and Learning

5

more significant feature of the experience, however, occurred in the class discussions that followed. The transfer of responsibility from me, their teacher, to the students, resulted in unprecedented levels of book talk. Recording their thoughts in a log during their reading led to knowledgeable readers who questioned, challenged, revealed and learned from each other. Unlike anything I had experienced in my ten years of teaching, this experience let me to step back and allow the interactive student dialogue to flow unabated. The shifting and social nature of the discussion in the study led to a more focused interest on the oral dialogue that followed the reading (Kooy, 1991). In a quasi-experimental study conducted in six 10^ grade classrooms, I compared student talk with and without the use of reading logs. Four of the experimental group teachers participated in professional development by forming a small group to read and prepare individual logs. In the next professional development session they exchanged and discussed their reading responses in preparation for the third session, where teachers worked together to create a curriculum for teaching the second novel. As the teachers taught the next novel, the discourses of the experimental classes shifted from teachers to students. Student questions rose from five to almost 170 per class while teacher questions decreased from over 90 per class (Kooy, 1992) to less than ten. Students, in spite of finding the reading log disruptive and even frustrating, noted its particular usefulness for group discussions (both sentiments echoed by my teacher education students). In subsequent interviews with the experimental teacher group, they noted the "seismic shifts" in active participation and increased understanding of their students. One teacher, Norman, observed: The students become very aware of the novel. They've gone into it in a lot of depth, as much as they're able to, themselves. They discuss it with confreres and their awareness is suddenly spiked up considerably higher than it would normally have been. They become much better informed readers. For the first time, my research included both students and teachers. I began consciously considering the work of the teachers and teaching. New questions emerged: How do teachers make sense of their teaching practices? How do the social collaborations in small groups of teachers affect and change classroom practices? Could such collaborative and social experiences help teachers to find the motivation to re-view and even re-vise what they understand, believe, and practice in their teaching? The findings of the study suggest that teachers who collaboratively construct their curriculum were able to shift toward an emphasis on active student learning. In effect, this

6

Chapter 1

required the teachers to take on roles of facilitation and students to take on roles of active participation. The work begun in the doctoral study resulted in a book for teachers. Reading Response Logs: Inviting Students to Explore Novels, Plays, Poetry and More (Kooy & Wells, 1996). Revealed through teachers' stories, the book documents a network of strategies to actively engage students in reading and response. It encourages students to tell their own stories of reading in both small and large group discussions. The concept of "book club" emerges as a pedagogical strategy. A one-page description in the chapter on novel teaching encourages teachers to create book clubs which generates reading, writing, and talking.

2.2

Directing the research toward pre-service teachers

In 1995,1 accepted a position at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Education where I teach courses in both pre-service and graduate programs in Language Education and Teacher Education. As part of the preservice English Methods class, I introduced book clubs. To initiate the book club process, students completed a reading survey that they subsequently discussed in small groups. Without fail, these discussions led to stories of germinal books and memorable reading experiences. Next, from a list of ten short descriptions of contemporary novels, students selected their most preferred book. Students selecting the same preferred text formed a book club. Each book club experience included reading, writing, and group discussion as well as a written reflection. They eagerly exchanged logs and ideas, generated new questions, and dialogically altered their perceptions. In their subsequent reflections after the book club meetings, some students noted that they had revived their flagging interest in reading. Others elected to read other books included on the original book club list. Students often mentioned the value of including and honoring their voices and choices. Given their enthusiastic endorsement, I hypothesized that student teachers participating in book clubs and reflecting on the processes would translate the experience into action and classroom practices when they became inservice teachers (Kooy, 1998; Welch, 2000). In visiting my student teachers in the schools, I found some evidence of the anticipated links between the book club experiences in my classes and the classrooms. Some supervising teachers supported efforts to form book clubs, indicating they had learned from their student teachers and intended to continue the book club even after the student teachers left. There was, however, resistance on the part of other supervising teachers. It was not always clear whether the resistance began with the student teacher or the supervising teacher. This ambiguity reveals the complexities inherent in

Women Reading, Teaching and Learning

7

learning to teach and the conflicts in paradigms of the university and schools. The complex network of conditions and issues that seem to block smooth transitions (which supports the conventional perception of the chasm between university teacher education and the schools) unsettled my existing assumptions and provoked new questions. I found myself increasingly interested in how teachers learn, teach, and cultivate their personal and professional knowledge. At about the same time, I read Marshall, Smagorinsky and Smith's (1995) book documenting the experiences of four adult book clubs; of these, one male and one female book club each had one teacher member. At one point, both teachers speculated aloud about the effects of the personal book club on their classroom teaching practices. The female teacher noted: But I've thought about a lot of things that we do in book group.. .and how we do it and I've tried to put that in my classroom. I think in terms of book group and how much more I get out of it when I'm interacting with the book and the group and that's what I try to do. (117) This led me to examine more closely the chasm remaining between the university and the schools and the possibilities of personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992, 1995) developed informally in a book club. Did personal and professional teacher knowledge reflexively connect (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992, 1995)? How could social constructs (Vygotsky, 1992) be a force for learning—in and out of schools? Between 1998-2000,1 conducted a pilot project (Kooy, 1997) to explore whether book clubs affected the professional knowledge and practices of experienced teachers. Drawing on the research literature, along with my teacher education, school, and personal experiences, I wrote: This research program aims to examine the ways teacher/readers construct understandings of literature and literary discourses in social contexts of teacher book clubs. In doing so, I hope to build on new understandings (Kooy, 1991; McMahon & Raphael, 1997; Marshall et al, 1995, e.g.) of (1) experienced teacher-readers' processes of reading literature, reading preferences, attitudes, and personal reading styles, (2) the effects of shared reading in book clubs on teachers' literary, understanding and attitudes, (3) the inclusion of teacher experience as professional development and, (4) potential links between reading experiences/ practices in teacher book clubs and literary practices in classrooms. In response, six women teachers volunteered. The women had never been in a book club. We called the club, "Books and Brunch" with funding covering the purchase of food and books for each session. In the

8

Chapter 1

introductory session, we agreed to have open-ended discussions with no specific leaders and agreed to select books that included some elements of education. We brought our book choices, and made our selections for the year. Every session was audio-taped and I prepared a detailed set of field notes following each book club meeting. We had ten book club meetings over the course of the study. Discussions often began with our personal stories of teaching and life before launching into the book. An interesting reflexivity emerged between the stories of the text and the personal and professional stories. The book club teachers were deeply committed to dialogue about the texts. Like the teachers in the book clubs documented in the Marshall, Smagorinsky and Smith book (1995), they increasingly linked their book club experiences to their teaching. As the book club meetings accrued, they constructed new stories of teaching from the stories of the texts, the other teachers in the group, and their own teaching lives. The fact that we were all women became increasingly important over the course of the study. Frequently, the teachers spoke to continuing their membership because of the other women (teachers). The relationships that developed allowed open dialogue, debate, and exploration of our changing knowledge, experiences and roles as teachers. Relational learning became part of each discussion. As women, we developed interdependent relationships in a community of learners. At the end of the two years, we agreed to continue the research but with a particular focus on the ways women teachers use stories to construct their epistemologies and practices of teaching and learning.

3.

THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK

The first five chapters describe the study: the theoretical and methodological framework that informed the work (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 details the complex analytic process. In Chapter 4, the women of the book clubs introduce themselves in their own voices. Chapter 5, the final chapter of this section, describes the early planning sessions of each year of the study (organization, schedules, book selection). Each of chapters 6 through 9 focuses exclusively on one of the four novels read by both book clubs. Chapter 10, the final chapter, draws together the significant themes and key findings of the study. It traces and highlights the women teachers' voices as they tell their stories of book club experiences and professional learning.

Chapter 2 THE STUDY: RE-PLOTTING THE STORIES OF TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

The paths leading to this study detailed in Chapter 1 set the stage for the research of this book. Narratively speaking, the study includes characters, settings, time, and problems. Together, they detail the ways women teachers use stories dialogically and heuristically for making sense and meaning of their teaching lives through their unfolding relationships in small groups. The study integrates key—uncommonly connected—research fields: teacher development, women (teachers), social contexts (book clubs), and narrative. It takes up issues of teacher development as both self-directed and socially constructed. It explores and compares how two groups of women teachers (experienced and novice) understand their profession, account for their experiences, make sense of their professional lives, and in the social contexts of teacher book clubs, renegotiate and reconstruct their professional knowledge.

1.

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

Situating the study within the larger social and cultural context reveals rapidly changing educational environments that challenge all members and levels of educational communities. The social realities of new policies and programs, reduced budgets, larger classes, increased testing and demands for higher test scores, affect many school jurisdictions. In North America, education often tops the ideological agenda of political leaders who decry the abysmal state of education on the one hand, and vaunt their abilities to cure the ails and raise national scores and the global competitive edge of students, on the other. In an Atlantic article, Schrag (1997) stated that unless politicians in the U.S. proclaimed the failure

10

Chapter 2

of the educational system, they could not be elected to office. In spite of a resurgence of a Deweyan progressive thinking in the school renewal movement, governments, educational agencies, and parental groups are at odds with progressive ideologies. They respond more eagerly to mediasustained talk of raising standards and adding technology than they do to ''multiple patterns of being and knowing" and to "a regard for cultural differences" (Greene, 2). The results point to a cyclical and continuous pattern of instabilty in school systems (the "no child left behind" of the current U.S. administration of sweeping changes is a clear example). Such accountability movements frequently replace existing programs with multiple costly initiatives, increase standardized testing, and require extensive reporting of and accounting for the results. In the face of new programs and directives, professional development opportunities for teachers are often reduced or are refocused exclusively on the new programs (Clement, 2001; R. Elmore, 1996). Teachers and students alike suffer from "initiative overload." The "no child left behind" policies of the current U.S. administration have overwhelmed the school systems and teachers and underwhelmed those expecting "improvements" such as higher test scores (Gordon, 2004). Teachers, caught in the maelstrom, feel increasingly pushed to prepare their students by "teaching to the test" and assuring administrators that they cover the material in the prescribed ways, on the prescribed days, using the required texts and tests. Schools are expected, by federal law, to collect and analyze data on student test scores, graduation and attendance rates, and teacher competency levels. States must report student achievement and test participation rates, identify ethnic groups, income level, special education status, and English language proficiency, as well as provide data such as the status of licensed and unlicensed teachers. Schools failing to meet the requirements are placed on a warning list and unless they comply, face possible sanctions. In reality, teachers and schools cannot cope with the sheer amount of data to be collected and therefore, face reporting delays that compromise the currency and efficacy of the results (Gold, 1996; Helsby, 1999;Hollinger, 1992). Often, to survive is to submit. In their attempts to meet and implement the mandated standards and practices, teachers become mere technicians who follow orders and implement the prescribed protocols. Under intense pressures, some lose heart. This has serious social and professional implications. Gwen Randall, head of Framingham College in Suffolk, UK, suggests: "As teacher morale weakens in the state sector, so we, too, find it more difficult to recruit men and women into the profession" (BBC News Report, 8 July 2002). In effect, the profession as a whole is being eroded and ^^professionalized (Clark, 2001; Lieberman & Miller, 1999).

The Study: Re-plotting the Stories of Teacher Development

11

Under what some consider untenable conditions, teachers leave the profession altogether (Croasmun, Hampton, Herrmann, 1997; Heyns, 1988 Ingersoll & Rossi, 1995; US Dept. of Education, 1995). Persistent loss of teachers leads to disruption and instability in the profession. The economic toll is calculated in the high cost of both losing teachers and preparing new ones. High attrition rates and low morale also leads to difficulties in attracting highly qualified teaching candidates. Given the relationship between excellence in teaching and high quality student learning, (Ancess, 2001; Darling-Hammong, 1998; Ferguson, 1991; Printy & mark, 2004), attracting and maintaining a highly skilled teaching force is an imperative for quality learning and teaching in schools. Hence, meaningful professional development becomes a de facto concern for schools and school districts.

2.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The study uses a three-pronged theoretical framework broadly conceived as social constructivist (Habermas, 1968; Kooy, in press; Rogoff, 1994; Vygotsky, 1992), dialogical (Bakhtin, 1986; Erickson, 2004), and narrative (Atwell-Vasey, 1998; Bruner, 1986, 1990). The theoretical positions intersect along shared principles and practices including: teacher development as sustained and socially enacted; learning as social practice; stories as heuristics for making sense and constructing meaning (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999; Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002; and, collaborative learning in community (Clark, 2001).

2.1

Social theories of learning

We make sense of what goes on around us—and our part in it—by actively constructing a world for ourselves (Vygotsky, 1992; Bruner, 1986). The models we create of how the world functions help us understand our lives and guides our actions. Clearly, this does not happen independent of other people, the way they understand the world, or the contexts and conditions of their learning. Bakhtin's (1986) dialogical theory proposes that thinking and learning depend on multiple voices, each stemming from the voices that came before and blending with the voices already in place. The social interactions both construct and change knowledge (Bahktin, 1986; Vygotsky, 1992). Knowledge develops and is continually modified in the light of new experiences (Dewey, 1938). New understandings emerge from this interplay (Grimshaw, 1989; Grumet, 1991; Gumperz, 1992; Rommetveit, 1992).

12

Chapter 2

This progressive understanding of the dialogical and social construction of knowledge supports the theory that the most effective teacher development occurs within communities of learning (Ancess, 2001; Au, 2002; Barone, 1996; Buysse, Sparkman & Wesley, 2003; Churchill, 1996; Clark, 1996; Clark, 2001; Clement, 2000). Hence, the research built on this theory is conducted with teachers in a community of reciprocal and interactive dialogue (Bakhtin, 1986; Stein & Brown, 1997; Supovitz, 2002). I use the word "community" intentionally here (as opposed to a group of teachers) as a context for developing relationships that leads to relational learning. The opportunity to move from learning/r6>m others to learning with others allows teachers to develop new knowledge as their perspectives "interpenetrate" and "interanimate" each other. Their interpretive frameworks are modified, expanded and realized—particularly through conflict, disagreement and contrasting perspectives (Nystrand, 1997; Wertsch, 1991). Indeed, "communities" cannot exist unless participants learn to expand their views. Logically, the learning occurs most effecively over sustained periods of time (Clark, 2001; Lieberman & Miller, 1999). The rub between theory and practice (Miller & Silvernail, 1994), teaching and learning as critical activities, centers on disciplined inquiry supported by substantial professional discourse (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000). In a dialogic teacher community, participants take risks and engage in reflective assessment (Zellermayer, 2001). Bakhtin (1981) envisions a dialogic approach to theory, making it "internally persuasive . . . half ours and half someone else's" (345-346). In this way, theories become dynamic and lead to productive dialogue and generative reflection (Ritchie & Wilson, 18). Such inquiry experiences lead teachers to adopt critical stances for greater understanding not only of their own work but also of the body of research on teacher knowledge and development (Berliner, 2003). This raises new possibilities for reprofessionalizing teachers. In dialogic communities, teachers can reframe their evolving conceptions of teaching in new and powerful ways. Theory becomes a revisionary tool (Scott, 1992) and the way is open to reconceptualizing epistemologies and practices.

2.1.1

Book clubs as a site of teacher inquiry

The current book club phenomenon is well documented (Forest, 1994; Grumet, 1991; Kooy, 1998b, 2000; McMahon & Raphael, 1997; Marshall, Smagorinsky, & Smith, 1995) and widely proclaimed. In North America, television host Oprah Winfrey fuelled the book club trend—particularly among women—by bringing reading and the discussion of texts to the

The Study: Re-plotting the Stories of Teacher Development

13

millions of people who tune in to watch her television show. Oprah's fans have responded to what Coles (1989) coined, "the call of stories." Regardless of critics who charge her with manipulating and directing the publishing industry, Oprah's contributions have resulted in testimonies from many readers who were inspired to revive their reading lives because of her. The potential for interactive dialogue and sustained learning through community experiences make the book club a viable and dynamic site for teacher inquiry and learning. Book clubs range from the formal (leaders, lectures, canonical texts, study guides) to the informal (no leaders, member-directed discussions, popular literature). Meeting places include university classes (such as Mark Faust's graduate class at the University of Georgia), living rooms, cafes, bookstores, and myriads of other creative nooks and open spaces. Book clubs exist on public radio (Eleanor Wachtel's "Writers and Company" on CBC Radio, e.g.), television (TV Ontario's "Imprint") and online. Most operate openly, some subversively (such as Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi). Books on book clubs (Hartley, 2002; Laskin & Hughes, 1995; Slezak, 2000; Heft & O'Brien, 1999), accounts of reading fictional texts (Adams, 2001; Burke, 1999; O'Brien, 2000; Rabinowitz & Kaplan, 1999, e.g.), book club themed fictional texts (. . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer, 2000, for example), and personal reading testimonies (Quindlen, 1998; Schwartz, 1996) continue to appear on the market. Historically, and indeed, to the present time, the majority of book club members have been women. This may explain why the phenomenon has been so little investigated and recorded. In the academy, it has been generally perceived as lacking in credibility. No self-respecting academic department accepts it as intellectual or offers it a disciplinary home. Being outside the scope of traditional inquiry has kept the phenomenon invisible to scholars (Long, 2003). In the pilot study for this research, six experienced teachers (Kooy, 19982000) participated in a book club. They chose books that invited complex responses. They brought their copies replete with note tags in the margins marking salient quotations or recording their reading responses. The book club met important needs that included normative, reflective discussions and at the development of important professional and personal relationships. Throughout the course of the meetings, they articulated how the textual discussions affected their professional knowledge. Book Clubs provide a time-honored way for women to share stories in a a safe place and simultaneously, to claim their own voices. Sorensen's (1997) study on women and reading has strengthened the concept of women and reading in social contexts. She writes of a co-reader: "She had a community with which she could work to build her new identity and her new

14

Chapter!

ways of looking at and being in the world. With this help, the interdiscourse in her life could be a force for the radical new interpretation she was making" (1997, 132). Transformative learning through narrative is particularly suited to the ways women think about themselves and interact with others (Hayes & Flannery, 2000). The predominance of women in book clubs and ''women only" book clubs (well over half) attest to this. Reading is essentially a social practice (Donoghue, 1998; Dressman & Webster, 2001; Emmett, 1997; Freire, 1987). Talking about a book with other interested readers is an almost universal response to reading a good book. Florio-Ruane (2001) found that book club members "appeared to mine past and current experiences for vignettes to tell in response to the themes and issues raised by the books" (2001, 69). In the shared talk, readers negotiate meaning, develop their thinking, and internalize the voices of other members. Literary texts and social reading experiences offer generous locations for the study of teaching and learning, particularly in contexts where literary readings are shared, critically interpreted, and recreated with other readers. If books can become the language through which people narrate their own experience and understand the experiences of others, book club conversations can reveal considerable insight and innovative understanding into the learning and knowledge of teachers. In the study, I adopt the book club construct since it serves as a community of learners (Palmer, 1998; Rogoff, 1994; Vygotsky, 1992) and a site for mutual experiences. Pagano (1990) argues convincingly of the benefits and outcomes of affiliation that bind us into an educating community. The complex network of narratives, teachers, reading, and relationships inherent in the book club structure makes it an ideal site for teacher inquiry and learning.

2.2

Teacher development

Traditional teacher development, even as it loses ground in times of budget cuts and restrictions, has a checkered history in the profession. Most professional development consists of brief, ''one-shot" workshops unconnected to previous or future events (Goldenberg & Gallimore, 1991). Typically, workshops are organized and conducted by experts who tell teachers about their expertise (classroom management, test preparation, new programs). Fenstermacher & Berliner (1994) note that such sessions provide little of substance or relevance for teachers. Moreover, most teacher workshops are not carefully scrutinized, evaluated, or traced for effectiveness (Clark, 2001). Traditional professional development sessions are rarely designed to improve teaching and student learning (Moon,

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15

Butcher, & Bird, 2000; WestEd, 2000). Nonetheless, the top-down model persists. More recently, theories and studies of teacher development are emerging (Cardwell, 2002; Clark, 2000; Cole & Knowles, 2000; Moon, butcher, & Bird, 2000: O'Connell Rust, 1999; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000; Florio-Ruane, 2001; Stokes, 2001; Lieberman & Miller, 1999) that actively involve teachers in groups sustained over a period of time (Clark, 2001; DarlingHammond & McLaughlin, 1999). The emphasis is on self-directed teacher development in small, collaborative communities of practice (Au, 2002; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2001; Elmore & Burney, 1999; Clark, 2000; Warshauer Freedman, 2001; Warren Little, 2001; Wenger, 1998). McLaughlin and Mitra (2000) support the new social and sustained models noting that, ^'effective teacher development requires a community of learners to provide support, deflect challenges from the broader environment, and furnish feedback and encouragement" (10). Revising models of teacher development implies a new awareness and conceptions of how teachers learn (Black, 1992; Bohl, 2002; Brown, 1989; Clandinin, 1993; Clark, 1996; Hord, 1997; Kooy, in press; Rogoff, 1990, 1994; Stokes, 2001). What teachers know, how they know it, and what is to be done with their knowledge remains a significant gap for those eager to learn from teachers and about teacher development. Warshauer Freedman (2001) found that: "the opportunity to learn seems to be central to sustaining the teachers' interest" (189). Greene (2000) suggested that: *'Once granted the ability to reflect upon their practice within a complex context, teachers can be expected to make their own choices out of their own situations" (12). Beginning with teacher knowledge rather than transmitting knowledge to teachers shifts the emphasis toward the practitioners (Clandinen & Connelly, 1999; Hiebert, Gallimore & Stigler, 2002; Smith, 1995). Teachers, like all learners, bring, use, and link their prior knowledge to new understandings. The benefits of beginning with teacher knowledge (something similar to Vygotsky's zone of proximal development [1972] for adult learners) led some, like Clark and Florio-Ruane (2001), to ''fundamentally redesign approaches to teacher/professional development and lifelong learning" (4) to rely more on teachers to invest in their own meaning-making with colleagues. Research in teacher development increasingly focuses on small teacher groups (Capers, 2004; Clark, 2001; Hord, 2004; Rust, 2001; Warshauer Freedman, 2001) that vary widely in structure and purpose. Some use professional texts selected by the researcher/team (the extensive 1987 study done by Judith Langer and Arthur Applebee would be a case in point here). Clark (2001) and O'Connell Rust (2002) create "conversation groups" to work collaboratively through professional issues using teacher stories. What

16

Chapter 2

they share in common is the formation of small groups of teachers who meet over extended periods of time with the purpose of learning and developing as teachers. A community of learners provides a particularly suitable context for effecting teacher and school change (Fullan, 2001; Horton & Freire, 1990; Stein & Brown, 1997). Community, rather than merely a group of teachers, includes relationships (community building) developed through shared experiences, knowledge and practices—^the things teachers have in common (Dewey, 1916, 5; Goodnow, 1987; Wertsch, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). The groups—Rogoff aptly names them "communities of practice" (153)—become social gathering points (hubs) for studying the ongoing evolution and restructuring of teacher knowledge, theories, and epistemologies. The growing body of research on communities of learners in education most often occurs in individual schools (Grossman, & Wineburg, 2000; Marshall, 2001; Murphy & Lick, 1998; O'Donnell-Allan, 2001; Stokes, 2001). Among the benefits of this arrangement are: developing relationships, sharing goals for the school, and forming networks of support. Few schools, however, have access to on-site models of teacher development. The critical need for sustained teacher learning may mean creating communities outside of schools (Hawkins, 1996; Darling-Hammond, 1998; Darling-Hammond & Ball, 1997). Some theoretical and practical evidence exists to support the benefits of "distributed learning communities" (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Lieberman, 2000; Rogoff, 1994; Wilson & Ryder, 1997) consisting of teachers from multiple school sites. Given the importance of sustained teacher-driven learning (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Flecknoe, 2000; Sykes, 1999)—particularly its effects on the quality of student learning—waiting until funding is available may not prove prudent of necessary. Authentic professional development of teachers (that is, models that bring teacher knowledge into play) lies at the core of educational reform and instructional improvement (Cole & Knowles, 2000; Gordon, 2004; Little, 2001; Hollingsworth & Sockett, 1994; McLaughlin & Zarrow, 2001; Petrie, 1990; Warshauer Freedman, 2001). Minimally, this calls upon teachers to resist what Dewey (1927) called, "the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness" (1954, 183) and to begin reprofessionalizing teaching by forming communities of learning.

2.3

Narrative and teaching

The study of narrative grows out of such fields as literature, history, philosophy, psychotherapy, theology, and psychology (Adams, 1986; Bruner, 1990; Burke, 1957; Carr, 1986; Coles, 1989; Wortham, 2001). Long

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regarded as an intellectual resource in the arts to describe and interpret human experiences, narrative highlights the centrality of story in teachers' knowledge (Carter, 1993; Connelly & Clandinin, 1986; Kelchtermans, 1993; Murphy, 1989). Carter and Doyle (1996) describe "biography, narrative and life history at the centre of teaching practice, the study of teachers, and the teacher education process" (120). Increasingly, inquiry into teaching includes narratives as legitimate and valuable research texts (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999) that provide holistic accounts of individual learning and acknowledge the interconnectedness of the intellectual, social, emotional and moral aspects of people's lives. Connelly and Clandinin (1988, 1990) show clearly how narrative provides a richness and comprehensiveness of detail well suited to the description of educational experiences. Clifford Geertz (1973) spoke to the power of story for humans who, as "symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking" animals, are driven "to make sense out of our experience, to give it form and order" (436). Can* (1986) found that everyday experience reflects "a certain community of form between life and written narratives [that] reveal themselves to be not distortions of, denials of, or escapes from reality, but extensions and configurations of primary features." He showed, in fact, that "full-fledged literary story-telling arises out of life" (15-16). As an essential human activity, narrative conditions understanding of the world. In other words, story is an essential as well as effective heuristic for understanding the world. Story as social phenomenon seems naturally suited to educational inquiry (Carter, 1990, 1993; Clandinin & Connelly, 1991; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, 1986). Teachers communicate through story on a daily basis. They relate story "snippets" as they rush between classes and sit in lunchrooms. Stories are integral to the ways teachers make sense of and theorize their teaching (Carr, 1986; Connelly & Clandinen, 1990; Noddings, 1991; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000; Thomas, 1995). It is reasonable, then, to assume that teachers' knowledge is ordered by and best understood through story (Adams, 1986; Beattie & Conle, 1996; Elbaz, 1991). While stories serve to explain and order, they are located in social communities. In telling stories, we become both narrated selves (telling the story of our own lives) and narrating selves (sharing interpretations with others). "We learn to tell our stories in conversation with the stories we are told," wrote JoAnn Pagano sixteen years ago (1990, 2). In professional learning communities, teacher-colleagues can put their stories next to each other so that their narratives interact and intersect (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). As teachers negotiate meaning, develop their thoughts, and "internalize the voices of the other members, they form and deepen friendships" (Marshall, Smagorinsky & Smith, 1995, 119). A community of

18

Chapter 2

learners (Rogoff, 1994) is particularly suited to learning how multiple narrative forms and experiences (including stories read and told) contribute to negotiating new teacher knowledge (Elbaz, 2002). The "call of stories'' (Coles, 1986) draws and keeps readers invested in a reading life (the Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code phenomena, for instance, are clear examples). Belsey (1993) suggests that, ''Literature as one of the most persuasive uses of language may have an important influence on the ways in which people grasp themselves and their relation to the real relations in which they live" (65). Sumara found that "communal relations developed around the ritual of shared reading and discussion of literary fictions" (145). If, as Carolyn Heilbrun (1988) suggests, we live our lives through text, we can examine our lives in light of fictional works and explore their influences. In this study, literature becomes a suitable expression of how literary texts shape the personal practical knowledge we carry into our teaching. In developing book clubs as a context for learning, this study moves toward dialogic teacher development that includes narratives from both books and teachers (Atwell-Vesey, 1998; Florio-Ruane, 2001; Jarvis, 2000). In the book club, teacher participants develop a kind of "connected knowing" (Florio-Ruane, 2001, 136) as they respond to the narratives and to one another with stories that elaborate the key themes in the book. Hartman (1991) found that as social experiences mounted, participants were able to "transpose texts into other texts, absorb one text into another, and build a mosaic of intersecting texts" (617), intertextual spaces (Lenski, 1998). Through the continuation of these experiences, the stories teachers read and tell increasingly become material to think with (Geertz, 1973), texts for inquiry into and analysis that lead to the reconceptualizing of teaching and teacher knowledge (Clandinen, 2001, viii).

2.4

Women and teaching

Since the early 19^^ century, women have predominated in the teaching profession (something Grumet [1988] suggests led to "the feminization of teaching") at the rate of two to one, on average (Apple, 1985; Prentice & Theobald, 1991). Their voices, however, have been significantly muted by their male counterparts (Belenky, et al, 1997). To counter the prevailing conditions, Maxine Greene urges women teachers to take up the challenge to make contributions "after years of having their understandings dismissed" and claim their experience to be as "significant as a man's" (1995, 22). Despite the realities of women's pervasive and predominant presence in the profession, studies of gender as it affects teaching (at the elementary and secondary levels) remain on the boundaries of research and literature in the

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19

field (Scott, 1992; Shore, 2000). British writer and educator Jane Miller reminds us that while some progress has been made, shadows remain: "The periodic spasms of suspicion and criticism leveled at state education in this country [UK] are hard to understand without some sense of how gender distinctions have always-covertly as well as openly-articulated with discussions of education" (1992, 1). Shadows also cover the ways women construct their teacher knowledge. Traditionally, what has counted as knowledge has been identified and codified in ways that contemporary educators characterize as gendered (Baruch, 1991; Belsey, 1993; Schweikart, 1986) leading to skewed perceptions and misrepresentations of teacher knowledge and development. This calls into question the androcentric bias of the production and dissemination of knowledge on teaching and the spurious claims of objectivity inscribed in a good deal of education research (Miller, 1996, 258). The concept of ''women's ways of knowing" (Belenky et al, 1997; Hayes & Flannery, 2000; Gilligan, 2002; Heilbrun, 1999; Ruddick, 1980) has gained considerable attention. Grumet (1988) argues against the "consistent and flagrant exclusion of female experience from the organization and life of schools" (34). She warns that "the emulsifying and idealist standard of androgyny" (xix) is a way to strip the discussion of gender. The route of androgyny either falsely or naively assumes that women have "arrived" or that "teaching is teaching" regardless of gender. Gender as a non-issue may be part of a political and cultural force to ignore or even suppress women's knowledge (LeBlanc & Witty, 1996; Rich, 1979; Scott, 1992; Stimpson, 1989). Though women teachers are far from the marginalizations common in earlier times, there is a distance yet to be travelled before these shadows on teacher knowledge have been left behind. Moreover, men and women "vary in the pace and intensity of the transitions" (Lieberman & Miller, 1999, 66) in their careers. Women often interrupt their careers to raise children. Since over three-fourths of care giving of children involves women (Noddings, 1991), it is primarily women teachers who face both interruption and/or multiple care-giving responsibilities. This gap in their careers of maternal and childcare responsibilities have traditionally been undermined or ignored in theory and research on the nature of teaching (Acker, 1995; Apple, 1985; Clifford, 1989; Ruddick, 1980). We could, alternatively, come to see the knowledge created in this gap as personal practical knowledge for teaching. Applying Dewey's conception of learning and knowledge (1938) suggests that all experience (and perhaps particularly maternal, child-rearing experiences) shape and direct the ways teachers understand and practice teaching. This points to conducting inquiries on teaching and learning from feminist

20

Chapter 2

viewpoints; that is, integrating knowledge and theory that accounts for and implements ''women's ways of knowing" (Belenky et al, 1997) in the art and practices of teaching. I find this particularly compelling in light of most research that perpetuates a "teaching is teaching" perspective that undermines gender as a factor in understanding teaching (e.g., Handbook of Research on Teacher Education, 1996). In suggesting that women's ways of teaching may be gender reflective, I do not claim to speak for all women teachers. Even though the majority of teachers in the Western world are and remain, primarily white, middle class and privileged (Apple, 1985; Biklen, 1995; LeBlanc Kohl & Witty, 1996), their students represent increasingly diverse cultures and languages (Toronto, the site of this study, for instance, is the most multicultural city in the world. It is not unusual to have more than 50 different languages represented in an urban high school). I argue for, and indeed work towards, realizing a teaching force that more closely represents the students in the schools and, consequently, includes the multicultural voices of such women teachers in this and other educational research. I fear, however, that waiting until such representation occurs will lead to untenable delays in asking critical gender questions. I recognize that as the researcher, I am a white woman in the academy (hence, privileged). My history and journey to this research, however, began with immigration from Europe after World War II. The only immigrant in the country schools where I began my Canadian education, I learned very early how to accommodate and vigilantly maintain the boundaries beween my school and family worlds. I was a daughter of a factory worker father and a homemaker mother, the eighth of nine children in a poor family. While not underprivileged (stable family, for instance), I very nearly did not have the material opportunity to attend university (none of my older siblings completed secondary school before going to work) and hence, to undertake this research journey. Although now solidly middle class and a university professor, the history that formed me as an educator informs the questions of my research. I acknowledge that my particular vantage point as person and woman, as professor and researcher, is deeply implicated in the work. Nevertheless, I resist the monolithic claim to speak for all women in this research in the knowledge that the category ''woman" is fluid. Men, like women, are constituted differently across markers of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and other signifiers that make it impossible and indeed, undesirable, to generalize or definitively mark their ways of thinking and being in the profession (Hayes & Flannery, 2000; Shore, 1999). Albeit that the markers of gender are fluid, the problem remains that women's voices have not been adequately represented in the discourse. We cannot wait until all women whose social class and race prohibit their voices

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from being heard, have the power and privilege to do so. Nor should we defer to the limits of gender knowledge. Lesley Shore (2000) writes: I find it unspeakably ironic that, in search for a woman-authored alternative to the education in patriarchy we have received against the backdrop of a new pedagogy of care whose founding premise is to create safe spaces for women to learn to speak, the problem of essentialism still threatens to silence many of the new voices (15). In this research, I take the position that not only do I not speak for all women (teachers) but limit my observations to the teachers in the two book clubs. Throughout this book, the women raise their own voices. Each introduces herself in Chapter 4 and actively participates in the book club discussions of Chapters 6 through 9.

3.

METHODOLOGY

Narrative serves both as phenomenon and as a method for understanding teaching (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, 4). Methodologically, narrative offers a way to bring forth the stories of professional practice that teachers carry (Carter, 1990, 1993; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, 1986). Narrative inquiry investigates the ways stories are told, heard and read and the contexts in which they occur, influence and shape teacher knowledge. Narrative methods include constructing field texts to represent aspects of field experience through interviews, conversations, dialogues, responses to texts, storytelling, reflective journals, stories of professional practice, autobiographical writings (Clandinen & Connelly, 1999; Gillard, 1996). Through narrative inquiry, I explore the ways stories are told and read in social contexts and the ways in which stories shape teachers' knowledge and contribute to their professional development (Trimmer, 1997b).

3.1

Process and procedures

Two teacher book clubs (one novice, one experienced teachers) met separately every five to six weeks over the course of three academic years (2000-2003). Each year began with a ''planning session" to submit required research forms, determine schedules for interviews and book club meetings, select the texts to be read, and agree on the processes for conducting each book club session. In preparation for each session, the teachers read the selected text and in doing so, decided to prepare notes, jottings, or logs of observations, issues and questions. They took these notes and the text to

22

Chapter 2

each meeting. Both groups agreed on an informal discussion model; that is, no formal leadership or preparation was required. Interviews—both individual and group—occurred at the beginning and end of each academic year. In addition to preparing reading notes, each teacher reflected at length on her reading life in both a "literacy autobiography" (personal journeys to the reading life) and reading surveys. I participated as both researcher and book club member. Each session was either audio or videotaped (and later transcribed). I prepared field notes after each book club meeting.

3.2

The teacher participants

The study included two small cohorts of women teachers. Book Club 1, a group of experienced teachers, participated in an ealier pilot project (19982000). Five of the original seven teachers (including me) agreed to continue into this study. Book Club 2 consisted of nine novice teachers who, at the end of their teacher education year, proposed creating a book club to maintain a reading life and continue their relationships as they entered the teaching profession. The two book clubs consist of two groups of women teachers (Sorenson, 1998). During the pilot study, the teachers often raised the relevance of being a "women only" group. The need to meet with other women teachers, to develop relationships and socially construct their teacher knowledge became increasingly relevant and even critical to their professional development. It beame important and sensible to include questions of gender in the research on teacher development. With ther scant literature on women teachers in the field, this study marks a step forward. Book Club 1 consists of experienced teachers with seven to twenty-five years of teaching experience at the onset of this study. Professionally, they work in a range of educational contexts: three secondary English teachers (Louise, Bridget, and Patricia) and two teacher education professors (Lesley who began as a sessional instructor and became a faculty member in 2001). This group joined the pilot project of a teacher book club through calls for volunteers in schools, graduate classes and by word of mouth. The women in the study are white, middle class women. In Book Club 1 (experienced teachers), two are European immigrants. I emigrated from The Netherlands in the early years of my elementary education; Bridget emigrated from the U.K. as an adult/teacher in the mid-1990s. Patricia is the daughter of European immigrants. Louise's British and Lesley's Jewish heritage were planted in Canada in the late 1800s. The nine teachers of Book Club 2 entered the study as novice teachers. All secured teaching appointments; six in the urban and metropolitan area of

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Toronto; one within an hour and two within two hours' driving range of Toronto. Five taught English exclusively. Four taught an second subject: two Drama (Lucy and Melanie); one Spanish (Helen); one History (Evelyn). In Book Club 2, most teachers were children of European immigrants (Lucy, Evelyn [Italy]; Helen and Melanie [Greece]; Sandra and Liz [Portugal]. Sandra, for instance, teaches in a high school in an area known as "Little Portugal" in Toronto; many of her students share her Mediterranean culture and background. Nevertheless, although not necessarily or specifically representative of the cultural compositions of their schools, many of their histories include family stories of immigration, adjusting, and the problems and tensions of being caught between and belonging to two cultures.

3.3

The data of the study

Data was collected from both written and oral sources: Interviews, surveys, literacy autobiographies, e-mail messages on the conference site, and, most significantly, transcripts of the discussions in the book club sessions. Over the course of the study, each group selected to read: Plainsong [Kent Haruf], A Lesson before Dying [Ernest J. Gaines], Oranges are not the Only Fruit [Jeanette Winterson], and In the Name of Salome [Julia Alvarez] at different points in the research. This unpredictable opportunity of shared texts in the two groups allowed me to explore similarities and differences in the discourse, topics, and narratives of two groups of teachers at distinctive career stages. Analyzing the data using ethnographic and narrative methodologies proved a complex process. Since academic integrity and credibililty rests on rigorous and reliable interpretations of data, I present the process for making sense of the texts (oral and written) in Chapter 3. It briefly traces the evolution and development of the discourse and texts into themes, key words, and topics. Understanding the analytical process allows readers to engage more meaningfully with the subsequent chapters on the book discussions (Chapters 6 through 9).

Chapter 3 ANALYZING AND RE-PRESENTING THE DATA

While it may be unusual to present even a brief chapter on the method and process of data analysis in a book on a research study, I am hopeful that the process presented will be useful to others interested in ethnographic and narrative research. The overview is also intended to guide readers as they apply the knowledge to interpret the data in the chapters on the book club meeting discussions (Chapters 6 through 9). The process for analyzing the data collected resulted in a three-pronged system. Each stage involved triangulation that included the research assistants, the women teachers, and me. The first stage included a detailed reading and re-reading of the data with the research assistants to determine resonant and recurring themes. The next steps included identifying teacher stories using the categories and sub-themes developed earlier. Finally, we used NU^DIST—a qualitative analysis program—to both compare and confirm the analyses. After each phase, I forwarded our analyses to the women teachers in the book clubs for response and reflection. The analysis was guided by ethnographic and narrative principles gleaned from research and theory in: (a) teacher knowledge and development (Atkinson, 1981; Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; Hord, 2004; Lieberman & Miller, 2001; Putman & Borko, 2000; Rummel & Quintero, 1997); (b) gender in teaching (Belenky, et al, 1997; Haight Cattani, 2002; Hayes & Flannery, 2000; Pagano, 1990; Tarule, 1996); (c) communities of learners (Clark, 2001; Rogoff, 1994, 2001; Wenger, 1998); and, (d) the social construction of knowledge (Bandura, 1977; Vygotsky, 1992).

26

Chapter 3

1.

ANALYZING THE DATA

1.1

Key themes and concepts

Stage one analysis included reading each transcript and the data collected from the reading of any given text (such as reading logs and interviews). As we read and listened, we noted key words or concepts (for instance, teaching, women, reading, book clubs). At the end of each transcript, we added new categories and additional key words and summarized the transcript using the stem: 'This discussion is generally about . . . ." We created a file for each transcript by creating a list of its categories, key words and phrases. After agreeing on the general themes, we read each transcript again individually to determine what sub-categories further distinguished and categorized specific conversational turns. We negotiated until we reached consensus on each sub-category. Identifying and naming the sub-categories proved unwieldy. All too often categories overlapped or had been identified as sub-categories for other key words and themes. For instance, one researcher might focus on 'identity" as a sub-category of "teachers/teaching" (1) while another might consider the latter under "identity" as a major category (9). Negotiating each category and subcategory, while cumbersome, pointed out that human interactions resist reductions to a category. After one particular meeting with the research team discussing the transcript for Oranges are not the Only Fruit, I wrote in my field notes about the challenges and frustrations of clearly identifying categories. In the next research meeting, we struggled with a section on the effects of teachers' stereotyping student learning. Should stereotyping be a theme or a subcategory under ''teachers/teaching?" Eventually, we agreed to create a ''stereotype" key word. This resulted in revising categories (and hence the earlier transcripts) to maintain consistency throughout the data. At this point, we forwarded our analyses to each book club teacher who, for the most part, agreed with our findings. Ultimately, the process resulted in identifying 28 general themes or categories, most with sub-categories. Four predominant categories generated the most sub-categories. In the writing of the book, I found the four categories broad enough to capture the direction and essence of much of the dialogue. I found Florio-Ruane's work reported in Teacher Education and the Cultural Imagination (2001) after completing the analysis and it proved affirming in its focus on a broad range of meaningful themes in analyzing narrative data. Using the broader categories revealed that each discussion

Analyzing and Re-presenting the Data

27

emphasized a different focus. This explains the distinctive shape of each book club meeting reported in Chapters 6 through 9.

1.2

Identifying and analyzing the stories

The next phase of the study included identifying each story in the book discussion transcripts. As we physically highlighted each story, it surprised us to see so little unmarked text; much of the transcripts consisted of teacher stories. We assigned a general theme and any related categories to each story.

1.3

Applying NU^DIST qualitative software

Having completed the analysis in the two phases described above, I used NU*DIST, a qualitative research program, to test the reliabiltiy of the categories we developed. The work already done prepared us for this analytical process. Through applying this program to the data, I was able to see entire texts and stories within the categories and key word(s) assigned (from one book discussion, for instance). Themes could be traced within one transcript or many: within one book club or both (to compare, for instance); for one participant or the entire group; across books for one participant or for each group. I could trace categories both generally and specifically: for example: women (theme 1) and knowledge (sub-category If). This gave us broad access to the data with options unavailable in our earlier analyses. The N4 analysis added new information. Lesley (Book Club 1) offers an example of how N4 allowed me to trace the development of her discourse through each book club discussion. Her concerns with feminist issues in teaching (both hers and Maggie in Plainsong, for instance) occur across multiple discussions. With NU*DIST, I traced Lesley's discussions of gender issues both within and across the book club meetings and could note developments over time. A similar tracing across the textual discussions occurred on issues of classroom management and evaluation for the novice teachers in Book Club 2. I was able to note how discussions affected the novice teachers' understanding and practices.

2.

RE-PRESENTING THE DATA

Having completed the analysis, I began to write the book club chapters. The teachers read each of the drafts, commenting where necessary.

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Chapter 3

Ultimately, they agreed to tell their stories as they appear in Chapter 6 through 9. In those chapters, the teachers often speak at length, without interruption. In this way, they reveal how they, in interactions with others, make meaning of their experiences. The teacher voices in those chapters capture the ethos of the exchanges and invite readers into the conversations. Much of the data consists of the informal discourse of the book club meetings (Chapters 6 through 9). Not surprisingly, the talk is typical of ''talk for learning" (Barnes, 1990, 1995); that is, the dialogue is often uncertain, tenuous and includes such pauses as, ''um," ''ah" and words such as "like" (as in, "like you know"). While such hesitancies and colloquialisms occur naturally in conversations and discussions, I felt that visually including these would make reading of the transcripts unnecessarily cumbersome. For example: during the Book Club 2 book club meeting on Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Liz said: "I can't believe, like, uh, some kid was totally falling asleep in my class." In consultation with the teachers, I changed this to read: "I can't believe-some kid was totally falling asleep in my class." I altered the texts only marginally so as to maintain the meaning. The organic and triangulated analysis of the data and stories allowed me to select the narratives that captured the essence of the dialogues in each discussion. The general themes often became headings within each of the chapters. The telling stories captured in the dialogues reveal the contours and nuances of the discourse, learning, and relationships that evolved in the two research book clubs.

Chapter 4 THE TEACHERS IN THE BOOK CLUBS

The teachers of the book clubs introduce themselves in their own voices as they tell the stories of their involvement in the book club and the reading lives that brought them there depicted through their individual literacy autobiographies. In this way, readers become acquainted with the teachers before entering the discussions of the four books (Chapter 6 through 9).

1.

JOINING THE TEACHER BOOK CLUB

The individual women's voices begin by briefly describing their reasons for joining a teacher book club. They speak in no particular order or theme; I present them alphabetically (using first names). Book Club 1 teachers begin their third year in the group; Book Club 2 teachers, begin their first year.

1.1

Book Club 1

1.1.1

Bridget

I have always wanted to be in a book club. The experience has crossed into all aspects of my life. I have received emotional support through different events in my life, and respect as a teacher and a woman by the other members. I feel, through our conversations, that my knowledge of literature and teaching—and consequently my understanding of the world— has really widened. I have gotten ideas for teaching and research through this book club. I expect that we will continue reading and discussing our ideas and giving each other support. I think we are starting to understand how powerful this type of sharing can be.

30 1.1.2

Chapter 4 Louise

I joined this group because I wanted to get to know some other people who were not part of my professional work or church relationships. I wanted my worldview to be challenged by their ideas. I felt I needed to hear about the experiences of my fellow teachers who worked in public, Catholic and private schools. I thought I could learn about life from those in the group who were older than I am and had been through a lot. This has certainly been the case. One conversation in particular had a profound influence on my approach to the birth of my first child. The book club allows an engagement with others that is dynamic, alive, and keeps me thinking. This book club gives me an outlet to talk about literature and listen to other people's ideas. Novels are a reflection and extension of my own experience of life. I bring my own interpretations of them and they, in turn, change my interpretations of the world. The participants in the book club do likewise. I enter into discussions about literature that turn into discussions about language and teaching, about love and life. Professionally, I enjoy seeing how others react to various elements of a text. It helps to remind me of the diversity of reactions within my own classroom. Listening to others reminds me of the need to create space for students to talk and to model and teach them the value of listening to one another. Book clubs model interdependency because we each have something to offer and something to learn from one another. 1.1.3

Lesley

I joined the group because I really wanted to share the reading experience with a like-minded group and I wanted to be in a book club where every member's voice could be heard. I've been in book clubs before where we listened to an expert talk about the book and I was distinctly uncomfortable with this. This book club has already enriched my life immeasurably. I love seeing my book club friends, love that Mary nurtures us at so many levels— providing food for us, buying the books for us. Most of my life is lived as a nurturer, so I have really appreciated the nurturing of this book club. 1.1.4

Patricia

Though I usually do not talk to others about the books I read, in book club I often find I have lots to say—lots of reactions and feelings and opinions. Sometimes I'm surprised by what I discover about myself as I interact with the others. The book club has been invigorating. I love the process of discovery. I discover more about each book, but also about myself

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and others in the group. The book club—where we deliberately bring our reactions and experiences to the discussion—confirms my methods of teaching literature; in fact, I often leave our book club meetings encouraged to give my students even more ownership of the learning process.

1.2

Book Club 2

1.2.1

Evelyn

I appreciate finding readers who have read the same work and compare interpretations and reading experiences. It will enrich all aspects of my life. The book club provides a forum in which I can analyze and reflect on my reading experiences and their influences on various facets of my life. 1.2.2

Helen

The book club will ensure that I manage some "pleasure" reading at a time when I feel I don't have time for anything! My favorite part of reading a book is sharing impressions with others that have read it. I love discussing books with other teachers. The book club gives me a forum for talking about the book. I love to discuss concerns and experiences I have with other teachers. I always learn from them. 1.2.3

Kerri

Being part of a book club motivates me to read. I don't think I would be reading anything outside of school without it. It forces me to remember how much I love to read and helps me to identify myself as a reader. I love the opportunity to discuss, learn, and learn more about myself and other people. The book club helps me to make time for reading in my busy teaching career. 1.2.4

Lucy

Because we pick the books to read ourselves in the book club, I end up enjoying it. The book would probably not be something I would necessarily pick on my own, so it opens new doors in my reading and knowledge. I've even come to book club not being particularly enthused about a book and walked away with an entirely different perception. It's the discussion that opens up other points of view I obviously had not considered. It also helps me as a teacher—getting kids involved in making reading choices.

32 1.2.5

Chapter 4 Liz

I would describe this book club journey as motivating and rewarding. Meeting with the group motivated me to read the chosen novels, many of which I would never have discovered otherwise. The book club itself helped provide a timeline to keep my reading on track and keep me from procrastinating. Most times, though, I am excited to start the newest text and anticipate the lively and insightful discussions to come. Sharing my thoughts, ideas and listening to others are a significant part of the book club experience for me. I have learned that individuals can have very different and unique interpretations of the same subject or book. There is a lot to be learned from discussing these with others. It opens up your own views and deepens your experience of the novel (while developing your communication skills at the same time!). 1.2.6

Melanie

I think I first joined this book club because it was a chance to read something—pressure sometimes is the only way to get me to do something, even if it is for my own good. In spite of that, it has become a place to discuss novels with intelligent people. I love that we can all voice our opinions. I find many books that I might not love at first read become so much more after I get a chance to discuss them. I always have a better understanding and appreciation for each of our novels after our club meetings. A book club allows me to enjoy reading and understanding, and to learn more. 1.2.7

Rosemary

I joined and enjoy the book club because it provides me with scheduled opportunities to read for leisure. I also want to gain new ways to think about the books and characters, to learn things I had not really thought about myself. I want to learn different ways to see a book that others developed and learned through their reading. The book club gives me the opportunity to reflect upon my learning with others and to gain new perspective—on issues in life and teaching and on the texts we share. 1.2.8

Sandra

The book club is a great motivator for reading good books. For me, it is a terrific forum for discussions about books as well as learning more about our professional and personal lives. Reading for book club also encourages me

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33

to read actively—pausing to reflect on lines, characters, and style. I look for patterns, symbols, and parallels in the plot. But mainly, I look for a "real" story. Knowing I will be discussing the book helps me to focus intently on the narrative. 1.2.9

Shelly

I joined the book club mainly to be with other young female teachers who were also beginning their teaching careers. I have just begun my first teaching position in a Federal men's prison. Everything—and I mean everything—is unfamiliar. I felt that I did not know much about the teaching profession. I feel so unprepared to teach in a prison, teach adults, teach all men. I have no real support structure to keep me up. Also, being in a new community, I have met only a few people. I really do not have teacher colleagues as friends in the prison and I haven't met teachers from the local schools yet either. The book club offers familiar people in familiar surroundings. Though each teacher presents her personal reasons for joining a teacher book club, several themes recur: in the company of expert readers, an outlet to talk about literature, personal discoveries, interacting with others, expanding teacher knowledge, and being with like-minded friends. In sum, they came for the reading, women teacher colleagues, and the social context of the book club.

2.

LITERACY AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Since the teachers openly chose to join the book club to maintain an active reading life, I asked each to prepare a brief literacy autobiography detailing her reading history and the nature of her reading life. The intentional act of writing generates thinking about, articulating, and naming the ways we became readers (or non-readers) and how we read books. If the stories we write are at the heart of who we are as teachers and learners (Meyer, 1996), then articulating our stories of reading becomes important for this research. The critical personal teacher knowledge for teachers can become a foil and supplement to reading policies and practices in schools. Personal knowledge becomes professional knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 1987, 1995). Literacy autobiographies entered the public discourse of the book clubs as the teachers exchanged stories of reading, germinal books, and personal reading practices with others. Situating individual reading histories and

34

Chapter 4

stories in the context of other literacy autobiographies places individual stories in relation to the stories of other readers and like many shared stories, binds people together. Stories are a way to teach, learn, remember, make sense of things, understand what happens to us, and even predict what will happen. If, as Bruner (1990, 2002;), Brunner (1994), Trimmer (1997) and others suggest, stories are key to making meaning, then the interactive, dialogical exchanges become intertextual events. Taken together, the stories may begin a process of "unearthing assumptions that lead to rediscovering truths about ourselves . . . that lead to making culture, particularly in schools" (Brunner, 1994, 31). This book is about the power of stories for teachers to make sense of teaching and learning. In this study, the work begins with individual teachers generating a personal Literacy Autobiography.

2.1

The teachers of Book Club 1: Voices of experience

The group of experienced educators met as a teacher book club in an initial pilot study (1998-2000). We explored the use and effects of literary texts in a social context (Bruner, 1986; Brunner, 1994; Keroes, 1999; Kooy, 1999) reflected on reading, teaching, and professional development (Kooy, 1998-2000). We read, told and heard stories, and, over the course of the two years, began to see evidence of new knowledge and relationships. We aimed to continue the informal learning group but to shift our focus more intentionally to issues of gender, teaching and learning and to build on the work and relationships forged in the first two years. The six women members of the book club who agreed to continue in this research were English/Language Arts teachers, a consultant, and a university lecturer and professor in teacher education. At the time of this study, our teaching experiences ranged from nine to 27 years with an average of 16 years. Lesley, and I had each taught in secondary schools for approximately ten years. We had also taught in elementary schools for five and four years, respectively. Patricia and Louise taught secondary English and at the onset of the study, had been teaching an average of eight years. Bridget taught in public secondary schools in the U.K. (2 years) and in the same public high school in Toronto for three years. Louise had been teaching for six years in the same private Christian high school; Patricia had taught for 11 years: four in a private Christian secondary school and seven in a suburban public high school. Bridget and Louise were in their early thirties and Patricia was in her mid-thirties when the study began. Lesley entered the book club having just completed her doctoral work (Ed.D.) exploring the issue of girls and reading. At the beginning of this study, she was a sessional instructor in pre-service teacher education. At this

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35

point, I was a recently tenured associate professor at the University of Toronto (1995). I present the voices of the teachers using first names in alphabetical order for both book clubs. Since I am a member of both book clubs, I leave my literacy autobiography until all the women have spoken. 2.1.1

Bridget

If for a long while I do not get to read for pleasure, I start to feel ill. As a teenager, I sometimes got so immersed in reading that I could not hear my mother calling me. I become obsessed with favorite books and need to own them so that I can dip into them whenever I feel the need. I would say I read because I need to; I read, therefore I am. Books help me to make sense of my world. I enjoy a wide range of books. I suppose I often like novels that do not exactly fit into a genre. I enjoy novels that experiment with narrative a bit, or develop a character in an unusual way. I like novels that have something interesting to say about people and life. I also enjoy stories about families and the development of relationships over time, like The God of Small Things by Arundanthai Roy. I also like reading novels set in different places and times. I like to have a strong sense of the interaction of people with places and times, when it is relevant to the development of the story. I also enjoy reading mysteries, detective fiction (when well written), romance, and war novels, I have loved poetry since I was a five-year-old at school and our teacher would read us The Little Pujfin Book of Verse, I occasionally read short stories, but they have never engaged me as a novel or a book of poetry will. I also enjoy reading essays and literary theory. We were always a family of readers, and my mother helped to make us avid readers. My mother read to us all every night, all four of us together, books like Ted Hughes' s The Iron Man and Tove Jannsen's Moomintroll books. We had books in every room of the house. Every couple of weeks we went to the library and took out the maximum number of books allowed. When we all grew up and left home, my mother kept all of our library cards so that she could go and take out lots and lots of books from the library. We were always given books at Christmas, too. I suppose I always took it all for granted, and it was only as I got older that I realized not everyone had this at home. At school, I enjoyed reading too. I enjoyed the sound of words from a young age. I remember an embarrassing moment when I was about ten. My teacher made me read in front of the whole school, and the passage I read was from the Bible. Even though I knew the difference for some reason I confused disciple with discipline, and said the wrong word. I knew

36

Chapter 4

immediately I had done it, but I continued to say discipline because I thought I had to be consistent! Around the same time I also remember I had read all the novels in our class library and my teacher had to send me around to other classes looking for more books. In secondary school, I read an enormous amount. I know others saw me as a bookworm. I had started reading classic literature at the start of my teens, so I suppose I just continued working my way through. I never had any real interest in teen fiction—it seemed a waste of time. I remember having real obsessions - Thomas Hardy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, the Brontes, etc. I would read everything by the writer concerned until I felt I had had enough. When I was at university I did not enjoy reading as much, especially in the first year. I suppose I did not always like the lecturers' approaches to the texts, and I sometimes did not like the choices. I wrote a lot of my own poetry during this time. I think I then felt a sense of freedom when I could read for the love of it again. The most significant book I read growing up was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I first read it when I was about 10, and I just loved it - the romance, the gothic aspects, Jane's character. Jane dares to follow her heart and her mind; I believed in love and words. I suppose I have become an adult reading this book, and my understanding of it is continuing to grow. I wonder what I will think of it when I am old. When I choose books, I look for authors I love and interesting settings or time periods. I go by recommendations from friends, colleagues and reviews in various papers. If there is a massive fuss about a book I consider it my duty to find out what it is all about. I believe Margaret Laurence and Margaret Atwood who both write about needing writing to create a sense of cultural identity, so I have tried to read Canadian writing since I moved here from England. There are still big holes in my knowledge though. Sometimes I go to a book shop and it is just the cover - its texture, smell, colours, the title - 1 engage with it as an object for a while, and read some of it before I choose. I also enjoy reading new British fiction because I feel it keeps me in touch. I use the books I read a lot in my teaching. I read to my students and lend books to students, especially when I teach senior classes. Disappointingly, a lot of my students do not seem to be very keen readers. Since it's not a regular part of their lives, some find reading hard work. I think many of them do not see books as being important the way I do, although many of them find some reading entertaining. Most of my students do some form of personal reading— magazines, web pages, or in chat rooms. Clearly, their sense of what reading means and why it matters, is quite different from mine.

The Teachers in the Book Clubs 2.1.2

37

Lesley

Reading is a safe place in a whirling world. I go there to drink at a stream and emerge refreshed. When I was younger, I approached books more urgently - I needed answers from them about how to live life. Not that I would have been aware of this motivation - but as I have subsequently reflected on it, it seems that reading provided me with alternative life-scripts and lessons to those I saw embodied around me. When I was about 12, I embraced science fiction - which surprises me to a certain extent as it seems out of character for me. At a younger age I had a fascination with biography. I think I needed to find out how other lives had been lived and I enjoyed the opportunity to imaginatively enter other worlds that were different from this one Books and reading have been consistent companions throughout my life. My grandmother, who brought me up till I was ten, met with the ladies in her book club regularly right up until she died at 84.1 still have the little blue book of Aesop's fables in Yiddish that she read to me when I was a child. My mother taught me to read — I pestered her to do this so I could read the wedding columns in the Winnipeg newspapers and find out about other little girls my age who were flower girls. My mother, though quite an antiintellectual, read fiction avidly. My dad didn't read fiction but he read the newspaper from cover to cover every day and nothing interested him more than a newspaper from another city - it was the best kind of present you could buy him. There was a public library on my corner and I read a lot of the kids' books in it. There were days when I didn't feel well, a kind of coded exchange between my mother and me that meant that I needed to take a mental-health day to stay home, rest in bed all day and read. Now, I pass books on to my own [grown] daughters. They count on this and ask me for books. I used to have a similar kind of exchange with my son before he became too busy. Books strengthen relationships; they give us shared experiences. Anne of Green Gables was the single most significant book I read as a young person. From earlier years, I remembered the story of The Little Engine Who Could, and know I took a lot of my motivation from that story. My reading practices in high school didn't touch me as deeply as my early reading experiences had. Reading was less important than living life. Even at university, books didn't have the power they had had when I was young, though there were some reading experiences that were pivotal for me. I really loved modern French poetry - Valery, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine - and remember the books Willa Gather wrote which I studied in American literature. I was never as aware of looking for the woman's voice as an adolescent, than I had been as a young girl—it was as if I had given up this

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Chapter 4

quest. Reading A Room of One's Own was an absolutely critical moment in my life and reading. Woolfe redirected my gaze as a woman. She brought me back to listening for the women's voices. Poetry, short stories, fiction have been my mainstay, with some nonfiction as well. The other genres above have not really interested me. But I confess to loving magazine reading - reading a new People magazine from cover to cover is a secret pleasure. In my academic life, reading has also served for me as a prompt to writing. Whenever I need to write something I need to read first - as if I have to fill myself with words, ideas, rhythms, and cadences before I can begin to produce the same. Like my students, I don't have nearly enough time to read these days, in a quiet reflective way. There are so many demands on my time that I don't read enough; at least, not nearly as much as I would want. When I am stressed, it is difficult to muster up the focus to concentrate on a novel when I can think of a million other academic demands that I must satisfy. Yet, I know how much reading gets me out of my self and my life and offers respite. The students in my classes who have read the novels I put on the course outline have been so positive in their responses to what this opportunity to read has meant to them. I should remember my own advice that reading keeps us sane. 2.1.3

Louise

I am a voracious reader and I read at such a pace that I tend to forget what I read because I am always on to the next thing. This reflects the pattern of my life in general. I tend to have several books on the go at once, and I read for various roles in my life — book club, church leader, curriculum coordinator at my school, and my own growth and development. Right now I am reading Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren, Carpe Manana by Leonard Sweet; and I just finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling and A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Evans. I keep a literature journal in which I write about each book I have read. This includes the title, a short summary and a brief review. I read both for escape and for personal and professional growth; however, I tend to tip more to the latter. I avoid plot-heavy books and feel suspect of best sellers and their literary quality. Perhaps this reflects my inability or unwillingness to slow down, relax and just have fun in my life. It also reflects my personal goals for excellence (which tend to border on perfectionism). I look for novels that will stretch my vision of the world or my ideas about what it means to be human. A good novel needs to have strong and dynamic characters, a believable and complex plot, an engaging

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writing style, and some themes or ideas that allow reflection or analysis. I don't look for a fast moving linear plot line, accessible language, happy endings, or resolutions to conflicts. I prefer fiction to non-fiction as I enjoy entering into the experiences of the characters. I tend to go on binges. Two years ago, I was reading everything about China and by Chinese writers. Then I got on an Alice Munro kick. After that, I read several books on the Holocaust (including everything by Eli Wiesel - I just couldn't get enough of his prose style and the process of his own healing reflected in his novels). I like post-colonial literature and multicultural literature. I tend to stay away from canonical stuff — to the detriment of my teaching career. I remember sitting on my father's lap and reading with him. It is fun to now watch my two-and-a-half year-old daughter do the same thing with him. I remember reading for hours on end at nighttime by flashlight under my covers or sitting in the doorway to my bedroom reading by the hall light. I also remember eagerly bringing home the Scholastic book catalogues each month and savoring the choice of books available for me to purchase (with my allowance and my parents' help). It was always exciting when the book order would arrive and the brand new shiny books became my very own! In grade four, my teacher placed me in the 'middle' level reading group. This really frustrated and upset me. I felt I should be in the highest reading group and felt they did not see my potential. It was devastating to be told that I was not a good enough reader to read Farley Mowat (or handle the corresponding chapter questions). For the life of me, I can't remember the book I did have to read - only the one I could not read. My grade 8 teacher noticed my love of books and provided some suggestions about reading material I might enjoy. He stocked the classroom with young teen novels and I remember spending lots of time looking through the racks for my next book. Although I enjoyed reading, discussing and writing about the novels I studied in high school, I came to see those novels as a means to an end. Specifically, they were a tool to help me understand the craft of literary analysis and to help me achieve a good grade. In university, my experience was similar. I remember being profoundly disappointed in my tutorials in university courses because the majority of my fellow students came to class without having read the novel! I got tired of having discussions between two or three people before an audience of fifteen. I wish they would have stayed home and allowed those who read the novels to really dig into a meaty discussion and analysis. However, my university courses introduced me to literature from other cultures, a kind of literature that continues to be an interest of mine.

40 2.1.4

Chapter 4 Patricia

I grab a book on my way out of the house almost as naturally as I reach for my purse and keys. Because I have two children, the books I travel with may well be A Treasury for Four-Year-Olds or Ramona the Brave, but I like children's literature, and I like reading aloud. Even more delicious are the moments to myself— when I ride the subway, stand in line at the bank, wait during my daughter's swimming lessons — and bury my head in a good mystery or a recent Canadian novel. When I was young, my parents read to me, took me to the library, and bought me books. Some nights, my dad made up bedtime stories about three forest elves named Johnson, Ferdinand and Evert. The elves had wild adventures — ones that would start peacefully and then build up to some terrible, life-threatening predicament — like a raging forest fire. Then Dad would say. And we'll have to finish the story tomorrow. He'd say goodnight, and my brother and I would lay awake, terrified for the elves clinging to their lives by a thread. It wasn't until years later that we figured out that Dad ended the stories in the midst of the fray because he needed time to figure out how he was going to get Johnson, Ferdinand and Evert out of the messes he'd created. I read greedily as a child. I used my mother's library card because, with it, I could take out ten books at a time instead of the stingy three allowed with my children's card. I read books geared to my age level and resisted various teachers' attempts to steer me towards classics and adult literature. I didn't like the books I read for high school classes — I remember reading Watership Down and missing the entire political implications of the various rabbit warrens. Nor did I care very much when teachers revealed them to me through lengthy discussion questions on each chapter and tedious questionand-answer sessions in class. However, I do remember finding a book of poetry for young people on a dusty shelf in the English classroom one day. It was one of those 1970's thematic anthologies with lots of Langston Hughes and Sylvia Plath and e.e. cummings. I loved it, and I started reading and writing poetry of my own. In university, I took a casual approach to my education, signing up for courses that sounded interesting, and not declaring a major until halfway through my third year. The courses that I liked turned out to be mostly literature courses — in English and in French. I felt the world expand as I read more and more. I also liked the sounds of the words I read. I took French poetry because I wanted to hear how Baudelaire and Verlaine's poems sounded in their native tongue. I joined a poetry club. We met weekly to read and respond about the poems we had selected for the occasion. My

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41

poems, in retrospect, were mediocre, but I had a lot of fun and enjoyed talking with others about what we read together. Driven in part by my love of literature, I became an English teacher. Despite my love for literature, however, I had trouble teaching novels in my senior English classes. I had trouble thinking up the chapter-by-chapter questions that other teachers used, and I couldn't think of enough to say about a book to fill the three or four weeks that my department head had told me to spend on a class novel. Even when I personally loved a book, I didn't know how to engage my students in it. At a teacher's conference one Fall around the mid-1990s, I stumbled on reader-response theory in a one-hour workshop. Reader response, the session leader suggested, put the onus on students to make meaning. Anxious to make some changes, I tried it in my classes at once. Eventually, I became more of a guide than the expected expert, and students became personally involved in the interpretation of the novels. This seemed to work so much better. I'm still amazed at the depth of meaning and the connections that students are able to find in the novels they read. On a personal level, I'm lucky to have friends who buy books and lend them to me. Most of what I read is by recommendation. While I read, I live in the world of that novel. Parts of books move me and stay with me — the closing of Clara Callahan, for instance. I remember and embrace the passages that I find wise and beautiful and true.

2.2

The teachers of Book Club 2: Entering the profession

"Wouldn't it be great to have regular get-togethers after we graduate? To continue what we started in your class? Would you consider starting a book club with us?" Nine pre-service English Methods Teacher Education students approached me about creating a book club for this study (2000). During the book club experience in class, they had enthusiastically participated in and endorsed the process. Their desire to continue cultivating their reading lives, developing their relationships, and comparing teaching stories as they anticipated entering the teaching profession was compelling. I agreed. We began meeting in September of 2000. All had successfully found teaching appointments, although few positions were available. Hence, at our first meeting, all were novice teachers who had begun their teaching careers only weeks earlier. The new addition to the book club group contributed possibilities to my own learning, research, and teaching profile. I teach a graduate course entitled, ''From Student to Teacher: Professional Induction" (CTL 4004) that focuses explicitly on transitions from teacher education to the classroom. By

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including a novice teacher group—particularly one I had come to know in teacher education—I could participate first hand with teachers actually living the transitions required in entry into the profession, crafting their teacher knowledge as they engaged in professional learning alongside their teacher induction. At the time the study began, although these teachers all taught English, only three did so exclusively (Shelly, Sandra, and Rosemary). The others also taught Drama (Melanie and Lucy), Spanish (Helen), History (Evelyn) and Physical Education (Liz). This group was younger than the first group (average 25 years). Most taught in downtown public secondary schools with student populations representing diverse cultural and ethnic groups (the U.N. continues to declare Toronto to be the most multicultural city in the world). Liz taught in a suburban high school and is the only one in a (publicly funded) Catholic high school. Kerri taught in a small town about an hour out of Toronto where the student population is less diverse than the schools of her colleagues in the book club. Shelly taught English in a town more than two hours out of Toronto—in a medium security men's prison. All taught in different schools. 2.2.1

Evelyn

I come from a family of readers that includes both English and Italian books. I remember learning to read Dr. Seuss books, rereading the same book, over and over. I fondly recall the Scholastic Books catalogue sent to my elementary school. The day the books would come in was such a memorable treat. By high school, I lost something. I didn't read enough; it wasn't a leisure or pleasurable activity. In spite of that, when I think about it, I have a diverse and wide range of interests. In Grade 8, I read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. In high school, I discovered Stephen King and devoured his books. I encountered my first epic while in high school—Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. With some regret, in university, I read a lot as an English Major but, to survive, I had to read very quickly. I recall that all the required readings of texts and historical documents in university left little time for pleasure reading. In spite of the temporary demise of my personal pleasure reading, I still identify myself as a life-long fiction reader. While I always say that I especially enjoy short stories and historical fiction, when I look at books I consider pivotal to me, they do not seem to fit into those categories or genres. I look for richness in the books I read, identifying a variety of elements that a good book needs — a compelling story line, a sense of journey and well-developed relationships. In my year of Teacher Education, I picked up John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, and this became a

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critical novel for me. Friends and colleagues are a major source for new books to read. I also read reviews and make judgments on the books and decisions about reading them. I love to tell people about great books and stories I have read. I bring my love of reading into my classroom. Some students read as prolifically as I do. We may share similar loves such as, The Outsiders and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Some students are intimidated by the amount of reading I do, and don't see themselves as capable of doing the same. I am also aware of different interests in my readers — my male students prefer nonfiction to fiction, for instance. 2.2.2

Helen

I don't remember learning to read — I just always did. I can't really remember much about my 'before' school era. I do recall that there were always books in the house although I wouldn't say that my family reads a great deal. I do remember my parents only occasionally reading something other than the newspaper which my father still does daily! Perhaps this was partly due to my sister having a lot of difficulty with reading (dyslexia) and requiring a lot of my parents' time. I spent my summer vacations reading. I would read anything I could get my hands on. My Mom owned many Harlequin romances and Reader's Digest condensed novels — often about people's trials and tribulations. I wonder about the impact of this early reading on my psyche: Did those [romance novels] influence my viewpoints in romance? I do tend towards idealism in this area! I still like books about the human condition, which gives me a wide range of options. Although time and experience have changed the content (imposed from school/work), they have certainly not changed the quantity of reading I continue to do. I love reading and books. In fact, I not only love reading, but owning books. I have so many books that an old boyfriend thought I was trying to open a library. In high school, I read the required texts plus I always had time to read for "pleasure." In university, time became an issue but luckily (by choice), I studied literature and was always reading. I considered myself a fairly proficient reader and therefore, did not need a lot of support, I often choose books by finding an author I like and reading his/her collection of works. Teachers, friends, and librarians are all sources of influence in my choices of books but no one person stands out. I often choose books by finding an author I like whose work I want to follow. Sometimes a title will catch my eye and then I'll read the synopsis. Many books I read were critical to my development: they became a part of me. For example, I read a particular Spanish novel and I completely, shockingly, identified with the female

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protagonist, which is surprising to me since the book was written, I believe, by a man in the 1800s! I shy away from poetry, because I find poetry difficult, and as a result, do not read much of it. This, of course, does not help me overcome my difficulty! I would like to take some poetry courses. I still take great pleasure in reading. If I particularly enjoy a book, I keep it but I will always share it with my sister or friends. Along with sharing books, I love to be somewhere comfortable - in the winter in my bed with lots of pillows, etc.; in the summer outside under a tree. Actually, I'll read anywhere (subway, cafe, etc.). If I don't think I'll ever want to reread a book, I give it away. As I am new to teaching, I can't generalize, but so far I think my students do read often and enjoy it though not necessarily all the assigned reading. They enjoy fiction but are not very adept at reading the more theoretical writings and extracting information. I need to think and learn about this issue. 2.2.3

Kerri

I don't remember learning to read though I do remember those mixed feelings of wanting and not wanting to read aloud. I come from a family of readers, though I don't think I read because of their influence. My family read newspapers and magazines — I have always been attracted to stories in books. In spite of not reading the same materials, my family provided a literate environment as I grew up, buying me books and reading to me. Already as a pre-teen, I loved to personally connect with a story. It sounds funny, but I remember reading Judy Blume books and feeling this connection — realizing that others felt the same way and having similar experiences and thoughts. I have not always read as much as I do now. In high school, I was not a reader except for assigned readings in English class (the "classics"). I confess that I always wondered why I read so little during those years when I loved reading so. At the end of the day, though, I attribute my love of reading to a memorable English teacher. Mrs. Kuyzk, who taught me to connect novels to myself, to read outside of the literal meaning. In university, I didn't find time for leisure reading. I never realized until now how much I really need books and stories. I now read both fiction and nonfiction — I especially enjoy life stories, particularly stories of the lives of women. I also read self-help books that focus on personal exploration. I read to explore myself, my position in life. I use reading as a tool to furrow and to gain insight into life. Before going to OISE to do my teacher education program, I was given Simple Abundances

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by Sara Van Breathnach. The writing came in the form of daily entries tying the simplicity of life and womanhood together. I read it everyday. Books come to me by recommendations always! I cannot think of a time I just chose a book in a bookstore without knowing anything about it. Again, I look for unique life stories and stories that are real," that provide insight into human life and thought. I like to own the books I read. I take pride in my books. I rarely take a book from the library, because I like to keep them — not even to read again, but to share with others and to remember. 2.2.4

Liz

I remember sitting with my parents practicing my reading. I do not recollect exactly how old I was, though I am quite sure I was not yet in school. Reading played a significant role in my early life. My parents read stories to my brothers and me. My mother would also take my brothers and I to the public library regularly where we were free to roam the shelves. We often spent hours at a time leafing through our choices and/or participating in activities offered at the library. In addition to our regular trips to the library, there were plenty of books to be found around the house. We were encouraged to read aloud to our parents. In fact, at least once a week, my mother would make us sit down one at a time and read to her in Portuguese, not just English. Reading received a very high place of honor in my home. Probably the most significant stories of reading were those told by my parents, in particular, my mother who expressed such a desire to learn to read English that she went to night school (against her family's wishes) while working full time at a factory and cooking and cleaning for her brothers and father. In elementary school, I felt I was a strong reader. In Grade 2,1 remember how thrilled I was to win the "spelling" badge in my class. I was always good at spelling and as a result tended to perform well on my reading tests. I remember sitting down with my teacher to read a list of words and feeling confident about my performance as the words never seemed too difficult to spell. One of the most vivid memories I have of my young reading experience, however, was wishing I would get the chance to sign out Curious George or Clifford on my weekly class trip to the library. There were many popular books in elementary school that I, along with everyone else, wanted to read. Even though our parents could buy any of these books for us, it seemed more exciting to be 'the one' that got the coveted title on any given Tuesday afternoon from the school library. In the early years, it was Curious George or Clifford or one of my all time favorites, Where The Wild Things Are. Later, it was anything by Judy Blume (in particular, the 'xrated' Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret). These weekly school visits

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were supplemented by my weekly family visits to the local public library, usually on Saturdays, where my Mom would allow my brothers and I to explore the shelves as we pleased. Another vivid elementary school recollection I have is of the 'older' kids coming to our class to read to us. I looked forward to the storytelling as well as meeting new, older friends in my school. It made my friends and I feel special as most times, the older students would dote on us and pay us special attention. High school was a different story. Reading books I was not interested in painfully characterized my high school English life. I also detested most novel studies as most involved reading a chapter and answering the corresponding chapter questions. The only real discussion happened when we were answering the questions in class. Even then, it was rare that we discussed our own thoughts about the text or the issues related to them. Not surprisingly, at that point in my life, reading played a lesser role than in elementary school. My high school years became increasingly social and I thrust myself into sports and other school activities, which took up most of after school time. There was a "dark period" where I did little reading for pleasure, or learning, for that matter. In high school, I became bored with the selected texts we had to read for English class. Even more painful were the chapter questions that we had to answer every night. ''How dry can this get?" I often lamented. In addition to the lackluster variety in the curriculum, I was becoming more distracted by social ventures. Clothes, music, and boys were climbing the scale of importance while reading was losing its grip. Even after this "phase" passed, I had become so involved in sports and other extracurricular activities that it seemed I had no time to read for leisure. Thankfully, this began to change. A friend of mine, Siobhan, an avid reader herself, began recommending titles to me. As I started reading again, I found out how much I enjoyed discussing these books with her. Besides Siobhan, my OAC English teacher, Mrs. Murphy, also had a big impact on my "return to reading" and hidden appreciation of literature. I admired Mrs. Murphy for her knowledge and love of literature. To me, she looked like she walked right out of Jane Eyre or even one of Shakespeare's plays for that matter. I found myself wanting to read and 'experience' the texts she so passionately spoke about. Funny enough, I became engrossed in writing at this time, too. I remember wanting to apply everything she taught me so that I could write the best possible essay. I remember thinking that I wanted to impress her by doing well. I had a lot of respect for her and I guess I wanted to share part of what she knew and loved. Of course, getting a good mark in my final year had something to do with it, too.

The Teachers in the Book Clubs

Al

In university, I regressed. I was so overwhelmed by course readings, assignments, and tests, I could not even consider replacing 'study time' with leisure reading. Besides, when I wasn't studying, I was partying and socializing. I can honestly (and with embarrassment) say that I can count on one hand how many books I read for pleasure during those four years. And then came Mary. Mary Kooy was my Faculty of Education English Methods professor. This woman reshaped my experience with and knowledge of literature and teaching literature. Her introduction of concepts like the Reader Response Log and reading aloud in the classroom excited me. They were so non-traditional but made so much sense. Could English and literature be this fun? Yes. That class was undoubtedly my favorite that entire year. The experiences of sharing in that classroom had a profound effect. The image I would use to illustrate my journey as a reader would be that of swimming in the ocean. I have always loved the water and it has become symbolic of my love for literature and language. However, as soothing and calm as the ocean can be, it can also be equally rough. This would relate to the phases in my life when I have drifted from reading or struggled to maintain it as a hobby. Thankfully, the ocean is also ever changing which reflects my return to reading as well as my varying interests in subject matter and style. Today, I aim to implement many of these strategies in my own classroom. To my delight, many of my students seem to respond amazingly to the literature I bring into the class and actually connect to the text (positively or negatively). My own experiences, inside and outside of the classroom have shaped the type of educator I am today. I think about the exercises that I detested and learned little from and avoid them as much as possible. 2.2.5

Lucy

I don't remember learning how to read. I do know that I must have learned how to read in school and not from my parents whose first language is Italian. Although they could both speak and read English quite well, I never saw them reading and so they didn't transfer any kind of love for literature to me. Well, that's not entirely true. My mother used to read to me from a bedtime story book when she could. That's one of two books I remember having as a child. The other book was a mermaid story called Ella and the Dolphins which I still have! My sister on the other hand was the one with the books. There is a ten-year gap between us and although she never read to me or talked to me about books, I always saw her reading so I suppose she was my role model.

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I do remember the reading groups we had in grades 4 and 5. We were grouped according to our level of reading ability and I remember feeling really proud the day I got to advance to the highest group. I enjoyed reading in school, especially reading aloud. Reading, however, was not really part of my life outside of school; I was far too much of a tomboy to be stuck inside reading and there weren't many books in my house that I could read. I never really thought much of a reading life outside of school until I was older. High school reading was a drag. I hated English class through most of high school, mainly because my teachers didn't inspire me to read. The only book I read that interested me even vaguely at the time was The Chrysalids (Grade 10,1 think) because it sort of mirrored my life and the class system in my school at the time. It wasn't until I taught it myself during student teaching, however, that I realized it was a truly great story. I started enjoying reading in my senior year in high school when I took a course called English Literature with a great teacher (finally!), Mr. Al Romkema. He arranged the desks in a horseshoe so we could all face each other — it was so cool! We focused a lot on Canadian authors like Margaret Atwood and Margaret Laurence. It was the first time a teacher gave me the chance to talk about a book. I remember feeling particularly smart because I was reading, enjoying it, and sharing the ideas I read and discussed in class with my friends outside of school. I came to realize that literature is beautiful. I started asking my sister if I could tag along with her to the library and although I wasn't devouring books the way she did, I was definitely reading more on my own at home. I always laugh at the fact that I went to a total of eleven English classes during my first year at university and still ended up with a B+ in the course. It was an 8:30 class — enough said. Yet, I really came into my own as a reader at university. When I read something for a class, no matter how academic or tedious, I felt that I had been given the gift of someone else's knowledge and ability. So, while my journey as a reader (I don't think) is really all that fascinating, I am nevertheless proud of my reading ability and love for reading today. My friends always make fun of me because I freak out whenever Anne Rice has a new book. I'm glad that, amongst my friends, my reading choices are unique. It's like my books are my own little secret. Books are very important to my life and I read as often as I possibly can. If I try to think about the books that have been most influential in my life, I find it very hard to pinpoint (I'm sure this may change). Right now I'd say either The Diviners by Margaret Laurence or The Mists ofAvalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Actually, The Diviners would be a critical book for me simply because it was the first book that I ever "loved." I felt a strong connection to Morag in the book.

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Friends or book reviews are my best source for finding a book to read. Sometimes I find an author I like and try to read as much of her or his work as possible. Other times, I browse areas in bookstores and libraries that I like (i.e. fantasy) and pick up books that have interesting covers or titles. I read the back, and then read a few pages to get a taste of the author's writing before deciding. For example, I used this process to read a new fantasy author today (Jacqueline Carey). If I am really enjoying the book during the reading, it means I'm thinking about the characters and the setting all the time, meaning I sometimes wonder what the characters would be like in our world, etc. When I finish reading a book, I keep it and usually, am able to 'let it go." I'll tell people about it, too, but I generally find that my friends have different reading interests. I go through stages in my reading. For example, right now I am really into fantasy novels and don't want to read anything else. However, I usually enjoy historical epics that have horror, mystery, and romance. I enjoy stories that span generations in one novel. I really like Anne Rice because she blends all the elements that I love together, especially history. I also love Marion Zimmer Bradley, Caleb Carr, Guy Gavriel Kay, Wilbur Smith, and Shakespeare. Since I also have a drama major, I naturally enjoy reading plays. I'm new to teaching but I have definite ideas about reading that I carry into my class. I believe students should have some choice in what they read but I find it most effective, especially with junior classes, to read together. It's important to let the kids tell me what is important about the novel, play etc. I tell myself: don't impose your interpretation and don't over-analyze. In fact, I think it's not necessary to analyze at all. The most important thing is what the book means to them. I really try to allow students time to talk about their reading. 2.2.6

Melanie

I would not describe my family members as avid readers. Both of my parents dropped out of school before they finished high school though I think that, because of that, education was something that they respected and did not take for granted. Personally, I read crazy amounts. As a child, I always had a book on the go. I remember reading at home when I was younger but I think these were mostly books I brought home from school. We did have books in our home, but I was really the one who brought books into our house. Although my parents were not necessarily the ones to buy or bring new books into the house, they always encouraged me and gave me the means to bring books in (like buying from the Scholastic book catalogue). I was lucky to have been

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encouraged to read by my family. I don't think that I have any other specific people in my life that influenced my reading habits. I have always just loved to read. I think reading set me apart from most of my friends and family when I was younger. I was a proud reader. It was always something I did. I wasn't influenced or dissuaded by others — even when they called me "bookworm." I would identify myself as a reader who reads first for a good story. I read mostly to get lost in the story. I guess this could be called, "escapism," but I like to think of it more as a deep and abiding interest in people and their lives — kind of a sociological perspective. For me, high school reading in English class was pretty boring. I don't remember any of the texts that I read for school except one: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. That novel literally fueled my love of reading. It was the first "real" piece of literature I fell in love with. I'm not sure it altered my thinking or living, but it was "escape" and "culture" all wrapped up in one book. Up to that point, I enjoyed many pop fiction books—mostly horror and mystery/suspense. In university, I was overwhelmed with the reading from my courses and did not get time to read for pleasure (well, maybe one or two books). At the same time, the assigned readings during this time broadened my reading scope and made me more "cultured" (even if I didn't always enjoy the work). For instance, I read Moby Dick, Orlando, etc. I loved and hated many of these books but realized that all of them would make me a better scholar. With Moby Dick, for instance, I really felt a connection to some of the imagery, as boring as most of it was. It was also in university English classes that I uncovered my connection to an appreciation for poetry. Until this time, I had not enjoyed or really tried to read poetry at all. I came to realize that I really could connect to a lot of poetry as a meaningful and beautiful art form. How do I find new books to read? Today, it's mostly my friends who make reading suggestions. I can also spend hours in bookstores reading book jackets and sometimes choosing a book. If a book is a bestseller, I'll check it out. If it has won an award, I'll check it out. I actually enjoy many types of literature and have read and enjoyed many genres. Reading a book also helps me to relax. I notice that when I am overstressed in my real life, I read more. I read to analyze people's roles in society. I read to learn. I especially like books that challenge expectations and understanding of the world and our role in it, books that turn an accepted ideology on its head. When I read a good book, I want to talk, talk, talk. Talking about books is a very important element of the experience of books.

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Rosemary

One of my fondest and earliest memories of reading occurred when my eldest sister visited the library and returned with about ten of the most fabulous things I had ever seen. These ten items were picture books. Though only about five years old, I remember reading those books over and over and over again. Whenever my sister visited the library to do her school projects, she returned home with a grocery bag filled with books. It wasn't long before I got my own library card and began to visit the library every Saturday with my other sister. Much to my sister's chagrin, each weekend I tagged along with her and her best friend to the local public library. On these Saturday afternoons, this special place expanded our imaginations as we explored all genres of books. Sometimes together and other times apart, my sister and I would spend hours exploring, selecting, and reading books. Although neither of my parents have a post-secondary education, they read in English quite a bit. I was surrounded by books and reading. Grade 1 is the earliest I can remember anything about learning to read: phonics, flashcards, and basic readers. I remember being in the highest reader group and loving the feeling of owning books. From a very early age, I took pleasure in books. As I grew older the library was still the place where I read, but for a different purpose. I explored books for entertainment but also to quench my thirst for knowledge. Non-fiction texts on astronomy, religion, culture and cuisine, nature and animals lured me back to the library every weekend. My sisters also influenced my reading habits through the texts they read. As the third child, I was quite accustomed to hand-me-down books like the Little House on the Prairie series, Nancy Drew novels. Little Women, and Judy Blume books. My sisters were avid readers and thus influenced my habits. My parents took a backseat when it came to my reading habits. I do remember, however, that at the age of 7 my mother purchased me a colorful children's bible: the Old Testament. Two years later, she purchased a beautiful New Testament for me. Together we would read these biblical stories that ended up providing me with an understanding of the archetypal characters and symbols that would reoccur, time and time again, in the literature I would grow to love. Though they did not often surprise me with a book purchase, whenever I asked for money to buy books at the school book fairs, they never hesitated to dole out some dollars. Throughout my school experiences, from elementary to post secondary education, I had a passion for reading or listening to the written word. Needless to say, language and reading were my favorite subjects. When I think back, however, I regret that I didn't read enough outside of my high school class requirements. I didn't indulge in reading as a leisure activity.

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Yet, somehow, my latent love of reading guided my choice for selecting courses in University. I majored in English and once again read a great deal, although not often for the sheer pleasure of it. Nevertheless, novels like The Diviners, The Piano Man's Daughter, The Stone Diaries, the short stories of Alice Walker, and the poetry of Atwood, Cohen, Plath, and Sexton, are texts I read many times because of their strong female protagonists who take risks and confront life's obstacles and challenges with courage and conviction. When I read a book, I carry it with me. It becomes my travel companion, sits by me as I sleep, and is in my thoughts during the day. A book is like my lover. I have a close and personal relationship with it. When I have finished the book, it is displayed somewhere in the house to keep the memory alive for a while. Right now, I am in a phase where I really want to enjoy nonfiction books — though I can never resist great fiction! I think of myself as a well-rounded reader. My positive experiences with reading have made me openly advocate for lifelong reading. This follows me into the classroom. 2.2.8

Sandra

When I think back to growing up in my home, I see my father always as the reader in our family. Every day, he would come home from work with the newspaper, read it, and then pick up a Portuguese novel in the evening. My parents didn't read to me often. I do, however, have fond memories of the school librarian reading to us. I don't really remember learning how to read. I became an avid reader in my early teens. I particularly remember the powerful impact of reading Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I was so gripped by the story and felt such a personal connection to Tess. I seemed to have a relationship with her. I cried; in fact, I sobbed at the end! When I read, I look for a connection with the main character(s). I look for a "real" story. I read "actively," pausing to reflect on the lines, character, and style. I generally read books of romance, poetry, or war. I also love books of short stories. When I find a great book, I often look for others that have read the same book so we can talk about it. Others also help me to find a new book to read; I look for recommendations from other readers. With some regret, I think my reading practices changed as I grew older. As I progressed from high school to university, the experience of reading became more concerned with and focused on the 'analytical' aspects of reading, I had to figure out the 'meaning' of a text by consulting the critics. Somehow, the pleasure of reading I found in Tess seemed to dwindle and fade.

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Despite my experiences studying literature in school and university and with the book club experiences to help me, I work hard to provide my own students with an open approach to reading literature, encouraging them to reflect on the books they read together, and to discuss those reactions with one another. I find that we share similar reactions to texts that we read. They enjoy discussions and reflecting on them. Most of my students read only the books they 'have to' read for courses. Some do read on their own; however, they often find it difficult to find time for reading outside of school. 2.2.9

Shelly

At home, my family fostered reading. As avid readers, my mother and grandmother both read to me and encouraged me to read. They loved books and I came to love having books around me as well. My grandmother often reminds me that my mother would spend hours reading aloud to me when I was a toddler. Unfortunately, I do not remember the times spent reading with my mother. After the arrival of my sister, I do not believe that the reading continued. However, my mother always took me to the library on a weekly basis. I remember that I always brought home tons of books. Even if I could not read them, I would bring them home and try, while looking at the pictures. When I began elementary school, we used to get a booklet every month that advertised books for sale. My mother and grandmother believed so strongly in reading that they would buy me as many books as I wanted regardless of the cost, which was usually high because I always wanted a variety of books. I was very fortunate that they were in a financial position where they could buy me so many books. I remember when the books arrived at school, I was always so popular for five minutes because I had ordered so many books. The other kids in my class were usually very interested in what books my family had purchased for me. The short-lived five minutes of fame encouraged me to read books so that I would be able to order more the following month. But that positive side of reading and books is only one side of my story. In elementary school, I was diagnosed with a language learning disability, though I was never given any coping strategies. Looking back, I can only surmise that Special Education and learning disabilities were new in the 1980s and that the teachers did not know how to assist me in my learning. Out of desperation, I created my own strategies. I vividly remember my experiences of reading in elementary school. I felt particularly tormented by teachers who asked me to read aloud. I had quickly realized that I did not read aloud as well as other students in my class. I was unable to read a sentence aloud without mumbling, stuttering.

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and confusing the words in the sentence. It seemed we always had to read aloud in elementary school. I believed that the teacher did it just to embarrass me. Whenever it was time to read aloud, I became extremely anxious. I would look for escape routes and reasons to leave the room. I would keep my eyes averted. I would begin to feel weak. My heart would race, my vision would blur, and I would get fidgety. Nevertheless, I quickly learned that when reading to myself I was able to understand the text but when I read aloud or was listening to the text being read I was unable to comprehend it. To this day, I refuse to read a script aloud. The very thought of having to read a script word for word aloud to my peers still causes extreme anxiety, yet when I read a text to myself silently I can paraphrase the text to a large audience without worry or anxiety. School created a division in my life as a reader. On the one hand, I recognized that I was intelligent and able to read a variety of texts and find meaning yet, on the other hand, at school I was labeled unable to read properly by my teachers and peers. I interpreted this as "I am dumb when it comes to reading." For years teachers would have the class reading out loud, but before the class began the four of us who were "dumb' readers would go into the hall or another room to read. Every other student would watch us leave and I would feel shamed by my peers and my teacher who never left the class with us. Amazingly, when I reached high school, my view of myself became increasingly positive. With no requirements to read aloud, my anxiety about reading decreased. I found that I enjoyed reading to myself. Although I noticed that I appeared to read much more slowly than my peers, I was able to reach similar conclusions in the end. Because of that slowness, I often had to take my school-work home. Homework seemed to take me twice as long as the other students, but I enjoyed reading for information. At the same time, my mom began suggesting books to me that she had just read. I read hers after she finished reading them. My mother read mystery novels, so I read mystery novels. Over time, I found enjoyment in reading books for pleasure. My defining moment as a reader arrived in my third year of university when I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Sometimes it seemed as though I woke up one morning and I was very sick. This is a very simplistic view of the actual events; nevertheless, it seems true. Suddenly, I realized I had not been out of the house in days, in part because I had insomnia and was so tired and weak that I slept most of the day. I tried the obvious solution: I stopped sleeping during the day in the hope that I would sleep at night. That failed miserably. I began seeking medical attention when I recognized this as depression. However, clinical depression is not like a bacterial infection that can be treated with an antibiotic over the course of a

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week or two. I spent months not sleeping at night. The world is a lonely place at night. I began reading novels in the dark and gloom of the night to help pass time until daybreak when I knew sheer exhaustion would kick in and I would fall asleep. Reading became an enjoyable escape from my hellish reality. In the reading of novels, I was able to see into another world, view different perspectives, and feel different emotions. As I read, I did not feel alone in the darkness. Instead, I was able to feel and think when it seemed like I had no emotions or ability to concentrate. Unable to function in my life, I read fictional novels to find security and comfort. Finally, the depression lifted. The positive consequence? Quite unexpectedly, reading became a lifeline for me. I continued to be an avid reader. I believe that I am a healthier person because of reading. When I think about a key book in my life, I go back to my Mom who had just finished reading Dean R. Koontz's Lightning and suggested that I read it. In my mind, she had always been an excellent reader though I did not have a lot of confidence in my own ability as a reader. Yet, I opened the book and began reading because I trusted my Mom's judgment that I could read it. I read it but the most significant aspect of reading this book had nothing to do with the story line. It was the first time in my young adult life that I began to realize that I was able to read adult books like my Mom and that it was enjoyable. I read the entire book and after the last word, I attained a renewed sense of confidence and achievement. As an adult, I read every night before going to bed as a way of relaxing. I look for character or plot development that evolves at a steady pace in the books that I read. I even rarely stop reading what I consider a book to be poor because I hope that the next page may be better. Before, I often chose one author and read everything that he or she wrote. Reading books for the book club introduces me to books I might never have chosen to read and enjoy. Also, I now have books recommended to me by friends, family, or other people who come to my local public library. I also enjoy having the librarian choose a book for me — a book she has read and loved or a current bestseller. I enjoy reading for personal and professional reasons. A key element to lending richness to my reading experience is to be able to share my feelings about a book with other people. Unfortunately, most of the time it is difficult to find someone who has read the same book (that's why I'm part of this book club), so usually I reflect on how I can incorporate lessons that the characters have learned into my own life. Sometimes I do discuss what I am reading with other people. On occasion, I find the character or the situation in the book can be used as a teaching tool. I think I probably read a lot more than the students that I teach, yet I never forget that I was once in their shoes. I can relate to the avoidance of reading aloud and to the confusion and difficulty in reading sentences. I try

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to give them a passion for reading by teaching them to notice their mistakes and to create coping strategies to not only survive, but to learn how to enjoy reading by consistently following the strategies they created. 2.2.10

Mary

I cannot imagine myself without books or reading. From my earliest years, even as a very young child in The Netherlands, my parents read to me daily from Anne De Vries's Children's Bible Stories. The stories, artfully and powerfully crafted, with memorable illustrations, told of heroes who rose and fell, of kings and shepherds and prophets and priests and of their adventures, journeys, tragedies, and triumphs. The influence of the daily Bible stories read aloud after the evening meal and the sight of my parents indulging in reading on Sunday afternoons proved an irresistible invitation into a life of books and reading. This happened, of course, unbeknownst to me — at least consciously. I do recall that a visceral passion for reading was ignited and began to bloom in Grade 2. Here we read real books — books where turning the page left me, more than once, gripped by fear and frozen, unable to turn the page. What if the children would not be found? What if the bear fell and disappeared into the inky moat below? What if the short-tempered church janitor beat the children for sneaking into his garden? I vividly see, in my mind's eye, the black and white etchings, the position of the words on the pages. Though I never remember being hooked on phonics, I can say that here, in this Grade 2 class, I became consciously addicted to reading stories and books on my own. Even the cardboard Dick and Jane characters and their predictable monosyllabic stories that greeted me upon my arrival in Canada as an eight-year old, did not dissuade me from my insatiable reading—particularly outside of school. I always read — in bed, our living room, or on a chair at the desk in my bedroom (under the guise of doing homework). I read every Dutch book lying around the house or those my parents checked out of our church library. When I turned ten, my parents allowed me to take the bus into the city to go the library and take home a treasured cache. In high school, I continued my weekly bus trips to the library every Saturday. I took out novels by individual authors — Hawthorne, Dickens, (George) Eliot, Austen, and Hardy — until I had exhausted their books. I adored the heartwrenching narratives, the frequent coincidences, the tragedies, the threedimensional characters, and the language. I lingered over — memorized even — words, phrases and even the occasional paragraph. My teachers and friends probably introduced and recommended these authors to me in school, though I do not recall who, how, or when.

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By age 16 and for years onward, Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, became my most beloved novel. I identified with Hester. Her spirit lay within me — independent, purposeful rebel, in a strict, and uncompromising community. I recoiled at the injustices of her circumstance in light of the duplicity of many community leaders (saint by day; sinner by night). Hester Prynne, condemned and shunned by that same society, took the high road. She proudly defied those who would have her utter the name of her bastard child. She rose above the censure (not only wearing the scarlet A but embroidering it lavishly with gold thread) and confidently moved ahead in her life, eventually gaining the community's respect, even admiration. For many years, I desperately and actively sought to be both included and respected in my own ethnic community. I not only felt I understood Hester, she became my model, mentor and guide. I even memorized a piece I still recall: ''Hark! There goes the woman of the scarlet letter. And behold, there is the symbol of the scarlet letter running along by her side. Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!" This quote both galled and delighted me — the nerve of those kids and yet, the poetry of the language. When I entered university, English seemed a natural and logical major. I read Shakespearean sonnets and plays, Victorian novels (oh, joy!), and the works associated with typical survey courses in the 1960s. On my own, I read poetry. My first purchase at the university bookstore was a book of poems I still own today. What I read for pleasure connected to my personal reading more closely, though I began to believe that only experts could interpret the meanings. The formal interpretations required for my course papers had little if anything to do with my personal reading. Slowly, my confidence ebbed; I began to see my academic and personal reading lives as two diverging paths. Many years later, when I returned to university, I indulged in a graduate course in children's literature in the English Department. The assignment — to write a critical essay on one of the young adult novels without benefit of outside sources — intimidated me. I read, re-read, and read again. With no choice, I was forced, for the first time, to draw from my personal reading skills to formally interpret a text — even though it was a young adult novel. Intimidation led to empowerment. I had to choose the ''road less traveled by" and indeed, it made all the difference. Later, when in a course in Psycholinguistics I was introduced to Louise Rosenblatt's 1938 germinal work. Literature as Exploration, the barriers crumbled for good. I recognized both my abilities and responsibilities in reading and interpreting. Rosenblatt's work provided the epiphanal, "aha" experience that gave me back, or rather, united my two divergent reading lives.

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So strong was this experience to my own reading, it led, no doubt, to my interest in talking to other students and colleagues about the books I read. Since becoming a book club member in the early 1990s, I can say that a book is no longer complete if I am left on my own with it — particularly if the book deals with unsettling ideas or ideologies, or a deftness or art of language that flows or moves readers. The idea of a book growing with discussion is vital to me — I love to talk with others about what I read personal and professional. I have a book club that began when I arrived in Toronto and still functions. I establish book clubs in the pre-service English Methods classes that I teach. My research inquiries are about book clubs as social contexts for learning and knowing. The social dimension of my reading has settled in as part of my reading landscape.

2.3

Stories of the teacher readers' reading lives

The literacy autobiographical writings point to the contours of the individual teachers as readers. Most consider themselves "avid" readers who read for '^pleasure," "greedily," "to enter imaginative worlds," "for escape," and "to learn." The word "companion" often accompanies the notion of books. There are self-declared "bookworms" (Bridget, Melanie). Some became readers because their families read prodigiously while others became readers in spite of having rarely read or even had books in the house (no middle ground seemed to exist). Inspirations to take up a life of reading included parents, sisters, teachers, and friends. Reading lives began at various times in their personal histories. Germinal books included Anne of Green Gables (Lesley), Jane Eyre (Bridget), The Scarlet Letter (Mary), The Diviners (Lucy), and Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Sandra). For most, public and school libraries and librarians played a critical role (Patricia, Bridget, Lesley, Rosemary, Liz, Mary). Most found high school and university reading stultifying and boring (Liz: "Most novel studies . . .involved reading a chapter and answering the corresponding questions"). Some replaced reading with other activities for a number of years returning only when the weight of required readings and prescribed interpretations lifted. Recommendations traditionally seem to come primarily from friends. Talking to others about the books they read has been a mainstay of most of the teacher readers in this study. The stories of the teachers describe how and why they read and chose to be included with other reader teachers in one of the two book clubs. Lesley noted that when she was young, she read because she "needed answers from them [books] about how to live." Bruner (2002) confirms Lesley's observation when he suggests that stories provide us with "models of the world" (25). The teacher voices testify to the place of stories in their lives

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and the need to articulate and hear the stories of others—from books and the lives of the teachers in the groups. As explanatory devices, stories set up a "dialectic between the established and the possible" (Bruner, 2002, 13) that emerge most clearly through social interactions. Stories from books and the lives of the teachers provide a landscape for investigating and imagining new ways of understanding teaching, and learning in the lives of the women teachers in the book clubs.

Chapter 5 BOOK CLUBS: ESTABLISHING PROCESSES AND PROTOCOLS

A coffee pot, juice, and a light brunch sit on a side table. Next to it, the brunch on a long wooden table. As each teacher enters the lounge, she helps herself to food and drink and finds a place to sit. Stories of summer readings, new and current teaching positions, and updates on our lives fill the early minutes of the meeting. Within minutes of arriving, the teachers pick up the books distributed on the table and browse or read aloud an introduction or a snapshot summary on the back page. Some books are familiar; most are new to the teachers. Some jot down the titles and authors for later reading. Soon, stories about books and teaching fill the air. In late September of 2000, two teacher book clubs met in the Centre for Teacher Development at OISEAJniversity of Toronto. Book Club 1 (experienced teachers), met on Saturday mornings. Book Club 2 (novice teachers) met the same Saturday afternoons in a cozy lounge area with sofas and comfortable chairs arranged around a low, square coffee table. We called the sessions, "Books and Brunch." By the end of each introductory meeting, we had decided on a location, frequency (every five to six weeks), session length (two to two-and-a-half hours), and most importantly, the books. Both book clubs agreed to organize democratically using an informal, leaderless discussion model. Book Club 1 chose to continue simply reading the text in preparation for discussion; Book Club 2 decided to read and record informal ''book thoughts" to use in the discussions. With the teachers coming from a wide range of geographical and educational contexts, scheduling was challenging. Teacher schedules tend to be intensely busy, particularly around report card and exam times. Book Club 2, even in the first planning meeting, recognized the overwhelming

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pressures of adjusting to a new profession and the constraints that placed on their time. To encourage communication between book club sessions, I set up an online conference site for messages, reading lists, book club dates and meeting time reminders, availability of books, questions, requests for information or forms, invitations and announcements on public events (an author reading, for instance). It also was a place where members could post comments, ideas, responses, and suggestions for other reading and keeping in touch with their book club colleagues.

1.

BOOK CLUB 1: EXPERIENCED TEACHERS

This group continued the tradition of selecting texts, telling stories of teaching, working through managerial issues such as food orders and dates for meetings, interviews, planning for events outside the Centre for Teacher Development (finding and reserving a room for watching a movie, for instance). In the first session, I introduced the literacy autobiography and suggested we each complete one for the first book club meeting. Book selection is a highlight of these first annual planning meetings. In this meeting (2000), Patricia suggests moving beyond the fiction and autobiographies of earlier book club sessions and include a broader range of texts and genres: "We could watch an episode of "The Magic School Bus." Lesley adds picture books: "We could get into theories of picture books as they depict teachers such as. Miss Nelson is Missing'' In response, Patricia invites the members to see a play—"The Glory of Morrissey Hall"—at her school: "There are many kinds of teachers and it's about the students' world and the teachers' world." As the teachers browse through the books on the coffee table, Bridget picks up Plainsong and reads from the back cover: "'It interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers.' It was a National Book Award nominee." While the suggestions of other genres include a collection of poetry, short stories, two films, and a play, Plainsong, a fictional text, is added to the list (Chapter 6) as is In the Name of Salome (Chapter 9). Over the course of the two hours, the teachers also exchange multiple stories of teaching. One story focuses on models of schools and teaching in the wildly popular Harry Potter series: Bridget: Definitely, they [the Harry Potter books] present various models of how teaching and learning can happen. There are characters like Snake

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who are basically horribly, nasty, teachers who kind of out-power the kids, who just want power over kids. Lesley: Is Snake a male teacher? Bridget: Yeah, male, definitely. Mary: The female is not nearly as power driven or cantankerous. Bridget: No, she's fair. Very fair. Strict, but fair. As the session progresses, new stories emerge: the new required Grade 10 Literacy test; teacher education programs; and, transitions from teacher education to the classroom. Lesley recalls that when she started teaching, her colleagues warned her: "Don't smile till Christmas." When I say that a new group of novice teachers will meet that afternoon, Bridget recalls her entry into teaching in Britain: "They teach you about the "system" and how to behave in that system in teachers' training." The session also includes an invitation to submit a proposal as a group to present at an academic conference, advice for Lesley on writing a paper for another conference, and starting book clubs in other contexts. I tell a brief story of giving a paper on teacher book clubs and the continuing conversation that resulted: "I still get e-mails from people who attended my session in Amsterdam who tell me, "As a result of your session, I've started a book club." The meeting ends with a reminder of the date of and reading for the next book club.

2.

BOOK CLUB 2: NOVICE TEACHERS

This first meeting begins with stories; they have not been together as a group since the English Methods class that ended in April, earlier in the year. They have stories to tell, forms to fill out, surveys to complete, schedules to set up and talk about the kind of book club they will mutually construct and develop. From this first meeting it is apparent that the novice teachers recognize their need for ongoing help and "moral support," particularly since, even in their earliest induction, few have access to mentors or support networks (Boreen & Niday, 2000; Fagan & Walter, 1982). Helen notes: "In my school there's no real curriculum or planning or helping each other with lessons. I think it's because of the time factor in general. It's like, "So, how are you doing? Okay, well I've got to go now." Lucy talks about having no homeroom and consequently, no space to store

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or post student work. Melanie relates a surprising discovery: "I just found out I'm supposed to keep a running record of kids' absences. I didn't know that! Now I have to go back and count them up for each class." At several points in the discussion, conversations arise between two or three of the teachers simultaneously. The teachers raise the need to read for pleasure as they begin a new career. They say: 'T want to read" and, '1 want to readjust for me." The book club, they agree, provides an ideal diversion and an opportunity to maintain a reading life and engage with colleagues outside their new teaching worlds. Early in the discussion, they discuss organizing and determining a process for the book club: One crucial feature of book club success seems to be that the book club people themselves need to be involved in creating a structure, I think that means it will reflect the interests and the hopes you have for this group. The other book club, for instance, meets every five to six weeks. That works out for them. You will need to consider feasible and appropriate time spaces between meetings. Every month might be a little too tight for people who have just entered teaching. Melanie asks: "How do we want to structure that time when we're together? So we don't sit around and talk about things that don't relate to the book club?" Lucy sums up the discussion: ''Maybe that's enough then, just to have an open discussion for an hour or whatever time it takes." Even at this early stage of their careers, they appear ready to accept responsibility for their own learning. They share reading experiences and identify their expectations and goals for the book club. Rosemary tells a story of her experiences in another book club: Well, I do want to talk about the book because I've been in a book club before. It was great because it was a good opportunity to talk about things. Like you were saying before, relationships develop around stories. But there wasn't a lot of focus on the books. A couple of times when we did focus on a book, I found it a lot more rewarding because I guess, being an English major, I miss reading books and going to class [Evelyn: To talk about books] and learning about them. So I wouldn't mind doing that. Her story resonates with the others. They agree that the primary purpose of the book club will be the texts. Laskin and Hughes' work with book clubs suggests that: ''Reading groups answer a need for intelligent conversation. They provide a way to exchange ideas, engage in debate and share rapturous insights" (1995, xvii).

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While the teachers agree to keep the books central to the dialogue, Kerri suggests that the book discussions will naturally lead to stories of teaching: I think it would be good, though, if we do see some kind of teaching strategy that comes out of our discussion of the book, to maybe take a half an hour at the end [of the session] to talk about that. I mean, how we can apply this in our teaching. Membership issues also arise. Melanie notes that **a couple of people in my school are interested [in joining] if there's space, so I'll just leave that open." Sandra adds: I have a quick question, too. I was talking about the Book Club to a couple [of teachers in my school] and what it was about — [Helen: Well, I don't even know precisely what it's about. Who knows what it's about?] A couple of people in my school are interested as well. I don't know if you want— Melanie responds: '1 told them I wasn't sure if it was open or closed and so, said I would ask." The group agrees to postpone considering new teacher members until at least the following year. After further discussion, I pulled the pieces of the discussion together: We're at the point of having structured about a six-week interval between books and meetings. You want to talk specifically about the book when you're here. You want to read different kinds of books, a variety. We've agreed to some informal written responses to the books before we come to the meetings. It seems we are ready to draft a list of books that we want to read over this first year. Does this seem right to you?

3.

BOOK SELECTION PROCESS

The democratic choice of books is arguably the single most important factor in a successful book club (Heft & O'Brien, 1999; Laskin & Hughes, 1995). For the first meeting, both groups spontaneously bring books, annotated reading lists, book reviews, and titles recommended by friends and colleagues. The selection process is organic, and dynamic (Laskin & Hughes, 1995). Browsing through a text or book review often prompts personal stories of reading ('This is one of the best books I've read"). I record the titles of books that receive a positive response. At this point, both groups spontaneously agree to limit the list to six books and set up a schedule for ordering the texts.

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3.1

Book Club 1

From the outset this group chose to read texts with representations of schooHng and teaching. During this particular opening session, the group agrees to read, The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. Patricia suggests broadening our "reading" to include film as a visual text for exploring and examining teacher images (Joseph & Burnabord, 1994). Suggestions include: Stand and Deliver, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Pay it Forward, Shine, Mr. Holland's Opus Dangerous Minds, Killing Mr. Griffin, Teaching Mrs. Tingle and To Sir, with Love. When Bridget suggests. The Belles of St. Trinian's, Lesley asks: "They were black and white pictures. They were the ones with the nuns, right?" Bridget responds: "I loved them. They were absolutely hilarious. So funny." After further recommendations, Lesley adds: "There are so many of these movies, maybe we're not going to be able to watch them all. Maybe we could see parts of a couple instead of watching the whole thing." Patricia proposes television shows about schools and teaching such as The Magic School Bus: It's a kids' show and kids are addicted to it. The teacher is their science teacher in an elementary school. [Lesley: Oh, I haven't seen that.] It's a cartoon. It's animated. She's the most amazing teacher—^totally wacky. The kids are always a bit concerned about what she's going to do with them next. They always go on field trips and there's magic—^the bus is magic. For instance, they can go inside the human body to explore things. I propose including picture books such as the Miss Nelson series, especially. Miss Nelson is Missing. A book club meeting on picture books, Patricia suggests, could mean bringing children's picture books and just, "sitting and reading. That would be so nice, wouldn't it?" The discussion continues to focus on children's picture books, picture books about school (The Geranium on the Windowsill Just Died but Teacher You Went Right On), teaching (James Clavell's children's stories) and poetry about teaching and about teachers. Lesley next asks, "What about a play? We could keep an eye open for some play that might be appropriate. When Bridget agrees that, "A play would be really good," Patricia invites the teachers to a play she is directing at her school: You should come to my play. We're doing a musical called The Glory of Morrissey Hall set in a private girls' school. Ifs the relationship—It's a musical and it's silly but it's all about—there are many different kinds of teachers and it's about the students' world and the teachers' world.

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As the session draws to a close, Lesley links the play (above) about a private school to the book City of Light that, she notes, is "about teaching in a private girls' school in Buffalo, in 1908 v^hen Buffalo was the eighth largest city in the United States." At this point, I sum: "So I now have The Courage to Teach. Each of us will watch one movie. We'll sign up next time . . .Then we'll go into picture books and we'll go to the play, and then we'll read. City of Light''' Bridget adds that she hopes we might also read Maxine Greene's autobiography entitled. Teachers as Strangers. Lesley suggests: "This is a conversation where one set of ideas is building on the other—like scaffolding."

3.2

Book Club 2

The novice teachers devote significant discussion to the books to read (Hartley, 2002). Kerri notes the advantage of being able, "to actually read things that you want to read." Intently, the teachers browse through the books on the coffee table. Some indicate they have brought titles written on paper that had been on their "I want to read this but haven't had the time" list. When Evelyn picks up a copy of The Hours, she skims through a few pages, remarks aloud on the presence in the story of Virginia Woolf, and voluntarily reads the summary on the back cover for the group. As the discussion evolves, the teachers add other recommendations—a total of 31 novels, a play, and a short story. Lucy recommends three books by Nino Ricci: Lives of the Saints, The Glass House and. Where she has Gone. Melanie suggests three by John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, and Widow for One Year. Other "multiple" author suggestions included Margaret Atwood, Frank McCourt, Anne Marie MacDonald, and Robertson Davies. By the end of the session, we agree on four clear favorites: A Lesson before Dying, Lives of the Saints, The Hours, and Plainsong. Plainsong receives the strongest support and is selected as the first book to read for the book club.

4.

POSTSCRIPTS AND PRESCRIPTS

4.1

Postscript

Teachers organizing their own learning communities constitute a new direction in the research literature on teacher development. Assuming responsibilities for organizing the book club and creating a space for

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intellectual stimulation empowers teachers (Heft & O'Brien, 1999) who, in many current contexts and conditions feel unprepared (novice teachers) and disempowered to make their professional choices and decisions (Hartley, 2002). Book Club 1 continues the tradition of including teaching and teachers in the texts they read, but also decide to expand their text choices to include film, picture books, and a play. Book Club 2, on the other hand, decides to read books that do not refer to schools and teaching ("Right now, I feel like I want to get away from that completely when I am here," Lucy said in the first planning meeting) and yet choose Plainsong as the first to read—a book that includes two teachers.

4,2

Prescript

The four chapters that follow trace the stories of the two book clubs as they each gather around a common text. In a serendipitous gesture, both teacher book clubs selected to read the same four books over the course of the research. I present them chronologically, using Book Club 2 as the guide. This group began with Plainsong (Chapter 6) in the Fall of year 1 followed by A Lesson before Dying (Chapter 7) later that year. Year two included Oranges are not the Only Fruit (Chapter 8), and In the Name of Salome (Chapter 9), consecutively. The progress of time affords a lens for viewing their stories from the earliest induction to the closing of year two of their teaching. Including the same texts read by Book Club 1 provides another way to compare and contrast the stories and voices of women but from a distinctive professional context and career stage. As researcher and book club member, I am included as one of the teachers in the discussions of both book clubs. Initially, I struggled with separating my voice from the other teachers. In the experienced teacher group (Book Club 1), it seemed most appropriate to be one of the teacher members. In Book Club 2 discussions, I distinguish the voices of the novice teachers from mine in the discussions at times since as their professor only the year before, both the novice teachers and I needed to negotiate our new social and cultural spaces. I learned to position myself as learner learning from the stories of their induction and early career challenges. The book club discussions in the chapters that follow reveal a series of ''texts"—teacher stories from books and the lives of the book club teachers. The informal teacher-led design of the book clubs allowed the two groups to collaboratively negotiate their own way. The stories read and told reflexively wind and weave their way, intersecting, overlapping, and diverging but always remaining open to interpretation and alternative ways of seeing the

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world. The shared experiences of the teachers led to constructing a cohesive community committed to learning and teaching.

Chapter 6 NEW BEGINNINGS AND TELLING STORIES

This chapter, like the three that follow, traces the discussions and events of the book club meeting. Each book club meeting discussion resulted in distinctive overriding and critical issues and themes. In this particular chapter, both groups read Plainsong and strongly related to the book's captivating style, content, and characters but they connected especially powerfully with the teachers. The discussions reflect the career stages and experiences of each group. The chapter divides into four themes: (1) Novice teachers: First encounters and exchanges in a book club (2) Teacher images and identities; (3) Gender in teaching; and (4) Teacher development in a new key.

1.

NOVICE TEACHERS: FIRST ENCOUNTERS AND EXCHANGES IN A BOOK CLUB

The novice teachers begin the first book club meeting with the chatter associated with updating and getting reacquainted after the summer. As the discussion evolves, there are requests for clarification about procedural issues and processes in the book club. The teachers fill in required forms and inquire about the details of continuing responsibilities and schedules. I check for accuracy of e-mail addresses to open an online conference site. They ask for more background information on the study and pose procedural questions ("What exactly do you want here?" and, "Just the writing, if you could go over the writing part of it"). In the earlier planning session, we discussed preparing a "literacy autobiography" as a space for articulating the memories, knowledge, and experiences of reading that provide the groundwork and starting poing for

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informed participation in the book club. To guide their writing, I had distributed a set of prompts (e.g., reading at home, early reading experiences in school, germinal books). However, the teachers, overwhelmed by their new responsibilities, have not yet completed their reading autobiographies for this book club meeting. Nevertheless, a lively conversation ensues on the experiences of creating a writing autobiography in my teacher education class the year before, Helen opens with: "I took the writing autobiography very seriously. I learned a lot about myself. I actually went from thinking I was a non-writer to thinking, "of course I can write." Kerri adds: "It validates you as a writer. You put it on paper and look at it and say, 'What I do with writing is OK'." In reading other writing autobiographies. Shelly notes: "Other students had a fear of the red pen marking up their work, and I thought, "Hey, I have that, too! Suddenly, I could let go of the fear" (Doherty, 1994). Shelly claims a principle for her own teaching: no red pens will color the pages of her students' writing. Helen suggests that such autobiographical writing might help her English as a Second Language (ESL) students find "a space to write that's not being judged like the other [English speaking] students." Helen resumes with a question: "Just the writing, if you could go over the writing part of it. Mary: Well, why don't we negotiate the reading autobiography? I don't want it to be onerous; I don't want it to feel like an assignment. Sandra: The literacy profile—are you talking about that? Helen: The literacy autobiography. It's on the first page at the bottom [of the study description]. Sandra: I don't know. I don't have my book. Mary: Okay, You didn't do the reading part. [Helen: I didn't do it all. I started it.] Okay, we need to do the reading part. [Sandra: Is it just the reading part that you want?] I need to negotiate this with you. We could just come together here at a book club meeting and do it here if you prefer. Rosemary: Can you explain it one more time? Mary: This part of the literacy autobiography is a way to document your life as a reader. For example: How did you get to be a reader? Do you

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remember learning to read? I have a set of guiding questions. What are the key texts? Is there a text that is forever with you? We can come here together, on a Saturday maybe, between sessions to generate reflections and talk together. I'm open to that if that seems useful to you. Shelly: I found when I was doing my literacy autobiography on writing, it took me a whole week to do it, because I did a lot of reflecting and a lot of thinking about—I know that for me, to personally doing the reading one would take me a long time. I took the writing one really seriously and I learned a lot about myself. I actually went from thinking I was a non-writer, to realizing, "Of course I can write." Helen: It took me a while to remember things. I think if I were given just 15 minutes, I wouldn't be able to generate enough. When we were doing that [writing the literacy autobiography], I appreciated the opportunity to rewrite and revisit mine, to go back. All of a sudden I'd remember: "Oh, yeah, that's right and I need to add that—." Mary: Okay, so this changes things a bit. That's a valid point. Time is important. Would it be better if I took the prompts I've developed and put those on our computer conference site? You could pick whatever prompts seemed appropriate, put your ideas of it into the computer, and bring whatever you have written to the next session? We could use the first hour of the next session to go over that. [All: Okay.] What do you think? [Rosemary: Sure.] I suggest that you don't try to do the reflections all in one sitting, like you said [Helen], but maybe put on an egg timer for say, 10-15 minutes and focus on one question at a time. What do you think? Rosemary: Good. Yes, so these prompts—will they be part of our literacy autobiography? [Mary: Yes. That will be it.] We could bring the reflections and stories of our reading to the next session and talk about them together? I respond with: "I think you raise a very valid point." Through mutual deliberation and negotiation, we reach agreement on the purpose and possibilities for the reading literacy autobiography. "Would it be better," I propose, "if I put the prompts on our online conference site and you selected one or two, set a timer for 10 minutes, for example, and wrote spontaneously about a specific aspect of your reading life [early reading experiences, family reading, school reading experiences, for instance]? You could bring your writing to the next session and we'll use the first hour to relate our

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stories of reading." They agree. The teachers—only a few months into their induction—assume agency by renegotiating their responsibilities in light of their current teaching realities. Preliminaries aside, we direct our attentions toward Plainsong, Each teacher brings a personal representation of her thinking about the book. Melanie and Kerri created reading logs (thoughts recorded during the reading). The others prepared a diverse range of written responses: Rosemary and Evelyn prepared a running commentary in the margins of and additional comments on loose-leaf paper. Sandra explains: "I kept a pencil handy and underlined and wrote little notes in the margins. If I found I really had to write something more down, I'd get a colored sticky and stick it on the page." Helen, on the other hand, 'Very hesitant about writing in books," created a list of items, issues, and questions she wants to raise in the group. At this point, about 45 minutes into this first book club meeting, we have yet to actually begin discussing Plainsong. I am anxious to talk about the book, reluctant to direct the conversation and relieved when Evelyn interrupts with: "So, let's talk about Plainsong.'' Melanie begins: I read this book in the first weekend that we got it. I was done Tuesday night. At first I thought, ''that was just too easy to read." [Helen: It was easy wasn't it?] Because I hadn't read a novel for myself in a long time so I thought, "Well, this is going to take me the full six weeks. When am I going to get a chance to read it?" But I was surprised that it was done within a few days. All except Kerri nod their heads in agreement. For Kerri, this was no "quick and easy read." Her reading, she suggests, happens quite differently: "I took notes, but I like to . . . I 'm slow . . . I've been really reading it up to this week. I read it over a long time." Kerri risks introducing an alternative reading process. She suggests an alternate reading process. Others accept her cue to discuss their particular encounters with the text. It turns out that even very experienced and literate readers articulate their progressing knowledge during the reading in diverse and individually meaningful ways, Kerri's candor in noting her departure from the other reading, opens opportunities for the others to suggest alternate possibilities. The teachers scaffold the discussion—moving from the "quick and easy read" into the writing style and its impact on their reading. Helen: I have to say it was a very, for lack of a better adjective, a very easy read in the sense of the writing style. I didn't find the language difficult or the style difficult and yet he paints amazing pictures. They are so vivid. The characters, you know, I could just visualize them. I could be with them. I could share their feelings. I could picture it all.

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Evelyn: I found the beauty of the book was the simplicity because things just naturally seem to happen. I wrote something here about the fact that the book doesn't have any quotation marks. I noticed that. See, the other novel that I read this past summer was Blindness and that does the same thing. [Mary: Oh, really?] It doesn't use quotation marks. So I wrote here [in her notes]: "No quotation marks but this creates more of a narrative feeling, a narrative without a narrator. It just is. There is a sense of closeness, inevitability. All is as it should be—seamless—because that's just the way it is." Melanie: I was thinking about it this morning, making some notes for myself on what I wanted to talk about. It's just the simplicity of the book. That's what it was about for me. These are some people's lives; these are the things that they're going through; and that's it. There are obviously other themes that are brought in, but because of the simplicity of it all— It's just the style. The writing just emphasizes that idea. What does it mean when they find the book simple? Is it an attempt to deflect unwarranted fears of limited literary expertise? Is it a form of performance anxiety? The simplicity issue, it seems to me, becomes a front line defense in case of undesired revelations. What if exposing interpretations and understanding of the text prove to be a "whistle-blowing" experience? What if they place a limited self before their peers and indeed, me, their former professor? During the first interview, the teachers spoke of feeling pressure to "perform" a reading reflecting deep literary and theoretical wisdom and insight—the kind expected in their university English classes. While I create an open environment in my university classes and all the teachers had experienced that, they seemed to recreate models of reading and literature preceding the class—their high school and university experiences. The "testing of the waters" in this first book discussion provides time for the teachers to assess the situation and determine whether it is safe to proceed. What I interpreted as a delay in getting to the book results from multiple and complex realities, not the least of which relates to the vulnerabilities and tensions that inevitably emerge in the beginning stages of teaching. At this point in time, they are in the initial stages of transition from student to teacher. Their professional identities are unstable and uncertain. They struggle with doubt and wonder, "Can I do this?" Moreover, this is the first book club experiences for the teachers (outside the English Methods class) and they must now negotiate another new territory and culture. In a sense, both in their schools and in the book club, they are laying down a path while walking (Horton & Freire, 1990). Eventually, already in this first book club

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meeting, the teachers construct a place safe enough to enter more directly and deeply into the book.

1.1

Reading the word; Reading the world

Before introducing the discussion of the book, I provide a cursory summary of the contents. Kent Haruf s Plainsong reveals a small U.S. Midwest town through the intersecting stories of a pregnant high school girl (Victoria Robideaux), a strong woman teacher (Maggie Jones), a couple of crusty bachelor brother farmers (Harold and Raymond McPheron), and a male teacher (Tom Guthrie) with a pair of boys (Ike and Bobby) and a depressed wife. The two teachers play a central role in the unfolding events. In elegant simplicity, Haruf reveals the values and strengths of human relationships and community. 1.1.1

Book Club 2: The novice teachers

The novice teachers begin to reveal—in stark contrast to their earlier tentativeness—their unabashed engagement with Plainsong. Evelyn: I loved Plainsong. Helen: I'm a city person. I was born in Toronto. I don't know anything about the country. And yet I could be there and I could share in all this. In the beginning, I was thinking, "Oh I'm not going to be able to relate to a lot of this."" And yet I was taken right into it. I was just—I loved it. Kerri: I was the opposite because I'm from a small town and I was like "Oh my god. Everyone knows everything and the gossip that goes around. I didn't live on a farm but our whole town is [involved in farming]—A lot of people that I went to school with were [living on a farm] so we were involved in it. There was one part I wrote down [in my reading log]—I think it was when they were talking about going to the Legion—"the Legion is such a big thing in a small town." I wrote and I thought, "Oh my god I want to go home." I connected to it that way— just the familiarity. Although the teachers come to the book from individual social and cultural contexts and perspectives, personal identification with the content and characters does not appear to be a predictor of engagement. Background knowledge of small towns, activities and people makes this an "aha" reading on one level for Helen and the others while Kerri identifies closely and nostalgically with the small town ("I connected " and "I want to go home").

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Both Helen and Kerri express their emotional links to the book: Helen: On an emotional level, I related to this book so much. The whole idea of building community—here are these two solitary bachelors. They're all by themselves their whole lives and then, after years on their own, they can provide a home for themselves as much as for this girl, this teenager. Kerri: I just cried. I loved it so much. To get to this point, this group mutually opens the way to articulating a range of interactions with the text ("On an emotional level, I related to this book so much" and 'T just cried"). Already this early into the book club process, the teachers are beginning to socially construct knowledge, tell stories, and create a community of learners. 1.1.2

Book Club 1: Experienced teachers

In contrast to the novice teachers, the experienced teachers plunge unhesitatingly into the book. Active engagement characterizes this entire dialogue of the book club meeting (Rosenblatt, 1938, 1983). Mary: What a powerful book this is. Lesley: I couldn't put it down. Bridget: I was saying to Mary earlier on how peaceful I find it. For some reason, I felt it created space in my head when I was reading it. My head didn't feel at all cluttered. I'm not sure why. There is something elemental and different about it . . . Even though it's very worldly because it's about people, it was almost otherworldly as well. I'm not sure. Patricia: these characters became so real to me. I found myself thinking about them when I was doing other things. Lesley: It's interesting how books can climb so deeply inside you. Bridget: When we read a book, we live inside it don't we? If it's a powerful book for us, we start to think a little bit like the book. I know I catch myself doing that [M: You live there.] when I'm inside the book. [Lesley: You do live there — you live in the text and that's compelling.].

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The teachers recapture scenes and characters. They recollect personal highlights. Below, they discuss the small town setting of the novel: Mary: When I think of small towns, I have a vision of everything looking lovely on the outside—like a patina—coveing the deeper realities of the interior and underbelly of the town. But this small town is actually the conventional story in reverse. The book opens by exposing all the horrid stuff on the surface. Lesley: The squalid stuff is evident. Everything is not what you expect here but you discover that in reverse from conventional small town images. The stereotypical standards and expectations of the small town crumble and are rebuilt. When Victoria, sixteen years old, becomes pregnant, her mother locks her out late at night leaving her without a home. Robert Frost's adage, "Home is the place where, when you go there/They have to take you in?" is outrightly rejected here. The small town image is challenged again when Maggie Jones, Victoria's teacher, takes her in. Some days later, when her father's Alzheimer's disease makes it impossible to keep Victoria in her house, Maggie approaches the McPheron brothers, two bachelor middle-aged farmers: Bridget: What did you make of Maggie, knowing to go and ask them [the McPheron brothers] to take the girl in? When she went out there to do it, I was thinking, "Wow, this is a really wild thing she's doing," you know? Lesley: And being able to say to the old men, "You guys have got nothing in your lives." To take that risk. Mary: I know. Bridget: To convince them to take the risk. She tells them: Yeah, otherwise you guys won't change for the next fifteen years. This will be it. This will be your lives. A discussion ensues on the brothers agreeing to take in Victoria. The learn from their new experiences to create a new family: Patricia: They take it on so stolidly. Right from the start, there's never any real argument about whether they're going to take her in or not. [Mary: I know] It's like "Well, we're going to take her in." "Okay." And: "I reckon we're going to do this now." What words, right?

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Bridget: And there's something so touching— Lesley: And then they have that conversation about how it's okay—a 16year old girl should sleep late. Patricia: Yes, that's right—"Okay, we'll let her sleep." Mary: The first conversation about Victoria so was funny: "Girls are different. You know, they need things." [laughter] Patricia: And they recall what they have. It's like the first time she sets the table— Bridget: Oh that was a beautiful scene. Lesley: Remember, "Oh it's just like when—" Bridget: "Just like our mother used to do. Just like mother." There was a time when they were a family and had more in their lives. Lesley: Had a richer life. And she [Victoria] restores that. The problem of gender is introduced into this discussion by Bridget problematizes the conventional expectations of gender when she explores the images of men in the book: It's interesting that we do have so many men performing exceptional acts, exceptionally decent acts, like the way the two old men take in Victoria. [Mary: I could just weep in places-] [Patricia: I did.] The crib-buying scene, the crib-buying scene was just— [Lesley: Unbelievable.] Patricia: Not to mention the meat as payment to the doctor. Wasn't the meat scene hilarious? [Mary: Oh yes]. I burst out laughing. Bridget: And I was very touched, of course too [Bridget herself is pregnant at this time], because of what happens when she's lying in the bed and she's imagining the little face, the shining face of the baby looking at her from the crib and I just thought, "Oooh." . . . . Patricia: The McPheron brothers so ill equipped but sincere and gruff. There's that one line, I think, that's one of the most beautiful lines I've

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Chapter 6 ever read: ''and they worried more about this than they'd worried about anything in fifteen years." It's beautiful. Lesley: It's interesting that we take such comfort in these notions of this decency and basic humanity. We've become so estranged from that that we're drawn to this because of that essential human decency that seems so lacking in— Patricia: It brought tears to my eyes to think of, well not just the fact that these old men took her in, but that it wrought such transformation in all of them.

The teachers understand the effects of creating a new nuclear family dependent on the unconventional acts of the two brothers. They see in the men qualities that mark the relationships of the strongest of families. The women teachers stand back to examine the effects of this new family when after Victoria's absence (she reunites the father of her baby for a time), the two men are bereaved and bereft. Their new family is shattered. Unlike her mother, however, her two brother-parents prepare to take her in: Bridget: And when she comes back—Isn't that a scene? ''All you have to do is promise us never to do that again." Patricia: Yeah, "Don't do this again." [Mary: We can't go through this again.] And then to say, "We want you to tell us about it." She says that she can't—but she will. Lesley: And the birth, the birth. Patricia: Oh, do you remember the birth? Ohhh. Standing there in that hospital. Lesley: The birth, I mean talk about a sort of a reworking of the myth of Christ, that the baby is a girl. But it's a savior, right? [Mary: Ohhh, it is.] Patricia: Totally. And the way it draws everyone together like in that final scene when the boys hold the baby in the rocker swing, and— [Several members talking at once] Bridget: Standing there, near the bed, that's so touching.

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Mary: Awww . . . The scene in the hospital. Every phase is a new learning experience for them. Everything is a first. Immediately after, Bridget opens a discussion on Guthrie, the male teacher in the book. The contrast between Guthrie and the two brothers clearly emerges in the discussion. Bridget: What did you make of Guthrie and the whole thing with, what's the kid's name? You know, the horrible kid? Lesley: Yeah, the horrible kid, I'm trying to think of his name too. Patricia: I thought it was an honest portrayal of that kind of conflict and even—And I guess it did make me think that, I mean, it was believable that Guthrie had so few resources to deal with the conflict. I did think "Oh well, you could have dealt with this in some other ways" [Mary: Russell] but I don't know if it would have been believable. Especially given what he was going through at home. [Mary: That's what I was going to ask.] [Bridget: Yeah, because . . .] Like he's not in any shape to— Bridget: No, no. And he takes him out into the hallway after Victoria runs out of the room, when there's that whole first physical confrontation, and if he had dealt with it differently maybe the kid wouldn't have hit him. But— A clear distinction arises between the experienced and novice teachers in their perceptions and interpretations of Guthrie. These teachers recognize the possibilities and problems Guthrie faces in the classroom and how his personal life enters the decisions he makes professionally. They do not endorse ihis but clearly try to understand Guthrie. The novice teachers take Guthrie through what they "see" of him—a surface reading of a complex multi-dimensional issue. The difference clearly demonstrates the role of life and teaching experience to understand the larger contexts and issues of teaching and being a teacher. The Book Club 1 teachers retell the stories to one another and in the process, collaboratively construct a shared (his)story. In holding up the example of Guthrie, they are led to articulate a conception of teaching that includes care and relationships. What appears as retelling provides an entry into the stories of teaching that follow. Not surprisingly, since teachers play a significant role in the book, teachers become a topic for discussion in both groups. The focus, however, differs: Book Club 1 concentrates more intently on Maggie Jones; Book

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Club 2, more on Tom Guthrie. Both groups explore teaching and teachers generally and specifically as they examine and renegotiate their personal teacher images and identities.

2.

TEACHER IMAGES AND IDENTITIES

Book Club 1 took its cues for teacher stories primarily from Maggie Jones, a middle-aged teacher in a small town. She appears throughout the book (indeed, is its pivot) particularly in her relationship with Victoria outside of school; we never meet her in the classroom. Book Club 2 (novice teachers) focused attention on Tom, the History teacher, whose classroom pedagogy and interactions with students unsettle the teachers.

2.1

Book Club 2: Tom Guthrie, teacher

The novice teachers discuss Tom's teaching and student relationships at length. Sandra reads aloud a short section from the book about his History class: In the last period of the day [Tom] sat at his desk at the front of the room, listening to their speeches and glancing out the window toward the place where the sun shone aslant on the few bare trees risen up along the street

The tall girl talking at the head of the class was just finishing. Something to do with Hamilton. She had spent half of her speech on the duel with Burr. What she was saying was scarcely coherent. She finished and glanced at Guthrie and approached his desk and handed over her notes. Thank you, he said. She turned and sat down at her desk near the west windows, and he made a note about what to say to her in conference and again consulted the list before him and looked out at their faces. (79) Played out in a high school History class, this story mirrors the sanctioned cultures and practices of any given school—^the inscribed wisdom apparent in what I have come to call, "playing school" or what Freire (1970) coined the "banking" method of education. To the novice teachers, "No surprises" Tom represents the stereotypical teacher who counts the days to retirement and scoffs at "new" ways of thinking about and practicing teaching. Tom is perceived as a "been there, done that" type of teacher. Melanie: I think that Tom probably is a very fired teacher. [Evelyn: Absolutely.] He has the book, he has the quesfions — he gives it to them;

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he expects them to do it and just to do it quietly by themselves. He's just so tired that he doesn't even have time to think about it. Helen: I guess there are teachers who do that, right? They just go in and say, 'Tm doing my job, and that's it!" In this brief exchange, both Melanie and Helen resist Tom's traditional teaching practices. They seem to know what they do not want to emulate but may not understand why they intellectually and theoretically resist the patterns Tom seems to perpetuate. Greene aptly captures the limited perspective enacted in traditional practices. She calls this ''seeing schooling small" that is, "preoccupations with test scores, time on task, management procedures, and accountability measures while it screens out the faces and gestures of individuals of actual living persons" (Greene, 2000, 11). Novice teachers frequently face a tension between the teaching paradigms proposed in teacher education and the new "realities" they encounter in the schools. Perhaps in the "survival" year(s), novice teachers simultaneously hold contradictory views of teaching and learning (Gold, 1996; O'Connell Rust, 1997). They may both identify traditional paradigms of teaching negatively (abstractly) and practice them either because they are unaware of the duality or feel compelled in the political and social structures of their schools, to conform to the established standards and practices. The opportunity to use Tom as a foil for exploring the practices and images of traditional teaching may provide a first step in cognitive awareness of the tensions between theory and practice (Greene, 2000). The novice teachers begin to problematize Tom's teaching story and recognize multiple issues reflected in the ways they are beginning to teach. New, unimagined problems and issues arise that leave the teachers uncertain and unstable. Kerrie feels frustrated by her lack of preparation for then Englishas-a-Second Language (ESL) students in her classes—a significant and growing reality particularly in large, urban schools. Sandra discusses students who "compromise their school work because they're working parttime jobs and have to put food on the table." Melanie observes that her students resist her open model of teaching by labeling her an "easy teacher" and not taking her seriously (submitting assignments late, for instance). She expresses her interpretation for this: What happens is that they're so used to someone who does it [in the traditional way], that when you don't do it that way, they don't know how to react. [Evelyn: No, I think they love it, they love it.] See but that's the problem I'm having with my Grade 11 class is that I'm trying to— for me the most important thing I can teach them is to become responsible for their own learning but now they're taking it the wrong way and they're

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Chapter 6 thinking that, yes, I am not as strict as other teachers. If they're late, I'm not going to send them down to the office. If they're late, they interrupt the class and they'll get reprimanded by me after class, not in front of everybody but now I think that they think that means I'm an easy teacher. So when they get my marking back and I rip apart [their essays], because I want them to learn from it (?) type thing — like not rip apart, that's too strong of a word. When their mark isn't that good because the work that they've handed in to me isn't good— Kerri: Yeah, but then you make the balance, you're kind, but then the other side of it is they know you're serious— Melanie: But I find that they think that kindness is weakness. Kerri: But I think that you balance that by being professional. Melanie: But I'm finding that it's difficult to find that balance. I feel like they think now they can start taking advantage of me, and when I don't let them, then they put up the fight and say, '"'But Miss—"" Kerri: It's funny what they ask, what they want, and what they get. They want a teacher to be easy on them, but at the same time, [several people talking] [Helen: They want to be treated as adults—] They want to be treated [as adults], but they don't want the responsibility— Helen: Exactly. They can't handle the responsibility of being on their own [Rosemary: No, they can't handle it.] and being responsible for getting stuff done. [Rosemary: They need the rules.] You're saying if I'm going to let you sit where you want, if I'm going to let you pick your own groups, I'm going to let you do all these things on your own, if you have free choice, but then you also have to be responsible to get the work done. [Rosemary: By the due date, right?] Melanie: They don't want that. But isn't it better to try to get them to start—? The thing is, for me is that I always wanted teachers to do everything for me, to make the decisions for me all the time. I just did the work that they wanted me to do. I struggled a lot in university because I was used to everyone making the decisions for me. [Evelyn: Right, it needs balance.]

The fears and foibles of early teaching experiences leave the teachers dazed and unsure of the ideals that brought them to teaching in the first

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place. At the same time, they already recognize that their teaching realities differ and even conflict with their early expectations. The unexpected and unknown aspects of teaching prove more unwieldy, uncertain, and complex than anything they could have imagined. Melanie introduces a critical tension in her shifting teacher identity. When a student said to her, "Miss, you give us too much freedom. We don't know what to do," Melanie concludes that the students do not "want the responsibility" or take her seriously. She feels unsure of how to make sense of her own role as teacher. When she reflects on her student days, she observes: "I always wanted teachers to do everything for me, to make the decisions for me all the time." While she identifies her high school studentself as expecting her teachers to do the work for her, she seems unable (yet) to link that experience to her new teacher self. The transition from student to teacher may initially mean assuming the unfamiliar teacher role to the exclusion of other roles, experiences, and knowledge. Novice teachers try on teacher models that reflect the cultures and conditions of their school workplaces. The teachers in Plainsong become models to investigate even for the novice teachers. In an interesting development, they probe authorial intention and meaning in Haruf s choice of using teachers as characters in Plainsong: Rosemary: Why has the author made them teachers? Mary: Yes. That's what I want to know. Helen: And there's also the difference between Maggie— Rosemary: Why can't it be another environment of work where John works or Tom works and where Judy works and Maggie? Rosemary speculates on her own question, and without waiting for another response, articulates her imagined reasons: I think that maybe the writer introduces them or has them as teachers to introduce the teaching theme or how we can all teach each other in life because everybody teaches the others something. Maggie teaches the McPherons [Evelyn: Tom yeah.]. Bringing this girl into their lives teaches them to open up and to communicate. [Mary: Wow. I'm getting goose bumps.] [Melanie: It's so true.] And everybody—

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Chapter 6 Melanie: The older woman Iva or—? [Kerri: Yeah, Iva] [Evelyn: Eva] teaches the Httle boys. You're totally right. Everyone teaches someone something. Rosemary: Right. Everybody teaches regardless of their [sic] place, right? [Mary: I wonder if he [Haruf] was a teacher?] [Melanie: They're all learning.] And they're all learners. [Helen: They all learn from each other.] They all learn from each other.

This exchange points to an existing duality in teacher thinking alluded to earlier in Melanie's example. At a time when the novice teachers feel pulled toward acceptable, traditional practices in their everyday school lives, they discuss how teaching happens effectively and organically outside of school in natural environments. At one point, Melanie provides a comparative example: "I learned more from him [her manager in her high school job] than I ever learned in school because in school I did nothing. I guess I was lucky because I had the right kind of intelligence. I played the game." Teaching in school and life operate separately, on parallel tracks. A more critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970, 1997) would seek to bridge the two views. The novice teachers recognize that teaching is complex work. Faced with having to learn, unlearn, and re-learn during the unstable induction period, however, it is possible to see new understandings already begin to emerge. Helen observes: "What Melanie just said about the differences between Tom and Maggie—it's the whole counseling aspect, you know, getting involved in the student's life." The point is that these critical discussions occur in the early months of their induction. Already the novice teachers collaboratively create new meaning. They try to "work at putting the forces that have told [them] how to think and act in certain ways in their proper places" (Hayes & Flannery, 2000, 251). Nevertheless, articulating and expressing the competing notions of teaching already, even in their beginning stages of teaching, raises the possibilities for socially renegotiating and developing critical conceptions of teaching and learning. For novice teachers, barely into their first year of teaching, this is groundbreaking.

2.2

Book Club 1: IMaggie Jones, teacher

Maggie Jones, a teacher in Plainsong, offers both promise and possibilities for those who encounter her. Positioned as a teacher in a small conservative mid-Western U.S. town, Maggie has every reason to be stereotypical and stereotyped. Yet, against these traditional constraints, she provides a role model for teaching and a sense of agency worth contemplating. Though we never see her teaching in the classroom, it is

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obvious to this group of experienced teachers, very early on, that Maggie had made an impact on her students clearly illustrated when, late one night, she takes in a desperate Victoria. Lesley notes: "To bring the student right into her house and that the student knows to approach her teacher even so late at night. [All: Yes.] Yeah, it's a different kind of vision of teaching and the role of the teacher. Patricia adds: "A student wouldn't phone her up when she [Maggie] was already in bed if she were a stern, front of the classroom kind of teacher. Obviously, there's a relationship there or a sense that Maggie is a compassionate, caring person who would forgive that kind of calling late at night. Does this reaction echo the stereotyping phrase, "a woman's work is never done?" When Maggie can no longer care for Victoria (her father's Alzheimer's disease makes the presence of a stranger untenable). Maggie seeks an alternative solution. Bridget asks: "So what did you make of Maggie, knowing to go and ask them (the two bachelor farmers) to take the girl in? Because when she went out there to do it, I was thinking, "Wow, this is a really wild thing she's doing." Lesley continues: What Maggie does with the two brothers—so few people in life take that step. They might know in their heads that this would be a possibility but so few people are willing to involve themselves in other people's lives. Everybody lives in their [sic] own little box. Bridget reads aloud from the book: Oh, I know it sounds crazy, she said. I suppose it is crazy. I don't know. I don't even care. But that girl needs somebody and I'm ready to take desperate measures. She needs a home for these months and you—she smiled at them—you old solitary bastards need somebody too. Somebody or something besides an old red cow to care about and worry over. It's too lonesome out here. Well, look at you. You're going to die someday without ever having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind, anyway. This is your chance. (110) Maggie leaves without any commitment from the two brothers. '7 tried, I had to do that much'' she tells them. Not long after, the two men make the preposterous decision to take Victoria in. Bridget observes: "She has such a heart. She's prepared to go to indescribable lengths to save this girl. Lesley adds: So few people are willing to involve themselves in other people's lives." In Maggie, the personal and professional intersect and are inseparable (Clandinen, 2003). When Patricia observes that Maggie's "practical knowledge undoubtedly affects her life in the classroom," she implies that Maggie understood her obligations to her students beyond the borders of the school. Such

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experiences, qualities, and events help the teachers construct an image of Maggie as teacher, who, unabashed by the traditional limitations put on the lives of women who teach, crosses the boundaries of the public and private world in unprecedented ways, Maggie possesses a confidence and trust in her own sensibilities. She offers clear examples of how she manages to blend her personal and professional life "so that no hint of seam or stitch appears between the two" (Mary). Particularly as women teachers, we are taught to be vigilant about the boundaries between the public and private worlds, though we might personally chafe at the artificiality of this separation. Maggie, a fictional teacher, offers an account of a teacher respected and admired by colleagues and students alike. Through her everyday life, Maggie rewrites the stories of (women) teaching and teaches us to ''read" and learn from her. We draw from a holistic, integrative perception of Maggie and conclude that her teaching reflects the ways she lives her life outside of school. As teachers and women, we want to claim Maggie's qualities and want others to see us this way. In ways that jolt our tacit sensibilities, Maggie leads us to reexamine ourselves. Maggie, Bridget observes, "makes things possible for her students. Her journey with Victoria makes me think more about my journey with my students." We want to know Maggie as our friend, our colleague, our teacher. We want to swim in the wake of her energy, her passionate engagement with life, her comfort with speaking her mind, and her unique ways of making the world a better place. Maggie, woman and teacher, has much to offer. Her telling stories provide the teachers with a catalyst for both affirmation and change. In an interview, Patricia suggests: "Maggie is a full-grown healthy mature woman from the beginning. I think she is a sort of wise woman . . .she does serve both as the person to bring people together and as a catalyst to bring about their changes in their lives." In a remarkable moment of boundary crossing between literature and life, Lesley uses Maggie's example to re-think her own teaching life when she observes: "Maggie gave me permission to change." Lesley's learning from and acting upon her learning through a fictional teacher deserves notice. In her reading journal, Lesley explains: Maggie has allowed me to be "transgressive" in ways that reading bell hooks and Gilligan's theories, wonderfully inspiring though they are, did not. However, it is that fiction weaves its ways into the lived experience of life, in that magic confluence of timing. I needed Maggie's fictional example to become the border-crossing, boundary-jumping teacher I have always been in my heart, but for many years, lacked the courage to become.

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While Maggie exists only in our imaginations, she enters the conversations about what it is to be a teacher. She helps us internalize a fictive teacher and in the process, find ways to resist the perpetuated image of teachers in novels as representative of the way a culture thinks about itself (Tompkins, 1986). Maggie becomes a catalyst for change.

3.

STORIES OF GENDER IN TEACHING

Using characters from fiction to explore gender and teaching issues is a relatively new phenomenon. While teachers populate imaginative texts (film and fictional texts, for instance) and have been parsed and deconstructed (Blanchard & Casanove, 1996; Keroes, 1999), encountering and following a fictive male and female teacher provides surprising and unusual opportunities to reflexively explore the ways gender influences and expresses how the teachers live their (teaching) lives (Kahn, 2004). Conventional wisdom stereotypes teaching as ''women's work." Little or no inquiry has attempted to re-interpret and understand the nature of teaching from women teachers' perspectives (Kahn, 2004). Plainsong became a springboard for discussion on relationships between gender and teacher knowledge and practices.

3.1

Teaching as ^Vomen's work''

The historical tradition of conceiving particularly elementary and even secondary teaching as ''women's work" (Haight Cattani, 2002) has resulted in limiting the voices and knowledge of women teachers. Efforts to shed the profession of this constraining image and to begin to include and take seriously the knowledge and practices of women teachers have only recently begun to emerge in the research (for example: women's psychological development). General agreement does not exist on the need for this kind of research. Considerable inquiry continues to be conducted at the tertiary level, though academic positions have never been considered ''women's work." On the contrary, men have (and still continue) to hold the majority of university posts. Nevertheless, research on equity and the establishment of women's studies departments continue to flourish at the university levels. Hence, the problem of teaching as "women's work" is primarily focused on school teaching where women dominate the profession in ever-increasing numbers. The implications of "women's ways of knowing" (Belenky et al, 1997), learning, and teaching for that includes the ways being women affects

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the classroom practices and knowledge in the profession remains to be examined.

3.2

Teaching and female sexuality

The issue of female sexuality in understanding women teaching has virtually been excluded from discussions in research and theory on women teachers (Blanchard & Casanova, 1996; Keroes, 1999; Shore, 1999). In her analyses of teachers in fiction and film, Keroes (1999) claims that teaching encounters are essentially erotic, a concept she defines more broadly than merely sexual. Teachers, she suggests, serve as convenient figures on whom to map conflicts about gender, power, and desire (Gwin, 2002). Cultural representations of teachers as, among other things, "seducers and saviors" reveal a good deal about our private and social selves, exposing psychological and cultural anxieties about authority, gender, and desire at the same time that they help shape and perpetuate them" (Gwin, 2002; Keroes, 4), From the first glimpse of Maggie Jones, woman and teacher. Book Club 1 teachers recognize the distinctly visual introduction. Maggie contradicts stereotypical notions of "female school teacher." She is no dotty graying and asexual prune with not a wisp of knowledge of what is happening in the 'real' world of her charges. Maggie is a temptress, the object of the male gaze. Patricia notes, "She is a little bit wild," and begins to read from the novel: He watched her working at the counter her hand and arm turning rapidly with the crank of the machine her hips moving at the same time and her skirt jumping and swaying, A tall healthy dark-haired woman she was dressed in a black skirt and white blouse and wore considerable silver jewelry, (21) Patricia: She is really comfortable being, using her femininity. I think the cool thing about Maggie is that she is sexy. [Bridget: Yeah, it's true, yeah.]—We always see her—She's not just feminine. She's got a fair bit of sway and power [Bridget: sexy] because she's really comfortable being sexy and using her femininity, too. Bridget: Haruf is very clever because he doesn't go over the top describing her as sexy. He just puts little touches in [the book] like her skirt swishing around [Patricia: Yeah, exactly] or the kind of jewelry she's wearing. He doesn't say she was a sexy woman—he just puts in these little touches.

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At one point in the book, Irving Curtis, Maggie's colleague, put his arm around her waist in the staff room and ''squeezed her hard, drawing her towards him." Maggie, without missing a beat, "removed his hand" and added: ''Don't be such an ass. It's too early in the morning" (21). Maggie can—it is quite clear—take care of herself. She clearly has not failed to attract men nor has she failed to stimulate a chorus of rumor and sexual innuendo around her. Feminist literary theorist Carolyn Heilbrun explains that, "The assumption is always that any woman who is challenging the prevailing myths about beauty or women's place must have failed to attract men" (39). Patricia observes: "And you know, okay well, she's attractive. [All: Yeah.] But no, she's cool. She obviously is very savvy and street wise, even though she's a single woman who lives with her father." Here, too, Maggie disrupts the prevailing stories of women. Maggie needs no man, we decide in this group. Active self-reflection about being women and teachers occurs in the context of the constructed images of women teachers in fiction and film (Joseph & Burnabord, 1994; Keroes, 1999) allow. A notable example emerges from an e-mail Lesley forwards to the group some weeks after the book club meeting. She writes: Plainsong has been a liberatory text for me because it has freed me from the pressure of measuring myself against the prevailing stereotypes and scripts of a woman's life and released me from the kinds of judgments Alexandra and Phyllis were making. Marriage may not be the only way a woman expresses her destiny and an unmarried woman who teaches is not necessarily a shriveled old prune. The characters' kinship groups and family structures Haruf portrays in the novel open up the possibilities for my own alternative models and lighten the load of guilt I bear for failing to maintain the "cover" story of a "normal" female life. Lesley creates a critical incident—looking at Maggie objectively to reconstruct herself. Maggie becomes a model who nudges Lesley to rename the pieces of her "silenced" life, giving her, in her own words, "permission to change." Although testimonies about life-changing germinal texts is not particularly new, renegotiating a female identity using a fictional teacher/woman may well be. Encountering Maggie directs Lesley into reviewing and even altering her understandings of what it is to be simultaneously fully woman and fully teacher.

3.3

Teaching as caring

When Sandra says, "Sometimes they [students] say things and you just have to look at them and say, "Hello. I have feelings. We're teachers, but we

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have feelings," she introduces a concept of caring in teaching that includes her. Caring, she suggests, is the mutual and respectful responsibility of both teachers and students. What this means in practical terms and through explicit examples becomes the longest discourse topic of this entire discussion. As the discussion draws to a close, Evelyn tells a story: I had a conversation with an older teacher who said "You know what? You're young. Soon you'll learn not to even think about those kids." Melanie: I said, *l'm not going to care about my students one day? So why would I be a teacher?" Helen: You know when that happens, Melanie, that's when we get out, right? Evelyn: That's what I'm saying. You are a teacher and you are a person at the same time. It's never one or the other. And if it is, then you shouldn't be a teacher any more. Some teachers teach in ways that conflict with the ideals of this group. They take a stand and claim an identity that includes caring as a teacher quality (Witherell & Noddings, 1991). The experienced teachers, on the other hand, have a stronger understanding of "caring" as a metaphor for teaching. They are able to make the transition from literature to life. What else could explain Victoria's arrival on Maggie's doorstep late at night? Maggie's caring is undisputable though there is nothing self-righteous about the way she handles Victoria's situation. She is guileless but not innocent. She offers Victoria the alternative of an abortion but at the same time, gives Victoria permission to need this baby while not denying that the road she has chosen will not be an easy one. Like the young girls whom Carol Gilligan (1990) described as "whistle-blowers" in the relational world, Maggie is a whistle-blower. When her father's Alzheimer's disease makes Victoria's presence untenable, Maggie takes her daring caring to the two McPheron brothers. She boldly proposes that they take in the girl: "I know it sounds crazy . . . I'm ready to take desperate measures" (107). She offers these seemingly bloodless old bachelors the chance to bind themselves in a new relationship. It is an extraordinary gesture, opening a door into the future that has been boarded shut. Extraordinarily, they trust Maggie enough to walk through that door. Lesley: You know what Maggie does with the two brothers—so few people in life take that step. They might know in their heads that this

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would be a possibility but so few people are willing to involve themselves in other people's lives. Everybody lives in their own little box . . . being able to say to the old men, ''You guys have got nothing in your lives." To take that risk. Bridget: To make them take the risk, yeah. "Otherwise you guys won't change for the next fifteen years. This will be it. This will be your life." Lesley: 'This is your chance here to enter the wheel of life" and yet, of course, they're already so embedded in the wheel of life, animal life, right? Maggie's clear sense of advocacy and agency for Victoria, though it happens in her personal life, is inseparable from her professional life (Connelly & Clandinen, 2003; Noddings, 1991). By her life and actions, she is able to convince the book club teachers that the distinctions between her personal and professional self are seamless, one and the same.

3.4

Metaphors of mothering

Mothering as a metaphor enters the dialogues of both groups. Lesley (Book Club 1) notes that, "the men are doing the mothering [in the text]." The novice teachers (Book Club 2) take the mothering metaphor and apply it to their teaching: Sandra: Sometimes I feel like a mother figure, you know? I walk in and I'm thinking "Oh my goodness, I have ten boys." They have that relationship with me. I feel that I'm like a mother to them in a way too. Evelyn: Has it slipped? Has any student called you Mom yet? [Sandra: No.] "Mom—Oh—" and I'm like, "Whoa!" [Sandra: Oh, I think that has happened to me once, actually.] [Melanie: Really? Wow.] Helen: Well, I totally love that part of it, though. I feel like that I'm all their mothers and I love that. [Evelyn: And they respond to that.] The metaphor of association (mothering and teaching) raised in these conversations reflects the complex web of realities and possibilities for deconstructing and dismantling teaching stereotypes that teachers have come to expect. Through the models of teaching they encounter in the book, the book club teachers can begin to ascribe traditionally accepted feminine features to both women and men (decent, caring, mothering, for instance) and see examples of how teaching blends personal and professional

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knowledge and experience (Beattie, 1997a; Clandinen & Connelly, 2003; Noddings, 1991).

3.5

Men in teaching and in life

The view of men in the text disrupts conventional stereotype. The McPheron brothers take in Victoria and establish a new family. Both groups discuss how men practice their relationships in teaching and in life particularly as expressed through Tom and his relationship with his students. Book Club 2, for instance, discusses Tom's reaction to Russell, the football player, who humiliates Victoria during her class presentation. Tom forces Russell to leave the room. When Russell denies any impropriety, Tom slams him up against the wall. Helen: The only involvement we see of Tom in a student's life is a negative involvement. Right? Kerri: Yeah, but he did that though because he was defending— Helen: It started out that way. Yes, it started out defending but then you don't see anything more. Kerri: Yeah, but I guess like I looked at it as— Sandra: He was a hero in that he was defending her. Helen: But I think it's the male-female thing, right? He takes the kid out and it's an argument. It's the whole physical conflict. I don't know. Is it a gender thing? Why is it, is there no, "Come and see me so we can talk about it" and, "How do you think your comment may have affected—" Kerri: But I think that that's what we were saying before—that they [men] don't analyze it. He [Tom] reacted, you know. He took him out and he said, "Don't you ever—" And then he forced the kid's reaction. Melanie: But he becomes very emotional after having the conflict with the student. And yes, he has his morals and his values and he really sticks by them—that's why he's such a great character, right? But at the same time, he's this great character who's fallen in a sense—sometimes not always.

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The teachers interpret Tom's response to Russell, focusing on his defense of Victoria (Sandra and Kerrie), his power move with Russell (Helen), and his general fallibility as a teacher and person. Kerrie's view shifts during this brief exchange. Initially, she attempts to defend Tom ("but he did that though because he was defending . . ." and "but I guess like I looked at it as—") to joining Helen's line of argument: "I think that that's what we were saying before—that they [men] don't analyze it. He [Tom] reacted." Did the shift occur because Helen overpowered her (interrupting her twice) that influenced Kerrie to re-think her position? It almost appears so when Kerrie moves the discussion forward by recalling another event involving Russell and Tom's two sons outside of school. She expresses some doubts about what seemed clearer earlier. Kerri: Then as soon as he heard that about his boys, he went straight to that kid's [Russell's] house. [Melanie: Yeah. It's all based on reaction.] And it was just all that. I'm not going to sit down, and we're not going to do, "How are you feeling?" As much as we're kind of trained to do that, it was the raw reaction—And to me, it's the small town again. Yes, there's different rules. Whether Kerri suggests that the "different rules" apply to men or small towns is not immediately apparent. The "raw reaction" attributed to Tom, however, implies a different set of ground rules for men. Tom's response in both incidents appears to some as reactionary and typically masculinist. This may be explained by the fact that women seem to define themselves more in terms of relationships than power relations (Acker, 1995; Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Gilligan, 1982; Holinger & Fleming, 1992; Magolda, 1995). At one point, Melanie observes: "Because you get so involved with their lives, you can't separate and . . ." Kerrie interrupted: "Exactly." Nevertheless, unlike their Book Club 1 counterparts, this discussion does not consider the contradictory evidence and conceptions of authority suggested in the lives of the two men who take in Victoria. Nevertheless, problems of authority are particularly vexing for novice teachers who have recently themselves been subject to authority (as students). The gender issue, particularly related to young women teachers, has been overlooked in the research. Haight Cattani (2002) suggests that "the emergence of informative new findings in the area of women's psychological development and roles in organizations" (3) makes the oversight particularly troublesome. She cites one problem for young women teachers: If they do not develop and use a traditional authoritarian stance, they are unlikely to be recognized as proper teachers and granted whatever legitimacy and respect accompanies that role. However, if they do

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Chapter 6 develop and use such a stance, they may feel co-opted into a hierarchical relation that undermines the very values and ideals that drew them to teaching. (7)

The novice teachers are uncertain of their own gendered positions as teachers. They weigh and interpret Tom's authority stance (calling it ''a gender thing"). They can now ask—if this is a gender "thing"—what the implications are for their own teaching, authority, and relationships with students. "Perhaps," suggests Cattani (2002), the authority issue is "the part that is most uncharacteristic of young women teachers" (14) who may well associate power (see the earlier discussion on Tom and his reaction to Russell) with, among other things, "dominion over others" (14). In articulating the stories of both her student and teacher self, Melanie positions herself to see the issue more globally, from two perspectives. Having articulated both stories made it possible to develop "new understandings. Experienced teachers (Book Club 1) react more sympathetically to Tom. They are certainly less judgmental: Bridget: What did you make of Guthrie and the whole thing with, what's the kid's name? You know, the horrible kid? You remember, he takes him out into the hallway after Victoria runs out of the room. There's that whole first physical confrontation. I wonder if he had dealt with it differently, if maybe the kid wouldn't have hit him. But. . . . Patricia: I thought it was an honest portrayal of that kind of conflict. I guess it did make me think that it was believable. Guthrie had so few resources to deal with the conflict. I did think, "Oh well, you could have dealt with this in some other ways," but I don't know if it would have been believable. Especially given what he was going through at home. [Mary: That's what I was going to ask.] He's not in any shape to— Bridget: He didn't handle Russell particularly effectively out in the hallway. He definitely should have handled it differently. But he didn't become abusive—his difficulties in his personal life didn't make him into a nasty teacher. But we're shown how when you're a teacher, you're also a whole human being. [Mary: Yes.] Patricia: Yeah, and we do see integrity in his teaching as well. What motivates the scene with Russell is the fact that he's feeling compassionate towards Victoria and we see integrity in the way that he says, "No, I can't pass him. He hasn't done his work." And he sticks to that. "I'm not just going to—" and he can't do it because of his conscience.

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Bridget: I'm so glad that he stuck to that because this kid didn't do any of the work, and so why should he be passed. The experienced teachers examine Guthrie's response in light of their broader knowledge and understanding of the culture and processes of teaching. The response is particularly interesting given the feminist positions of the women. I might have predicted that they would raise Guthrie's authority issue and note its conflict with their personal perspectives and teaching practices (Pagano, 1990). Book Club 1 also discussed the other men in the novel. Bridget observes: "It's interesting that we do have so many men performing exceptionally decent acts." They attribute the adjective "decent" to both the men and boys in the novel. "I love the fact that they [the two bachelor brothers] were such decent men," Patricia observes. The others go on to cite more examples: the bus driver, the doctor, Guthrie, the two boys. In the course of the interactive dialogue, the words "decent" and "decency" are used to describe most men in the novel no less than fifteen times. The decent acts, the teachers concluded, reflected an unfamiliar and overt ethos of caring (Noddings, 1991).

4.

STORIES OF TEACHING: TEACHER DEVELOPMENT IN A NEW KEY

Since both book clubs consisted of teachers, stories of teaching emerged spontaneously and frequently. Book Club 2 teacher stories illustrate their new teacher selves and roles. They speak to the complexities and reflexiveness of transitions from student to teacher (Haight Cattani, 2002). Without exception, they feel overwhelmed and under-prepared: Helen: I'm so disheartened—some days I have no ESL services and I have all kinds of kids that I identify as ESL kids and I'm supposed to deal with them. [Mary: Wow. Yeah.] So I need to give them some other space so they're not being judged the same as everybody else. Kerri: I don't understand how as a first-year teacher you are supposed to—I have so many ESL students and I have no training. I have no experience. I'm from a very small town. I have no personal experience, let alone professional experience and a lot of my students are 'Visa" students. They're paying to be sitting—for me to be teaching them. And yet—[Mary: Oh wow.] They've taken the steps to get into my English class but they're not ready to be there. I have one student—it takes everything for him to even just speak to me. He's wonderful but just to

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Chapter 6 even to say "Hello," he hesitates so much. He's so uncomfortable with English and I don't even know how ESL works that well. I know that in the transition course from the ESL stream to the normal one, he got 50% and then they put him into a Grade 11 [English] ^'general" class and hope that he survives.

While I acknowledge in the discussion that "these issues need to come up," I move on to suggest ways that in re-view, seem out of place, not necessarily helpful, and even explicitly didactic: You cannot do it alone. You're going to have to decide that right from the start. You're going to have to rely on the other students in the class to help you and him. In a sense, that interdependence is one way to create community. With a student like that, all kinds of resistance have to be broken down. It's his self-preservation. But you're not just going to be able to start that work on Monday morning. [Kerri: Yeah.] If there isn't the support, it has to come from somewhere. They get nothing, or they get you. In re-seeing this conversation, I hear a monologue (transmission of knowledge), not a dialogue (co-construction of knowledge), a speaking to, not a speaking with. I see that the information and even the "You have to" repetitions, seems hopelessly out of touch with realities of their everyday teaching lives. They face the conundrum of being socialized into school cultures and practices that generally focus on learning as individual, not as social practice in learning communities (Freire, 1970; Vygotsky, 1992). I am learning as I review the dialogues. Stories support the teachers' needs to cope. They have an urgent need to tell and listen to the stories. They invite the others into their experiences. Kerri, for instance, relates her personal struggle with implementing a reading log in her English classes and how she struggles to dismantle her inscribed expectations: Kerri: You're programmed, that way, to find the quote that means this, and— Helen: Yeah, and I'm always asking them [students] to do things like that and yet I don't sit down and do it to find out what the difficulties are and where the problems— Kerri: Yeah, because I do find it difficult. It's almost automatic that I write: "Okay, well it said this and then—" instead of saying how I feel about the book.

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Through personal attempts to use a reading log with her students, Kerri begins to understand the challenges and difficulties they face. With Helen's confirmation, Kerrie becomes a student of her own experience. Helen confirms the tension between "telling" and "knowing" but Kerri is able to point to and claim her personal knowledge. This story is interesting on another level. As students in my pre-service English Methods class the year before, the teachers had participated in a book club and prepared a reading log for the discussion. I urged them to avoid summarizing (since all their book club members would have read the book) and focus on constructing meaning. At the first book club meeting in the class, I asked them to reflect in writing on the reading process both before and after the discussion. In spite of that, neither Kerri nor the others refer to the earlier personal reading log experiences. Nevertheless, from this reading experience, Kerri recognizes the effects of personal knowledge and experience on shaping pedagogy: Kerri: I think for me, doing the reading log was so helpful because I'm trying to get my students to do the reading logs. It's so hard to get them not to summarize. So I say to them: "Okay don't summarize." Doing this reading log [for Plainsong] has been teaching me. It's easier for me to go through the process and then say to them, "Maybe you can think about it this way, or this worked for me." I like it for that reason, too. Kerri talks her way through the problem. She imagines helping students based on applying her personal knowledge. Preparing a reading log generates understanding her student challenges (". . . it's easier for me to go through the process and say to them, 'Maybe you could think about it this way'."). At the same time, she recognizes her history as complicit in her teaching and learning ("We're programmed that way, you know, to find the right quote that means this or that"). Kerri demonstrates a code-breaking approach to professional development (Capers, 2004; Kubler LaBoskey, 2002; O'Connell Rust, 2002; Richert, 2002) as she modifies her understanding in light of new experiences (Dewey 1938).

4.1

Book club 1

The teaching stories focus almost exclusively on the teachers in the book. Few personal stories of teaching emerge. At least, not until I ask about the possiblities of using Plainsong in the schools: "Would you use this [book] in a high school?" Patricia: I'm already giving it to our librarian at least to get it into the school library. I would use it. I would use it though with a small group

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for a novel study or an independent novel study and do comparisons with other books. Bridget: It would be great for OACs [Ontario's Grade 13 at the time] or Grade 12 independent study. Lesley: You could get into some trouble in some schools Yeah] because the pregnant unwed mother is heroic.

[Patricia:

Patricia: Right. Not to mention some of the graphic sex scenes. Bridget: If you had it as a core novel, I think in certain situations, yeah, I think you probably would have some problems. Lesley: What about this book in a Catholic school? There's no way. It would be fine for teachers who are going into the Catholic system. There's no way you could teach this in a Catholic school in Ontario. Patricia: But I can probably teach it at Joan of Arc School. [Mary: Yeah, you probably could.] I think I could, [Lesley: You have a wider berth.] Yeah. Mary: I think you'd want to be able to do this with senior high school students, because where better to put the issues on the table than in a supportive school environment where students and teachers can discuss and try to understand the problems together. The teacher is, after all, a sensible adult voice. In fact, it could be interesting. There may, for instance, be a young mother in the class [Lesley: Oh yeah, it's true.] I who could teach the others about what it means to be, like Victoria, a teen parent. Lesley: And why Victoria has such a deep need to have this child, and why for her it is really a good thing to have this child. Bridget: And also for the boys as well to read about those positive male characters would be good. Lesley: What a role model they would be. The teachers, familiar with school policies, practices, and the possibilities of introducing new literature into the curriculum, consider the text and envision the benefits and potential problems and benefits that could arise by

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introducing this novel. The chasm between the lived lives of adolescents and their lives outside of school can potentially be linked in the texts adolescents study in high school. The divide remains, however. A very interesting thread continues into the next book club meeting. In a serendipitous turn of events, Louise, unable to attend the Plainsong meeting, asks for support in selecting texts for a new senior high school literature course she has been asked to create in her school. When she asks, "Can you name some books I should include?" we, almost simultaneously, responded: Plainsong, Louise had read the book and nods in agreement. She makes a note in her log and asks for other suggestions, strategies, and resource materials. Scribbles on paper develop into a draft for a new course. The symbiotic relationship and interdependent community becomes a dynamic resource for learning and teaching. Moving from literature to life and back again resulted in stories of selfreflection and retrospection to gain new understanding. Re-viewing stories of teaching, holding up fictional teachers as foils to foster self-reflection, led to creating new stories of teaching and learning for the teachers in both book clubs. The collaborative network made great strides as the women teachers put their heads together—collaborating, constructing, and imagining.

Chapter 7 LESSONS OF LEARNING AND TEACHING

The Book Club 2 discussion begins innocently enough when Liz asks: *'Shelly, where do you teach?" Shelly responds: '1 teach in a Federal Medium Security Men's prison." For a few frozen moments, utter silence blankets the room. Then, without warning, voices burst into the air. A novice teacher teaching in a prison? Melanie shakes her head and declares: "What a segue into A Lesson before Dying.'' The subject of prison teaching will be reprised later in this chapter, but first, to contextualize the discussion, a brief summary of the novel. Set in a rural, 1940's Cajun community in the U.S. south, A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines, centers on the events and lives of two characters: Jefferson, a young black man scheduled to hang for the murder of a white shopkeeper—a crime that he did not commit—and Grant, a black teacher in a one-room plantation school who responds grudgingly to the pleas of Jefferson's Grandmother, Emma, to teach her grandson pride and "to die as a man." In spite of difference in circumstance, both men - Jefferson and Grant—are in the grip of a racist society that crushes and curbs their dignity as human beings, with Grant's organic, intuitive teaching, Jefferson takes a journey toward literacy and identity. In the process, both men learn lessons of love, salvation, and their common humanity. The novel situates teaching in two sharply contrasting contexts: a oneroom elementary school for black children housed in a plantation church and a prison. His teacher role in the school is firmly established and prescriptive—established expectations and opportunities for both the children and Grant are predictably low. With little money for books and minimal supplies, no expectation exists that education could or should better or transform the lives of his students.

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Conversely, the prison teaching offers Grant an unexpected and transformative teaching opportunity. Grant's early open resistance to his aunt's mandate to teach the prisoner Jefferson to ''walk [to the gallows] like a man," eventually gives way to learning and growth that allow both men to change. Grant begins to free himself from the stories of his history: the inscribed expectations, prescriptions, and practices etched into the sacred stories of teaching in plantation schools. Through his experiences with Jefferson, Grant learns to construct new ways of teaching and learning.

1.

OVERVIEW

More than the other three texts discussed in this section, this book club discussion focused on two salient features. First, the main character in the book, himself a teacher, teaches in two distinctive contexts (school and prison). Second, author Ernest J. Gaines, a black writer, speaks from a position of personal experience, knowledge, and credibility. Keroes (1999), in comparing conceptions of black teachers in fiction and film notes: A Lesson before Dying offers no simple solutions, but that's the point. By engaging history, by asking and leaving unresolved the serious questions about the power of education to transcend social circumstances, by engaging issues of human dignity and decency reaching way beyond politesse, and by linking the act of teaching to the sustaining of community, Gaines' novel quietly exchanges easy sentiment for difficult moral engagement. (88) Delese Wear observed that "while educational textbooks provide solutions to problems, literature illuminate[s] and show[s] possibilities" (cited in Brunner, 1994, 7). As a fictional teachers. Grant's stories allow the teachers to understand teaching in new ways. The teachers apply an "educational reading" of Grant in their discussion of this literary text (Jarvis, 2000). The chapter divides into the three main themes that echoed through the discussions of both book clubs: (1) Social and cultural contexts of teaching; (2) Teachers and teaching; and, (3) Language and learning. To provide a comparative analysis of the teachers in the book club and in the text, I divided each section into two sub-sections: (a) Grant, the teacher in the text, and (b) The teachers in the book clubs.

Lessons of Learning and Teaching

2.

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SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF TEACHING

The social, cultural and political contexts of teaching inform and shape the ways teaching is practiced. The stories of teaching in the prison, in the schools, from the teachers and from Grant and Jefferson in the book reveal both the constraints and limitations as well as the revelations and transformations that result.

2.1

Grant

Grant, the educated black teacher, is conditioned to expect little support for breaking convention or moving his young students forward. Frustrated by educational practices and a hopelessness for the future of his charges, he concludes, *1 hate teaching. I am just running in place here" (15). Nothing in his world motivates him to continue. Matthew Antoine, his former teacher, had warned him. Yet, Grant Wiggins left his small Cajun community in the U.S. south during the 1940's to attend university and return to teach in the same one-room, eight-grade plantation school he attended. Grant remembers: ''He had told us then that most of us would die violently, and those who did not, would be brought down to the level of beasts. Told us there was no other choice but to run and run'' (62). Soon after Grant returns, he visits his former teacher, now ill, who reminds him: / told you what you should have done, but no, you want to stay. Well, you will believe me one day . . . You 'II see that it takes more than five and a half months to wipe away^peel—scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and re-plastered over those brains in the past three hundred years. You'll see, (64) Grant is now forced him to re-cognize his former teacher's words of warning that seem to more accurately reflect the truth of his world and work. The daunting realization presses on Grant as he sees his ideals and hopes for the next generation of students and his role in improving their lot inexorably recede. The tensions of his divided self (educated ''professor" to the black community, and repressed black man in the white community) result in a pervasive anger that inevitably spills from the personal to the professional.

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2.2

Chapter 7

The book club teachers

In discussing A Lesson before Dying, the teachers Hsten to Grant and Jefferson's stories of teaching and learning. The stories become catalysts to deliberate the issues of power, politics, and the teaching profession. 2.2.1

Book Club 2 teachers

Book Club 2 teachers are emnmeshed in the politics and culture of their new positions. They are being socialized simultaneously into familiar (having been students and student teachers) and unfamiliar (in their new roles as teachers) school cultures, processes, practices, and structures. They enter teaching on the crest of a wave of multiple changes in the Ontario school system. Because they are new to the system and teaching itself, everything around them is unfamiliar: programs, courses, testing and evaluation, and standardized tests (such as the Grade 10 Literacy Test). They feel insecure, unstable, and often alone in their new environments and identities as teachers. The changes have also unsettled their more experienced colleagues overwhelmed by the shifting milieu and everchanging curricula themselves. They were under-prepared for the sweep and swiftness of the new mandates and programs (Lofty, 2003). Few, if any, professional development time was given to preparing the teachers. Many are demoralized or too frantically occupied to support new colleagues. The novice teachers teach in schools with diverse student populations. Toronto, the most multicultural city in the world (a U.N designation for the last six years) represents over 80 ethnic groups speaking over 100 languages. This, understandably, has significant implications for learning and for such programs and supports such as English as a Second Language. However, the changes occurring in Ontario at this time included budget cuts resulting in reduced services and programs such as English as a Second Language. Many new immigrants were placed in regular English classes leaving the novice teachers to cope with issues outside their background experiences and knowledge. Kerri observes: "My school is really multicultural—a lot of new immigrants—but it's also a low income area. The kids are at a lower level. It's funny how everyone starts to perceive them." Kerri—unknowingly, I suspect—links immigrants, low income, and lower (academic) levels as oneof-a-piece, causally connected. When she says, "The kids are at a lower level," is she repeating what she hears in the staff room? Is she being socialized into this way of stereotypically identifying students in her school? How will that affect the way Kerri approaches and understands her students? What effect will these early experiences have on her developing teacher

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knowledge? These are critical questions for those of us interested in the transitions from student to teacher. The teachers have personal social and cultural histories that inform their developing understanding and practices of teaching. The majority are children of European immigrants: Italy [Evelyn, Lucy]; Portugal [Liz, Sandra], Greece [Melanie], Spain [Helen]. Five speak their home languages fluently. Several could not speak English when they entered elementary school (Sandra and Liz). How does this affect the ways they understand the challenges of immigrant student populations? The lack of support structures, reduction in ESL programs, specious attention to diversity in teacher education programs and the backgrounds and knowledge of the teachers themselves create the need for support during the transition period. In the intensity of making the transition from from student to teacher, to developing knowledge of what it means to teach (beyond transmitting content), the teachers need a place to sort things out, to know they are not alone. Not surprisingly, the book club becomes an outside (re)source, a safe place to openly tell their stories. They are deeply curious about the stories of the others (Doecke, Brown & Loughran, 2000)—eager to compare whether and how to cope with shared issues and challenges. The book club becomes a network, a story place to tell and hear stories that reflect and perhaps even begin to explain what it means to learn to teach. Survival in the first years of teaching leaves little opportunity to step back and understand teaching on a broader scale. The immediate and local situation (mostly the classroom) prevents challenging or questioning the status quo (Schmidt & Knowles, 1995). This has implications for teacher education programs: In what ways can induction issues, local conditions and contexts (such as the multicultural nature of Toronto's students, for instance), be included in pre-service teacher education? It is clearly necessary, though complex, to consider becoming a teacher outside the school context. What and how to "travel" (Franke, 2005) from the academic to the school contexts has long been problematic. Some research is beginning to seek ways of facilitating the bridging from student to teacher (Aitken & Mildon, 1992; Barone et al, 1996; Beynon, Geddes, & Onslow, 2001; Rogoff, Matusov, & White, 1996). 2.2.2

Book Club 1 teachers

Experienced teachers locate teaching within the larger political, social and cultural contexts. Their knowledge and experience allow them to direct their attentions to the larger landscapes (Carr, 1986; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995).

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The realities of the changes sweeping across the province of Ontario at this time, affected all teachers and teacher educators. New mandates and policies prescribed practices, content, and pedagogies. The narrow focus on prescription and following orders resulted in de-professionalizing teachers who continue to have little room or opportunity to apply their personal teacher knowledge to construct meaningful learning experiences for their students. The changes also have an impact on university teacher education programs since they prepare pre-service teachers and are responsible for fulfilling provincial and state licensing requirements. Pre-service students are to be familiarized with the state and provincial programs, standards and curriculum. The experienced teachers discuss this issue: Mary: This issue being talked about in our [teacher education] classes, too, is the chasm between what happens in pre-service teacher education and what the student teachers experience in the schools. They hear from other teachers: "Oh, just ignore what you've learned there. This is the real world." Are they able, at that stage of their professional knowledge, to discriminate or make sense of authentic teaching when they're so vulnerable and uncertain? Lesley: Well, of course, they're first-year education students and teachers. They don't have the time and energy to make sense of it. Bridget: They'll have even less in the future. As teachers, we're going to be teaching more and more hours. Young teachers coming in aren't used to having preparation time. Even though they [the education ministry] said we wouldn't have to teach seven out of eight [classes] next year, now it looks as if we might have to anyway. That means in one semester, for instance, I'll be teaching all day, every day. There'll be new teachers coming in who wouldn't realize that that's just too much. They are just eager to get a job. But there'll be people burning out. There'll be people just giving up. Patricia: Now we get all these people flooding into the profession who have no concept of the history of the last five or ten years in Ontario. They are young and eager and enthusiastic but don't have a clue about all the politics. They are just adopting it all and saying, "This is what we'll do. We don't mind. We'll be your automatons." If you tell us, 'This is what you're going to teach, this is how you're going to teach it, and this is how you'll evaluate it," we'll just say, "Yep, okay. No problem."

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Lesley: What really scares me about this whole [Ontario premier] Mike Harris thing [the sweeping changes in programs and policies in the schools] was captured in an interview in The [Toronto] Star about a month ago. They were interviewing all these [teacher] candidates who were just graduating. The candidates were saying that they were eager to work, and the new curriculum wasn't new to them because that's all they've been working on, blah blah blah. I just thought, "It's all worked. Mike Harris's [Premier of Ontario] plan has worked." Bridget: Harris is also getting rid of all the older, seditious people—just get them all to retire early. Patricia: Exactly. Open the window. They're all retiring. I was in a pilot school for the ^'transition years" [from elementary to secondary] so I really know about the swings. The ''transition years" program was a huge new and expensive initiative but they never bothered to collect the data before going on to the next thing. Bridget: You know, there's something else that's very disturbing as well. We're talking about loads of teachers. Why aren't more of them voting against [premier] Harris? In actual fact, when I first got to my school, I really loved my principal. But now she is so pro reform, so in favor of all the reforms that Harris has recently instituted. She loves them. They excite her because she's very ambitious. She's not going to be a principal much longer. It's like she's headed upward though she's relatively young. She's so into the whole reform thing because it's like a vehicle for her to perform. She sees it as exciting because of that—a time of transformation. She doesn't recognize what's going on, or that there's this massive gap now. This is what Harris has created—a massive gap between administrations in school. [Everybody talking at once] Mary: It's the College of Teachers that is responsible for that, I think, because now administrators are out of the union and separated from teachers. It sets up a tension between teachers and administrators. Patricia: But the College of Teachers is supposed to be an arm's length organization. [Mary: Yeah.] It's not. It really just seems to be a facilitator for these new policies and programs.

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The teachers go to some length to describe and understand their changing political and cultural contexts. They face battles on two fronts: coping with new mandates, curricula, testing, and a renewed emphasis on raising test scores. They feel more like technocrats than professionals expected to make knowledgeable decisions for pedagogy and practices in their classrooms. Academics responsible for preparing teachers in the province of Ontario and elsewhere need to include the programs and policies the student teachers will encounter in the schools. Universities, historically, do not follow their teacher education graduates into the schools—a gesture that could both lessen the divide and build knowledge of induction and teacher development. Inquiries into the transfer between university programs and schools have begun to appear in the research (Beynon, Geddes, & Onslow, 2001; Borish, 1995; Britzman, 2003; Gold, 1996; Van Zoest & Bohl, 2002). As teacher educator in the academy, I struggle to develo courses that reflect both the current state of the field and the required goals and content of school courses and curricula. On the one hand, ignoring or openly defying programmatic changes in the schools only widens the gap between teacher education programs and schools. At the same time, modifying courses (especially a methods course such as the one I teach) for a 'Tit" with the new mandates and programs may undermine our understanding of the nature and purpose of the discipline and is subject to change with every new government. The context of A Lesson Before Dying—a rural and racist society with hegemonic cultural norms and expectations for its black citizens—sets the stage for the discussions of both book clubs. While the teachers are a significant way from the climate and conditions of schooling in the book, they can and do use Grant's stories in the school and in the prison to reflect on their own ways of making sense of their contexts. The narrative text pushes particularly the experienced teachers (Book Club 1) into interactive dialogues on the politics and practices of teaching in a changing and increasingly technocratic profession. Book Club 2 teachers, on the other hand, focus on the politics and culture of teaching by examining Grant's teaching stories. They identify with his sense of disconnect and exclusion that they feel as inductees into the profession.

3.

STORIES OF TEACHERS AND TEACHING

Teaching stories arose and wove between A Lesson before Dying and the lives of the teachers. The two groups discuss Grant's teaching experiences in the school and in the prison and link these with stories of their own teaching lives—in schools and in prison.

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Grant's teaching stories

By day, Grant teaches in a one-room school ("my classroom was the church," 34)—a meager, exiguous environment where he teaches young black students ranging from "primer to sixth grade" (34). In his one-room school, he must orchestrate multiple grades: / assigned three of my sixth-grade students to teach the primer, first, and second grades, while I taught third and fourth. Only by assigning the upper-grade students to teach the lower grades was it possible to reach all the students every day. I devoted the last two hours in the afternoon to the fifth and sixth grades (34-35). His attempts to teach effectively are continuously sabotaged by few supplies and books. He feels underresourced and left to do what he can with the few resources available. Grant structures his own teaching practices modeled in his past schooling experiences (Cohen, 1988; Desforges, 1995; Gold, 1996). With little else to guide him, he confines his teaching to the accepted and traditional. In one incident, when some students do not carry out his instructions. Grant interprets their actions as defiance which leads to shouting and confrontation. Some students break down in tears and shame. Grant shouts: "What is that supposed to be?" and, "That's not a simple, sentence, that's a slanted sentence" and, "You used enough chalk for five times that many problems" (36-37). When a first grader is caught playing with a ladybug on his sleeve. Grant moves quietly to get "in good striking distance of his nearly shaved head" and brings "the Wescott down on his skull loud enough to send a sound throughout the church" (38). Grant treats his young black charges in the ways the dominant, racist culture expects him to treat them, and indeed, the way they treat him. Openly resentful of his inability to gain entry into the dominant culture, he perpetuates the same traditional subordination and compliance in his students through his teaching. Grant explains: Every little thing was irritating me, I caught one of the students trying to figure out a simple multiplication problem on his fingers, and I slashed him hard across the butt with the Wescott ruler. He jerked around too fast and looked at me too angrily for my liking, ''Your hand, " / said. He held out his right hand, palm up. He still held the piece of chalk.

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''Put that chalk down, I can't afford to break it. " He passed the piece of chalk to his left hand and held out the right hand to me again, I brought the Wescott down into his palm, ''You figure things out with your brains, not with your fingers/' I told him, "Yes, sir, Mr, Wiggins," (35 - 36) Patricia (Book Club 1) observes: "That first scene [above] when you see [Grant] with his student—It's awful. It's hideous." Grant's personal struggle to resist the power structures around him seem, ironically, to be disconnected from his own treatment of his students. He is unable to connect the personal and professional in his life (Clandinen, 2003). Bridget (Book Club 1) reaches into Grant's teaching mind to understand him: Perhaps the notion that what we all here tend to agree on as "teaching" is completely opposite to the way Grant's teachers taught him which seems to result in the way he has been teaching the school kids with the ruler to smack them, and, "you go and write the answer on the board," and it's all about answers to direct questions. It's not about creative thinking or learning in that sense. Grant feels divided, resentful, and unsatisfied. Yet, he perpetuates the violence against the vulnerable children of his race, and, in effect, transfers the racist stereotype imposed on him by the white culture. The stories of Grant's hegemonic pedagogies and practices in the classroom (Freire, 1970; Habermas, 1984)—in spite of his six years of teaching experience—clearly illustrate the divide between his personal and professional life. The book club teachers begin to unpack their models and pedagogies by drawing parallels to Grant's teaching experiences. This is helpful, as Bruner noted, because teaching narratives provides a way of "anchoring the world, of attaching meaning to words, and of knowing and articulating what we know" (1994, 14). Patricia links to Grant's experiences: "I think, in a way, though, we're also working against the old boys' model of education, right? I mean, the whole model of kids in rows, and, "You be quiet. You do what I tell you to do." Teacher stories—from the books and the lives of the teachers—illuminate the complexities in teaching and provoke thought (Miller, 1990). The collective wisdom on teaching results in part from personal experiences as well as the images of teachers revealed in fiction and film, in media and politics (Joseph & Burnabord, 1994). Children, for instance, are

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expected to shout "hurrah" at the end of the school year, and become despondent at the prospect of school beginning again at the end of summer. Teachers, too, are implicated in such images. Deconstructing and destabilizing commonly held perceptions requires critical discourse with other teachers as a means to create a language of resistance and change. Projecting stories of teaching onto teacher discourse opens the way to examining understandings and (re)constructing the praxis of teaching (Freire, 1970, 1997). In her germinal work on teachers in fiction and film, Kereos (1999) explains how images of teachers become enshrined in the culture. Grant's teaching style and expectations of and for his students conforms to the stereotypical image of the black teacher in the U.S. south in the 1950s. So stereotypical is the image, however, that Kereos (1999) observed that a black teacher (for instance, Sidney Poitier in the movie, To Sir, with Love) only "succeeds" by increasingly reflecting normalized white standards of teaching and "resorting to a pedagogy of etiquette rather than that of ethical engagement, one that ensures that they [the students] will (politely) remain in their place. By excluding race and class in the discussion. Sir himself remains in his place" (88). This is a powerful force for shaping the ways we perceive teachers and teaching. Kereos' helpful interpretation and knowledge pushes teachers to take up a critical discourse of harmful stereotypes of students (in increasingly multi-cultural schools) and teachers and begin to unravel and destabilize them.

3.2

Book Club 2: Novice teachers teaching

A growing body of research confirms that novice teachers have two common concerns in their induction years: classroom management and evaluation (Beynon, Geddis, & Onslow, 2001; Gold, 1996; Haight-Cattani, 2002). Consistently, Book Club 2 teachers raised these issues. Like Grant, they struggled to survive. 3.2.1

Classroom management stories

Classroom management remains a significant issue for the novice teachers. At times, it threatens to overtake and undermine the novice teachers attempts to teach. In the story that follows, Helen does not simply tell a classroom management story, it erupts: Well, I had a complete meltdown in my class the day before yesterday. I was so upset. I was still upset yesterday. I lost it. I totally freaked out on my kids. I need to do stress management. It was too much and I think I

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had just had it. Everyone I told about it in my school was really supportive, though. They said, ''Don't worry about it." Liz: It's good for the kids to see that because they have to see what's happening. Helen: But on the other hand, that's the time to get to know your kids, too. I kind of feel like I want to do that [Sandra: But you have to have the room for it.] I don't have the time for it. I don't know how to balance it. I know it's the system, and obviously, an element is being new and inexperienced, but it's also the system. I was really upset because I thought it was so unprofessional of me, the way I reacted. I freaked on them. Melanie: Helen, don't feel bad. I've freaked out on my kids and then said, '1 can't teach you. You guys will not listen to me. I refuse to teach you," and left the classroom. I walked around the school. When I came back, I listened at the door. The kids were yelling at each other. I could hear them arguing with each other saying, "You're so mean. Why don't you ever shut up? She's just trying to teach you" and on and on and on. Sandra: Then they start to police each other and— [Melanie: Yeah, and they did.] Helen: I find they did that, too. They said, "Be quiet." It was just in that moment that I snapped. I was so out of control, I thought, "How unprofessional, to stand up here and go. Blah, blah, blah." [Laughter] It was a double period and I made them be quiet for 10 minutes. I said [shouting]: "Open your books. I'm coming around to check your homework. No talking. "And if I heard a peep out of somebody, "Silence!" [Laughter] It's funny. If I heard anybody else speaking, I'd tell that person to be quiet. And when one girl said, "Miss, why are we doing this?" I answered: "Because you can't be quiet when I ask you to be quiet." [Laughter] Then I felt so bad and then I thought, "Okay, okay, it's passed now." I wanted to move on. I thought, "We have another 50 minutes left in this class. I don't want this tone, this atmosphere, so I said, "Okay, let's wash it away. Let's move on." Then the girl that kind of set me off—it wasn't her fault, but the last straw sort of thing—said, "Can I just say something? The only reason I said that to you was because I don't like to be singled out." I said, "I wasn't singling you out. I can't be asking people one at a time to be quiet. You know our signal for starting work. Okay?" "But you were singling me—" I said [shouting] "No. No. I

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was not" because I wasn't ready. I was still —I wasn't ready to discuss anything rationally so it was a mistake to signal to them that I was rational at that point. I just wanted not to have that atmosphere of oppression. Through telling her story, Helen recognizes the tensions between what she hoped to stage as learning events before beginning to teach and the realities of teaching in managing and choreographing large groups of students ("I wasn't ready to discuss anything rationally so it was a mistake to signal to them that I was rational at that point"). Helen does not so much need advice as to know she is not alone in her struggles to manage in her classes. In the process of telling her story, both Helen and the others learn (Weasmer & Woods, 2000). Storying and re-storying in a professional group may well be key to the beneficial effects of sustained professional development at the onset of teaching. 3.2.2

Stories of evaluation

The conundrum of evaluation plagues teachers throughout their careers, though this seems particularly true for novice teachers (Haight-Cattani, 2002). Questions of evaluation, the teachers said, were not adequately addressed in their teacher education programs. With little transparency in the evaluation process in their own school histories ("Good work, A," ''Good work, B"), and no specific course on assessment and evaluation in their teacher education programs, most flounder and resort to the sanctioned practices of their school experiences (e.g., collecting and marking every paper, placing a grade on all submitted work, accumulating numerical evidence in the Teacher Record Book). Moreover, English teachers tend to mark, collect, and record more marks than teachers in other disciplines (Lofty, 2003). The following three stories illustrate some of the issues and ethical dilemmas the teachers face regarding assessment and evaluation. 3.2.2.1

Story 1: The realities of evaluation

Melanie reveals a telling story of evaluation and in the telling, attempts to understand what it means for her and her teaching: Melanie: The experience that I'm having in my school right now is—I had a huge Grade 9 class with 36 kids in it [Shelly: Oh my god] but it got split. They hired a new teacher. This new teacher is a great teacher when it comes to her lesson plans and her understanding of evaluation and assessment. Amazing. She just is on the money. She's very task oriented. But then, she doesn't give any allowance at all to the kids' backgrounds.

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She's says, "They don't reach this level. They don't reach it. Done." [Mary: I'm sorry. Wrong.] Whereas I'm very relationship oriented. So when I see, Natalie, one of my students, have a lot of trouble (she's in an academic course and she shouldn't be technically, because for whatever reason, she can't write. She needs extra help)—when I see her hand something in to me three times, yes, I guess I mark her easier than I mark my other kids who I know have no problem pulling off [a good grade] the first time. I have higher expectations for them. So [Natalie] get[s] a mark that's similar to another student who's at a different level because I have my different expectations for each student. But the problem is that now already I have a reputation. The kids say this to me all the time because we're doing the similar things [in all the classes], that I'm the easy teacher and she's not. [Mary: Oh, so what?] But, see, in my English office, that is not accepted, Mary. [Kerri: In her school, yeah.]. It's not acceptable to be an easy teacher. Helen: And it's easy for us to sit here and say, "So what?" It's different when you're sitting in your school and you have your [department] head dressing you down and your principal saying, "Look, these are the standards we have to meet." Melanie tells the story of the difficulties between aligning her goals with that of another teacher, of being caring and contextualizing her evaluation with respect to individual students, and of meeting the demands of her department and school. She finds herself caught between being sensitive student needs and being labeled "the easy teacher," which, in her view, are contradictory. At this stage of her career development, she feels pulled toward an image and identity of her as teacher that deserves and gets respect. When I, rather dismissivel it seems now, offer a "So what?" Kerri reminds me that this is "in her school" (not mine). Helen courageously responds by drawing me back to the realities that she and her fellow novice teachers live with on a daily basis ("It's different when you're sitting in your school"). Helen is right. In the discourse that follows, I offer further suggestions ("the only way to move them ahead is through practice, lots of practice writing") but Helen does not let me off the hook. She insists on reminding me: "I'm just saying that when your [department] head wants to see your essays, they're going to ask you how you gave an 85 when there's so many grammatical errors?" Kerri shifts the discussion to alternate ways of collecting the required grades for students by finding ways to "give them an opportunity to succeed in something else." The conundrum remains; resolution is not uncovered or constructed. The problem of evaluation is on

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the table, however, which is an essential beginning for any new knowledge or development to occur. 3.2.2.2 Story 2: Ethics and practices of evaluation Kerri tells a story of being caught in a political problem in her department. Being new to teaching and the school, she feels the social pressures to comply with established evaluation procedures when a teacher in her department uses his authority and power to apply pressure on her to comply. Kerry says: I just finished a Grade 11 General [English] course. We had this issue because of this exam we wrote for me and another [English] teacher. He's taught for ten years and we were both teaching the General English. He said, '1 have an exam I've used before. It's a short story. It's perfect. My kids are just doing short stories so I'd like them to come and know they've just done it recently, and then they'll feel good." So he chose this passage that was a difficult read, but our English head approved it. We also have a lot of Special Ed kids so we gave it to the Special Ed. department. Two days before the exam was to be written, they came in to me—of course, hit the new teacher—and said, 'This is unacceptable. Our kids are not going to be able to read this. You're trying to sabotage them." You're doing this. You're doing that. And I just said, 'Tm flexible. I'm more than willing to accommodate but you need to bring more people in. I didn't write it but I approved it. I thought it was fine. But it was terrible and they made a huge stink about it. We didn't change it, and we went through the exams yesterday . . . As a new teacher, Kerrie experiences the tensions of being caught in the middle of a highly charged and politically sensitive situation. She is on probation and has no assurances of protection and safety if she dissents and acts on her moral standards. She seems ill equipped—and indeed, tenuously situated—to deal with, let alone resolve, the problem. The need for a safe place to tell their personal stories of teaching proves critically important. Without fear of recrimination, the teachers tell their stories in a safe and non-judgmental environment to understanding, sympathetic, and empathic peers and in the process, stand back to re-view their teaching in ways not possible within their school contexts. Cast in the wider context of school and culture, the novice teachers acknowledge how complex evaluation is for them but also come to know that and how other novice teachers face similar challenges. Telling stories in book clubs contributes to their professional learning and knowledge (Kooy, in press).

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Chapter? Stories of teaching as a profession

At this point in time, the novice teachers have been in their schools for about four months and are approaching the end of their first semester (January, 2001). They are exhausted by the responsibilities and unexpected requirements of teaching. In their discussions, they focus intently on the model of teaching Grant inherited. Helen picks up the novel and reads directly from a passage on Grant's debilitating lack of motivation and his notion of the unrewarding nature of his work: And I thought to myself, ''what am I doing? Am I reaching them at all?" They are acting exactly as the old men did earlier. They are fifty years younger, maybe more, but doing the same thing those old men did who never attended school a day in their lives. Is it just a vicious circle? Am I doing anything? (62) Sandra's eye lands on a relevant response in her reading log. She reads aloud: Interesting to read Grant's struggle with his chosen profession as a teacher. His tired and bitter description of knowing just "who would or would not know his or her lesson" and "which of them would do something for themselves and which of them never would, regardless of what [he] did" sounds familiar to me (Gaines 34). . . He found no meaning and no motivation or passion for his work. Even this early into her career, Melanie and Helen identify with Grant's skepticism about and commitment to his profession. Already the teachers sense a nagging doubt about their abilities and even desires to keep teaching. Melanie wonders: Don't you think that's a natural feeling? I know, lately, I've been struggling with that, thinking, "Do I want to be a teacher for the rest of my life?" There's so much responsibility to it. I could get a job that probably pays about the same amount where I don't have any personal, human responsibility. I would just go into work and if I don't get the paper work done, so what? I'll get it done later. Or I'll just stay in late one night. When I go to school, everything that comes out of my mouth, someone notices. Every time you're in a bad mood, and you don't even realize it, and you do whatever you do, talk to a certain student a certain way. Without even realizing you're doing it, it hurts that person. Every time you come in without really knowing what lesson you're going to do today, and it's not a good lesson, and you feel like the kids are wasting their time and so are you. There's so much responsibility attached to that.

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I want to run away. In my two weeks off [during Christmas Holidays], I thought, "Oh I can't think of going back and having to shape these minds again." There's just so much responsibiHty. It sits right here on you, down, down. Is it going to be like this for the rest of my life? For novice teachers, this question is too often answered with a resounding, "No." What happens—particularly to new teachers—when the ideological and political forces around them against erode their desires to teach (Gold, 1996)? With so little support and encouragement, should we be surprised that teachers like Grant, Melanie, and Helen remain in the profession at all? In fact, many, in disturbing numbers, leave the profession that has failed to stand beside them (Barone et al, 1996; Borko, 2005; Croasman, Hampton & Herrmann, 1997; Gold, 1996; Kirby & Grissmer, 1993; US Dept. of Education Report, 1995). The book club construct offers a stay against the debilitating attrition that affects the profession and offers constructive possibilities for novice teachers to engage in dialogues around the challenges and issues they face (Clark, 2001; O'Connell Rust, 1997; Rogers & Babinski, 2002) with other like-minded novice teachers.

3.3

Book Club 1 teacher stories

The three stories that follow demonstrate interactive and interdependent relationships and experiences. In the first, Patricia finds herself trying to understand new policies and practices and simultaneously, supporting a new student teacher. The story that follows explores the importance of names and the implications for developing relationship in both secondary and tertiary classes. The final story demonstrates how the teachers use the book club members and the books as resources for their own teaching. 3.3.1

A story of supervision, student teachers, and change

As an experienced teacher in a secondary school, Patricia often hosts student teachers in her classes. In the story that follows, she desribes the tensions inherent in mentoring a new teacher, learning about new programs and policies, and teaching unfamiliar content and processes to Lily: Lily [student teacher] has this wonderful idea for something she wants to do in a media class, and I say, "That sounds great. How are you going to evaluate it?" She's thought about her objectives. That's great, that's great. So, you're going to evaluate those objectives. Now this is what my marking book looks like. I've got these four categories, levels one through whatever categories. Where am I going to put your marks down? She kind of scratches her head. And I said "Well, you know what? I'll

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leave you with this thing from the Ministry, and you look at which category you think it would go in best. "Well, the truth is the categories seem totally arbitrary. What's the difference between—she was doing a combination of knowledge and what was the other one? [Bridget: Understanding?] No. It's knowledge and application. But she was assessing their knowledge of what she had taught the day before—this media concept—by getting them to apply it in a ^'thinking" manner. [Mary: Right.] [Bridget: So then it's the writing, thinking and inquiry?] Exactly. So I thought, *'How do I explain to a student teacher when I really want her to get the idea to plan with evaluation in mind. It's never the last thing—"oh, by the way, I'm going to give you a mark out of ten on this." It's always when planning an activity that you think about what you want to assess, how you're going to assess it, and you give that information to the kids. But suddenly she's [Lily] got to do it in this form because I've got to put it down in my book in that form and put it on the report card in that form. I just felt so bad. I thought, "I don't know if I can keep doing this. I don't know if I can be an associate teacher [supervising student teachers] because I can't explain what she's supposed to do." Harris [premier of Ontario] has put me in a position of no longer being able explain or defend what I teach and what I evaluate. Finally, I had to say, "You know what, Lily, don't spend that much time on it. It's pretty arbitrary." I said, "I'm going to ask other teachers what category had the fewest marks in by the end of last semester and we'll dump it in there. [Mary: Wow.] I just felt awful. Patricia's comment: "I just felt awful" is similar to Kerri's (Book Club 2) response in the earlier evaluation story. She feels caught between her own evaluation strategies and knowledge developed through years of teaching and the need to induct Lily into the new realities of curriculum and policies in evaluation that conflict with her own. Since the mandated changes were new to established and novice teachers alike, Patricia and Lily coped and learned together: Patricia: I had a long conversation this week—I was fighting my emotions so much—with Lily, a student teacher working with me. She's very keen and I'm doing my best to be very positive about the changes— the new curriculum. I was off last semester so this is my first time teaching [the new] Grade 9 curriculum. My department has tried its best to be very positive—They're dedicated, hard-working people but we've got Grade 9 "objectives" that don't meet the new evaluation criteria. [Bridget: Yeah, It's all completely mismatched.] It's all completely mismatched, so we tried to work with that anomaly but it's hard, so hard.

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Mary: Jean Ruddick says that the success of any change brought to a classroom is directly proportional to the conviction and understanding of the teacher. Without that, apparently, kids apply so much pressure that they will bring you back to the familiar, the expected. [Lesley: That's right. It's very true.] [Bridget: It's very true.] Bridget: You've got to have the courage to keep doing it [Mary: Yes, that's right.] which is one of the hardest things. Lesley: It is hard. The moments of self-doubt are just huge [Mary: Overwhelming.] Bridget: Teenagers can be so good at persuading you that: 'We're not going to do this, Miss." The teachers understand that the challenges of change and mandates from the Ministry alone will be no sufficient condition for change or reform (FuUan, 2001). They understand the difficulties and know, that for the most part, teachers are the change agents. Teachers must be convinced of the benefits to student learning. Without them, change will not happen (Fullan, 2001). Moreover, unless teachers clearly understand the nature of the change, students will actively resist and bring teachers back to what they have come to expect in their schooling (Ruddick, 1988). The costs of mandating change without the necessary teacher support and understanding, include little or no change in classroom practices and content. 3.3.2

Stories of Names in Teaching

Identifying students by name suggests an ethic of caring (Noddings, (2002). Naming is a first step in initiating and developing relationships (Freire, 1970; Palmer, 1993). Lesley: It's a powerful thing to learn their names. I've told my student teachers that one goal is to learn the names of the whole class. Mary: Yes, I tell my student teachers that they must do this beginning the first day of their practicum. Lesley: What is more important than saying, "I am prepared to know you by name, to recognize you." That's the first step in a relationship. I'll know your name. Mary: And to be able to do so in the classroom and in the hallway.

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Lesley: There are 47 students in the [Teacher Education Psychology] class and I learned their names in the first week. [Mary: Yeah. Wow.] I heard them saying, "She's smart. 'They have respect for that. Bridget: They need to know each other's names as well. [Mary: Oh yes.] If, at the end of a semester, I realize that there are kids in my class who don't know each other's names, it makes me so angry. If I say to a kid, "Oh, go and work with so-and-so" and I can see that they don't know who it is, they'll say "Oh so-and-so?" Or they're handing out stuff, and they don't know each other's names. Oh, my gosh. The preceding story suggests a relationship between naming and knowing. While Lesley meets this challenge for the 47 adult students she sees three hours weekly, Bridget is in a different position. She teaches well over 100 students in four or five different classes every day. Bridget recognizes that secondary students should know each other by name (see above). She notes, however, that knowing student names is a prerequisite for developing relationships in the classroom (Richert, 2002). Mary: I have them sit next to a different person every class in my teacher education classes. [Bridget: That's a good idea.] Once settled, they begin to learn from twenty or thirty other human resources. The best way to take advantage of those people as resources is to have opportunities to work with each of them. It's very challenging when you get groups of students from particular ethnic groups who understandably cling to one another and you disrupt their comfort level by asking them to break out of the familiar. But I try to remind them that it is the responsibility of being a member of a community to contribute to it and to learn from others. Bridget: Kids hate it when we move their seats. They hate it because they're so institutionalized. [Everybody talking] When my grade 9s filled in my feedback sheet at the end of last semester, one of the things that came through was that they didn't like it that I kept changing the seating. I was really glad that they didn't like it because I knew that it unsettled them. So they probably thought, "Oh this will make her change it" but I was determined not to. I knew that they'd hate it to start with but they got better at it. Patricia: In my writer's craft class I make them move the desks into a circle and sit in a new seat every day. I'm trying to run it like a writers workshop. There are such little power monger groups within that class who want to establish this pecking order of who's a good writer and who

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isn't. I'm just doing my best to upset that notion by separating them, but you wouldn't believe the frustration and anger I'm getting from them. [Bridget: It's amazing.] Lesley: In fact, in those first weeks, I was feeling so— [Bridget: You do feel completely under siege.] I was talking to myself so hard to say, ''Lesley, you must do this. This is the right thing. You have no choice. You have to do this." Patricia: That's exactly it. I had three student teachers [in my classes] this week right when I'm implementing this. They're watching me and watching the kids resist and I'm thinking, ''No, I can't change, even if all they see while they're here is teacher-bitch insisting that the kids do this, insisting that they read their work aloud, even when they don't really feel comfortable doing it. Yet, all these things I firmly believe in. I do believe in it but it's so hard to stick with it, [Mary: Yes, it is]. I have broken up this trio of power mongers and you know, what was happening in the first week—It's only been two and a half weeks, right? People would write something and they'd read it, and they'd glance over at the three of them before they would look at me [Mary: For approval?] Yeah, [Mary: Or disapproval.] to see what they thought. It was as though the students were intimidated. I heard one person dropped the class because she felt intimidated by other people in the class, not at all by me. So yeah, it was pretty clear that something had to be done. Mary: But a productive and morally responsible ending to this story could not have taken place had you not taken the risk. Patricia: Right. It wouldn't. Lesley: You'll have your ups and downs but you'd make it through, right? Patricia: Right. But it's never going to be a transformative experience for the kids or for me if I don't take the risks. As the stories are being told, Bridget raises the problem of rotating seats and the resulting negative feedback from her students. The others do not pursue the issue with her. The conversation turns from Bridget and the others continue to mediate their knowledge (Bakhtin, 1986; Dewey, 1938; Elbaz, 2002; Wertsch, 1993). By not including Bridget and asking questions or probing further, the teachers miss an opportunity. At best, we can hope

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that in hearing the stories of the others, Bridget re-views her own understanding of connecting, naming, and knowing in community. 3.3.3

Extending and applying the teaching stories

The critical stories allow the teachers to create new knowledge and ways of teaching. Patricia, for instance, recognizes an opportunity to make an inquiry among her teacher peers who can help her imagine using A Lesson before Dying in her teaching. Patricia: I want to use A Lesson before Dying in my Grade 9 English class. I want to pull out sections when I'm teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, [Mary: Oh yeah] [Lesley: Wonderful.] because that book doesn't give any black voices. [In To Kill a Mockingbird] Tom Robinson never speaks. He doesn't get a chance to speak. In this book here [A Lesson before Dying], I can actually pull out those sections from his [Grant's] point of view, like the time he's in the kitchen waiting,just to hear his anger at the unfairness [see 47 in the text]. I could let the students get a sense of his point of view. Patricia tells her story by drawing from her other teaching stories to locate possibilities for using A Lesson before Dying. Her story is a wondering aloud where she considers pedagogical strategies she might apply. Weaving stories of the past and present, from the book and life, allow her to imagine future applications (Clandinen & Connelly, 1991, 1993). The stories of the teachers in both book clubs reveal what they know and in the tellings, reveal how they know it. Book Club 1 teachers move between the book and their teaching lives. Dialogically and narratively, they make sense of the issues they face in their everyday teaching (Lily and evaluation, community building in classrooms). The stories serve to explain and construct new meanings (Lieberman & Miller, 1999; Munby, Russel & Martin, 2001; Sorenson, 1998. For the Book Club 2 teachers, telling stories that counteract the loneliness and isolation they feel in their new profession lessens the secondguessing and self-doubt so common to new teachers (Rogers & Babinski, 2002; Walsdorf & Lynn, 2002) and at the same time, develop their teacher knowledge. Danielewicz (2001) found in her work with new teachers that, "When teachers collaborate using these strategies to work toward becoming the teacher they each envision, their power to resist the negative institutional forces that threaten to overwhelm is greatly enhanced" (152). Interactive dialogue sustains and stimulates new teachers to form a professional community, to re-think and re-shape ways of teaching.

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TEACHING IN PRISON

Stories of teaching in prison arose from both A Lesson before Dying and from the novice teacher group (Book Club 2). Grant's stories of literacy with a condemned black prisoner stem from grudgingly accepting his aunt's call to go to the prison and prepare Jefferson to walk to the gallows "like a man." In a remarkable turn of events, Shelly tells a second set of stories involving teaching, literacy, and prison. For her first year, she has accepted a position teaching English in a Men's Federal Medium Security Prison. Both Grant and Shelly aim to create and develop literacy curricula that meet the needs of their prison students; both are new to the task, and in many ways, attempt to lay down a path while walking (Horton & Freire, 1990). Both understand that language and literacy are vehicles for constructing meaning and must find ways to actively include their students in literacy communities. Both must develop a way to "read between the lines," to listen for cues and clues that will move learning (both theirs and that of their students) forward.

4.1

Grant

Initially, Grant Wiggins treks unwillingly to the prison to teach Jefferson, the inmate scheduled for execution. Grant has a mandate but no curriculum, no strategies, no expectations for learning in place. Although he has been a teacher for some six years he, like the novice teachers in the study, starts afresh as he carves new ways of learning and teaching. His desperation is captured in Evelyn's (Book Club 2) reading log: When we first see Jefferson in his cell, he is unmoving and all life seems to have already left him before he ever set his eyes on the wooden chair that would take his life. His reply to any question was, "Doesn't matter" (Gaines 66). I could sense the enormity of the task at hand for Grant as he wondered how he could possibly make anything of this person who lay in bed, overwhelmed with grief, bitterness, anger and self-pity. When, in the early visits to the prison, Jefferson exhibits little or no response. Grant finds himself reaching deeply into his own sensibilities. He begins to imagine and make connections. Grant dreams, experiments, advocates and acts proactively (rather than reactively as he does in his classroom) in his efforts to connect to Jefferson. A small breakthrough occurs when, after brief talk about music, Jefferson expresses an interest. Grant takes the cue and imagines: "I just thought of something . . . Let me bring you a little radio. You can have music all the time" (171).

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Using his own money and borrowing the rest, Grant is humiliated in the store. Only after considerable stalling, does the clerk reluctantly find him a boxed radio from the storage room. In spite of his education (most likely more than the saleslady), he is again reminded of his place (or lack of it) in this social milieu. "Even though he is a teacher," Bridget (Book Club 1) observes, "he is still seen as a slave." The radio's effect on Jefferson is almost immediate. Patricia (Book Club 1) observes: "Grant breaks through to him [Jefferson] with the radio, the pop culture. That's the thing that makes it possible to reach him. They talk about ice cream and that one show on the radio." Grant's surprising patience and perspicuity (absent from his school teaching) begins to pay off. Book Club 1 teachers discuss how Grant develops his teaching and learning skills in the prison "classroom:" Mary: In the prison he [Grant] has to find his way, to make it up as he goes. I think, for me. Grant clearly illustrates two different perceptions of teaching in the two different contexts. Patricia: It's like he [Grant] approaches Jefferson as a friend. It's that relational element. It's not at all like whacking people with the ruler or whatever it is, like he does in the classroom. Lesley: He can't rely on his school teaching for his prison teaching. He has to invent a way for Jefferson. The writing [notebook and pencil Grant gives him] gives him that. The teachers compare Grant's teaching in two contexts: They recognize the imaginative and personal knowledge Grant applies to awaken Jefferson. Literacy is the key that unlocks and exposes Jefferson's humanity. It helps him move beyond the racist degradation. The transformation begins with a notebook and pencil. Grant suggests: "You could write your thoughts down, and we could talk about it when I came back" (185). On the visit after he leaves the notebook and pencil. Grant discovers that Jefferson has "filled three quarters of a page" (22). Through the writing, Jefferson comes to understand and see himself. Melanie (Book Club 2) observes: The question of this book seems to me to be, 'What does it mean to be a black man in this society?' and Gaines is not satisfied with the stereotypical answers, like the whole idea of his [Jefferson] being just a hog. This book fights against that, fights against that, fights against that. It's not acceptable to be a hog. It's not acceptable to be a hog. It's not acceptable to be a hog.

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In a court scene, the state attorney questions Jefferson ("Ask him to describe a rose" and ''Who was Keats?"). Melanie (Book Club 2) notes: "He says, he doesn't understand this and he doesn't know what poetry is and that's why he's a hog because he has no civility in him." The chapter in the book consisting entirely of Jefferson's notebook writing turns his self-perception inside out ("now i got to be a man an set in a cher" and "don't kno if you can red this mr wigin my han shakin and I can yer my hart" (234). The notebook ends with Jefferson's moving and emotional farewell written on the day of his execution. Melanie finds the poem and reads it aloud: day breakin sun comin up the bird in the tre soun like a blu bird sky blu blu mr wigin good by mr wigin tell them im strong tell them im a man good by mr wigin im gon axpaul if he can bring you this sincely Jefferson Melanie reflects: "How much more poetic can you get than that? I was on the subway reading this and I was bawling: Here, (pointing to the poem on the page), this is poetry. It's within him." Writing shapes Jefferson's what and how he thinks (Langer & Applebee, 1987). His revealing and touching testimony leaves a mark on Grant who witnesses firsthand the transformation in Jefferson. Grant learns about teaching from Jefferson and come to new ways of understanding teaching in the plantation school. Book Club 1 teachers pick up the effect of Jefferson's execution on Grant, which also, ultimately, alters his teaching resulting: Bridget: When Paul [the sheriff] describes the scene about what he said to say to say to his Grandmother, "Tell them I walked." Patricia: But at the same time, when that's happening [the execution], the kids are kneeling. It brings you back to that line with the preacher saying, "If you don't think a man can walk and kneel and be a man" and there's that visual stuff happening. He's with the kids kneeling in prayer while

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the prisoner is walking [to the gallows] at the same time. That was really powerful too, even though, at that point, he couldn't join them. He wasn't able to go down on his knees with the kids. But, he wishes he could. Lesley: There's a line here on 249 that says, "To go somewhere and with no memory of where I can come from, I wanted to go, I wanted to go. God, what does a person do who knows there is only one more hour to live?" — so this is at the very end — 'T felt like crying but I refuse to cry." [Mary: Oh wow.] "I would not cry. There were too many more who would end up as he did. I could not cry for all of them, could I?" The experience changes Jefferson who is able, in spite of his imminent exececution, to walk to the gallows with dignity CTell them I walked"). He is transformed by his experiences as student but also transforms Grant (Grant tells him: ''I need you much more than you need me. I need you to tell me what to do with my life" [193]). The learning becomes reciprocal and interactive, dialogically constructed. In the process, both men are wholly transformed (Freire, 1970,1986, 1997). Affecting change through learning in the prison affords Grant the ability and opportunity to re-position himself as teacher. Book club 1 teachers discuss Grant's prison teaching: Lesley: The last couple of pages I found really interesting. I found him [Grant] struggling throughout the whole prison experience. That's what I thought it was, a personal struggle to come to terms with himself. [Mary: Yeah, that's a good way to say it.] His bitterness, this challenge to come back [to teach], his anger. But at the end he talks about crying, because that's the end of it: "I cry." All of a sudden, he's stopping and looking at the anger, which actually is a separation, a blocker, and going into ''I cry," a little bit of feeling the pain. And therefore, maybe, from that point, being able to change who he is and who the kids [in his school] are. I mean, what the possibilities for his teaching become after this. [Mary: Yes.] Bridget: I read that as a completely transformative point because I was saying to you earlier, wasn't I, how important that sentence is. It's the most important sentence in the book, I think because then, at that point, he's open. He turns to the kids and suddenly, now, he's open to the kids whereas before, there was no possibility of openness. Patricia: If you think of the title, A Lesson Before Dying, you have a teacher who is trying to teach a prisoner that he's a human being, but really, it's about his own" lesson. It's his own lesson. Jefferson's the one

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who teaches him [Bridget: The prisoner is the one—] to be human. That he's not— [Lesley: It was really beautiful.] Mary: I was so touched by this scene. Grant's prison learning alter his school story. His personal experience shapes his professional experience (Carter, 1990; Connelly & Clandinen, 1992). He involves the children in his school in his quest to humanize and dignify Jefferson's brief remaining existence. The children contribute food: '1 asked the children at the school to bring large pecans and roasted peanuts for me to take to him. Some brought pecans in paper bags, some brought them in little flour and rice sacks, other brought them in their pockets" (183). Later, on the day of Jefferson's execution Grant instructs his students: / told them that at exactly twelve o 'clock they would all get down on their knees and remain on their knees until I heard from the courthouse, whether that took an hour, an hour and a half or three hours (246). When Paul, the sheriff drives up to the school and to hand Jefferson's notebook to Grant, he explains: 'T told them that Jefferson had sent a notebook to me, and I was going to leave it on the table, and later we would talk" (253). Grant's personal experience enters his teacher knowledge (Dewey, 1938; Gumperz, 1992; Habermas, 1984; Hollingsworth, Dybhdahl & Minarek, 1993.). Affecting change through learning in the prison affords Grant the ability and opportunity to re-position himself as teacher. Grant's prison and school stories in A Lesson before Dying present complex views of teaching: the same teacher engaged in two distinctive teaching contexts and using two distinctive ways of teaching. Through the experiences in the prison. Grant begins to reconcile and ameliorate the tensions between what might be described as a transmission model in the schools (Barnes, 1995) and a constructivist model in the prison (MartinKniep, 2004). The book club discussions become educative experiences (Bakhtin, 1986; Vygotsky, 1992) as the teachers continue to build and revise their understanding of teaching and learning. They create new knowledge in the dialogical exchanges and stories. They watch as Grant manages a professional transformation. Grant's story allowed them to look again at their own stories of teaching and to generate new stories of teaching and living.

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Book Club 2: Prison teaching stories

In the opening of this chapter, I introduced an unusual and surprising Hnk between the literature and Shelly's life as a novice teacher. The coincidence of selecting a book involving teaching in a prison (without Shelly participating in the selection) and the discovery at this book club meeting that Shelly also teaches in a prison, borders on the outlandish, albeit aptly relevant. Her colleagues, completely unaware of this until this book club meeting, ask her many questions: Melanie: How did you get the job, Shelly? Shelly: I heard about it from a friend and I decided to apply though 1 honestly didn't think I would get the job because I have no experience. Kerri: Do you like it up there?. Shelly: Yeah, I do.

Helen: Do you have a lot of classroom management problems? Lucy: I would think so. Shelly: Um mm. When I do, I really do. [Helen: Yeah, well I can imagine.] Thursday we had someone removed. [To do that] I call and say, "Could you come and remove this guy from class?" . . . It's a medium security prison so if there's any physical contact, the guy is in big trouble. And let's face it, I'm not going to be able to do anything. We wear a little personal alarm. When we need to, we push it and eight guards are supposedly standing at the ready outside the door. [Lucy: Hah, how I would love that.] [laughter] *** Sandra: How big are your classes? Shelly: They were really big for the first while. I had 24 at one time. [Mary: Oh my gosh.] All men. I had the largest classes in our school because I was the only one teaching English. But now it's more like 17 oris students in the class, so it's much better.

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Melanie: English, right? English, that's why. Dump all the worst stuff on the new person.

Helen: Where do you begin, Shelly? How do you prepare for class? Shelly: When a guy comes in and hates the world and he's sitting in my class, I'm still expected to teach him a subject. It's so not the subject—it's so the interaction and slowly developing—Just the simple ''Good morning" for a week and then finally, at the end of a week, they say "Good morning." And then all of a sudden, you start saying, ''Well, here's something to read" and developing that. It happens all the time. ***

Melanie: What are your relationships like with them [prison inmates]? Shelly: Really good. They really look out for me; they become very protective of what I do—when you're there and when you're not there. If I have someone new [in prison class], they want to make sure that this person is treating me right. [Mary: Really?] They're always listening. They'll hear conversations between me and other teachers. They know our whole [life]—like what you did on the weekend—because of what they hear in our conversations. "So you went here and here and here," they'll say to me. And I say, "How did you know that?" Helen: Really, you share your social life with them? Shelly: No, but they know it. The fact that, if they connect with you, they're going to try to strive towards what you have as a social life. The questions are authentic. New teachers (and even seasoned veterans like me) are naturally curious about other teachers' experiences, particularly in this extraordinary, unfamiliar site. None of us (including Shelly before she accepted this position) had ever been in a prison, let alone begin our professional teaching careers there. Shelly's induction experiences prove provocative and compelling. They resonate particularly for me when I recall Shelly as a student in my Teacher Education English Methods class the previous academic year. Throughout the two terms. Shelly rarely, if ever, spoke in front of the group, never raised

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a question or initiated a topic for discussion. As a result, I could not have imagined Shelly accepting a prison teaching assignment. But she did. Shelly's covert courage and tacit knowledge come to life as she responds to the questions from a new confidence. In telling her stories, she gains language that, in Danielewicz' (2001) words, ''already exist[s] or [is] out there waiting for us. In speaking them, we invent ourselves and make others, and are always a little surprised at what has happened" (197). In an interview at the conclusion of the first year. Shelly testifies to the epiphanal power of this particular book club discussion. In the quirky collision between literature and life. Shelly re-locates herself in the group, participates actively in the dialogue and contributes to the learning of her peers. The teachers in both book clubs meet the fictional teacher Grant at the point of their own understanding (similar to Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development," 1992). Each responds to, and acts out of, her personal teaching location and career stage. Each found ways to connect with the stories of teaching. The stories allow the teachers to re-view their own teaching (Hord, 1997, 2004; Kelchtermans, 1993; Lyons & Kubler laBoskey, 2002; Noori, 1995) and in the social context of the book club, continue to construct new stories of teaching and learning (Richert, 2002; Rogers & Babinski, 2002; Rust & Orland, 2001; Shotter, 1993).

Chapter 8 "LEAD KINDLY LIGHT": TEACHERS LEARNING AND LEADING TOGETHER

When Jeanette's mother's voice on her new self-built CB radio closes the book, Oranges are not the Only Fruit [see summary below] with, "Come in kindly light," she offers an invitation to enter: Lesley: Who could take those simple words and put them at the end of the book so meaningfully? It gives you chills all over when you read it. Mary: I think that's probably because it carries multiple meanings: opening up of a radio station [Lesley: Communication.] Communication, and the other is an invitation. Lesley: And to the daughter too, this kindly light says, "You're welcome back." The two book clubs also clearly accept the invitation to enter the conversation. Of the four books in this section, only discussions of Oranges are not the only fruit falls into two distinctive discussion sets. Both groups begin discussing the book and about midway into the discussions, move on to their teacher stories. For that reason, I divide the chapter into two main sections: Section 1 focuses on the discussion of the text. Section 2 focuses primarily on the teacher stories. Hence, the chapter follows the general chronology of the discussion.

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READING THE WORD AND THE WORLD

To contextualize the discussion of Oranges are not the only Fruit, I begin with a brief summary: The classic coming-of-age narrative introduces Jeanette, a young girl of seven being raised by her religiously zealous adoptive mother. To avoid exposing Jeanette to the outside world (something she calls "the breeding ground"), her mother home schools Jeanette until the authorities insist that she attend the local public school. Raised exclusively on the Christian bible and the goal of becoming a missionary, Jeanette's source of knowledge and her view of life differs significantly from the other children at the school. "Everyone at school avoided me," she says. "If it had not been for the conviction that I was right, it might have been very sad." During her adolescence, Jeanette's narrow view of the world is shaken when she meets Melanie. Their relationship develops; Jeanette realizes that she is a lesbian. When Jeanette's mother and the church discover the relationship, Jeanette is roundly condemned for her heresy and resigns from the church. Jeanette's mother insists that she leave the house. For a brief time, Jeanette moves in with a teacher and takes up various jobs. Eventually, she returns home and finds her mother a changed person and it appears some reconciliation occurs. The book is a complex weaving of narrative forms: fictional stories, autobiography, and fairy tales. The lines between them are unpredictable in order and sequence. They intertextually overlap and interweave. The opening discussions differ markedly between the two groups. Book Club 2 deliberates extensively to understand the unfamiliar text and context before discussing other features of the text. Book Club 1 focuses its early attentions on the Jeanette Winterson, the writer, and later move to discussions of gender and stylistic features of the text. Book Club 2 discussions may help readers understand the text as the teachers negotiate their understandings.

1.1

Book Club 2

For the novice teachers. Oranges are not the Only Fruit proved challenging specifically in terms of the unfamiliar Biblical content. While I had suggested reading this book (the only recommendation I forwarded that the teachers chose), I became increasingly ambivalent and concerned as I reread the book in preparation for the book club meeting. I worried whether the book—steeped in religious and biblical language and stories—would even interest the teachers. I worried that while the other books we read included teachers, teaching played a miniscule role: a brief description of

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Jeanette's home schooling, and, far later in the book, one sentence about a teacher who takes in Jeanette for a brief time when her mother demands that she leave the house. From the onset, the teachers express difficulties making sense of this text. To compensate, they searched out information (Helen purchased a book entitled. The Bible and Literature, for instance) during their reading. Melanie and Helen read the book twice. Discussing the challenges of reading a complex text proved productive. While the discourse on the unfamiliar (the biblical references, per se) was necessary and focused on the immediate needs of the readers, the exchanges on iht process of reading became the more educative: Shelly: I just finished reading it on Thursday and I started reading it again last night. [Mary: No.] Never in my life have I read a book twice, so this is a whole new experience for me. [Mary: Wow.] Melanie: But you have to read this book twice. Helen: Partly, I did because I don't know a lot of the religious symbolism [Melanie: Me, neither] So I spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to figure out who people were and their histories. [Melanie: Oh, good for you.] One night, actually close to the end, I had my roommates' parents who are very religious calling their friends. [Shelly: Oh, that's great]. It was quite funny. All of a sudden when I started hearing the history of different characters and different symbols, I was amazed and then I thought, "Okay—" [Melanie: So much more of a meaning and understanding.] Yeah. I know that I only got half of the things that were in there, so I was thinking: "Okay, I've got to read it again." Actually, I bought a book called. The Bible in Literature. Melanie: The bible in literature? Who wrote it? Helen: I forget. It's supposed to be sort of a translation of the Bible, written in a literary style. But when I started reading it, it's not any easier than reading the Bible itself Shelly: It's almost like you need—I really wish I'd done Religion 101 or something general. Melanie: Me, too. That's one course I regret not taking at university— Literature and the Bible, because I think you can't really study [Western]

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literature if you don't know the Biblical references [everybody talking.] [Helen: Especially anything Western]. Helen: That would be so amazing, I think. To really appreciate this book, you really need a course ahead of time on what all the things mean— [Mary: I would, too.] For example, I don't know what Deuteronomy is— The diligence of the teachers took me by surprise. They discuss the need for more information. Melanie suggests she should have taken a ''Bible as Literature" course during her university days and Shelly regrets not taking Religion 101. Helen contacted knowledgeable people in her quest to gain additional information. Considered in the context of the end of their first year of teaching and the time constraints related to finalizing course content, marking, and preparing for final exams and report cards in their classes and schools (Dollase, 1992), the efforts expended in reading this book are impressive indeed. The teachers move on to discussing the elements of the novel that drew their attention. The teachers discussed the postmodern structure of the text: Melanie: I think that, for me, thinking about the expectation of what this discussion would be about, is that she [Winterson] writes in circles— [Helen: Yeah.] I wondered, "How are we going to talk about one thing and not be able to talk in circles also?" —Because she fully writes loop to loop to loop to loop. [Helen: Yeah.] I found her spirals are like connecting the dots or something. I don't know. Her structure was extremely jumpy. I don't even know how to describe it. Helen: It reminded me a lot of reading Don Quixote with all the different stories stuck here and there. [Mary: Intersecting]. This book is sort of episodic because she's got all these different stories, fables like King Arthur, stuck in there. Melanie: But even the writing, I found, was a very stream-ofconsciousness style. She starts talking about something—describing the story—but then she goes into what she thinks about it, and then she goes back to the original story. It's very smoothly written, but it's a very curvy type of writing. Helen: That was another thing, about the style. I found I had a hard time figuring out how old she was. At the beginning, I thought, *'Okay, this is a child." [Mary: She's seven, I think.] She's seven. Then all of a sudden she becomes fourteen and—[Mary: It's a little bit connected with what you were saying earlier about this weaving of stories].

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The teachers discussed the unconventional and innovative style of the book. They deliberated on its meaning and structure to develop a richer understanding of the complex text (Belsey, 1993). This is possible in the social context of the book club. In their research on teacher communities, Grossman and Wineburg found that: "Listening hard to the ill-formed thoughts of another adult is a new activity for teachers that may seem strange, even exotic" (2000, 32). The teachers' experience in "coming to know" made them more mindful and conscious of how meaningful dialogue influences and shapes their learning and prepares them for improving the learning process of their students (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Flecknoe, 2000).

1.2

Book Club 1 teachers

The discussion of the experienced teachers differed in kind and process from the novice teacher group. They engage with the ideas, concepts, and language of the book. Frequently, they refer to passages marked with highlighters, marginal notes, or page references cited in their notebooks. They read aloud evocative and relevant passages. The discussion opens with Lesley comparing her two readings: "I read this book years ago, but sometimes it's too soon for me to read a book. At the time, I thought it was an off-the-wall book." With the passing of time and new lived experiences (Rosenblatt, 1938), Lesley's re-reading proved to be an altogether different experience: I think she is [Winterson] absolutely brilliant in her simplicity because she can take something very, very complicated and she can render it in five words. She does her own thing without parading her—It's not an arrogant "do your own thing." It's written in the spirit of, "You should be able to attach to this. You should be able to connect." I think she's just incredible. I went and I bought this one and you can tell that this is her first book, right? [Mary: This is her first book.] It's got a sort of firstness about it. [Patricia: Yes, it does.] Mary: It seems she has a huge investment in this book, which, I think, comes with first books. Sometimes the first book is the greatest book. Lesley: And sometimes you only get a first. But even though everything in my life is so totally different from this life, I can connect to the feelings in so many ways.

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Patricia: It's like she has a gift for making the general specific. How many authors do I know that will start with something specific and then move to the general theme? She starts with general things that we all know about like conservative Christian communities, or the process of developing your identity, of separating from family. And she tells you this is not a general thing at all. This is an incredibly specific thing and you can't reduce it to any general statements because it's so specific to who you are and the family you're in, the community you're in, and the time. I kept coming back to how non-generalizable—is that a word?— this book is. You can't say, "Oh yeah, I know someone who that happened to, or who had a mother like that." But it also made me think that you could do this with everyone you know. I mean, everyone's family is this bizarre, everyone is contradictory like her mother is. No one— Lesley: —is an easy read or consistent, even. That's right. No one is consistent. So at the end, the mom with the new electronic equipment, [laughing]—in some ways, you felt like you knew her, that it was believable. I didn't think, "Oh well, she's changed." No, she hasn't. It's the same kind of passion and commitment—I just loved it. The fact that Bridget had read several Winterson books and Lesley had read this book at two different times, made a richer and denser discourse possible. Patricia and I read our first Winterson book for this discussion and benefited from Lesley and Bridget's reading experiences (Lenski, 1998). Perspective and point of view are important to understanding this text. Since Jeanette tells the story, the reader cannot be certain that Jeanette tells the whole story. What does she leave out? "Even Jeanette is not telling the story in one consistent way," Lesley observes. The interactive dialogue leads to "distributed cognition." The postmodern instability of the text led Patricia to observe: "She's using myth, she's changing point of view and she's leaving out parts." The book club represents a manifestation of community as a source for collectively distributing and creating new knowledge (Salomon, 1993). This has implications beyond the teacher group to learning in schools. Determining what students know and bring to classroom dialogue affects how school learning can be situated and supported (Grossman & Wineburg, 2000). Accounting for the dynamics of varied knowledge levels existing and operating within student groups alters and shapes learning in classrooms. After the preliminary and introductory opening discussions, the teachers in both groups begin considering critical issues that emerge through the

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discussions. Two predominant themes include: (1) perspective and truth, and, (2) gender and sexuality. 1.2.1

Perspective and truth

The concept of story (as opposed to conventional conceptions of 'truth') plays a significant role in the novel. In a postmodern nod, boundaries blur. Patricia reads aloud the narrator Jeanette's definition of story: Of course, that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories. We make them what we will It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained. It's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing into time. Everyone who tells a story tells it differently just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found. (91) The concept of truth and representation through story leads Lesley to respond with: 'This sounds so post-modernism. It leads us to think about our own stories and claims about truth. How reliable and "truthful" are our stories? What has been told and left untold?" Jeanette, the first person narrator, controls what readers see and hear and what remains hidden from view. In that vein, a lively interchange occurrs about Jeanette's mother in both teacher groups. Jeanette's presentation—particularly her mother's views on the Bible and sexuality—is Jeanette's personal re-viewing of the stories of her childhood. Can we trust her memory and perceptions? Lesley: Even Jeanette's not telling the story in one consistent way. Patricia: No, she's not. That's right. She's using myth, she's changing point of view, and she's leaving out parts. For the Book Club 1 teachers, the text represents the postmodern notion of shifting and unstable perceptions of authorial privilege, perspective, and truth (Jarvis, 2000; Kooy, 1998a, b; Smith, 1996; Tierney & Lincoln, 1997). Patricia observes: ''Everyone is this contradictory—like the mother." Patricia continues: I think one thing that saves Jeanette, ironically, is her mother because her mother is this incredibly strong person [Mary: Yes]. She just has her own completely skewed perception of the world in the face of everything that contradicts it, and still, she holds fast. So, in a bizarre way, Jeanette's had that example. [Mary: Yes.] She's been taught a skewed perception of the

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world, but she's also seen women like Elsie and her mom who don't care, really, what other people think. Patricia reads between the lines offers a fresh perspective on the mother. In the process, Patricia contributes new knowledge and ways of seeing the mother to the group. Book Club 2 members also discuss the mother but begin by accepting the mother at face value (Jeanette's representation). Liz observes that she "didn't like the mother, really" and found her "disturbing." Melanie counters that although the mother was not particularly likeable, she found a quirky and admirable strength in her: "I looked at her and could see so many people I know . . . she has these crazy ideas but she's very committed to them. She says, "Everybody's a heathen," (23) and she sticks to her guns." "She may be funny," Liz argues, but: "I didn't like the fact that she didn't open up to anything. It was her way. Even . . . the way she put her daughter in front of the church. I thought, "What is going on?" I was so disturbed." Melanie acts like a foil to Liz's interpretation and continues: "She's totally screwed up, and I agree, there's lots of things for which I'd say, "Oh my god, she's just in her own world" but, on the other hand, she's full of energy. She's the one who baked the most for the church suppers." This conversation demonstrates how negotiation and difference in perspective mark the dialogue. The discourse moves reciprocally and democratically without the pressure to assume one perspective. One effect of the intersection of multiple perspectives in book club discourse relates to cultivating a tolerance for difference (Adams, 1986; Atwell-Vasey, 1998; O'Donnell-AUan, 2001). As the book club teachers continue to meet and develop relationships through dialogue and stories, they more clearly understand the individual perspectives held by the teachers in their group. As the teachers interiorize the voices of the others, they may consider and try on new perspectives in the group and individually. Teachers in both groups reported that they hear the voices of the other members as they read in the privacy of their homes. The point is that a range of perspectives and worldviews enrich the discourse and enlarge the teachers' knowledge and perspectives. 1.2.2

Gender, love, and sexuality

Critical issues of gender, love, and sexuality resonate throughout Oranges are not the only Fruit. In particular, the book details Jeanette's "coming of age," and "coming out." Her passage of adolescence is of particular interest to teachers (and teacher educators) since they deal directly and indirectly with adolescents. While most teachers acknowledge

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adolescence as a defined cultural passage of transition, a time for establishing an identity, discussions of gender, love, and sexuality (particularly sexuality) receive short shrift in discussions on secondary students and education. In a sense, the book confronts the teachers with this critical issue of adolescent life. 1.2.2.1 Gender Jeanette's upbringing cultivated a zeal for the church and a considerable familiarity with the Christian bible. Early in her adolescence, Jeanette, like her mother, expects to assume the traditional roles assigned to women (her mother encourages her to become a missionary, not a minister, for instance). Lesley and Patricia (book Club 1) discuss this issue: Lesley: These books [read in the book club] are connecting on that [gender] thread—What do you let women do? That whole part at the end, you know, she says that she [Jeanette] shouldn't preach because it's manly to do that. Patricia: Again, she's [Jeanette] strong enough and insightful enough to object to that. [Mary: Yes.] She says: ''No, no, no. Men are different, men are men, and I'm not" [Lesley: Yeah, sort of, heaven forbid you call me a man]. Lesley links the gender discussion to the lives of women in general when she observes: "We have here the underlying issue with women's rights and what we'll be allowed to do." They recognize that as women, they may "know" and "teach" differently from their male counterparts but that has received short shrift in the literature on teaching (Acker, 1995; Apple, 1985; Belenky et al, 1997; Biklen, 1995; Shore, 2000). The richness of this particular exchange comes in being with other women (Long, 2003). Book Club 2 teachers consider how being women influences and effects the ways they are learning to teach. Connecting the metaphor of mothering to teaching is not uncommon. They discuss what that might imply at this early stage of shaping their teaching identity: Liz: I think there's also a nurturing role. As a teacher, it's just inherent that you care about them as people and that you care that they do well. Kids will think: "Because she cares about how well I do, she must care about me." Some kids relate to you on a personal level and so they probably are the ones who would think that. You have kids who tell you everything, especially the girls. Right? They tell you about their little boyfriend troubles and whatever.

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Helen: But I'm thinking about the language you're using—nurturing, caring, right? For me, for first year, there are so many days when I come home and think, "I didn't realize my job had so much to do with being a mother." [Sandra: Oh my god, yeah.] Because they say the same words that I would use around a mother figure [Melanie: It's true.] [Sandra: Yes]. From the earlier book discussions in this group, it is apparent that these teachers recognize gender difference in teaching. They aptly name their personal conceptions of teaching as "mothering" (Ruddick, 1980), though, at this point, none is a mother. They assume and accept teaching as maternal, as caring and nurturing (Noddings, 1991). Though it may be too soon to expect the language for critical discourse on a broader conceptual scale, they seem to take the steps in the deliberate articulations of their own positions and actions as women teachers. 1.2.2.2 Love Love, in the time of adolescence, is a critical topic both in the novel and for the teachers of adolescents (or the teachers that teach them). Conventionally, most adults equate adolescent love (belonging to adolescents and at the same time, immature) as "puppy love" or "romantic love." Both Lesley (Book Club 1) and Melanie (Book Club 2) read the same quote from the book aloud to the others in their group: Romantic love has been diluted into a paperback form and sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere is still the original written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke, and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyers and never be destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy, [Laughter] (165) The teachers recognize the humor and truth of this statement as they discuss adolescence. A teacher in both groups reads this quote aloud and spontaneous laughter follows. Both groups tackle the idea and importance of romance and adolescents. Book Club 1 teachers discuss Jeanette's position on men and on sexuality. Patricia: . . . and then her fear of betrayal. On page 165 she says: "Of one thing I am certain. I do not want to be betrayed, but that's quite hard to say, casually, at the beginning of a relationship." Lesley: Yeah. I think that's so profound, right? Especially for people who have been hurt before. "By the way, I don't ever want to be betrayed."

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And then she says: "By betrayal I mean promising to be on your side and being on somebody else's" (166) and then she goes into Melanie. Patricia: She's making profound statements there, I think, of being dependent on people who really aren't up to the task and are going to hurt her. She says, '1 knew a woman in another place, perhaps she would save me. But what if she were asleep? What if she sleepwalked beside me and I never knew?" And so that's the thing—how tenuous it all is to have to rely on other people, to be vulnerable, and count on them. The betrayal is inevitable through the whole book. Why is it important to discuss the issue of adolescent love (and betrayal)? Through the dialogical exchanges, the ''coming of age" experiences in the book—the search for love and sexual identity in adolescence rings true to the teachers. These issues matter to teachers not only, in this case, because they also happen to be women, but because they explicitly (as teachers in schools) or implicitly (as teacher educators) needed Jeanette's story to understand themselves, and more importantly, to more deeply understand the depth and diversity of their adolescent students. 1.2.2.3 Sexuality Sexuality in adolescence has been neglected as a relevant element in understanding the education of adolescents. Sexuality has often been limited to a section of a health course that depicts the basic facts of sexuality, but rarely examines how it affects the lives and developing identities of adolescents. This may be particularly true for gay and lesbian youth. The book offers an insider's view of Jeanette's coming out. Both groups discuss the mother's stance. Melanie (Book Club 2) observed: "She says right in the beginning, she doesn't have sex or she doesn't want to." Melanie reads: She had a mysterious attitude towards the begetting of children; it wasn't that she couldn 't do it, more that she didn 't want to do it. She was very bitter about the Virgin Mary getting there first. So she did the next best thing and arranged for a foundling. That was me. [3-4] Book Club 2 teachers speculate about the mother's own sexual history. Her apparent asexuality (adopting Jeanette rather than using "conventional methods" of having children, for example) and religious fervor contributes to her lack of tolerance for and negative attitudes toward Jeanette's lesbianism.

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Shelly: I think she might be gay. I think at one time the mother tended to like women and then got her religion because—remember when they were going through the photo album where . . . Liz: Oh, the sister. I caught that too, right? She [Jeanette] saw the picture of that woman? Shelly: Yeah, on the page with the [photo] albums. [Liz: Right] All of a sudden, in the one little corner, there's a picture of a woman—the sister of the guy that she was going out with. And she said: *'Why is there the woman there?" And all of a sudden that picture was gone off the album page. Liz: I thought, "Hmm, interesting." I noticed that too, actually. In Book Club 1, Lesley initiates a discussion on the same topic: But the mom is so mixed, too. [Mary: Right] There's a strong suggestion that when that picture is taken out of the photo album that the mother had some kind of— It's like the daughter— Mary: With the pastor and the relationship? Patricia: The pastor in Africa? There are tons of indications that she's madly in love with him, I thought. Lesley: The whole thing falls apart on all these hidden sins that are . .. Patricia: —all related to sexuality in one way or another. [Lesley: That's right.]. The conversation in Book Club 1 begins with Lesley who raises the topic of the mother's debatable sexuality. Seemingly not clear about her comment, I redirect the conversation and, in effect, derail Lesley's intent to discuss the mother's possible lesbianism. As I re-read the transcript, I am reminded that listening is learning for cues to effectively move conversation forward (Bakhtin, 1986; Bruner, 1990). Nevertheless, Lesley explains: "That's why her daughter has gone astray because she's taken on this ambitious manly leadership role and therefore her sexuality has become manly, too." The point remains that adolescents (and their teachers) come to school seeing the world in ways cultivated by the stories told in families and in their lives outside of schools. Unless the stories are told, new stories of awareness, tolerance, and acceptance of difference cannot be constructed.

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Oranges are not the only Fruit took the teacher readers into young Jeanette's ''coming of age" and "coming out" story and in the process, heighten their awareness and consciousness of teaching a diverse range of adolescents. Jeanette's narrative "lived experience" provides a way for teachers to follow Jeanette's learning about her sexuality. Shelly (Book Club 2) initially expresses a tension between Jeanette's perspective and her position on sexuality: The whole book is not fitting into the traditional way of romance in adolescence and breaks out of traditional boundaries. Then, all of a sudden, with that quote, I thought, "You know what? She [Jeanette] hasn't progressed. She's defined her own line and is saying, "This is the way it should be." She just seemed very negative towards heterosexuality. I couldn't understand how that could be because you'd think that going through her experience, she would be tolerant of any kind of relationship. Shelly uses Jeanette's apparent intolerance toward heterosexuality to defend her current position on homosexuality. At the same time, Jeanette's story has been included with Shelly's stories. This becomes evident in the story of Jeanette's adolescence and her growing realization that she is gay. The teachers listen and recognize that adolescent students may face similar critical issues and crises in their lives. As Book Club 2 conversation proceeds. Shelly describes a history of intolerant views on homosexuality. She explains: So she'll [her mother] say, "Not that I have anything against those folks if they want to do it, but they are not going to heaven. It's a sin," and I'll say, "But how can you sit there and say that?" We'll try to get into these discussions but forget it. [Melanie: It doesn't usually work.] She starts quoting things from the Bible and then I'll try to counter that and, not having a strong theological base, I can't really support my arguments very well. They're more emotional, instinctual, you know. We'll argue back and forth and then it'll deteriorate into a screaming match. [Laughter] Finally, she says, "Well, you should go talk to the priest," and I say, "Well, you should go talk to him." Multiple stories enter Shelly's conversation on homosexuality. As the stories accumulate, differing views arise. In the earlier quote. Shelly steps back from her earlier resistance and opens possibilities for questioning and deconstructing her own understanding. Perhaps for the first time, she realizes a need to become more open, tolerant, and understanding of sexual differences. The opportunity to experience Jeanette's story provides a dialectic space, a way to renegotiate her perspective. Her role as a teacher—

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even of adult men—makes such critical thinking important, particularly as reflections of teacher beliefs impact practices in schools (Beattie & Conle, 1996; Biklen, 1995; Carter, 1990; O'Connell Rust, 1997; Rogers & Babinski, 2002). The book discussion generates provocative and unconventional discussions of gender and sexuality, particularly related to adolescent girls. Jeanette's story, while occurring primarily outside of school walls, allows the teachers to observe and reflect on their views and re-consider teaching that reflects personal and the professional knowledge (Clandinen, 2003). The possibility for such sensitive and critical discussions can occur only in trusting social contexts—a safe place to hear different perspectives and even "try on" a new way of seeing (Grossman & Wineburg, 2000; Palmer, 1998).

2.

TEACHERS AND TEACHING

The discussion of the book eventually links to stories of the teachers' lives. Both book clubs drift into their personal teaching stories from an identical point in the novel discussions: Jeanette's forced exit from her home and into the home of a former teacher. Melanie explains: What's really important is one line. Who is it that she goes to when she gets kicked out of the house at the end? It's a teacher [Helen: Yeah,] No, I mean at the end [Helen: Oh at the very end]. Yeah, when she finally says, "I've got to get out of here." It's one sentence. A teacher. Just one word—that's all she said. It was really interesting that she didn't mention it or really talk about that any more. Melanie (Book Club 2) is disappointed by Jeanette's failure to acknowledge and thank the teacher who took her in. They find Jeanette guilty of oversight into the sacrifice the teacher made on her behalf. Yet, no discussion of a similar event occurs in the first book discussion (Plainsong) at the beginning of the first year of teaching when the teacher Maggie Jones takes in the pregnant Victoria. While Maggie's contribution is clearly applauded in the book. Book Club 2 never raises the issue. Perhaps, so early in their careers, they are more student than teacher. They develop their teacherly perspective only as experience and knowledge develops. I do not, however, dismiss Maggie's story as bearing on the stories that the teachers develop. In the Plainsong discussion, they encountered Maggie and carry her story with them. The social exchanges of the book club may be an iceberg with much of what is learned remaining under the surface until a new story prompts a link, a looking back. At the end of their first full year of teaching, the novice teachers have developed their own first-hand stories

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about relationships with students. They have, at this point, more to work with. Book Club 1 discusses the same issue but approachs the effects of school and teachers on the lives of students from a different angle: Lesley: And the interesting thing is she takes refuge in the home of a teacher. Did you read that, when she leaves? [Mary: Oh, it's like Plainsong.] Yes. Mary: I never made that connection. Patricia: Mind you, the whole relationship there is a bit, I mean, didn't you get the sense that there were some power issues there too, with the teachers— [Lesley: Well, I was totally unsure . . .] and how consenting she is? Lesley: In my book — I'm not even sure what's going on with the teacher, but in my book, on page 136 at the very end, "It's decided then. I breezed into my mother with more bravado than courage. I'm moving out on Thursday.' 'Where to?' 'I'm not telling you.' 'You've got no money.' 'I'll work evenings as well as weekends.' In fact I was scared to death and going to live with a teacher who had some care for what was happening." I don't know who that teacher is. I don't know anything more but I was just surprised. "/ was scared to death and going to live with a teacher who had some care for what was happening. " So again, see, the school becomes first—"you don't go into that breeding ground" [Jeanette's mother's consistent warning] yet the breeding ground becomes a kind of second home and a support. Mary: Oh yeah, the teacher becomes her lifeline. The intertextual references (between Oranges are not the only Fruit and Plainsong) suggest that the book club stories add new stories to existing teacher knowledge. As the repertoire grows, teachers have more to work with as they continue to develop in their professional learning (Geertz, 1973).

2.1

Book Club 2: "This is the hardest year I've ever lived'' stories

Book Club 2 is at a critical point in teaching—^the end of their first induction year. It has been an overwhelming challenge. In spite of that or perhaps even because of that, they develop their book club into a viable

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community and culture for professional learning. It has become a safe place to tell and hear their personal stories of teaching. The book club provides a way to through the isolation (Brock et al, 2001; Capers, 2004; Cardwell, 2002;Rogoff, 1990). In the first set of teaching stories that follow, the novice teachers speak eloquently and openly about the struggles to find their way into teaching. They discuss issues that concern most first year teachers: classroom management, marking and evaluation, work (over)load, fragile and shifting teacher identities, and student-teacher relationships. They relate stories of successes and failures, of adolescents who challenge and, at times, appeared to undo them and those who come back to say, "Thanks." In this, ''the hardest year I have ever lived," [Melanie], they reveal (and remind me) about what it means to be a novice teacher in a complex profession in challenging social and political contexts. One of my mother's favorite sayings, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12, verse 34) may explain the phenomenon. The book club has become a critical site to articulate stories of the teaching life that cannot be told in their schools. From earlier book club experiences, the teachers have learned to expect that stories provide new insights and perspectives (Adams, 1986; Noori, 1995; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000). As they look back on the first year of teaching, the stories the novice teachers introduce include: (1) classroom management, (2) Learning to teach, (3) student/teacher relationships, (4) teacher identity, (5) re-viewing teaching, and, (6) teaching and learning in the book club. This section includes the lengthiest uninterrupted dialogue of the four book club chapters. 2.1.1

Induction: Stories of classroom management

The persistent problem of classroom management remains a discussion priority. Melanie approaches Shelly, who teaches in a Federal Men's prison: Melanie: Can I ask you a question about classroom management? [Shelly: Sure.] Do you need to deal with that? [Shelly: Yes.] Is that an issue for you? Do you have people talking when they should be writing notes, or what's—? Shelly: Yeah, I do. Actually— [Melanie: What do you say?] My biggest fear actually with being a teacher was classroom management. [Melanie: That was my biggest problem.] [Helen: Me too.] I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to handle it. So especially going into that [prison] atmosphere, I thought "Oh my god," —my worst fear magnified because not only [laughter] do I go into a classroom with fifteen inmates [Liz:

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They're murderers] Exactly. Half your class is murderers or sexual offenders, and you don't know how they're going to react. There's no guards coming through, right? Melanie: So what do you do? How do you deal with it? Do they try to intimidate you, or— Shelly: At first, it's sort of working out a process, of course. Melanie: Yeah, yeah, of course . . . . Shelly: You can have a guy in your class when suddenly, three guys— you have absolutely no idea who they are—come in to your class and start whispering—[Melanie: They're allowed to do that?] No they're not supposed to. But there's no guard to stop them from coming in, so it's my job to say: 'Tou know what? [Liz: Get out!] Who are you and why are you here?" [Helen: That's tough.] You have to approach these three men and say: "Excuse me. Out." Liz: That's hard to do with my kids, [laughing] Shelly: There's one huge biker guy in my class. I'm short for a woman and he is huge, and I have to look at him and say: "You know what? That's not appropriate in my class. You have to leave." When I'm sitting there, I'm kind of shaking inside but I have to be calm, and consistent. Inside, I'm thinking: "Show no fear. Show no fear." Melanie: You really have to do that? [Liz: Totally.] Helen: How do they respond to that? Are they usually—? Shelly: I haven't had too many problems. I've had a couple. They probably know that they can't do anything to hurt the teacher. That would get them in major trouble. [Helen: Yeah, that's more trouble for them,] [Melanie: They're already in trouble.] They're already in trouble. That's what I'm saying. So they're not going to — Helen: What was one of the incidents and how did you deal with it? You said you've had a few. Shelly: Yeah, I've had a few. The scariest for me was getting trapped in a room with an inmate who was very, very I caught him cheating. I caught

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him in this huge cheating ring. I just simply approached him and said: '1 caught you cheating. You can't do this." Anyway, five minutes later, I approached him on another topic and he just blew up and followed me into another room and I couldn't get out. He slammed the door and he— [Melanie: He trapped you?] Yeah, and he was just yelling in my face. We wear little personal alarms, and I should have pushed the alarm, but I didn't. I was just talking and being very logical, not reacting emotionally to the situation. That was the scariest. Mary: But did you think it helped not to push that button? Did you gain credibility with him, that you would have lost had you pushed that button? Shelly: In that particular incident, I don't know for sure. It could have gone either way. Melanie: Are you very strict in class? Shelly: No, because by nature, I'm not very strict. Helen: Yeah. That's my problem. My nature isn't like that either. It's hard for me to [be strict], especially when there are a lot of students being disruptive. Like now, after the [teacher] strike and the good weather, they were out of control. I have some real issues. So how do you—what do you do? Shelly: I'm always consistent. You have to be, especially because there are [prison] rules: they have to wear their institutional clothing. They have to be there at a certain time. So I'm always consistent with them. They always know the rules. But with other incidents that happened in my class, I found the inmates are my first and best defense. That's how I see it. For instance, I had one guy mouthing off in my class, really acting out of control. It just wasn't appropriate. The other guys just attacked, just got right on him, right away: **Get out of class. Go." I just had to sort of stand there as they dealt with the situation. [Mary: Wow.] I think that has to do with the bonding and creating an atmosphere in that community. In my class, it's sort of established now. I don't have a lot of problems . . . The other teachers inquire again about how Shelly manages her new teaching life in such a daunting (and potentially dangerous) context. The other teachers, having spent a year in the traditional secondary classrooms.

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express lingering doubts about everyday management issues. They want to know how Shelly copes. Her relationship in the group reflects a growing and authentic membership (Smith, 1987). The stories continue as Liz brings the teachers back to her classroom to reflect on the difficulties of simultaneously learning to teach and managing her students in her teaching—particularly in the opening months: Starting to teach is so hard. It seems like the management things overwhelmed me the most. [Mary: Is that right?] I don't know if it's just a normal emotional roller coaster at the beginning, but I was so worried about things like: What do I do if this kid is late? When do I send someone down [to the office]? If this person is giving me trouble, where do I go? I find because I'm in my first year, I always made big things out of little things. [Melanie: Everything is an issue.] Mary: Everything gets an equal amount of attention. [Helen: Yeah, yeah, an issue, right?] [Melanie: It's so true.] Liz points to the urgent need for practical strategies. Strangers to their new roles, specific environments, and the profession, they need help and support. While some schools provide introductions and initiation for their new teachers, the teachers in this study had to find their own ways in the first weeks and months of their induction. It made their transition into teaching unduly stressful and complicated (Gold, 1996). Helen tells a story of her classroom management as she tried to explain her approach: But I find that with the kids [in school], too. I find out which kids are the leaders in the group, [Mary: Oh yes.], who affect the class dynamics. When they're on my side, they do class control for me. Liz: Those are the ones you work on. [Helen: It's the best way to go.] I find right at the beginning, the borderline litde disturbers—you give them responsibility, you give them little privileges, and then see how they, most times, they will back you up, like you said. Mary: I tried to target them the first day. Put my hands around their shoulder, and say: 'T can't go on without you." Seriously. I found that was my best help because the class dynamics could go either way. [Liz: Totally.] It could make my life hell [Helen: Miserable, yes] or make my life heaven.

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Helen: I try to reason with them. I think this is where age makes a difference too, because with the kids you can only reason so much. They're still kids, right? They're still very emotional. Their emotions are all over the place. Always, I try to reason with them first and say: ''Look, we need to get some things done here and we can either do it in a fun way and enjoy each other's company and have this be an open, interactive learning atmosphere or if youre not going to do that, we're going to have to do it the other way, which is really boring, strict, everybody be quiet, put your hand up. Who wants to do that? That's what we do with little kids. We don't want to do that with you guys. We have to create some kind of agreement of how this class is going to function — (a) not everyone can be speaking at the same time, etc., etc. These are common sense things that they forget because they're kids. But then, I don't know. Sometimes I find, it's almost like you have to keep reminding them. They forget all the time. Sometimes, I get so worn out that I lose it, and I just start yelling at them [laughing]. [Liz: Well you're human too, right.] I kicked a kid out of my class for a week. I told her not to come back for a week. Mary: These trials seem to be a part of becoming a teacher. Helen: But it tore me up. The thing was that when I did it, I was—you try to stay very calm and not react. Sometimes I catch myself reacting, which I have to learn not to do. [Mary: I have that too.] This kid was egging me on, because I was trying to—She had her chances, right. This was over a two-week period. She had all her chances: individual talks: ''Okay, you're off the hook this time. Go, I understand." Next time, "okay." "Okay, next time, we're going to do the punishment thing. You're going to have detention." Next time, I said: "Okay, now you do something reflective. Why are you doing this? Why shouldn't you do this? What should I do to you if you continue to do it?" sort of thing. She says: "blah, blah, blah." Liz: You know what, though? You will find for one kid it ends up being a huge process and another kid will respond after the first warning and I think each case is different. If 90% of the time you're calm—having a sense of humor really helps, right? [Helen: Oh it's huge.] That's what totally saves me. Helen: That day the kids were pushing and pushing and pushing me. We went through this whole thing. I thought we tried to resolve it in every rational way possible. One girl was still acting out and being really

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disruptive to the point where I couldn't ignore it. If they're disruptive just a little bit, you can turn a blind eye to it and carry on. But she wasn't. She said to me: "Well why don't you just kick me out?" I said: '*Well, if you want to leave, leave." She said: 'Well, maybe I will." I said: '*Well, why don't you, then?" She said: "I think I just might." [Laughter] "You know what?" I said: " Just go. You know what else? Don't come back for a week." Of course, I was totally angry. I didn't even know if I could do that. Later, the Vice Principal said to me: "Well, I talked to her, and she was quite contrite. She had no business giving you all that attitude and everything. I think I had a good talk with her." So I thought: "Oh, okay." I was just about to leave, and she [the Vice Principal] says to me: "Oh and by the way, she told me that you told her not to come back for a week." I said, "Yeah." She says: "Well, you know what? That might be a good thing. I'll keep her down on the bench here, in the VP's office." So I gave her work to do and she did it. But I felt so bad. I thought it was horrible kicking someone out of class. I think, "This is your home, too." This is our home. This is our group, right? During the next class, I said: "Well, you notice that Alice isn't with us today, and she won't be with us for the rest of the week. I just have to say that that was a horrible thing for me to do. I found that very difficult, but we have to work as a team. If you're not going to help me, then you leave me no recourse but to kick you off the team. That's what happened." Liz: That's good—especially because it happened in class. If you were to back down and let her back in, that sends a huge message too, right? Shelly: You know what? That actually makes me feel good. [Liz: Me too.] You know why? I really, I really, respect you as a person, and as a teacher. If you can have bad days like that, it's okay, because then I can have bad days, too. Helen tells her early stories from a confident position ("When they're on my side, they do class control for me") but by the next conversational turn, she seems to have less assurance; the language is less firm ("I try to reason with them . . . They're still kids, right?"). As the discussion progresses, she becomes increasingly less secure. She reveals the story that lay beneath the confident opening story: "Sometimes I get so worn out that I lose it, and I just start yelling at them." In spite of encouragement from the other teachers, Helen details her own sense of failure and disappointment at her inability to deal with the management problem in one of her classes (Schmidt & Knowles, 1995). The developing story is educative for Helen and the others. Helen takes a critical step back to re-story the experience:

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I think if the female VP hadn't been there, I don't know how I'd gotten through. I don't know that I could go explain my feelings to the male VP. Mary: You need somebody—somebody who believes you and believes in you, who will stand there with you. Helen's opening "cover story" of a self-assured and competent classroom manager becomes increasingly uncertain and fragile. As Helen tells and simultaneously re-thinks her stories, she recognizes that others have similar experiences and becomes more open and honest in her story telling. This courageous move becomes possible only as she feels increasingly safe in the group and learns to trust the others. The teachers share the common issue of classroom management in the early years of teaching. I wonder if they could have benefited from a course in classroom management in their pre-service program? Helen suggests that she may have handled the classroom crises more skillfully with more background knowledge and experience. To achieve a more knowledgeable stance, Helen suggests role-playing possible classroom scenes. She notes: "Think of role-playing as a teaching exercise. Think how much more beneficial it would be for us to have had role-playing. [Melanie: Where?] [Shelly: I agree. Let's be these students]." Helen probably has a point. The kind and amount of role-playing, however, may not begin to capture the classroom management possibilities nor the teachers' ability to recall them in the middle of a classroom situation. Experience operationalizes the abstract, imagined classroom worlds. IVIelanie's ability to admonish Jeanette's neglect of her former teacher's gesture in taking her in may not have been possible without her year as a teacher. Pre-service education, by its very nature is abstract. Yet, the novice teachers have made the point clearer to me: imagining some classroom experiences around management issues may be helpful. To that end, I have begun implementing teaching situations for my pre-service students based on the stories and suggestions of the novice teachers in the study. Before going out to do their student teaching, the student teachers role-play critical classroom management problems. As the scene is being played, observers intervene to ask questions or offer suggestions. The initial responses have been very positive and encouraging. The novice teacher stories have entered my pre-service teacher education classes (Kubler-LaBoskey, 2002). 2.1,2

IManaging the marking

The marking load, particularly for English teachers, has traditionally been significantly higher than in other disciplines. English teachers teach

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writing and are expected to collect and mark student writing. Add the new demands for increased tests, documentation, and student marks and these novice teachers find themselves burdened under the weight of the workload: Melanie: See, my problem is that I got to the point where I just couldn't do any more work. [Mary: Yeah, of course]. I'm very embarrassed about how long it's taken me to get stuff back to my kids. I am marking a paper now that I've had for a month. I have three Grade 12 English classes. They're different classes so it's all different types of marking. I also have some students with Individual Study Plans this year. I learned I gave my kids way too much work, and now I have piles of marking. I just got their exams yesterday, I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed of myself about— [Liz: Don't be.] [Mary: It's a learning curve.] [Liz: Totally.] No, there was a point in May where I shut down. I just didn't do anything. The problem is I wasn't doing any work, but for 24 hours a day I was guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty that I wasn't marking, I wasn't planning, my lessons were turning into crap. I was making stuff up: "Okay, what am I going to do? Okay, we'll do this today." Sometimes those are the best lessons, right? [Mary: Yeah.] Sometimes, those are the worst lessons. [Mary: Yeah.] Does that stop? [Italics added] Melanie's crushing marking load story signals the need to re-think the pressures on teachers to produce so many marks for students. Her poignant story expresses the effects of the time and effort required to mark papers and record copious numbers and scores in the record books to satisfy increasing demands of "evidence" of learning. Helen adds her story: I found that I felt overwhelmed with marking. Just in this last little while, I took in an assignment and looked at a couple. The first one took me an hour and half to mark because the students didn't do this, they didn't do that, they didn't address this, or they didn't address that. They left out major parts of the assignment. So I looked at a couple more and I thought: "Forget it. I have 90 of these to mark." I gave them all back. I said, "Evidently I wasn't clear enough on what the expectations are. So here we go again." I photocopied a model. I said: "Here is a model. Compare yours. Does yours look like this?" I gave them another five days to do it. I find sometimes taking them in, doing the quick look, and seeing the major omissions and giving it back to them to have another run at it reduces your marking. The less you have to point out, the faster it is for you to mark, right? [Shelly: That's true.] But I don't know. Liz: The other thing is, too, . . . .you have to look at it and say, "Okay, it's not the end of the world if this doesn't get done."

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Shelly: I found that I delegated responsibilities. [Mary: Oh yeah.] I want to do everything. But you know what? [Melanie: I'm horrible at delegating.] Other people are capable of doing things. I wanted to decorate my room and put some stuff up so I just gave construction paper and put out markers, pens, glue, and said, '*Okay, this is what I'd like" and just whoosh, there's a whole wall [decorated]. You're not going to be able to do it. Then there's the marking that comes up! I thought, *'You know what? You guys can mark this. When I go through it [after they mark it], it's not always marked correctly, but at least the majority of the work is done. Liz: Sometimes it helps if you can change things. We had a huge pilot project in curriculum [that required] presentations and huge written components. There were stupid media term quizzes that were basically memorizing, so I turned it into an activity. We played Pictionary [a board game]. We took the terms they had to learn and they had to draw what they were trying to say [the term] and the others had to guess. Or Jeopardy [a television show]. This is the best thing to cover so much material—just this little game. Helen: At times I get the class to mark [papers]. [Shelly: Totally.] I figure that way, it's more of a learning process. I never give them their own paper to mark. They mark someone else's but they get to see other responses given. Then they think about what response they gave. Right? I think it reinforces the learning. But for marking stuff— I've had to rethink that, too—how much I'm marking and what I'm marking. What I decided is that marking is always more onerous when the job isn't done the way you want it done. Right? So if the essay is full of errors, grammatical, typing, spelling errors etc., etc., then it makes your work so much harder because you have to point all that out. [Mary: No you don't.] Well, I guess you don't but it depends on what your criteria are . . . Through interactive dialogue, the teachers sometimes find their way to strategies through rather painful and awkward trial and error learning (Elbaz, 1983). They feel caught in a paper maelstrom that threatens to engulf them. Pressure to produce scores and time spent preparing and marking tests replaces time better spent planning and learning—particularly for novice teachers. The clarity of their ''marking" stories highlights the need to consider how novice teachers are inducted into their professional lives and their need for ongoing support and learning of evaluation strategies and negotiating their marking responsibilities.

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Learning and teaching strategies

Much of the induction process consists of learning to teach. In the context of the book club, teachers trade stories and experiences that contribute to the learning of the others in the group. The following two stories illustrate teaching strategies and learning processes. Helen introduces a story of a writing experience in her class: Helen: We did this really interesting exercise that was fun. The students wrote personal essays after I'd shown them the Facts and Arguments page of the Globe and Mail. I said, "Your job is to submit your essay to the Globe's Facts and Arguments. You need to go online [to the website] and find out what the requirements are, write the essay, etc." They gave their essays to me—full of errors. I couldn't believe it, I said, "I thought this was your polished copy?" I pointed out where, but just with the code. Like *'sp" [spelling error] and gave it back to them and said, "Okay, fix it. Peer edit it again. Have someone else read it or hand it in to me. I will mark it but I'm not going to mark up your paper because it's getting sent to the newspaper. Also, part of the process was to do a cover letter. They had to provide the envelope with the stamp. I sent them off, of course, but a whole bunch of them didn't follow the requirements. The editor wrote back. Every kid who did follow instructions got their own letter back. But the ones that didn't, got a group letter addressed to me: "We are sorry but we have had a lot of submissions at this time. Thank you for submitting." I said, "Now here's the real reasons a lot of you didn't get considered. First, not the proper length." We went through this whole thing about requirements are requirements. The real world functions on them. Right? I said: "In this class, if you don't meet requirements, what happens? It affects your mark, right? In the world, different things happen to you. If you don't pay your rent on time, you get kicked out. People don't like that. We went through the letter from the newspaper. It was hilarious: not proper length, too many spelling errors, not proofed. I just read it out to them. I thought: "Here you go, it's not just me" because they look at me and think: "Oh, phhh." You're the teacher, preacher-teacher, right? Liz: But the lesson is that they learn by experience, right? They have to do it to a specific standard— Mary: But you can also go another way. They can begin by examining several essays from "Facts and Arguments," and figure out how these essays work, how they begin, and how long they are, for example.

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Helen: That's what we did. We read four or five of them first. We started that way—reading them first, and then writing them. So they read *Tacts and Arguments" for a while first. We talked about the text. We talked about the style and the format—how it works. Then we discussed the requirements. As soon as one kid found something out, we shared it. The first time I saw their papers I saw that they all used different fonts. There was no font requirement so they were all using different fonts and font sizes, which meant that the papers were different lengths. On a few kids' papers I wrote: *Ts this the required length?" because it didn't seem to be, right? Though no publication of the essays from this class resulted from the writing lessons, Helen gratefully accepts the practical and helpful advice from the editor. I interpret her response to the students' writing as a misdirected focus on the technical: It's easy enough to just print the number of words on the bottom of the page. Of course, that's what we've experienced and lived with in our own schooling. It's hard to try to turn traditions upside down. I would say that the very last thing you consider in writing are the technical aspects and the very first thing you consider is the global, more meaningful, early efforts at writing an essay. Anyway, I'm hoping that these issues can be brought to this table. The conversation with Helen ends with my reaction that, in hindsight, does little to move either my knowledge of induction and writing instruction or Helen's ability to make sense of writing instruction in her classes. Steering Helen in another pedagogical direction effectively suppresses her attempts to create an authentic writing problem. I seem to complicate her problem further rather than pursue the effectiveness of her grounded approach by using an actual writing project to teach writing. My directives may well reach beyond Helen's "zone of proximal development" (Vygotsky, 1992). At this point, having heard stories from the teachers about their burdensome marking responsibilities and the need to find ways to control the paper load, I offer an alternative strategy of documenting informal assessment during the class: I'm going to give you another little hint that is very helpful for me in tracking student evaluations. Every day I teach, I have a column in my record book that names an activity we do in class, for example, a set of questions about a reading. During class, I give a check mark for completion. I have many entries by the end of the term. So I haven't had to take any of those class assignments home. But I have—

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Melanie: What do you mean? Like if you do that—? Mary: I walk around the room. For instance, if we're going to do a writing derby, we're going to write for ten minutes. Then I will check and make sure that all those people who were there did that. I'm done with it. By walking around, I know exactly what they're doing, who's getting stuck, who doesn't know how to do this, and sometimes even what help they need. That's a lot more than you're going to learn from anything you collect, I can tell you that right now. Melanie: So they get a check if they're doing the work well. [Mary: Yeah.] They don't get a check if they're not doing the work [Mary: Right.] exactly the way you want it. [Mary: Or if they're not doing the work.] But I've got kids who will write like four sentences. So do they get a check? Mary: Well, start with a timer. Liz: You know what? Maybe I can help. I do that same thing. Every English class I do silent reading at the beginning, mostly because I want to read too, right? It's good. It calms them and gets them kind of focused. Mary: I get them to sign in for homework. [Liz: Sure, yeah.] You walk around and spot check.They sign in, and if they didn't do the assignment, they get a zero. These are coping mechanisms. It makes you very busy during class time but it's preferable to taking home bundles of marking. [Helen: Oh I hate not being busy. Yes, and reading it at home.] Helen, when I hear you, it sounds like you are taking away their responsibility. You tell them where the spelling mistakes are. Sorry that's their job. [Helen: That's their job.] While this story may help teachers learn about, and even apply, practical strategies for dealing with marking and organizing, my instructions again appear problematic. First, I ignore Liz, moving past her comments to continue my own ''story." Liz concedes: ''Yeah, sure." Next, I remind Helen that she assumes responsibilities outside of her teaching responsibilities ("Sorry, that's their job."). While I establish the book clubs as democratic and consider myself a member among members, this points to the difficulties of negotiating power structures (in my case, as their professor the year before). For me, the road to equity and knowledge distribution proved recursive—two steps back and one step forward. Analyzing the transcript

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documents and the opportunity to re-story the stories told in the book club re-situate my teacher knowledge. 2.1.4

Relationships and relational learning

Opportunities to learn in social contexts involve developing relationships between teacher and students and among the students themselves. Even in the early years of teaching, the novice teachers recognize a certain symbiosis between the relational and content learning in their classes (Rogoff, 1994; Vygotsky, 1992; Wenger, 1998; Wertsch, 1993). They, too, need to make space for learning in the context of a learning community. Liz tells a story of a critical classroom incident that challenges the expectations and knowledge of her students: I can't believe—some kid was totally falling asleep in my class. That pisses me right off. So to the kids I say: *'Okay, don't say anything." At the end of the class, I said to him [the sleeping student]: "Oh, time to go to bed. You've got to stop falling asleep. You've got to go to bed earlier. Just to stop falling asleep in my class. And he said, ''Oh I'm sorry. Miss. I was working till 2:00 in the morning." I said, ''Oh." And suddenly, I have a different perception. He says to me, "I'm so sorry." He's really apologetic. If I had just come right out and said, "Get out of here," then he would have hated me, right? [Helen: You know it.] Liz learns that peremptorily judging a student backfires (to her credit, she allowed him to state his case). She learns about the student and in the process, opens the way for a relationship to develop and opens a path to learning in her classes (O'Connell Rust, 1997). The idea of developing relationships through communities of learning is a particular challenge for Shelly who teaches in a Federal Medium Security Prison for men. Yet, even here, as Shelly's story explains, relationships are relevant in creating a meaningful learning environment for her prison classes: I know each student personally. [Helen: That helps]. I know about their kids, their wives, and why they're there [in prison]. Some guys are going through extra court battles. People—their aunts, brothers—have died during the time [they've been incarcerated]. They come and talk to me. Knowing them and knowing that I actually take an interest in them, is a huge thing. [Mary: Yeah.] Developing relationships with students helps teachers see them as individuals (not as a set of scores, or a "class" as in, "this class has a reputation"). Liz's example above (sleeping student) promises a changing

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attitude toward the student (Hollingsworth, Dybdahl, & Minarek, 1993) and opening up relational possibilities. Liz reflects: I think there's a nurturing role as a teacher, It's just inherent. Caring in the sense, you care about them [students] as people, so you care that they do well. They may interpret that as: ^'Because she cares about how well I do, she must care about me." Developing relationships with students has an impact on teaching effectiveness (Mahari, 2004). Beattie (2001) suggests that "good teachers are centrally concerned with the creation of authentic relationships and a classroom environment in which students can make connections between the curriculum of the classroom and the central concerns of their own lives." Mahari found "I needed to establish relationships with the students that could not be achieved entirely within the context of the classroom" (2004, 470). I ask Shelly about her relationship with prison inmates: Shelly, do your students express appreciation? Shelly: They do actually, and— [Helen: But they're older, right?] Mary: Yeah, but they're prisoners, Helen: But I think age makes a big difference. There's a big difference between 15 year-olds and 20-year-olds, I think, in terms of the emotional. Shelly: Yeah. We have everyone from 18 to 65. But they do [express appreciation]. It's really interesting because not only do you have the teacher-student relationship, but you have the male-female issue and, too, it's the ''what's appropriate?" because not only do you have general school rules but you have the prison rules. It's funny sometimes how it comes out. They'll try to catch you while you're in your classroom alone and no one is there so they can say: "You know what? You really taught me a lot." Melanie: Do they do that, a lot? Shelly: They do. They do. Shelly grasps the importance of positive reinforcement as a way to break through the fa9ade of her students. She comes to understand more clearly in the telling. Personal and professional experiences including student-teacher relationships affect, develop, and shape how teachers construct and develop

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their teacher identities (Rogers & Babinski, 2002). A year in the classroom shifts and alters their perceptions, broadens their understanding, and at the same time, casts doubts on the effects and efficacy of their teaching. On the whole, they feel more like students—learning as they go. For these novice teachers, a sense of teacher-self develops through opportunities stories to tell, listen, read, and write about their personal learning and understanding of teaching through telling stories. 2.1.5

What does it mean to teach, to be a teacher?

Every book club conversation with this group includes a discussion on what it means to be a teacher. The stories they tell acknowledge changes, new knowledge, a loss of innocence and idealism, and professional growth. The everyday of teaching exceeded their every imaginable expectation before September. At this point, as the first year of teaching draws to a close, they tell stories of their first critical year. Helen begins: I had someone who just graduated from here [Teacher Education] this year call me up and say: "What was first year like?" [Melanie: Hah, how do you sum that up in a 7-hour conversation?] I said: "There's nothing— I'm sure you've heard this from various people, that it's a very difficult year, and that you need a lot of support. Make sure you've got your support systems in place, and be prepared for a lot of work, etc. I'm sure you've heard that from everyone." I said: "What I cannot explain to you is how unprepared I was for the emotional roller coaster that this year has been, for me. I've been overwhelmed with the emotions that I feel. You just don't know," I said, "There's all these things you don't know. You don't know. Nobody tells you all the administrative stuff you're going to be dealing with." Melanie: I think that makes the difference. I don't think my school is that difficult. I think every school is difficult. I feel—It's difficult, don't get me wrong. This is the hardest year I have ever lived [italics mine]. It's because of the support system I have that I've been able to survive. I could never imagine having to teach at my school and not have—at any school—like Lucy [a member not present] — [Helen: Yeah] Lucy had no one. She had herself and that was it. Personal stories capture and even explain the challenges of teaching and induction. In a reflective moment, Melanie sighs: "This is the hardest year I have ever lived." Helen wonders: "Does it ever stop?" Lucy adds: "I've been overwhelmed with the emotions I feel," and, shaking her head adds, "All these things you don't know."

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Induction has been called a roller coaster year. It operates collaterally and on multiple levels of individual experiences and programs. This makes transition from student to teacher difficult to experience and to understand (Beattie, 2002; Britzman, 2003; Haight Cattani, 2002; Kooy, in press; Moffatt & Moffatt, 2003; Schmidt, & Knowles, 1995). The need for ongoing support in the early years has been made clear and is increasingly evident in research on teacher induction that focuses on new support programs and structures (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Evans, 1998; Gold, 1996; Haight Cattani, 2002). 2.1.6

Learning as social practice in the book club

In spite of the exhausting first teaching year, the novice teachers maintain their commitments to the book club community throughout this first year. The draw seems to be rooted in relationships, shared experiences, and learning in a novice teacher community: Mary: I am astounded when I hear the conversations here, the deep discussions we have already had about our lives, our teaching, our experiences that help us to talk our way through critical issues. [Melanie: That's what I love about this.] Away from the school [Melanie: Exactly.] so you're not worrying about a personal statement finding its way to your school or department [Helen: Isn't from there.] [Liz: Yeah. It's so true.] Helen: But I think there's also another reason. I relate to everyone here because we're all new to teaching but we're also the same type of teacher. We're all very committed to the students. [Mary: That's why you're here.] At the end of the first year, these young, novice teachers have created a community and found a shared purpose. So important did this feature of their induction become, they attended faithfully at a time when the added responsibilities of participating in a book club could have easily become untenable. Instead, the teachers noted the personal and professional value of the book club ('That's what I love about this.) It became a stable center in their otherwise chaotic and uncertain lives. They volunteered to create a book club before they understood the intensity and time-consuming process of teacher induction. Because of their early career stage, they recognized they "need[ed] a lot of support." For this group, the book club presented conditions, contexts, and content for effective learning. In it, they re-storied their shared experiences of teaching to (a) make observations ("Starting to teach is so hard. It seems like the managerial things overwhelmed me the most"); (b) ask questions ("How do they respond to that?"); (c) listen

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actively ("What was one of the incidents and how did you deal with it? You said you had a few); (d) convey their personal challenges and struggles ("Sometimes I get so worn out that I lose it, and I just start yelling at them"), and, (e) build on their existing and tacit knowledge to "name," and negotiate new understanding and knowledge (Dewey, 1938; Vygotsky, 1992). Hence, the book club functioned as context and vehicle for support and learning in a community of like-minded and novice teachers (Floriani, 1993; Grumet, 1991; Rogoff, 1990, 1994; Sorenson, 1998; Sumara, 1996; Trimmer, 1997). Through the stories in the book and in the group, the novice teachers learned to see teaching as spiral-iterative development that contrasts sharply with traditional models. It is continuous but goes forward and backward, inside and out. It means making sense and decisions while developing personal practical knowledge of teaching (Clandinin, 2003; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) through experience (Dewey, 1938). The teachers socially constructed new possibilities for teaching (Arendt, 1978; Bakhtin, 1986; Barnes, 1995; Clark, 2001; Putnam & Borko, 2000; O'Donell-Allan, 2001; Shotter, 1993). Their unconventional bid to participate in and structure their own teacher development in the induction phase of their teaching evolves and develops through their "telling stories." They broke new ground and created new boundaries and possibilities for lifelong professional learning.

2.2

Book Club 1: Teaching stories

The teaching stories are a surprising feature of this particular book club discussion of the experienced teachers. The classroom stories emerge and multiply. Like their novice teacher counterparts, these teachers discuss the book and leave the novel to relate stories of pedagogical strategies and perspectives on learning. The stories below evolve in a discourse cycle that moves from on-site classroom-based strategies ("What are puzzle poems?") and issues (attendance and teaching "general" track students) to off-site educational experiences such as presentations in workshops and conferences. The movement begins with teachers teaching students and moves to teachers teaching teachers. Only three book club members are present at this session: Patricia (Secondary English teacher), Lesley (instructor in Teacher Education), and me (faculty member in Teacher Education). Both Lesley and I have been elementary and secondary schoolteachers. Together with Patricia, we have almost forty years of elementary and secondary school teaching experience. For all that, we spend a surprising amount of time raising issues and questions. The stories represent a cycle—from knowing to uncertainty, from learning to teaching, from teaching students and to teaching other teachers.

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Four distinct themes emerge: (1) issues in teaching, (2) strategies in teaching, (3) learning, and (4) teaching teachers. 2.2.1

Issues in teaching

The teacher stories provide opportunities to explain, query, and learn on the broader educational landscape. Their telling stories include stories of: (a) boys and literacy (particularly reading), (b) attendance, (c) English as a Second Language, and (4) social class and gender. 2.2.1.1 Literacy issues Boys' literacy has been the focus of considerable attention in recent research (Millard, 1997) and teacher resource materials (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). 2,2,LLI

Boys and literacy

Mary: One of my [Graduate] students went to hear Bruce Pirie talk on boys and literacy recently. He's publishing a book on the subject. In the talk, apparently, he suggested one reason that boys resist ''reflecting" [in journals] is because they need to do an activity before they think about it. If thinking comes before the action, it's seen as preemptive and they resist. I found this interesting. One thing that I've been doing in my classes both in high school English and teacher education classes for the is a ''puzzle poem" which is a poem with the title removed and no mention of the specific title words in the poem. Small groups of students work their way through the poem trying to figure out the missing title. They try to solve the problem in small groups. The males seem to pick this strategy up with zeal and I never really thought about or understood why. Maybe that's one reason. The problem of boys and literacy has been on the research agenda for some years now. The evidence seems to point to finding ways for teachers to implement a wider and more appropriate set of texts and practices that move beyond fictions and connect to their personal knowledge and lives. While girls seemed to have moved to the margins of the research, their literacy needs and experiences also need to reflect and connect to their personal knowledge and lives (Schweikart, 1986). In a rapidly changing world, "literacy" has become a complex set of multi-dimensional "literacies," and "critical" has been attached to practices that affect how students understand the roles of texts, culture, and social practices develop their identities and places in the world. Both boys and girls need critical literacy practices to participate effectively in a democracy (Horton & Freire, 1990). One way to

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deconstruct the entrenched and familiar stories of literacy is to begin learning through telling the stories and finding new stories to tell. 2.2.1,1.2 Stories of literacy in schools Lesley follows my story with a literacy story from her pre-service Psychology class, a group of mostly male students in a 'Technical" Teacher Education program for skilled crafts people (e.g., mechanics, woodworking) who will teach in secondary schools. I'd say that 80% of my [pre-service teacher education] Tech students told me that when they are out on practicum, those kids in Grade 11 and 12— those boys—can't do anything. They cannot read. [Patricia: They can't write either, obviously.] One young woman told me [when I visited the class]: That girl's a hairdresser and she can't spell "hair." As I re-read this story, I was reminded of a student teacher in my English Methods class. In her Drama practicum, in a "basic" (lowest track) Drama class, she asked the Grade 10 students to line up alphabetically. When they did not get into line, she concluded: 'They're in Grade 10 and they don't even know the alphabet!" In response to her story, I suggested that the students might have balked because they felt insulted ("She thinks we don't even know the alphabet"). She looked puzzled, unconvinced. While these two brief stoires highlight what students, apparently, cannot do, I suggest finding out what they do know and speak to them as individuals and persons: ("She's an artist with a head of hair," and, "I've never seen such a sharp wit in the "improv" games!"). Part of this results from making assumptions and generalizing across populations in schools with "tracking" that continues to leave some students at the bottom of the social and academic ladder (Wells & Oakes, 1996; Yonazawa, 1997). Research indicates that race, economic position, and behaviour affecgt placement in tracks. The stakes and consequences leave a mark—at times indelible—on students whose 'labels' stigmatize and affect them (Loveless, 1999; Oakes, J, 1985, 1990; Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997; Slavin, 1990; Wheelock, 1992). This story needs telling and re-telling (Wheelock, 1992) to expose and reconstruct the systemic bias in selection and to find new ways to educate and organize students that reflect critical consciousness of principles.

2.2.1.1.3 Reading stories as performance The earlier story of the alphabetical lineup in Drama leads to several more stories of reading:

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Mary: When I was in Michigan recently to do a talk, I was able to sit in on my daughter's Grade 9 Drama class. She has seven identified [remedial] students who signed up to try out for parts in a play. [Patricia: Identified Learning Disabled?] Yes. So [they're trying out for] The Fifteen-minute Hamlet. They each went up, and could not get through the text without painful fumbling. But Tracey never made a comment or stepped in to help. She didn't say a word. They had signed up for those parts so she let them try out, I sat there and thought, with all my years of experience, could / do that? Patricia: This reminds me of my first year in the public school when I had students perform these scenes in Hamlet and I let them form groups. I had four Chinese Canadian students form a group and they went up and did their presentation. You could not make sense of a single word and I was trying very hard not to laugh because it was so funny. The whole thing was completely incomprehensible. I was sitting at the back of the class just trying so hard not to laugh at this mess I'd gotten myself into. But what impressed me the most was that the rest of the class just sat there politely and quietly through the whole tedious process and clapped at the end. I just thought, "Wow." Stories of students unable to carry out minimal school literacy tasks (spelling "hair," for instance) perpetuate existing beliefs that literacy levels are on a precipitous decline: students can no longer read, write, or spell (McQuillan, 1998; Schrag, 1997; Smith, 1987). On a school evaluation team of a private and prestigious girls' school this year, I was approached by one teacher who regaled me with tales of girls who did not know their grammar and that she, teacher of law and economics, felt obliged to step in and teach them (taking away precious time from her course). And then came the familiar line, "When I was in school, students knew their grammar in elementary school." Schrag (1997) calls this view one of many "near myths." The literacy failure story is told and repeated so effectively that each new crop of pre-service students express their fears about teaching English to a student population that cannot read or write: "How will they read the novels? Write essays? How will I teach them basic grammar?" When I ask how they know this as a certainty, most cannot cite the source of their knowledge. Have politicians and the media who repeatedly echo the refrain embedded this story into the collective consciousness (Kooy, 2003)? Experienced teachers, too, are caught in a teaching culture they both resist (Patricia's story with her student teacher Lily related earlier is one example) and accept (such as the commonly accepted beliefs of declining

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literacy) (McQuillan, 1998; Useem, 1990). It is a complex conundrum. Without telling stories that unpack and problematize the conventional cultures and practices, teachers, without whom change cannot occur (Fullan, 2001), will be left without the resources and knowledge necessary to rebuild the culture and practices of teaching that reflect the shifting perspectives. 2.2.1.2 Issues of class attendance Attendance patterns in any given class may be a reflection of the culture and context of the teachers and students. They vary widely across schools and university classes. In the first story, Patricia uses a suggestion to read aloud when some her students have reading difficulty to tell her story of the problem of attendance in her school. Attendance is something that I would really like to spend some time addressing at some point. You have to read some reading assignments aloud so you can start and finish within your fifteen minutes of reading time because no one is ever there [in class] consistently. [Mary: Or you could keep attendance] But then do what with it? I think that's one of the issues for a teacher who decides that she's going to set up her classroom democratically and use dialogic modes of teaching. You end up with students who have been so disenfranchised that they're not even buying into the democracy. [Mary: Oh yeah]. They've bought out of the concept [Mary: Absolutely] so you can try and try and try to give them a voice, but they don't take it seriously—I think it's going to require tremendous creativity on the teacher's part to get them [students] invested back into the system. This issue troubles Patricia deeply as she begins to challenge "normalized" attendance patterns. Through hearing the other teaching stories, she becomes aware of alternate possibilities. While she introduces the issue (''spend some time addressing" attendance), she seems uncertain. To rationalize the implausibility of remedying the attendance problem in her school, Patricia shifts the focus to the students; she challenges the concept of a "democratic" classroom because students resist (Ruddick, 1988). She introduces the topic using "they" and mid-sentence, switches to "you." She points to reluctant, "don't take it seriously" students who "bought out of the concept of democracy." Why did neither Lesley nor I ask her to explore and explain further? Absenteeism was a problem in teacher education as well. Lesley tells a story of attendance in a Teacher Education course for "Tech" students (described above):

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On Wednesday we had a field trip to the Ross Macdonald School for the Blind in Brantford. They have tech workshops there—a wood shop and an auto shop. The students signed up to come and about nine of them didn't show up—didn't call or e-mail me. But those who came will never forget it. They won't remember another thing about psychology at OISE, but they'll never forget that. When I came into the [next] class, I said to the ones who were at the field trip, they could sort of warn the ones who were absent. Two of them [absentees] waited outside my [other] class until I finished, to tell me their reason for not coming and to apologize. So, Friday I gave them shit, but I put it as my great disappointment and the professionalism and their claim that they've been out of the work force and they're not liking the change but in the workforce, if you have an appointment, if you've made a commitment, you have to show up, don't you? But, at the end, we worked our way through. That's what a four-hour class allows you to do. There's recovery, right? Afterwards they said, *'Come on down the street. A few of us are just going to have a beer." I thought, "Okay, on this day, because of this, I will go," Lesley uses the "absenteeism" of some adult students to take action. She includes her students in a peer-coaching approach suggesting that they "sort of warn the [absent] others" before the next class. In the next class, Lesley discusses responsibility and commitment ("If you've made a commitment, you have to show up, don't you?") by creating a case study of the incident ("we worked our way through"). She concludes: "there's recovery, right?" The story ended satisfactorily. Lesley builds interdependence and mutual responsibility to strengthen the class community. The two responses to absenteeism differ in kind, expectation, and student groups. The culture of a secondary school will be much more challenging to re-story. The culture is structured, practiced, and perpetuated by so many factors and individuals. Patterns are established. If they persist over time, they become an expected behavior, an undisputed story. Since Lesley and Patricia's stories occur in different educational levels, they can compare and come to understand each other and the complexity of their attendance problems. Moreover, telling the story allows Patricia to re-view her perspective and perhaps even "try on" a new one (Grossman & Wineburg, 2000). 2.2.1.3 Issues of class and gender The Tech students in Lesley's class, skilled experts in various practical arts, entered the program with considerable experience and certifications (in mechanics, for instance) but without an undergraduate degree. Many

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experienced failure in their high school education programs, were in the lower tracks, or even dropped out without a high school diploma. Lesley: They [Tech students] have no profile here. Nobody talks about them and they are so amazing. The conversations, what they know. They are mostly people who just didn't make it through the [regular school] system [Mary: Well, they're the people who will make a difference in schools.] because it's the system's fault. It's not because they don't have the ability. They're talking a different language. It's so class-based. Patricia: Yeah, and it's becoming gender based too, I think. If you look at the [provincial test] scores and in the article in the papers this week about how much even at fifteen [years of age], how far ahead the girls are of the boys. I think it's systemic. I think it really is. Patricia bends the conversation toward gender rather than focus on the class issue Lesley introduces. Lesley's comments point to a system that "classifies" students (placing them in lower "ability" tracks) and often results in higher dropout rates among these youths (Loveless, 1999; Oakes, 1985). Does a relationship exist between the various academic tracks and the rates of student absenteeism? How are race and class implicated in the ways students have access to, or are prevented from, valuable (as in currency for future potential such as entry to university and college) school programs (Oakes, 1990; Reglin, 1992; Useem, 1990)? 2.2.1.4 Two contexts for learning in teaching Lesley's two storie take place in two contexts: her elementary fourth grade class and her Teacher Education Tech course. I did a Native unit in Grade 4—my first time in 1990. There was no curriculum. I sought out everybody. I went to the Native Anishanawbe Friendship Centre on Queen Street; they just had some mimeographed pages. They told me, 'There is this Jimmy Dick who's a storyteller and he'll come to your class. So I called and made arrangements and Jimmy Dick is coming. It was a basement classroom. We had carpet on the floor. I guess my head didn't take me into what was actually going to take place. He was bringing his drum and was going to explain about the drum and the heartbeats and all this stuff. So of course, we're in the circle on the floor and Jimmy Dick walks in with his ponytail down to here, and he smudges us with sweet grass so we have this burning [going on] and I'm thinking, '*Are my smoke detectors going to go off? Am I going to get into trouble for this?" But Jimmy goes around and it's quiet, it's so quiet. He's softly playing the drum. All of a sudden, he starts to

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sing in this high-pitched wail. It's almost animal. I thought, "Oh my god, they're nine years old. They're going to laugh" because it's coming from an adult and it's so foreign [to them]. But they didn't. Sometimes the kids come through in that way. It's their dignity. Eleven years later, I can still feel the power of the story. I went to convocation at Roy Thompson Hall for the Law School graduation and at the end of the ceremony the entertainer is none other than Jimmy Dick. One of my ''tech" [Teacher Education] students is sitting across from me [in the pub] and somehow or other we get onto the topic of poetry. He's an auto shop teacher [getting his teaching certificate] and he says, 'My favorite poet is Robert Service" and starts talking about "The Cremation of Sam McGee." I say to him, "you know what, if you love that poem, I bet that your students will adore it. You've got to do it Gary." He says, "In the auto shop?" I said, "Yes, in the auto shop." Isn't that amazing? He's going to go into an auto shop class and expose students to poetry like "The Cremation of Sam McGee." I have a vision of Gary in the auto shop with the kids [Mary: Reading poetry]. Isn't that something? The two stories represent learning that includes risk-taking. In the first story, Lesley invited the native, Jimmy Dick, into her class without adequate knowledge of what to expect. By her own reflection, her "head didn't take [her] into what was actually going to take place." The experience, however, captivated both Lesley and her young students in surprising ways (George, 2001). The experience of bringing the native storyteller into her fourth grade class increased Lesley's readiness to take pedagogical risks. After this story, Lesley asks me to elaborate on the teaching poetry story I began earlier (Kooy and Wells, 1996). Lesley: Tell me about "puzzle poems." I don't know what they are. Patricia: I've used them, too. They're wonderful. Mary: I use a Sylvia Plath one primarily. The topic is never mentioned in the body of the poem, so I remove the title. [Patricia: It's all metaphors] .You have them read and re-read them. Every time they venture a guess, they record it. They get twenty minutes or so, and then they choose a title. Lesley: But what do you put on the table? The poem? [Mary: The poem, the entire poem, without the title.] [Patricia: Without the title. They have to guess at the title and support their—]

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Mary: The last time, we wrote the titles down and then voted on which one—[Lesley: That's a terrific idea.] Oh, it's a wonderful thing because they actually need to socially construct their knowledge. It's not easy— it's a difficult poem. The mushrooms poem is a particularly good example because mushrooms aren't explicitly mentioned in the poem. So readers are indeed uncertain. Patricia: What's interesting is that I thought the first time I did that, I did give them the title at the end of it, and I thought that would be the end of it because they would say, "Oh, that's the right answer." They're so primed to have the right answer. But it wasn't the end. They wanted to argue [Mary: Yes] about why their title was better than the author's. Lesley: Better than the author's title? I love it. That's when you're invested in what you're doing. Patricia: Well, completely. I just thought that was a given especially at a rather exclusive girls' school. What a breakthrough! They want to argue with the author about what the right answer is, the correct title. Mary: I tell them that there is a possibility of a better or an alternate title. I always say, "Sylvia Plath chose to call it ." I would never say, "The right answer is— ." After their discussions, they begin to write about how they understand the poem and what this poem means to them. Patricia: I have them write their own [poem] afterwards. It's wonderful, too. [Lesley: Their own on that topic?] No, no, their own puzzle poem using that model. Mary: I've got three or four [puzzle poems]. Patricia: Even that hasn't worked for me very well with "general level" students. The language of the poems wouldn't have been accessible to my Grade 11 Generals. They didn't have the reading skills. [Lesley: They couldn't?] Not by a long shot. [Mary: Read it out loud.]. Yeah, that would probably work. Mary: Yes, read it aloud until they are prepared to continue on their own. Through an interactive narrative discussion, Lesley learns about an effective strategy for teaching poetry that both Patricia and I use

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successfully. Patricia places a caveat on the practice, suggesting that it was more effective with her "advanced" students. Her ''general" students, she claims, "didn't have the reading skills." Nevertheless, in the dialogical telling of the narrative, Patricia shifts her position: "Yeah, that [reading aloud] would probably work." The stories of poetry teaching affect the teaching knowledge (Brock et al, 2001; Cardwell, 2002; Ershler, 2002; Jensen, Foster & Eddy, 1997; Kubler LeBosky, 2002). I reluctantly recognize my own resistance to Patricia's perspective. I am certain about the problems of labeling students and the assumptions and stereotyping that characterizes it. Patricia reminds me of the partiality of my view, when after reading the field notes of this book club meeting, she-mails the group: Our book club reminds me of how the experience of sharing a leisurely meal with friends often leads to intimate conversations afterwards— almost like we need to be drawn together with some practical purpose, like discussing a book, in order to get to the place where we feel comfortable to share what's really on our minds. It's fascinating how often the book club meetings are catalysts for professional sharing and learning. I am uncertain about what Patricia has learned in light of, what to me, appears to be particular stereotypical views of students' capacities for learning. The WEST research of Lynn Casavos (2001) is helpful (Bakhtin, 1985; Todorov, 1984; Vygotsky, 1992). In her study, four types of talk occur in informal discussion groups: talk (incidental, spontaneous), narrative (stories), conversation (engaged, learning from and through talk), and dialogue (discovery, new understanding). Patricia's talk seems to follow the narrative and conversation modes. The differing levels of talk in the group— particularly at the conversation and dialogue levels—contribute to the relationships and relational learning that developed (Ritchie & Wilson, 2000; Rogoff, 1994; Surrey, 1991; Webb & Blond, 1995). Stories as conversation and dialogue, became educative experiences (Beattie, 1995a; Beaufort, 1997; Brock, et al, 2001; Bruner, 2002; Clandinin, 2003). 2.2.1.5 Teachers teaching teachers This group of teachers increasingly contributed their knowledge to their professional communities. In one instance, Angela (a member of the earlier pilot teacher book club project) invited the three of us to conduct workshops at a conference she was planning at her school for independent schools in Ontario. Patricia begins: "I was hoping to see Angela at some point because she's asked me to do a workshop in April for the independent schools conference."

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Lesley: She invited me to do that, too. Mary: Me, too. Maybe we should do something together. I want to do something on. Patricia: Yeah. It's at her school on the 24^^ of April. Lesley: She's got us all signed up. I was using literature to teach about the Holocaust but maybe we could do two [sessions] for her if she needs it. [Mary: Or you two could—] Patricia: Well, she might have us down for different blocks, so maybe I need to come up with something different. Why don't I contact her and find out? Through the relationships Angela had developed in the earlier pilot study, she determined that three of us could participate in and contribute to a conference for teachers. The three of us conducted five workshops at the conference. Angela had learned about our teacher stories through our book club conversations and was able to apply that knowledge to her professional planning for the school conference. Patricia relates another story of extending her knowledge into the larger teaching community. The Education Ministry's mandate to participate in and document participation in professional development activities (workshops, courses) led Patricia and a former colleague to create a professional development service. Patricia explains: Two former colleagues—both amazing—contacted me and said, "We don't want to take these Professional Development courses that teachers are now required to take. Why don't we offer them?" So with a fourth person, we have formed a consortium, given ourselves a name, and going to business seminars and talking to lawyers. We have created a partnership [Mary: My goodness], a website, business cards and all stuff that's completely new to me. We've been registered as "course providers" which is a little [Mary: Frightening]. We've got a meeting at the [Ontario] College of Teachers on Tuesday. You know, this is really interesting. Lesley: But, it's not frightening at all. I think it's really interesting to take this attitude- "Well, we don't want to take them [required professional development courses], so let's give them instead. Yes, it is interesting.

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Patricia: Between the four of us, we can cover five of the seven areas of the required courses. At our February 1st meeting we're going to be focusing on curriculum. With the senior staff, we're going to be doing something on integration—giving a philosophical base of why you shouldn't be teaching courses in separate pieces. You have no idea of what the History teacher next door to you is doing. [Mary: Even within courses]. Oh, absolutely. I don't know what they taught— [Lesley: This food is delicious.] With the primary/junior teachers, we're going to do something on reading—a cross-curricular approach to reading with more ideas about extensions [from the text] because we are all private schools so we don't need to be focusing on basic skills. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation is throwing a bit of a damper on the whole process. They're telling teachers to go ahead and take the courses if they have to. The teachers who receive letters need to start [taking courses] now but they tell them not to register the courses with the College of Teachers. They kind of by-pass this accountability thing: "Yes, we're doing the courses, but no, we're not going to register them." It's a mass protest of the whole idea of their view of accountability. OSSTF feels that really, teachers are already accountable and have always been. So we'll see. Patricia transforms an educational problem (teachers required to fulfill a prescribed number of professional courses) and creates an opportunity. Patricia's involvement in the book club gave her a confidence in her own teacher knowledge and assured her of the support of the book club teachers. At about the same time, Patricia and a schoolteacher colleague (Sue Harper) wrote a secondary school text. The Writer's Craft, on creative writing. The book is currently in use in senior high school courses across Canada (Harper, 2003). The book club, Patricia noted, provided a "wind at my back" for the challenging task of writing her first school textbook. The book club stories informed Patricia's knowledge as it developed her professional relationships that extended her reach and allowed her new ways to share her growing teachers knowledge.

3.

CLOSING AND CONNECTING WORDS

In closing, I note the startling development that teachers in both book clubs engaged deeply and distinctively in discussing Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Novice teachers focused on understanding the content before venturing into the texture and structure of the text. For the experienced teachers, the text was not as unfamiliar; they freely explored the style,

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language, humor, and particularly issues of adolescence and gender in the text. Both groups completed discussions of the book and began to tell personal stories of teaching. In ways not apparent in the other book discussions, the teachers did not return to the text. With few teachers or stories of teaching in the text, the teachers felt free to construct their own stories, an intra community practice. The teacher stories in this chapter reveal the relationships and interdependence that are developing and being established (Rogoff, 1990; Schubert, 1991; Trimmer, 1997a) in both groups.

Chapter 9 "CROSSING BORDERS": STORIES OF TEACHING, GENDER, AND IDENTITY

Crossing borders aptly and metaphorically describes the storied transitions between the lives of the teachers in the book clubs and In the Name of Salome, the selected text for this book club meeting. Stories of learning, teaching, gender, and the evolving and uncertain nature of teacher identity intersect on the axis between the teachers in the book clubs and Salome and Camila, mother and daughter teachers in the novel. To start the discussion of this chapter, I provide a brief outline of the book. Julia Alvarez's fictional account of the real-life Salome Ureiia opens with: 'The story of my life starts with the story of my country." Born in the 1850s, in a time of intense political repression and turmoil, Salome's fervent patriotic poems turned her - at seventeen - into a national icon. Eventually, however, Salome abandons her poetry in favor of establishing a school to educate Dominican girls by bringing literacy C'a set of wings") into their lives and effectively preparing them to serve their struggling new nation. Salome's daughter, Camila, grows up without her mother who dies when she is three. She lives in exile and in the shadow of her mother's legend. Shy and self-effacing, her life contrasts starkly with Salome's As an academic in the U.S., Camila spends her career teaching Spanish to upper class American girls at Vassar. At age sixty-six, she decides to leave her comfortable academic life and join Castro's Cuban revolution working in a literacy brigade. Here, fulfilled, she learns to make peace with her past. The book opens with Camila's departure to Cuba after her retirement from Vassar College and moves backward in time. Salome's story, presented in alternating chapters (eight each), begins with her childhood and culminates in her death in 1897. As the two threads of the novel converge in the 1890's, Alvarez reveals the complex interplay between the two stories.

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Camila's struggles prove to be deeply rooted in the life her mother lived, just as the legacy of Salome's choices and achievements are woven into her daughter's life in the next century. Alvarez brings the women's contrasting experiences together, uniting time, place, and characters into the politics of their country, opens hearts to love and family. The novel prompts discussions of teacher learning, development, knowledge construction, and identity in both book clubs (Jurasaite-Harbison, 2004). Rosemary (Book Club 2) observes: "It's interesting—depending on what's going on in your life—how the things that are happening in the story influence your understanding and even your relationship with the book." This chapter focuses on four predominant themes arising from the discussions: (1) Stories of Teachers and Teaching, (2) Stories of Learning, (3) Stories of Gender and Identity, and (4) Stories of Language, Literacy, and Poetry.

1.

STORIES OF TEACHERS AND TEACHING

Both Salome and her daughter Camila become teachers. Salome opens a school for girls and Camila becomes an academic at Vassar and in retirement, moves to Cuba to teach literacy to the poor. Each begins a new life to teach teach critical literacy to transform and change lives (Freire, 1986, 1997; hooks, 1994). In the Name of Salome prompts many teacher stories. Like Salome and Camila, the teachers face new beginnings in unfamiliar and complex contexts. Their intense interest in, and need for knowledge about teaching opens their minds to the teaching stories they read (Greene, 1995). Like Camila and Salome, they care about making an impact for good in complex (even hostile) political, and educational contexts. The stories told connect to, and continue from earlier discussions, particularly Chapter 7 (A Lesson before Dying) where race and culture played a significant and visible role. The stories fall into three categories: (a) Teacher Induction, (b) Teaching Stories and, (c) Teacher Learning.

1,1

Stories of teacher induction

At the time of this discussion, Book Club 2 teachers are in the early part of the second year of teaching (2001). The challenges of becoming a teacher remain foremost on their minds (Dollase, 1992; O'Connell Rust, 1997; Ryan, 1992). They identify with Salome who begins her teaching career albeit in spite of significant time, cultural, social, and educational differences.

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Salome, unlike the novice teachers, begins teaching without any formal teacher education. Conscripted to "fill in" during her husband Pancho's absence from his school for boys, she learns about teaching from Hostos, an influential political and educational leader. Hostos suggests that she is a natural teacher and, for the good of the country, should open a school for girls: / must say that I had never felt drawn to the profession of teaching. I could not help but think of my aunt's scolding voice, the thwack of her whipping branch, the sniffling of a poor student with a palm-leaf dunce tail hanging down the back of her dress. Early on I vowed I would never be a teacher. (178) Rosemary: It's interesting. When the idea [of teaching] was first proposed to Salome, she didn't want it. [Melanie: No] She said, '1 never saw myself as a teacher. I would never be a teacher" [Evelyn: Right] because she had bad memories of school. It's interesting. What changed her mind, then? [Evelyn: Wasn't it Hostos who came to teach in the school?] But, wasn't it Hostos who proposed teaching in the first place? [Melanie: Yeah] Melanie: It was her experience at her own school when she was a student, wasn't it, that set her away from wanting to be a teacher? [Evelyn: Yes, yes.] That's interesting because I think a lot of our kids have that, too. They have had a bad experience with learning; therefore, they close themselves. [Rosemary: They close down. That's a protection] Sure. That's what it is. Salome resists the early pressures but eventually concedes to leaving her poetry behind and opening a school: I found myself converted to Hostos' way of thinking. He was right. The last thing our country needed was more poems. We needed schools. We needed to bring up a generation of young people who would think in new ways and stop the cycle of suffering on our island (187). Slowly, she comes to recognize the possibilities of the transformative power of education—particularly through literacy for girls who live in a repressive regime (Freire, 1978). To develop her own pedagogical path, she uses her own educational experiences (sit, sew, and silence) as a foil and a point of departure for constructing new ways of teaching and learning. The novice teachers identify with Salome. They feel, in spite of their professional teacher education backgrounds, that they, too, are learning to create their own paths while walking.

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The novice teachers, now into their second year, still feel uncertain and vulnerable. They feel open to questioning by parents, students, colleagues, department heads and administrators. In this context, they are particularly drawn to and admire Salome's courageous code-breaking educational practices (Atwell-Vasey, 1998; Haight-Cattani, 2002). She intentionally subverts the authorities in educating the young women in her charge. Salome becomes a model and mentor. Salome's stories offer the novice teachers a place to deliberate and question, to explore models and effects of teaching, to learn, and return to their schools with new insights (Atwell Vasey, 1998; Brock et al, 2001; Doecke, Brown, & Loughran, 2000; Jarvic, 2000). In the community of other teachers and the teachers in the book, they participate in ongoing construction of their developing, knowledgeable, teacher selves (Haight Cattani, 2002; Rogers & Babinski, 2002; Rogoff, 1990; Schubert, 1991). Salome's transition into teaching raises critical questions for the teachers about the reasons for and adequacy of teacher education programs to prepare for the realities of schools and classrooms. They discuss the value of their teacher education (as Book Club 1 did during the discussions on Oranges are not the only Fruit in Chapter 8). They question its effects on adequately preparing them for the "realities" of teaching. Their doubts and troubling questions come to the surface through active engagement in a professional community of learning. Fresh from their teacher education programs, the novice teachers work with knowledge that is recent and conscious and therefore, subject to change. This is an important feature of self-directed teacher learning at the earliest career stages. Indeed, sustained support and learning developed through the interactions in the book club became particularly important during the challenging induction period (Beynon, Geddis, & Onslow, 2001; Kooy, in press; Borich, 1995; Rust & Orland, 2001; Ryan, 1992; Welland, 2004). Through dialogue, the teachers clarify the effects of the divide between university programs and school practices. Learning more about the "inbetween," the crossing of boundaries between learning to teach and teaching could begin to narrow the divide between universities and schools. Following teacher candidates into their first schools creates collaborations and links between the universities and the schools (Ducharme & Ducharme, 1996; Huberman, 1995; Loewenberg Ball & Cohen, 1999; Waesmer & Woods, 2000).

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Stories of teachers teaching

1.2.1

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Salome plunges into teaching with the passion and commitment that in earlier times, she devoted to writing poetry. She is endowed with strong, motives and purposes for teaching that help her to counter the patriarchal, traditional "banking" models (Freire, 1970, 1986, 1997; Horton & Freire, 1990) of teaching. She determines to make a difference and establish a community of future teachers who can follow her and continue the work of resistance (hooks, 1994). In a letter to her husband Pancho, Salome illustrates a teaching moment in her school with a story: Such a touching scene, Pancho. I wished you had been a witness. Imagine my six oldest girls, bent over their diagrams of the insides of flowers (such memories, Pancho, such memories). They stay after school to finish their botany lessons so that they can graduate before el maestro leaves, Salome's letters reflect teaching that hooks (2003) describes as a ''union between theory and praxis" (x) reflected through teachers who ''want to make connections, who want to cross boundaries" (x). Salome's pedagogical approach mirrors that of hooks (1994, 2003) who sees effective teaching as "the practice of freedom" performed to transforms the lives of students who in turn, transform the world around them (xiv). If hooks had spoken with Salome, she would have encouraged her to continue her liberatory work with girls and "to revel in a job well done to inspire [your] students training to be teachers" (x). The hegemonic context and accepted practices prevented girls from learning and participating in their society. For instance, Tavista, Salome's helper in the school, could not attend school because her father, "did not believe in education for his girls, who might learn how to read and write love letters" (265). Salome begins to teach her. She states: "I began giving her tasks that brought her to the front of the house during the beginners' lessons and each day I would ask her to please copy this or that page for me" (265/266). During the discussion, I comment: "I can picture this image of someone longing to become literate. It reminds me of Freire's literacy work in Central and South America (1970, 1986) where he, too, introduced a process of "naming" and identifying local, personal and relevant information to build meaningful literacy (Bhola, 2004; Horton & Freire, 1990). Salome's daughter Camila, also a teacher, retires in the 1960's andd full of ideals, heads to communist Cuba. Toward the end of her life, almost blind with cataracts, she travels from Cuba to her family in Santo Domingo. While

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there, she visits the cemetery to find her own tombstone. Frustrated by her inabilities to read the script on the tombstones, she conscripts a young boy who cannot help her because he is illiterate. Camila reflects: "In Cuba he would know how to read. He would not be picking weeds on a school day" (352). With the help of boy, however, she traces the etched letters of each stone until she locates her own name. She takes the boy's hand and guides them repeatedly over the letters and provides a lesson in literacy. The group discusses the the literacy lesson: Rosemary: Oh, that last scene [Evelyn: The last scene—] Oh, god. Mary: The last scene is fabulous. Rosemary: It is. It really did it to me. Evelyn: That was fantastic, the last scene, because she [Camila] teaches him how to read. [Mary: Yeah] [Melanie: I loved that.] Remember? Tracing the letters on her own gravestone with this poor, poor, boy [page 352-353]. Melanie: But I don't think it was until that moment that she saw herself a great teacher. [Rosemary: Really?] I don't think until that moment was she a true teacher. I really don't, not in the sense of her mother. Rosemary: Oh that's sad. Evelyn: Interesting, because I didn't read Camila that way at all. Probably because I wanted her to—[pause] what can I say? [Rosemary: Make a name for herself]—make a name for herself Camila capitalized on a critical incident, a "teachable moment" as her story of literacy illustrates (Brock et al, 2001; Freire, 1970; hooks, 1994). The novice teachers find the incident compelling, though they do not necessarily alter their own practices. What happens here may have more to do with familiarizing and coming to know. Camila's story is now embedded into the literacy stories of the novice teachers as they continue to reconstruct their teaching knowledge (Goodson & Cole, 1993; Elliot & Calderhead, 1994). 1.2.2

Transitions from text to teachers: Book Club 2

Salome's stories of teaching became educative experiences for the novice teachers. At one point in the discussion, I reflect on Salome's teaching:

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Mary: She [Salome] really is a fine teacher. She breaks long established educational practices for girls. She demystifies the sanctioned practice of sitting straight and stitching and looks at teaching as a transformative experience. She changes their lives. That's why she incites such passion in these girls and such commitment and dedication, because they know this is authentic educational experience. [Evelyn: Yeah, that's right.] She openly rejects the, "you sit straight and you sew and you don't open your mouth" model for her school. Evelyn: She had wanted more herself, as a student, very early on. She was a learner herself. She got that from her father, and Pancho, too. Melanie: I think ultimately, she came to a realization that she'd be doing good. That was more important—to educate others—than to keep her life as a poet. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but— Evelyn: How politically powerful that gesture, that act, was, of going to school! She was subversive and the children were subversives. [Mary: They knew it.]. They knew it. How exciting that must have been. Scary and exciting [Rosemary: Scary and exciting.] When was it? There was a parade or something, and she had all the girls wear bandannas. I don't know, I thought that was, "wow!" They knew they were part of something bigger than themselves, you know? This was a big deal. The courage it must have taken for these parents to send their kids in secret. It reminds me of the early Christians in Rome when they had to go underground and had to say, "Shhh. Don't talk about this to anyone." The beginning teachers are impressed by Salome's organic and relevant approaches to teaching (Brock et al, 2001; Dewey, 1938; Freire, 1997; hooks, 1994). They discuss her untrained, intuitive teaching sensibilities (Grossman, 1990). Melanie observes: "It's amazing to read, to see that, to be part of that world for a little while, to see where it came from." The process of observing teachers in the novel exposes the teachers to new perspectives. Armed with Salome's stories of teaching, they will have more to work with in their conceptual and pedagogical development (Adams, 1986; Rodgers & Pinnell, 2002; Schultz, 1996; Trimmer, 1997 a, b). The discussion transitions into the world of the teachers and how their actions and responses affect their students. Mary: I'm not sure teachers always appreciate [Rosemary: The effect that they can have.] Salome knew the power of language. Her poetry galvanized a country but I don't know if we appreciate the power of the words we use as teachers. Having raised three kids who went through the

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school system I learned what it means to say something to students— negative and positive—and see the effects it has. [Melanie: What do you mean?] I mean a comment on a report card or on an assignment or paper. [Rosemary: verbal interaction] Right—the words you say. It is unbelievable. Being a parent of students made me very sensitive to what teachers say about the children in their care. [Evelyn: You would have to be.] [Rosemary: Sure] It's not that teachers can't make mistakes. Even if teachers really care about their students, like parents, they still make mistakes. Kids pick up on that. They know. Rosemary: They forgive them. Melanie: Oh god, all those mistakes I make. Whew. [Everyone talking] [Evelyn: Every time I open my mouth]. Every time I write something on the board. Mary: But it is true, though, they know if you care about them. Like your enthusiasm, Melanie, about the way they could get involved in and discussed the novel you were studying. That's with kids for the rest of their lives, right? That's what's so great about teaching. You actually do get a chance [Rosemary: To touch the future] yeah. [Melanie: I hope we do.] You do, whether you know it or not, you do. For good or bad, you do. Melanie: Is it because we want to? Mary: Yeah, I think so. The very fact that we have this book club and you are here says you're interested in teaching and that you want to learn and improve. Evelyn: I really enjoyed reading this [book] at this time of my own learning process, because, ironically, in my Senior History course—we were just looking this week at American involvement in Latin America. [Mary: Oh, my goodness, how appropriate because this is a history book of the finest order.] Oh unbelievable, unbelievable historical fiction, I loved it. [Mary: Would you read this in your history class?] Yes. I told my students about this book because we were talking about Latin America and Guatemala and the Dominican Republic in 1965. The invasions of those countries go back to the 1880's. Reading this book was fantastic.

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Evelyn imagines her book club reading into her teaching in her History class, demonstrating how that her new knowledge "travels" (Franke, 2005), a process critical to her teacher development. She is able to conceive of the content of the novel (set in an actual historic period and characters) contributing to the stories of her History class. How the book will "travel" at this stage seems to focus on content, though this may be an essential component of making the transition from book club to school practices. Transfer of teacher knowledge between contexts (university, book club, and/or school, for instance), however, is complicated and not linear. Evelyn introduces a possibility and the other teachers have a place to socially negotiate their knowledge and pose critical questions. In the interactive dialogical process, they are challenged to consider and imagine other perspectives and teacher stories and determine new ways and new stories of their own (Kooy, in press; Leiberman & Miller, 1996; Smith, 1996; Sorenson, 1998). 1.2.3

Transitions from text to teachers: Book Club 1

Book Club 1 teachers bring extensive teacher knowledge and stories to the reading and understanding of teaching and of the text (Clandinin & Connelly, 1987; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Cochran Smith & Lytle, 1993; Elbaz, 1983; Freedman, 1987). They move easily between Salome's teaching and their own teaching: Mary: Even when Salome is deathly ill, she cannot bear the thought of giving up the girls and the school. She goes in there [the school] with some camphor balls in case they faint when they hear the news of her departure. Lesley: I love what she says about her students. It's not that she doesn't have any children—^the students are her children. I certainly can relate to that feeling that your students are your children, in a way. You're really putting a bit of your own vision [Louise: For sure] into them and sending them off into the world— . . . it's right over at the top of page 302: "/ looked at their bright young faces and felt a surge of hope. These, too, were my children. I was sending them to the future to start over. " The maternal metaphor (Ruddick, 1980) resonates with Salome and the girls in her school. Camila, who remains single, thinks with regret that she has no children to leave to the future, but then startles herself with an insight: "Not true! My Nancy in Poughkeepsie, my coffee sorters in Sierra Maestra, my Belkys, my Lupe, my Elsa in Santo Domingo—my own and not my own'' (351). Lesley quotes Salome from the text: ''These are my children.

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I was sending them to the future to start over'' (302). Each of the teachers connects with the maternal metaphors that operate in their teaching (**my own and not my own"). The "my own and not my own" belongs also to the personal and professional stories of the teachers. It may also be the distinction between traditional paradigms of teaching C'not my own") and a critical pedagogy more in line with our thinking and practices ("our own"). Lesley tells a personal story of a book talk she attended. The author, in his resonant Welsh voice, inspired his audience. Lesley observes: "What a completely different way of talking about a book, though. People sit and listen and he [the author] pontificates up there at the front. Here at the book club, we come and we talk about the book amongst ourselves." When Bridget asks, "What had he done exactly with the book?" Lesley responds: "The same thing you would do if you were an old-fashioned high school English teacher. You'd come and bring all these references, and you'd find the themes, plot, and characters." Bridget adds: "You'd sort of formally deconstruct it?" "Yes, theme and setting. Just that totally traditional way of talking about a book," Lesley responds. Because the teachers have gained distance and perspective through teaching and living (Dewey, 1938), they resist the traditional and embrace Salome as a sister teacher who models critical ways of teaching (hooks, 1994; Horton & Freire, 1990; Freire, 1970). Though they are acutely aware of the social and political forces that threaten to undermine and even usurp their teacher identities, they prepare to resist and revise the ideological frameworks around them (Ritchie & Wilson, 2000). The teachers in this group grasp theories as dynamic lead-ins to productive and reflective dialogue (Bakhtin, 1986; Desforges, 1995; Habermas, 1984; Leinhardt, Young, & Merriman, 1995) that contribute to their own evolving knowledge of teaching.

2.

TEACHERS LEARNING

Personal stories of teaching became the primary tool for learning in this book club discussion (Bauman, 1994; Cardwell, 2002; Clark, 2001; Cook Sather, 2001; Goldberg & Pesko, 2000; Kooy, in press; McLaughlin & Mitra, 2001). This distinguishes the learning from the other book discussions (with teacher models present in the books) and from conventional models of professional development. Teacher learning became a central feature of the book club discourse in this session.

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187

Book Club 2: Novice teachers

Teacher learning occurs actively and recursively in this, as in other book club sessions. I highlight four stories that direct and redirect the novice teachers in their learning and lead to considering the perspectives of other teachers. In the first story, Rosemary explains her reading of In the Name of Salome: I read the book only this past week. It sat on my night table forever. At first, I was trying to get through it, having a tough time. I'm thinking, "This is how students must feel when we tell them, 'Here is your book. Now go and read it and have x amount of pages read or have the whole thing read by whenever'." It's legislating texts and I thought, "god!" I knew I had to be here on the Saturday and I had to have it read, and it was more of, "I have to do this" rather than, "I want to do this." I really felt that feeling again of being a student. The whole process really made me stop and remind myself about the realities of reading. I guess that's why I think it's so important to get the students excited about a book, and do those [Evelyn: Hook exercises] Hook exercises, to give them a context and motivate them to read. In telling the story of her own reluctance in reading the selected book for the book club, Rosemary re-stories her experience. She makes the link to her classroom practices and identifies with her students: "I guess that's why . . ." Her story brought a new awareness and led to new personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). Melanie introduces a complex issue of taking the book club model that she is experiencing and implementing it in her English classes. I worry about doing the small groups with the younger kids [Grades 9 and 10]. When I put them into their clubs, into their groups, I worry they won't get enough out of the book like they would if we were learning together, all using the same book. I think that 's an issue. In Grade 10, if they were all doing separate books—I don't know. Maybe it's just that my organization needs to get better so I can make sure I give them guided lessons individually, but I just can't picture making six lessons, or maybe— [Mary: You don't have to. They make the lesson.] I guess so, but I know my students. I don't know if I'm saying this right, but I would be afraid that they wouldn't be able to get enough out of the group discussion and learn what they were supposed to learn, but in OAC, they should be at a level where they could do that for themselves.

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Melanie reveals ambivalence, tension, and uncertainty in imagining using book clubs with her Grade 9 and 10 students. She expresses concerns: "I worry," "they won't get enough," "I don't know," and, "I just can't picture." She, rightfully, argues: "I know my students." She feels she cannot trust her Grade 9 and 10 students to learn in small groups. In effect, she casts doubt on the possibilities of establishing book clubs. What is unsaid may be as important as what is said. How do students 'ieam what they are supposed to learn?" Is the implicit assumption that if the teacher tells, students will learn? In sharp contrast and following on the heels of this story, Melanie describes a senior English class that demonstrates effective learning in small groups: Having them do a screenplay from a book turns into a lot of work. My OAC's [Ontario Grade 13] did that with White Oleander, They saw the film and we discussed how they would dress, or design the costumes. They discussed how they would do the stage blocking and create the sets. [Mary: Yeah, that is a lot of work.] Oh, it was a lot of work, but they worked for four [class] periods straight. There was no fooling around. I couldn't believe it. All they did was talk about the play. I have never seen that before in my life. They do not diverge. They said, ''Okay, so if we get her to wear ripped jeans in the first act, then how are we going to make sure that the power struggle is represented?" I just sat back and thought, '1 love this." When I suggest to Melanie this could be a "breakthrough in her professional knowledge," she hesitates: "But I don't know if it was me. I think it was the play. I'm not sure it was anything that I did." When I remind her that, "You staged it. You made it possible for your students," she hesitates and responds, "I guess so." While not yet ready to credit the effective learning of the senior class to her pedagogy or to establish book clubs in the earlier high school grades, articulating her stories makes Melanie more conscious of her thinking (Arendt, 1978; Schon, 1983). First steps to change include a consciousness and awareness. Novice teachers also look to other teacher models from their past or in their schools to guide their evolving teaching knowledge. As they learn from Salome in the book, so they learn from what they observe around them. As they hear the stories of teachers and students, observe the practices, interact in the staff room, they collect impressions and knowledge of what it means to teach and be a teacher. They are learning teachers. Even this early into her career, Evelyn has observed varying degrees of commitment to teaching in her colleagues. She relates a story of teachers who, despite having lost their passion for teaching, continue in the profession:

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Just last night, I was at a friend's house—a teacher who used to teach at my school and now teaches in Minaki. He's a great man, really a nice guy, but one of those very—He does care about the kids but—I don't know how to put it. Anyway, sitting at dinner, he says, **Why don't you come out and teach in the 'burbs? Well, I already teach in a suburb but anyway I said, ''No, look Tom, I couldn't teach out there. I'd be just a number." You know, these massive schools with 2000 kids— [Melanie: Where does he teach?] St. Michael's—a huge new school. I'd get lost there. I wouldn't feel like I'd be making a difference. Both he and his wife say, "You don't make a difference." That whole attitude, "You're in a fantasy." I said, "Thanks a lot you guys." "We're not trying to be mean. We're just trying to be real. We're just telling you how it really is" they said. I thought, "If that's how it really is for you, [Rosemary: Why are you in this job?]. Why are you in it? Melanie: The pension. That's why. Let's be realistic here. I have a teacher in my school who says, "I hate kids." I mean, what is he doing in a high school? Mary: That's unconscionable. Should people like that be allowed to stay in the system? Melanie: You should see him. He's the man who knows everything about anything when it comes to the union regulations. You only work 472 minutes and 32 seconds, and if somebody asks you to do something, make sure you mark it down so you don't have to do it again. [Evelyn: Yeah, that's right.] [Mary: How unsatisfying] Well, he hates his job. He's in his 25th year and just wants to wait it out so he can get his pension. Rosemary: That is so unfortunate. There is nothing wrong with teaching for ten years and, if you've had enough, leave. [Mary: Yeah, go on, do something else.] You did a great thing for ten years. These people who stay and keep doing it and don't want to be there, I feel very sorry for them. [Mary: Think about those kids]. I feel so sorry for those kids. The stories of teachers that have overstayed their welcome in the professions leads the teachers to ask themselves critical questions about teaching (Lieberman & Wood, 2001): Why am I teaching? Will I become like this teacher who cannot wait for retirement? What is the real world? Must I choose one way of teaching over another? Am I an unrealistic idealist? What if teaching inevitably becomes what some teachers so cynically describe and live out? Is it a case of, "I have seen the future and it

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is us?" Do I want to be a teacher for the rest of my life? [See also Melanie's discussion of this last question in Chapter 7, A Lesson before Dying]. At the beginning of their careers, this discussion seems out of place and premature. In a sense, however, they apply the adage that, ''the best offense is a good defense." They recognize the possibilities and are developing a recognition that may help in warding off the cynicism they witness in some colleagues. For the first time since the group has been meeting, Evelyn seeks the input of her peers to solve a teaching problem. She asks for feedback from the others and, in the process, begins to question her own practices: I'd be interested to hear your perspective. I want to do The Shipping News in my class but as I was driving here this morning, I thought, "Well, I want to do everything, but why am I not giving—Just because it's an OAC course. I did 'literature circles" with the Grade 9s. It was lovely. They got to choose their own books and, right from the beginning, I was buying into the process. Wonderful. Why don't I entertain that for the OACs? Why can't I give them the opportunity to have literature circles? Evelyn wonders why she has successfully used literature circles with her Grade 9 classes but has not implemented them with her senior classes. Melanie describes this issue in reverse. Melanie is doubtful; Evelyn more surprised at her oversight that, in the telling, becomes apparent. The two contradictory stories highlight possibilities for learning and open conversations around how and why it is important that knowledge is socially constructed by students at all grade levels. Although teachers tend to see themselves as "producers or doers" (Knowles, 1980, 45), the informal book club fosters teacher learning. The stories and questions allow them to improve their ability to reflect on professional problems. The book club provides, time, space, and opportunities (Woolf, 1957) to socially negotiate and develop their professional knowledge (Cook-Sather, 2001; Johnson, 1996; Schon, 1987). The importance of the informal book club context for social learning experiences for the novice teachers cannot be overstated (Capers, 2004; Clark, 2001; Grimshaw, 1989; Lester, 2001; Miller, 1990) as these teachers demonstrated. By analyzing their meaning-making processes (Munby, Russel & Martin, 2001; Schultz, 1996; Todorov, 1984; Wenger, 1998), the teachers were able to explore teacher images (in the book and among their peers) and also, the ways they organize learning in their classes (hooks, 2003; Rogoff, 1990, 2001; Vygotsky, 1992) into their personal and evolving praxis (Freire, 1970, hooks, 2003).

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191

GENDER AND IDENTITY IN TEACHING

In the Name of Salome also tells the sanctioned story (Clandinen & Connelly, 1995) of the lives of girls and women in repressive regimes (Stimpson, 1989; Surrey, 1991). Salome, as the national poet, writes under a pen name to avoid being identitified as female and hence, not taken seriously. In public, it is her husband, Pancho, who reads her poetry aloud while Salome sits on a chair nearby. While some ways from the political and cultural contexts of the book and the progress made for women in Western cultures, the gender issues raised in the book are simultaneously outdated and current (Acker, 1995; Heilbrun, 1999). At the time of Book Club Ts discussion, women in Afghanistan had just been released from the grip of the Taliban; some had begun attending school and removing their burkas. Novels (The Swallows of Kabul), autobiographies (Reading Lolita in Tehran), and films (Osama) directed international attention to the plight of women in repressive cultures and contexts. The stories in the book resonated with the women teachers because, although gains in women's rights have been established, much work remains to be done (Acker, 1995; Apple, 1985; Clifford, 1989; Griffin, 1997; Grumet, 1988; Pagano, 1990; Prentice & Theobald, 1991). Women's issues and the place of women within cultures clearly emerged from the discussions of In the Name of Salom6, Both book club groups discussed issues of (a) gender, (b) love and sexuality, and (c) identity.

3.1

Stories of gender

The partisan practice of women's repression in the book presents an obvious contradiction: while the men openly resist all forms of foreign domination and work prodigiously to change their situation, they, simultaneously dominate and control the women in their homeland. The women are colonized twice-as members of a colonized state and as women in a patriarchal culture. Rosemary (Book Club 2) initiates a dialogue on the inequities: There is that scene when they are at some meeting and the women can't talk unless they're asked to by the men. Melanie: Oh yes! In the beginning, when they have Salome there. They bow down to her, but she can't even talk. Rosemary: Exactly, exactly, she can't even talk.

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Melanie: What a contradiction. Evelyn: She's young. She's young. I wrote here [in my reading log] about the whole thing about her being very young, virginal. Melanie: She was 17, I think, or something like that. [Rosemary: Yeah, she was ridiculously young.] Evelyn: When she goes to one of her first conferences after her father dies, Pancho, goes to her and walks across and brings her to the podium, and he recites—Is that the one you're talking about? [Mary: Yes] [Rosemary: Yeah] He recites her poem. Hello! Despite her gift of language and the power of her poetry to affect the national consciousness and spirit, Salome remains *'only" a woman. Expectations and beliefs about "appropriate behavior" and roles were indelibly etched into the hegemonic, sanctioned practices in her environment. Pancho, Salome's husband, exemplifies the dominant male. Book Club 2 debates the nature and effects of being a man within the patriarchal boundaries of the culture: Melanie: I agree Pancho wasn't exactly a character I admire, but at the same time, there were some positive things about him. I think of him pushing Salome to open the school for the girls, for instance, [Rosemary: Yes.] [Evelyn: Yes. That was very good.] As much as he is caught up in the whole patriarchal society, and is very self-centered and self-righteous, he is positive in the sense that he does believe in education for all, [Mary: Yes] which is important. Evelyn: Yet, but who does he get that idea from? [Melanie: Maybe.] I found he was just this big bully, though he still listens to Hostos . . . Melanie: Maybe you're totally right, but he still . . . Also, maybe because he's so young, he's easily influenced. Maybe that's what it is. Evelyn: At least he had the sense of mind to be influenced by the right type of person. Mary: It could have gone the other way, too. Evelyn: Sure, sure. True enough.

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The teachers challenge each other to understand the personal contours of patriarchy. Their tentative language (question, "maybe") opens spaces to consider other perspectives and learn from one another (Brown & Duguid, 1989; Bruner, 1990; Ershler, 2002; Floriani, 1993; Jenson, Foster, & Eddy, 1997; Miller, 1990). The conflict and tension between the powerful and powerless appears dramatically when Salome opens a school for girls. Melanie (Book Club 2) who had earlier come to Pancho's defense moves on to discuss the place of females in the Central American context when she states: 'This is the first Latin American novel that I think I've read that seems to acknowledge the role that females play in the upbringing of a nation or of people." Rosemary adds: The women are usually portrayed as very intellectual. They're [Mary: They're strong] strong and very inspirational to everyone else, but they don't know that. The women are very influential. They're very powerful, yet they're still stuck in their roles [Evelyn: Submissive] in their submissive roles. Salome, however, gathers the strength to open a school for girls and provide access to literacy to the young women in her care. New possibilities for thinking and living run counter to established patterns of control and submission (Freire, 1970) and disturb those in charge: Mary: Here it is: 'Their father did not believe in education for his girls who might learn how to read and write love letters." [Lesley: Where is that?] Page 265—that whole section is on literacy . . . Lesley: To write love letters. Definitely. I read that this morning, too. It's so tied up together. Why do you not want women to get an education? Women who do learn will learn about themselves. They will find all sorts of things about themselves. Louise: But this is a condition all over the world, before and after September 11th. Lesley: It is a condition all over the world. [Louise: So it—] but it's a condition much more acute now because women in the Western world have been liberated through education to such a huge extent. Salome's "teaching to transgress" (hooks, 1994), prepares her girls to resist the submission they have been carefully and clearly taught to accept. In a sense, Salome begins to unravel the repression and relocate their practice of freedom. She teaches new ways for the girls to identify

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themselves and their actions by assuming an unaccustomed power to transform their own lives (Belsey, 1993; Bhola, 1994; Gamston & Wellman, 1994; Horton & Freire, 1990; Shore, 2000), The focus on girls and literacy in Salome's school connects to a current issue around literacy debates. The teachers in the book clubs are a long way from the Dominican Republic of the early 20^^ century. In our Western, 2V^ century lives and minds, we may dismiss the need to focus on girls and literacy. Yet, teachers live in a time when the explosion of research on adolescent girls in the last two decades of the last century has all but been forgotten in the present intense focus around boys' literacy. Of the twenty articles listed on www.literacytrust.org.uk, 16 use the words ''boys" or "men" in the titles. The four remaining articles include "gender" and "singlesex" but not one includes the word "girls" in the titles. Yet, girls' problems have not disappeared; they have gone underground. Teachers report that bright girls are so silenced in their high school classrooms that they often do not even come to class. Salome as model offers ways to create possibilities for girls' voices, experiences, concerns, and growth. The women who teach the girls (and boys) have traditionally been overrepresented in the profession at both elementary and secondary levels. Yet, men are generally the interpreters of what the women teachers are doing there. Women teachers report that they want help in telling and writing their own stories of being teachers. The book club facilitates this process as its members learn more about who they are as women, in some cases as mothers, and as teachers. Women who teach look for ways to empower themselves as well as their student charges. The interactions and relationships developed in the book clubs moved the teachers to recognize the diversity even among the small cohorts of the book clubs and have the time and space to do the hard work of re-thinking and change that comes through interactive dialogue from diverse perspectives (Bakhtin, 1986; Wertsch, 1993; Vygotsky, 1992). Book Club 1 teachers find parallels between the plight of Salome and her girls and the dramatic events of the post-9-11 world. On the critical issue of women's education, Lesley suggests: "That's what this war is about— women, and the right to an education, and all the issues of sexuality tied up in all of that stuff." Surprised by Lesley's hypothesis of the source of the issues resulting in the War in Afghanistan, Louise asks: "You think that's what this war is about?" Lesley: Oh yeah. It's about women. This war, at its deepest core, is about the rights of women. Louise: In terms of its purpose and its intent?

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Lesley: In terms of its deep meaning, it's how much freedom do you give women. All the rest of this stuff is just surface stuff. [Mary: Economics too.] It's economics too, but all of those things are the rational. The irrational, deep archetypal core is the war between the patriarchy and the matriarchy. This is the showdown between whether women should be doing what we're doing here, or not. Louise: You think that's in the consciousness of— Lesley: Not the consciousness—it's not a conscious thing. It's deep, a gut thing. Louise: I think one of the results of the situation [in Afghanistan] is that the increased publicity around the problem of women, will help the cause, will put the cause in the forefront. To say the gender issue is at the very core [of the war], I don't know. I think there is a justice issue. It is a core issue for us. When we hear about it and learn about it, we can't turn away from it. But— Lesley: That's what's happening in the world today. That's what this war is about: Women, and their right to an education . . .That's why the war is fought there. The reason that Osama bin Laden and the Afghanis—their raison d'etre right now—is the suppression of women's rights. Louise challenges Lesley's assumption that educating women has become more urgent and evident since 9/11 or that the war is being fought on the issue of women's rights to education. Louise suggests that Lesley's feminist perspective fails to account for the benefits of keeping the gender issue in the national consciousness through the stories of the Afghani women. Differences in perspectives between Louise and Lesley emerge regularly and strongly particularly on the issue of gender. Nevertheless, In the Name of Salome points to political and social injustices in a way that connect us to our own places as women and teachers. The fact remains that while great gains for women have been made, women teachers continue to encounter inequities and silencing that, if not addressed (and redressed), will needlessly perpetuate the inequalities around equity and partnership of all teachers (Acker, 1995; Apple, 1985; Kahn, 2004; LeBlanc, Kohl, & Witty, 1996; Grumet & McCoy, 2000; Pagano, 1990; Robertson, 1992).

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Relationships, love, and sexuality

Deeply personal issues of relationships, love, and sexuality recur throughout the novel and provoke considerable discussion. Book Club 1 compares the political struggle for independence and nationhood to the identity struggles Camila faces as she seeks to free herself from the pervasive presence of her mother, who, though she died when Camila was only three, impedes her journey to create an authentic self. Camila feels compelled to borrow her mother's life as a template to make a life for herself. Both book clubs discuss Camila: Melanie: I felt kind of sorry for Camila [Evelyn: Me too] because of that. Evelyn: Really? You felt—? Why? Explain that. Melanie: I thought that she was trying to live up to something that she could never live up to [Mary: I think so, too] therefore, who she was, was clouded over by who her mother was—in her sexuality, in her poetry, her writing, and in her art which was supposed to be opera. Right? She just wasn't good enough to do anything. She wasn't—I don't know. Rosemary: She didn't feel good enough. [Melanie: Exactly, exactly.] Mary: Even though she was, Evelyn: What was she? She was this woman who had this— Rosemary: Because it's got to be hard to follow in the footsteps of someone— Evelyn: Of a mother that you didn't know. In Book Club 1, Lesley reads a selection from the book aloud: / tried all kinds of strategies. I learned her story, I put it side by side with my own, I wove our two lives together as strong as a rope and with it I pulled myself out of the pit of depression and self-doubt. But no matter how I tried, she was still gone. Until at last I found her the only place we ever find the dead: among the living. (335) Bridget responds:

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It's really clever how she (Alvarez) frames the whole narrative with Camila's quest for herself and her mother—finding out who her mother was, but also finding out who she was. It comes together brilliantly at the end. Like the rope of stories of her mother and her, Camila braids the two parallel narratives together. It makes her stronger, clearer about her identity. In the novel there is the political struggle, but also her [Camila's] personal struggle [Mary: Yeah] and her mother's personal struggle before her. Near the end on page 339, she talks about this struggle. It starts at the bottom of 338. She's talking about having a struggle to love—[Louise: This is Camila?] Yes, about having struggled— '7 have struggled to love her [Tavista, her stepmother] as I have struggled with countless others. I thought of course of Domingo and the handsome Scott Andrews and my old friend Marion, still alive in Sarasota, both her eyes sharp, repaired by an exiled Cuban doctor—" This is at the top of page 339. She is talking about sight, both physically and symbolically here. Louise: But she's talking about struggling to love her mother. Bridget: Struggling to love her mother and all the other people in her life, and also herself—I think this relates back to page 250, of her brother recognizing that Camila thinks it's her mother that gives her a moral center [Lesley: Imperative] and imperative, but she's not recognizing that she herself has a very strong moral center. It's like she doesn't believe in herself. Only at the end she does start to [Louise: Know herself.] It says here, ''The struggle to see and the struggle to love the flawed things we see—what other struggle is there? Even the struggle to create a country comes out of that same seed'' I was saying how the political is personal in this novel, and how it all comes together here. Camila's ability or lack of ability to create and develop relationships is hampered by her history and shaped by her own compromised sense of self. She is historically situated within a patriarchal society that privileges men. Lesley reads aloud a section on Camila's awareness of the inequities embedded in patriarchal societies: It goes on about the girl who got pregnant and all the rest of it, down at the bottom of the page. "It seemed unjust that this young woman's life should be ruined, whereas the rogue man went on with his engagement to a girl from a fine family with no seeming consequence being paid. For the first time, I recalled my father's second family and felt a pang of resentment towards him. Why was it all right for a man to satisfy his passion but for a woman to do so was as good as signing her death

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warrant? There was another revolution to be fought if our patria was to be truly free." And that's what's happening in the world today. The expectation that Pancho knowingly leads a double life speaks clearly to the accepted double standard that persists in patriarchal cultures. The low status of women and a related disavowal of their sexuality often reflected an uncontested duality. Evelyn (Book Club 2) understands this personally and tells a story to demonstrate: In the Christian tradition, it's the same. You're either the virgin or a whore. You're one or the other—a Madonna or a Jezebel and both have the same results—detachment and depersonalization. [Mary: Right.] Wow! This happens so much. The fact the father has another whole family in France, and much later, comes back, is very strange to me. Salome never seems to come to terms with, or maybe even had a problem with this. Melanie: Yeah. That sort of bothered me a little bit. It was totally accepted by everyone. The wife was supposed to get upset but everyone else accepted it as normal. Evelyn: I have to tell you this is not uncommon. I remember finding out that my father had this long-lost uncle nobody knew about, in Venezuela. So basically this is one of my grandmother's brothers. Okay? After W.W.II, a lot of Italians left Italy to find work. A lot of them went to Venezuela and South America, lots, tons. This uncle goes to Venezuela and he never returns. He sets up shop and has a little family there. Never married. He's not divorced from his wife. [Melanie: Oh he still has a family?] Oh yeah, yeah, he's got a family, kids, everything in Italy, in our little town. He goes to Venezuela, never to be seen again, and everyone just kind of writes him off. [Rosemary: What about his wife?] My aunt never remarries, oh no. She can't. She's not divorced. Rosemary: Is she communicating communication.] Nothing.

with

him?

[Evelyn:

No

Evelyn: We find out from other people who have come back from Venezuela, other men, that he has a woman there and they have children. So he has this whole new life. [Melanie: Oh my god.] This is happening when my dad was a little kid. Five years go by and this aunt of ours never remarries, has these kids raised without a father and the family takes care of them in Italy. They're all adults now. They're all married with children. This man is now in his sixties. He comes out of nowhere. He's

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now sick and he can't get medical care in Venezuela. So the nieces and nephews are in Canada, "Oh remember Uncle Vito? He's really sick." Who is this uncle? I've never even heard of this uncle. The next thing I know, he's in Canada and we're all chipping in to get his hernia operation. He brings chickie with him. Get this. So now he's got grandchildren in Venezuela. He leaves the Venezuelan woma after he has an operation, when he's in his seventies. He doesn't want to die in Venezuela. He wants to die in his homeland. [Rosemary: So he's going back to his wife—?] Went—he's dead now. He went. [Melanie: He went back to his wife?] Yeah. Leaves the family in Venezuela. Mary: This is like Pancho. Evelyn: Totally like Pancho. It is. He says, "Bye-bye. Gotta go now and goes back to the first wife [Melanie: Oh my god] and dies a happy man in Italy. Evelyn's personal story is a modern retelling of Salome and Pancho. Inher personal story, Evelyn is able to re-examine gender in domestic relationships reflected in her cultural and religious background. She demonstrates that change and equity cannot be readily "solved" (Kahn, 2004). She knows what patriarchy is, because she has personally experienced what it does. Even in modern, 21'^ century Western life, injustice remains. Through articulating her personal story, Evelyn raises awareness of the gaps that remain (Belenky et al, 1997; Felman, 1993; Frye, 1986; Gilligan, Lyons, & Hammer, 1993). Stories of identity described through similarity and difference (Danielewicz, 2001) make the images of the young pregnant girl and Pancho all too painfully apparent. He may, she may not. Sexuality—at least as publicly expressed—remains covert in patriarchal societies. Salome's connection to the physical and sexual appears as she secretly begins to write poetry of the body. She expresses personal feelings: / have to say that I surprised myself when I wrote ''Quejas, " It was as if by lifting my pen, I had released the woman inside me and let her free on paper. But even as I wrote, I knew such frank passions in a woman were not permissible. [130]

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Chapter 9 She writes: Listen to my desiring! Answer the wild longing in my heart! Put out my ardent fire with your kisses! [143]

When she reads the poem to her friend Ramona, she responds: ''This is enough to rouse every woman believed to be dead from the waist down" (143). Inspired, Salome creates a new poem entitled, "Vespertina" that includes the phrase: ''missing him with a desperation that me feel afraid for my sanity'' (176). When Pancho reads the poem, however, he reacts by kissing her on the forehead and admonishing her: But you must not squander your talent by singing in a minor key, Salome, You must think of your future as the bard of our nation. We want the songs of la patria, we need anthems to lead us out of the morass of our past and into our glorious destiny as the Athens of the Americas! (177) Although Salome reminds him, "I am a woman as well as a poet'' Pancho admonishes her. "That tone of voice is not becoming, Salome," he said, one hand tucked inside his vest in the manner of a statesman making a pronouncement'' {111). Any digressions from her patriotic poetry, Pancho warns, constitute a shirking of '^duties." The teachers discuss Salome's writing. Louise suggests that Salome's "political poems and personal poems can never coexist in peace with her husband. Only within herself does she acknowledge both." Lesley adds: Salome writes that poem about her longings and reads aloud: "That's all well and good Salome, but you can't publish this. You're La Musa Delia Patria, for heaven's sakes,' she reminded me, waving her hand above her head. 'Nobody thinks you have a real body.' 'It's time they found out', I declared." [143]. Lesley introduces a woman's "body" into the discussion (Shore, 1999). She raises the issue that Salome's new poems affirm her femaleness and the existence of her body ("nobody thinks you have a real body"). The body and sexuality play a significant, albeit different role, in Camila's life. Shy and self-effacing, Camila is deeply conflicted about her own sexuality and how to deal with her attraction to women. Her relationship with a colleague, Marion, remains ambiguous and unresolved (Marion later marries a man). Book Club 2 discusses Camila's struggles: Evelyn: I think the thing that I really liked about Camila is that she is true to her sense of self in that she doesn't marry Domenico. She doesn't

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follow the tradition she inherited. She knows that's not where her love lies. She knows that her love lies with Marion and she is true to that love. Rosemary: Okay, but in the beginning, she leaves Marion does she not? [Evelyn: She does, she leaves her] [Melanie: Marion] Marion. Didn't you get a sense that she had to go? She'd just had enough? [Evelyn: Of Marion?] Of Marion. Mary: Yes. Marion herself was having her own traumas and then developed this unexpected heterosexual relationship and marries a man. Ultimately, Camila is unfilled in love and expressions of her sexuality. Not until her literacy work in Cuba does the tension of her conflicted self result in a new sense of identity, a clearer view of herself as individual and woman. The implications for gendered ways of seeing the world and of acting on being women with bodies, raises interesting possibilities for discussions of women teachers (Biklen, 1993, 1995; Clifford, 1989; Felman, 1993; Goldberger et al, 1996; Grumet, 1988; Heilbrun, 1999; Neumann & Peterson, 1997). Gender and sexuality have scarcely, if at all, found a place in the research literature on teaching. Since considerable evidence exists connecting the personal and professional in understanding teaching (Mclntyre, 1998; Schubert, 1991; Webb & Blond, 1995), further inquiry into teaching that includes gender in the discussions is worth pursuing.

3.3

Teacher identity

Identity is to how individuals know and name themselves (race, class) and how others name them ("She is a person of color"). Individual identity crosses boundaries and is multiple (teacher, mother, woman, partner, relative, friend). Always in process and fluid, identity is a process continuously under construction (Danielewicz, 2001). *'As an educator," Danielewicz (2001) wrote, '1 find hope in this view of identity as malleable, subject to intervention, created by individuals and others, flexible and sensitive to social contexts" (4). Discussions of teacher identity have become important in light of the knowledge that self-identity and perceptions shape the ways we teach (Gaudelli, 1999, 4) and ultimately, how students learn (Barty, 2004; Danielewicz, 2001; Mitchell & Weber, 1999). Salome and Camila both enter specific teaching experiences through epiphanal crises in their lives. Each abandons the familiar (national poet, successful professorship) to begin a new life in teaching critical literacy. These two contexts unfix their familiar roles and expectations but on the

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other hand, secures for each, a new self-negotiated teacher identity. Like Grant Wiggins in A Lesson before Dying [Chapter 7], they find ways to simultaneously subvert and open up the worlds of their students through literacy as tr through critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970, 1986, 1987; hooks, 1994) and in the process, (re)construct their existing identities. Camila's crisis of identity occurs when she nears the end of a comfortable academic career in the U.S. In a moment of critical and deep reflection, she observes: "Such a mistake to want clarity above all else! A mistake I made over and over all my life" (350). When most people retire (age 65), Camila joins the revolution in Cuba and begin a new teaching career: teaching literacy to the poor (similar to Freire's literacy work [1970] in South America). She abandons the prestige, power, and pensions of her middle class privileged professor status and for thirteen years, teaches literature "in the campos, classrooms, barracks, factorias—literature for all" (349). Her new teaching experiences help Camila both face and reconfigure her own identity. Not in the academic halls, but among the poor and undereducated of Cuba, her voice emerges with a new power and strength. The workplace is one central site where identities are formed and learned (du Gay, 1996; Miller & Rose, 1995). From the preceding discussions, this appears to be the case, particularly for the novice teachers. Teacher identity evolves as teachers develop coping strategies to deal with their new role, acquire understandings of self as a teacher, and create a sense of their own professional identity in their school community (Danielewicz, 2001; Goodson & Cole, 1993). Teachers, Britzman argues, 'take up' identity through both compliance and resistance to a normative, stereotypical notion of Hhe teacher' (Britzman, 2003; Kereos, 1999; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000). Miller Marsh (2002) suggests that teacher identity is a social process of negotiation strongly shaped by experiences as students. Melanie's stories of struggling to find her way as a teacher (above), illustrate the logic of this argument. Although the book clubs do not specifically occur in the "daily" lives of teachers in schools, this outside-of-school context offers teachers an opportunity to step back and view and re-view perspectives, practices, and prospects for teaching that emerge through the dialectics of the groups (Bakhtin, 1986; Erickson, 2004) and contribute to their ongoing and developing teacher identities.

4.

THE POWER AND POLITICS OF POETRY

In the Name of Salome presents an intertextual narrative that weaves fictional and imaginative renderings, historical persons and places, and poetry. Of the four books discussed in this section, this speaks most clearly

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to the intrinsic power of poetry (a particular text and form of language) to affect transformation and change. Salome's poems move off the page and into the cultural and political ethos and identity of the Dominican Republic of the late 1800's. They spark unprecedented passion, give voice to the disenfranchised, and motivate the people to fight for the republic's freedom. Salome's poetry crosses political and personal boundaries. She understands that she: ''stirred [her] readers to noble actions'' (173). Her innate belief in the power of words to change hearts is rooted in her deep-seated love for and belief in, *1a patria." Mary: If narrative offers a way of explaining life and helping people make sense of their lives, then this poetry also fills a particular need. Bridget: It's interesting. Everybody comes together through poetry. Like we were saying earlier, we would never think in our culture now, of coming together through poetry. [Mary: No.] Lesley: In the Dominican Republic, you had Black, Spanish, English, [Mary: Exactly]—so many different cultures and languages—they represented a melange of different cultural roots, [Mary: Right] and yet, through poetry, they could still galvanize themselves towards this one "la patria" thing. Louise: I wonder about her political poems, though. Did they help people understand who they were and where they sat [Mary: That's a good point] or were they patriotic poems to incite people to action and to— Mary: This is poetry of the people. That's what I got out of this text— poetry o/the people and/or the people. They read it and memorized it. It was, like their politics, a vibrant part of their lives. Louise: Salome's political poetry, then, is like slogans and jingles today. Mary: Her poetry helped the people cope with and survive enormous political disruption and constant foreign domination. It was both a comfort and inspiration to them—a beacon of hope in the political quagmire. The oppressors in the Dominican Republic may have been well justified in believing that her poetry, as shared communal knowledge, had the potential to mobilize people against them. Lesley reminds us of Plato's perspective on the power of poetry:

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I'm thinking about Plato and his banishing the poets from the Republic because he knew the power of poetry. This is, I think, very similar to really what she's [Alvarez] saying. Poetry gets you all fired up for the cause. You just get so drawn up in it that you lose the clear-sighted, rational decision making that you need. It's that dichotomy. It's being divided. The legacy of her mother's poetry touches Camila who, much later on assignment to a literacy brigade in Cuba, reads aloud from a communist manifesto to a group of women sorting coffee beans in a cafetal in the Sierra Maestra. At one point, spontaneously, she puts aside the political readings and recites a short, four-line, unpublished poem: There sleeps my little one, all mine! There sleeps the angel who enchants my world! I look up from my book a dozen times, absorbed with him, I haven't read a word, (348) I looked up after I was finished: the women had stopped sorting and were looking at me with interest. "What is it?" I asked, glancing over their shoulders at our compaiiera-in-charge at the back of the hall. She could be rather brusque when the sorters fell behind their quotas. 'That was written by a mother?" one of the women asked. I nodded. "It was written by my mother, in fact." Then, I told them her story, and when I was done, one by one, the women began to clack with their wooden scoopers on the side of their tables, until the din in the room drowned out the compaiiera, shouting for order, in the name of Fidel, in the name of the revolution. (348) The poem stops the working women in their tracks. They understand and identify viscerally with the words and images conveyed. In a simultaneous and subversive move, they pick up their ladles and begin to tap them onto the side of the bean sorter. The clanging "din" is the collective response of the women whose voices have remained silenced and unheard. Melanie (Book Club 2) opens with: For me, the idea of the power of poetry was really important in the book. Everybody was so enthralled [by it]. It moved them to hear Salome's poetry. Rosemary: Why is it the poem that has such power?

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Mary: I guess that's a question that's being asked and addressed in this book. Evelyn: The form of writing you mean? Melanie: Yes. It must have to do with the images or the emotions created by the words... A poem cuts out all the extra stuff and just leaves the little tiny shards of emotion, and when they're right next to each other, it creates an effect, a bang. [Mary: "The best words in the best order,"] Exactly . . . There's so much emotion packed in poetry. Rosemary: I could understand in this book how people got so caught up in her [Salome's] poems, and almost looked to her as their bard. She was like their prophet [Mary: Yes], That's what poets are. They're the seers. There is such power in poetry. Book Club 2 teachers watch as the women respond to the poem and begin to discuss the nature and effects of the language of poetry. They are learning to understand what poetry is when they see what it does to and for the women. With poetry having lost currency in the English/Language Arts curricula in the schools, this brief experience in the novel raises the power and potential of poetry for these teachers and may lead them to include poetry into their teaching. As a Postmodern society, poetry in the conventional sense, rarely appears as relevant, let alone, instrumental. Yet, in the aftermath of terrorist acts in New York and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001, W. H. Auden's poem, "September 1, 1939" seemed prophetic and powerful. It became a commonly cited text on untold numbers of websites, and in speeches, and conversations. People recited lines such as: "The unmentionable odour of death/offends the September night," and "blind skyscrapers use/Their full height to proclaim/The strength of Collective man," and "Defenseless under the night/Our world in stupor lies;/ Yet, dotted everywhere, /Ironic points of light/Flash out wherever the Just/Exchange their messages." Lesley (Book Club 1) and Rosemary (Book Club 2) explore the concept of poetry as prophetic: Lesley: I wanted to go back to that notion of literature being prophetic. I think you can always read literature as prophecy [Mary: Yeah] because literature is tapping into the deeper cultural, the archetypal, really primordial themes, so it will always be prophetic. The writer will always be something of a clairvoyant looking into— Because you're getting the stuff before the stuff is out there.

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Lesley adds: *The other thing about literature comes toward the end when she calls it, "liberature." [Bridget: Ohhh.] [Mary: Wow.] I just read it this morning. I never thought about just taking out and replacing one letter with the stroke of the pen, and describe exactly what poetry is—"liberature." Moreover, poetry as the ''best words in the best order" calls for imaginative efforts from both poets and readers. Imagination is key, the spark (Greene, 1995). Camila observes during her time in Cuba that "The real revolution could only be won by the imagination" (347). Poetry and imagination are irrevocably linked. Bridget reads from an article written in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that she cut out and tucked into her copy of the book: The writer Ian McEwan wrote some articles recently for The Guardian after the Sept. 11 attacks. [Lesley: That's exactly the part that I quoted in my reading log.] He said: "Among the terrorist crimes was a failure of the imagination. If the highjackers had been able to imagine themselves into the thoughts and feelings of the passengers, they would have been unable to proceed. Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity, it is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality." If, as McEwan suggests, "failure of the imagination" may even result in carrying out terrorist crimes, the power of imagination must be included in teaching and learning in schools. Maxine Greene's, Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (1995) passionately and convincingly points to the power of language and the arts in education to open minds and break down barriers to imagine new ways of understanding and acting. She plead for recapturing the arts as heuristics to affect social change. Lesley notes: " Maybe we could be brought together through poetry. There's no passionate thing that unites us. We've never been able to define ourselves as Canadians. We've never been able to develop a long-lasting sense of our own identity. Maybe poetry could help us do that. The setting and subjects of teaching and teachers, language and poetry, power and patriarchy, and of gender and women teaching, engaged the teachers in substantive dialogue. While the women set the course for the discussion, the variations and distinctions that mark earlier dialogues proved less obvious in these book club meetings. The discourse reveals fewer differences between the groups that are normally attributed to career stages and the levels of teacher knowledge. Salome and Camila's stories of teaching functioned as foils for the teachers to develop new images and understanding of teaching and critical literacy. They witness the "liberatory" and transformational power of critical

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pedagogy (Freire, 1970) to transform lives. The social interactions and dialogues made more learning more possible (Bakhtin, 1986; Vygotsky, 1992). Virginia Woolf s, A Room of One's Own, began as her attempt to write about women and writing. The questions she raised then, in 1928, are worth remembering today. In order to write, Woolf proposed, women need money and a room of their own. Money, time, and space, she proposed, could provide the freedom for writing to flourish. For the teachers in this study and elsewhere, the room of one's own may include other teachers and a larger space. In the conclusion of her germinal study on women's book clubs. Long (2003) wrote: More than men, women need spaces to voice their concerns, to narrate the particularities in their lives, to expand their cultural repertoires in dialogues with narratives in books or from other women's lives, to name what delights or troubles them, to explore the disassociations between what matters to them and the social strictures or ideological frameworks that fail in important ways to address them (219). Stories—from the books and lives of the teachers—are powerful research tools. They provide a three-dimensional view of real people, in real situations, dealing with real issues and problems. The increasing store of stories gives the teachers more to work with and draw from. They learn to use story as a dynamic heuristic to explain and understand, to add new perspectives and try them on. The collective efforts of the teachers productively bridges and blurs conventional distinctions between research (university) and practical knowledge (schools). In the social context of the book club, they engage in meaningful dialogue that deepens understanding of their own local reality and their teaching selves (Mitchell & Weber, 1999),

Chapter 10 THE TELLING STORIES OF TEACHER BOOK CLUBS

As I reflect on the opening story of this book—the "woman reading" paintings—I imagine re-entering the art gallery where I plan to stop again at the exhibit. As I step in, a surprising metamorphosis occurs: each woman in the paintings arises from her lounge, park bench, or place under the great elm, walks toward a large oak dining table in the garden, and takes her place around it. Each woman, now positioned as subject (not object of the gaze), joins the other women readers. In a simultaneous epiphany, they abandon their positions and form a community, a company of *'women reading." The women teachers in this study, too, left individual professional spaces to mutually gather around stories to create, collect, and contribute to a shared narrative collage. Their ''narrative life constructions" led to reinterpretations, meanings, and new ''stories to live by" (Clandinen, 2003; Clandinen & Connelly, 1995). The discussions that follow focus on critical research findings in the following key fields: (1) Narrative as social practice and telling stories; (2) Book Clubs as communities of learning; (3) Women teachers and teaching; and, (4) Professional/Teacher development. Wherever helpful and possible, the voices of the teachers provide examples and explain.

1.

NARRATIVE AS SOCIAL PRACTICE AND TELLING STORIES

The company of women teachers reading and talking in book clubs provides an unconventional and groundbreaking link to professional

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learning. It began with reading. Each teacher understood the transformative power of reading through lifelong relationships with books. The book club provided a space for reading as social practice and a social setting to "walk around a mutually interesting place" (Clark, 2001, 181). Bruner suggests that fictional stories "create realities so compelling that they shape our experience not only of the worlds the fiction portrays but the of the real world" (2002, 9). Through observing the teachers in the texts, the book club teachers often re-examined their own teaching lives and practices. Greene's observation on "releasing the imagination" clearly states the nature and benefits of stories: "The narratives I have encountered in my journey have made it possible for me to conceive patterns of being as my life among others has expanded: to look through others' eyes more than I would have and to imagine being something more than I have come to be" (1995, 8586). Evelyn (Book Club 2) noted that the stories in her group "put my experiences in a greater context and open up my teaching world." Liz (Book Club 2) observed in a final interview: "I learned how to stop and listen to the stories of the others in my group. I practiced how to be with my colleagues. It almost felt like a practice session for a model teacher staff." Stories from the texts served, in Long's words, as "launching pads" to somewhere else, out of the book (2003) and often "skip[ping] back and forth between our lives and the novels" (Nafisi, 2003, 67). In the dialogue that occurs, teacher stories. Booth suggests, are "transformed by us as we hold our conversations about it" (1988, 74). Stories set the groundwork for understanding and theorizing teaching. Teacher stories contain their teachers' theories in action. Stories functioned as explanatory devices for understanding teaching (Jarvis, 2000; Kelchtermans, 1993; Kooy, in press; O'Council Rust, 1997) that led the teachers to test theories, question practices, and generate new information, new telling stories. The social dimension and nature of narrative and reading is captured in Booth's helpful term, "coduction:" that is, "co" (together) and "duction" as "to lead, draw out" (1988, 72-23). By bringing readers together in a book club, the exchanges shift perceptions and alter understanding. Through the shared reading experiences, the women teachers developed relationships and created interdependency among the members. Long's (2003) study on book clubs led her to observe: "One can see people in the process of creating new meanings and new relationships—to the characters in the books or their authors, to themselves, and to the other members of the group, to the society, and the culture in which they live" (22).

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2.

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TEACHER BOOK CLUBS AS COMMUNITIES OF LEARNERS

The teacher book clubs in this study provide one manifestation of recent changes in conceptions of professional development. The small, collaborative communities of practice (Au, 2002; Buysse, Sparkman & Wesley, 2003; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2001; Elmore & Burney, 1999; Clark, 2000; Flood et al, 1994; Warshauer Freedman, 2001) reflect progressive understanding of dialogical and social constructivism (Grossman & Wineburg, 2000). The small, teacher-directed groups became important to the teachers. Helen (Book Club 2) observed that, 'Tn the book club I have people to talk to, human resources that can help me in my work as a teacher." Evelyn compared the book club sessions to a "workout. I leave energized." Sandra discussed the advantages of the shared stories: The comparing and exchanging help me think about my teaching. Without my good book club friends, I would not have the time or the energy to think about the important issues and questions for me right now. Each time I come, I add another thread to my web of knowledge. "For me," Patricia (Book Club 1) wrote in her survey (2004), "the social aspects [of the book club] were very important." Kerri (Book Club 2) observed: "We need to know that we share the same challenges and we need to learn from each other. This is what our book club of teachers does" (Survey, 2004). In her survey (2004), Sandra observed: "We come together [in book club] as very good friends." Helen observed that, "We're not necessarily best friends, but we're very bonded" (Interview, 2003). "It's relationships, not a mandated class, that make the learning possible," Shelly (Book Club 2) observed in her survey (2004). In professional learning communities, the teachers developed interdependency and gained perspective, knowledge, and skills. As the book club sessions accumulated, the teachers developed personal relationships and grew to know each other. They became increasingly aware of individual personalities, differences, and a range of knowledge and perspectives and the benefits of the interchanges and exchanges. Liz and Kerri (Book Club 2) noted in their surveys (respectively): "I'm amazed by the different perspectives in this group of women teachers," and, "The discussions really brought an intimacy to the group. Though we all connected to the books and topics differently, at the same time, we clearly demonstrated our diversity" (Survey, 2004). Bridget (Book Club 1) observed that she found a "new respect and openness for different perspectives"

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(Survey, 2004). At times, different worldviews and theories collided, Lesley (Book Club 1) provides a clear example in her final survey: I remember vividly a rather heated exchange with Louise where I said that what the war in Afghanistan was really all about was women's freedom. She didn't agree—not surprisingly—but what I loved about our (relatively frequent) differences of opinion was how we both felt safe enough in the setting of the book club to hear each other out without any animosity. (2004) Lesley and Louise learned to understand each other and accept diverse worldviews. They could be ^'friends to each others' minds" (Sorensen, 1998) and find the space to learn together. Varied perspectives and knowledge within the group resulted in richer and denser knowledge for individual teachers (Clark, 2001; Rust & Orland, 2001). A gestalt resulted; that is, book club teachers accomplished considerably more socially than possible individually and the effects extended beyond the individual contributions. The convincing evidence of the study recommends book clubs as a viable vehicle for sustained social learning and constructing new teacher knowledge.

2,1

My role in the book clubs

I participated in both book clubs as participant observer. From the pilot study (1998-2000), I assumed insider affiliation as a member of both book groups. I participated and investigated teacher book clubs as a site for professional learning and development. I both shaped and was shaped by the inquiry. This afforded me a member's view not available had I limited my participation to researcher or "external facilitator" or "field-based developer" (D'Ette Cowan & Pankake, 2004)—roles common to studies of "professional learning communities" (such as SEDL, see Hord, 2004, for a full description). In the earlier pilot study, I learned about simultaneously participating and observing. First-hand participation offered a distinctive view of the processes, functions, and stories that evolved and also contributed to developing relationships with the teacher members. Louise suggested: "This book club models interdependency because we each have something to offer and something to learn from one another based on our teaching experiences." With the introduction of Book Club 2 (former students in pre-service teacher education), I re-introduced the question of my presence and participation in the book club conversations. What if I had been a researcher who did not participate in the conversations or if a research assistant

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facilitated the book club sessions? How was the power distributed in the groups and in the discussions? Did my narratives become the privileged discourse? As the early discussions reveal, I either initiated or responded to requests by the novice teachers to suggest strategies or practices for their teaching. Sometimes I heard my ''telling" voice—giving directions for or solving teacher problems. The teachers seemed eager for information, reaching out for strategies and teaching ideas. At times, I critically judged a teacher comment or a position and seemed to close down further discussion on the point. Sometimes I posed questions expecting an acceptable "right" answer. At times I felt caught between being in and steering the conversation. The difficulties in managing my shifting roles—from teacher to fellow book club member—moved reflexively and haltingly through the complex terrain in my transition from teacher to student. I felt (and saw in the transcripts) that this occurred mostly with Book Club 2, the novice teachers. I raised the issue of my participation in the group on several occasions. They reminded me that they needed support and advice in the critical first year's changes and uncertainties. They anticipated the book club meetings, in part because they could ask for help. In retrospect, I did note that as the book club meetings accumulated, the length and frequency of my talk declined. In the second year of the study, I wrote in my field notes that I saw some evidence of stepping back, to ''relinquish the need to say something." I had, at least in my mind, "let the members do the negotiating and discovering among themselves." Certainly, the scale gradually (with cumulating experiences), leaned more toward a balance between my book club member and teacher voices. I learned, too. The delicate balance required to play both roles meant I had to apply due diligence in interpreting the data. I relied on teacher members, research assistants, and other knowledgeable sources to confirm my data interpretations. The teachers provided helpful and critical feedback. In interviews, surveys, and book club sessions, they suggested that the democracy of the group allowed them to speak freely. Lesley identified a common theme on the process and effects of the book club: I never felt that I was being judged by the quality of my observations but that all our ideas were welcomed in the welter of thought that was created in our meetings. Surely we provided support for each other easily and naturally. I certainly felt my "voice" strengthen and grow in this nurturing and non-judgmental setting but I believe this happened for all of us. The book club was a safe and sacrosanct space for us to really speak our minds and hearts and be valued and respected for it.

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Such evidence speaks to the benefits of democratic membership and the power of shared reading in the group. In this study, two groups of teachers engaged in professional learning communities organized on democratic principles. The impetus of the sustained group processes depended on collaborative decision-making, active engagement, and dialogues that forged relationships, fostered learning, and modeled effective practices. The book club experiences provided new insights of what it takes to (learn to) teach and the profound need to support teachers in their pursuits to be lifelong learners regardless of career stage. Through the social and professional learning in the book clubs, the teachers became more knowledgeable, more connected, and better equipped to improve the learning of their students. The possibilities of the professional communities represented in the study break new ground and open possibilities for further research—particularly with respect to knowledge transfer into the schools (Franke, 2005; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001).

3.

WOMEN TEACHERS AND TEACHING

The intersection of women teachers, stories, and the book club forges a particularly salient context and text for this study. Teaching (Pagano, 1990) and book clubs (Long, 2003) have traditionally been regarded as women's work and women's play, respectively. Neither has been adequately represented in mainstream educational research literature. This undermining and overlooking has significant impact on the profession and the women who populate it. It is important to note the differences that exist in the impact of feminist and equity policies, practices, and research in the academy and in the schools (Bloom, 1996; Gorrell, 1996). At a recent American Educational Research Conference (Montreal, 2005), I attended a forum on three critical research studies in teacher development. When I asked one panelist whether questions of women entered her research, she responded: 'Women dominate the profession. They possess power by their sheer numbers. Look at the increase of women in AERA leadership in the last few years. For me, it's a moot issue." The response—by a woman—took me aback. First, she confused two distinctive academic contexts—schools and universities—as though they one and the same. Most research on gender has been done in the academy; research on gender in schools remains in the shadows. Even the academy, however, cannot claim that gender and equity issues have been resolved. The recent crisis at Harvard with President Lawrence Summers and the University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences provides a

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highly visible example (Strober, 2005; Thernstrom, 2005). At a conference on women and science, President Summers suggested that, "perhaps the dearth of women in science careers is explained by gender differences in math ability as well as by women's unwillingness to combine family with a demanding academic career" (Strober, 2005, 1). This troubling perception of women (subsequently repeatedly repealed by Dr. Summers) remains a reality (to varying degrees) for women educators. While such views appear anachronistic on the surface and often face academic and even public censure, the fact is, many teaching institutions continue to hold to long-held and established standards and practices that long ago, ceased to be useful and realistic. The issue of women teachers in the elementary and secondary schools remains even further removed from critical inquiry and research. Women's increased presence in administrative roles has been the primary evidence of change. The gender issue around conceptualizing teaching through the feminist lens remains an untold story (Bloom, 1998). Research on how women teachers' knowledge and experiences shape and affect the ways they teach in the classrooms has been neglected. Predominance in the teaching force has not automatically resulted in dominance in the field in spite of the fact that women teachers are a source of pedagogical authority. The gender issue, however, is not about dominance per se, but about open and intellectual dialogue about more roundedness, more variety of vantage points and perspectives that include the ways women understand and practice teaching. The need for such dialogue and social action found a place in the book club where stories helped the women understand their past and current situations. Kerri (Book Club 2) wrote: It can't be denied that women share a world that needs to be discussed and explored together. The book club gave me an opportunity to hear and to speak of my experience as a woman, as a woman teaching, and as a female reader. We often found similar threads in our lives and in our characters' lives that invited deep and meaningful discussion of our lives and experiences. (Survey, 2004) The challenge for women teachers to be meaningfully included is ongoing. Exploring ways of being women in the classroom has been investigated through metaphors of teaching as caring (Noddings, 2003), maternal (Kristeva, 1986, 1987), and motherhood (Atwell-Vasey, 1998). These women theorists link maternal metaphors and issues of nurturance to reconstitute and reshape the current contours of the neutralized "teaching is teaching" assumption in much of the research literature. Even in their first year of teaching, the novice teachers identified and claimed gendered ways of acting and interacting that can best be described as maternal metaphors:

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Evelyn: has it slipped? Has any student called you, "mom" yet? When a student called me, "Mom"—Oh, I was thinking, "Whoa!" Sandra: Oh, I think that has also happened to me, actually. Helen: I really love that part, though. I feel that I'm like all their mothers. I love that. Evelyn: They respond to that. Would this conversation, I wonder, occur with a Department Head, or a mentor, or in the course of a professional workshop? What if men were present in the book club discussion? Would they have asked the group: "Has it happened? Have they called you "Dad" yet?" Attributes of care, nurture, and mothering have traditionally been assigned to women (Ruddick, 1980) but not necessarily included as (alternative) qualities of effective teaching. The metaphors of caring and nurturing make room for "women's ways of knowing" (Belenky et al, 1997) in the classroom that blend the personal and professional life of the woman teacher. This involves a paradigm shift in epistemology, moving from valuing autonomy and objectivity ("pure reason") to valuing interdependence and subjectivity (communal knowledge); from focusing on the relation of a proposition to reality, to focusing on the interrelationship of subject and proposition in creating knowledge and power. On the other hand, suggesting that all women teachers, regardless of race, class, culture, histories, and individual differences, can be stereotypically limited to acting only out of maternal knowledge and models leads logically to charges of essentialism. While I acknowledge the inherent difficulties of being both feminist and avoiding essentialism, I argue for a feminist perspective that includes dialogue on the effects of women teachers in teaching, "It is a conversation rather than a debate, a question, rather than an assertion" Pagano (1990, 41) wrote. For women teachers, this will take the form of "unlearning, learning, and relearning" (Hayes & Flannery, 2000, 78) to value themselves and their work. Since serious inquiry into the effect of women teacher's knowledge has been neglected, feminists must be willing to take the political steps and intellectual risk of being charged with essentialism to critique the inequities of the research and literature and the resulting marginalization of women teachers and teaching in the classroom (Bloom, 1998; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000, 123). Suggesting that gender has an impact on the ways women understand and practice teaching also disrupts the grand narrative, the accepted story, that "teaching is teaching" regardless of gender. In 1990, Pagano wrote: "The

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literature on the art of teaching suggests that the teacher is sexless, that artistic teaching is artistic teaching and gender neutral" (108). In the discussions, the women teachers in the book clubs recognized the fallacy of such assumptions. The stories of male teachers (Grant, in A Lesson Before Dying and Tom in Plainsong) often unsettled them. In discussing Tom, the History teacher in Plainsong, Book Club 2 teachers clearly address the issue of difference. Helen: I think it's the male-female thing, right? He [Tom] takes the kid out and it's an argument. It's a physical conflict. I don't know, is it a gender thing? Why is it, why is there no, "Come and see me so we can talk about it" and "What do you think what your comment may have a—

Kerri: But I think that that's what we were saying before. They [men] don't analyze it. He [Tom] reacted. He took him out and he said, "Don't you ever . . ." And then he got the kid's [Russell's] reaction. Then, [later] as soon as he heard about his boys [being beat up by Russell], he went straight to his [Russell's] house. [Melanie: Yeah, it's all based on reaction.] Tom was saying, "I'm not going to sit down, and we're not going to do the 'How are you feeling'?" As much as we're [teachers] trained to do that, it was kind of the raw—Yes, there's different rules. Through stories in the books and from their lives, the women teachers articulate and acknowledge their interpretations and understanding using "interpersonal reasoning" (Noddings, 1991)—a strategy more in line with their own way of seeing the world—one where, for these women teachers, action replaces reaction. They learned from the stories and models of women teachers in the books they read: Plainsong (Chapter 6), Oranges are not the only Fruit (Chapter 8), and. In the Name of Salome (Chapter 9). Being with other women gave them the courage to speak up and speak out because they were all women. Both groups declared that being a 'women only' group proved critical for their participation and continuing involvement: "I wouldn't continue if you included men," and "men would change things" and, "men have appropriated the voices of women teachers for too long." Not having inquired into the effects of either including men teachers or paralleling the women's group with a men's group, I can only speculate on the possible differences this may have generated. I suggest a mixed group would almost certainly affect the selection of texts (many texts had women characters, for instance) as well as the process and content of the discussions. The concept of "relational learning" would have altered. Lesley (Book Club 1) observed: "Often, in the company of men who teach, I choose my words very carefully. I sense they do not share my values or my way of

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noticing—perhaps because their professional lives have been shaped so differently from mine" (Survey, 2004). This does not suggest that men and book clubs do not mix, or that mixing men and women in book clubs may jeopardize desired outcomes or inhibit relationships and learning. Reaching such conclusions is without justifiable grounds in this discussion. It is important to note that the call to redress the underdeveloped area of women's knowledge and teaching is not about replacing men's ways with women's or about winning and losing, or about battles at all. Rather, it points to possibilities for elaborating and expanding the ways teaching is valued and supported in our classrooms (Grumet & McCoy, 2000). It is important to note the potential benefits for women teachers but also important to imagine the further benefits for their male colleagues (for instance, exposure to different modes of teaching and learning that result from such research). Men may stand to gain from this research precisely because exposure to teaching as maternal has the potential to improve practice. As teachers divulge and explore diverse ways of knowing, perspectives, and practices, their teacher learning will lead to improved student learning—the goal of all professional development (Ancess, 2001; Guskey, 2000; Sykes, 1999).

4.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Professional development—what remains of it in many schools and school districts—often consists of the traditional "one-shot" workshop which Sandra (Book Club 2) described as ''some person lecturing, giving resources, and outlining the steps of a teaching strategy. There's little discussion, virtually no interaction. I feel like a high school student. I sure don't feel I've benefited much from forced professional development'' (interview, 2002). Ball and Cohen found the traditional model "intellectually superficial, disconnected from the deep issues of curriculum and learning, fragmented and non-cumulative" (1999, 4). More recent conceptions of teacher development indicate that teachers need to be involved in continuous collaborative professional development based on problem solving and active learning (Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 1999; Darling-Hammond & Wallin McLauglin, 1999; Franke, 2005; Haas dyson & Fullan, 1992; Hawley & Valli, 1999; Rolfe-Flett, 2000). The teacher book clubs of the study mirrored Lieberman and Miller's (1999) model that the underlying processes of teacher growth include developing a professional community and combining inside and outside

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knowledge, through an ethic of collaboration (66). Sandra (Book Club 2) pointed out: On the surface, the book club may appear casual and informal, but the learning is real, authentic. It's a human web of people and ideas with opportunities to compare and exchange stories. That's what provided me with human resources and new ways to be and teach in my classes. The social process of the book club—the story exchanges—made "the invisible, visible and create[d] a richer, more complex picture of women as learners" (Long, 188). Teachers in both book clubs talked and wrote movingly of how their knowledge evolved and changed (Kooy, in press). Rosemary (Book Club 2): I was like a leech, listening and absorbing their dialogue as I heard their different perspectives on the book. This experience translated so well for me when I thought about the classroom and the varying perspectives and opinions that my students bring to the texts that we read and view as a class. (Survey, 2004). Louise (Book Club 1): Professionally, I enjoy seeing how others react to various elements of a text. It helps to remind me of the diversity of reactions within my own classroom. Listening to others reminds me of the need to create space for students to talk and to model and teach them the value of listening to one another. (Interview, 2004). Bridget (Book Club 1): I have been given respect—as a teacher and as a woman—by the other members [of the book club]. I feel that through our conversations, my knowledge of literature and teaching has really widened, and consequently, so has my understanding of the world. I expect that we will continue reading and discussing our ideas and giving each other support. I think we are starting to understand how powerful this type of sharing can be. (Interview, 2003). Knowledge transformations occurred. Telling stories revealed the ways thinking changed and shifted over the course of the research. The key elements of all successful professional learning are captured in the words and phrases the teachers used to describe their experiences: enjoy, diversity, my own classroom, respect, support, widened knowledge and understanding, and, teach my students the value of listening to one another. While the study was limited to learning and knowledge development within the teacher book clubs, the teachers began to re-cognize how their learning experiences affected their teaching in the classrooms. Book Club 2 teachers described how they are attempting to carry their new understandings and practices into their teaching (Survey, 2004):

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Liz: I replaced the "Q & A" model of teaching a novel to focus on small group talk and discussion in my classes. I took fabulous new ideas to make changes to my teaching repertoire Melanie: I incorporated literature circles in my classes. Fm known as the "literature circle queen" in my school. Rosemary: The book club emphasized the power of collaborative discussion and enforced the power of choice in reading—for me first and now, my students. Evelyn: I come away with teaching strategies. My reading has become a model for my students. I am willing to do here what my students do in class. I share my experiences with them. This has changed my perceptions of English teaching. Lucy: I learned how I could get my students to talk about books in different, unstructured ways that are much more educational. Book Club 1 teachers articulated the ways their book club experiences fed and informed their teaching (Survey, 2004): Patricia: More than any workshop I've attended or course I've taken, the book club encouraged me to try new ideas, or to carry on with approaches that I believed in. I don't think there was a single meeting that I left without ideas to try in upcoming units . . .1 learned so much from the women in this group. Lesley: I used book clubs in my pre-service classrooms because of my experience in this book club. Ownership of what we read was so important to me and I wanted to know if it would to be as important to my students. Those classes that were focused around the book club selections had the kind of energy that characterizes what I have come to recognize as the most meaningful learning experiences. Bridget: I have gotten ideas for teaching and research through this book club. It has crossed into all aspects of my life. I use books I read a lot in my teaching. I read in front of students, and lend books to students, especially when I teach OAC [senior] classes (Interview, 2004). The teachers spoke clearly to how professional learning in the book clubs contributed to their ongoing professionalization. Sandra (Book Club 2) aptly summarized: "I've learned that beneficial personal experience [teacher book

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clubs] leads to better students experiences and learning" (survey, 2004). Considerable research indicates that highly skilled teachers improve student learning (Darling-Hammond, 1998; Darling-Hammond & Wallin McLaughlin, 1999; Eisner, 1988; Elmore & Burney, 1999). Recent research confirms that sustained professional development affects both the successful translation of reforms and policies into practices and even more importantly, student learning (Desforges, 1995; Elmore, 1996; Fiszer, 2004; Fox & Fleischer, 2001; Fullan, 2001; Guskey, 2000). Teachers need to experience the social interactions and learning practices they are expected to translate into effective classroom practices. In the teacher book clubs, the teachers engaged in rigorous study and critical thinking—qualities and practices that affect and shape their classroom teaching. If sustained professional development changes teachers and prepares them for change in the schools and improvement in student learning, then professional development becomes a de facto concern for schools and school districts (Gordon, 2004). In this study, a group of novice teachers participated in sustained, selfdirected and social learning even in the early induction phase (Kooy, in press). Like other novice teachers, day-to-day management, discipline, instruction, and subject matter became daily preoccupations (Huberman, 1995; Kooy, in press; Lieberman & Miller, 1999). When, at the close of the first year, Melanie uttered: 'This is the hardest year I have ever lived," the others nod knowingly. The stories provided explanations, understanding, and alternatives. In the social context of the book club, novice teacher Melanie learned: *Tm not the only one who is feeling the way I'm feeling about teaching" (Interview, 2003). Helen wrote that the stories of teachers in the books and in the book club *'helped me to realize I would be able to get through the very challenging times of a first year teacher" (Survey, 2004). Lucy observed: "Listening to others' like experiences made it easier to keep going" (Survey, 2004). A place to tell their stories, to reflect on teaching through teacher stories in the books, to make sense and new meanings with other novice teachers, shored up and sustained the novice teachers so they could carry on. The book club united the teachers without homogenizing them. The space for thinking aloud with other novices about the issues facing them in their induction provided a collegial support network. I wonder how many of these beginning teachers would have been socialized to the anti-progressive norms of their school cultures (Lieberman & Miller, 1978; Lortie, 1975; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981; O'Connell Rust, 2002, 186) without the collegial interactions and insights of their peers? The novice teachers suggested that when they felt most vulnerable ("How long can I stay in this profession?" "Does this ever end?"), they looked to the book club teachers to

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salvage and revive their doubtful spirits (Elbaz, 1991; Kooy, in press). Unlike many of their professional counterparts who have left the profession altogether (Croasmun, Hampton, & Hermanns , 1997; Gold, 1996), these teachers remain. Only Lucy took a two-year hiatus, accepting a two-year contract in theater management. This year, however, she returns to teaching at the elementary level. While a relatively new and growing body of research endorses selfdirected teacher learning in social contexts (Borko, 2004; Clark, 2001; Danielewicz, 2001; Liebermann & Miller, 1999; Sumara, 1996; Wenger, 1998), few, if any, include self-directed professional learning for novice teachers. One study (Kerrins, 1990) involved 11 novice teachers in Professional Development seminars organized in a semi-structured format. While providing direct assistance and intervention to develop their professional skills, the teachers spontaneously discussed the difficulties of being a novice teacher. At the same time, they cultivated collegial relationships and developed greater understanding of teaching. The research of this study novice teacher book club went one step further: the teachers constructed their own learning environment and interactive social practices. Through the books and the other teachers they learned and changed the ways they understood teaching. Effective teacher-driven, sustained learning for novice teachers is a startling development and finding in the study.

5.

CONCLUDING WORDS

The women teachers of the study leave their imprints—"telling stories"—of textured, complex, and dynamic views of teaching and the teaching life. They contribute to disrupting and revising the standard grand narratives of teaching (for instance, the failure of teachers to improve literacy levels or the teacher as technician). This points to a critical finding in this study: teacher knowledge was actively provoked; teachers became mutually responsible for the knowledge they created and carried (KremerHayon, 1987). Through the multiple stories and interactive dialogues, they altered their teaching theories and epistemologies. In light of convincing evidence that teachers who actively stimulate their professional development (lifelong learning) are better, more skilled teachers who, in turn, improve learning in their classrooms (Borko, 2004; Florio-Ruane, 2001; Clark, 2001), this byproduct of the book clubs is worth pursuing in more detail. Teacher directed professional development as described in the study moves toward re-professionalizing the profession (Jensen, Foster & Eddy, 1997). Selfdirected and sustained teacher groups cannot be readily overlooked in the search for effective professional teacher development.

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ITi

The dedicated teachers in the study all learned about joy in struggle, about the power of stories to explain and transform, about mutually making sense and making meaning, about connections between theory and practice. They offered alternate telling stories that go some way to break the bureaucratic talk, media talk, pious talk, with what Dewey called, "the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness" (cited in Greene, 2000, 11). Both teacher groups moved beyond merely ''following orders" to ask and respond to the difficult questions: How can we as women teachers intervene and say how we believe things ought to be? In forming communities, the women teachers learned that they can find and assert their own positions and subjectivities (Lemish, 2002). In the interdiscourse that characterizes their lives, they introduce a brand new text—the text of strong, nurturing, independent women teachers.

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Index Alvarez, Julia, 23, 177, 197, 204 Apple, Michael, 3, 18-20, 141, 191, 195 Atwell-Vasey, Wendy, 11, 140, 180, 215 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 11-12, 123, 129, 144, 164, 173, 186, 194,202,207 Beattie, Mary, 17, 94, 146, 161, 163, 173 Belenky, Mary, 18-20, 25, 89, 141, 199, 216 Book Clubs, 25, 32, 61-65, 70, 73, 96 97, 211-212,215 Leadership, 22 Meetings, 21 - 22, 25, 27 - 28, 66 67 Phenomenon, 12 Books Selection of, 65 Bruner, Jerome, 11, 17, 34, 58, 113, 144, 173, 193,210 Clandinin, D. Jean, 7, 11, 15, 1 7 - 1 8 , 2 1 , 25,33,87,93-94, 107, 112, 124, 129, 146, 164, 173 Clark, Christopher, 3, 4, 11 - 12, 1 4 - 15, 25, 119, 164, 186, 190, 210-212, 222 Collaboration, 5, 178,214 Communities of Learning, 12, 1 4 - 16, 18,25,77, 160, 180,209,213 Connelly, F. Michael, 4, 7, 11, 15, 17, 21, 25,33,93-94, 107, 124, 129,164, 185, 187, 191,209 Constructing Knowledge, 15, 190 Constructivism, 13 Constructivist, 11, 127 Contexts of Teaching, 3, 9, 90, 107, 110, 119, 126, 177-179,186, 190, 1 9 5 197, 199, 203 - 204, 207, 210-211 Conversation, 30, 63 - 64, 67, 74, 98, 120, 144, 158, 162,168,213,216 See also Dialogue, Discussion Danielewicz, Jane, 124, 132, 199, 201 202, 222 Darling-Hammond, Linda, 12, 1 5 - 16, 137, 163,218,221 Dewey, John, 11, 16, 19, 99, 123, 129, 164, 183, 186,223 Dialogical Theory, 11,12

Dialogue, 8, 12, 15, 17, 26, 28, 77, 97, 198, 122-124, 132-133, 137-138, 140, 144-146,156, 180,186, 191, 194,207,215-216,219 Dialogical Theory, 168 Discussion, 6, 12, 18 - 19, 22, 26 - 28, 31 - 32, 39 - 40, 46, 58, 61, 64 - 65, 67, 71, 74 - 75, 78 - 79, 81, 90, 93, 96, 98 - 99, 104, 116, 132 - 133, 136 - 138, 146, 148, 153, 162, 164, 173, 177, 183, 186, 188, 200, 206, 215 216,218,220 Doecke, Brenton, 107, 180 Educational Inquiry, 1, 14-15, 20, 22, 92, 124, 128, 210, 222, 225 -226 Elbaz, Freema, 17 - 18, 121, 154, 183, 220 Elmore, Richard, 10, 15, 211, 221 Fiction, 13,48-49,210,216 Film, 3, 66, 68, 8 9 - 9 1 , 104, 112-113, 188 Flannery, Daniele, 14, 19 - 20, 25, 86, 216 Flood, James, 211 Florio-Ruane, Susan, 1 4 - 15, 18, 26, 222 Freire, Paulo, 3, 14, 16, 76, 82, 86, 98, 112-113, 121, 125, 128, 165, 178, 179, 181-183, 186, 190, 193, 194, 202, 207 Fullan, Michael, 16, 121, 168, 218, 221 Gaines, Ernest J., 23, 103 - 104, 118, 125 -126 Gallimore, Richard, 3, 1 4 - 15 Gender, 18-20, 22, 25, 27, 34, 79, 89 90, 94 - 96, 134, 139, 141 - 142, 146, 165, 170, 176, 191, 194 - 196, 199 201,206,214-217 Gold, Yvonne, 10, 83, 110 - 111, 113, 119, 150, 151-152,163,222 Goldberger, Nancy, 201 Goldenberg, Claude, 3, 14 Greene, Maxine, 10, 15, 18, 67, 83, 178, 206, 210, 223 Grossman, Pam, 16, 137-138, 146, 169, 183,211

242 Grumet, Madeline, 3, 11 - 12, 18 - 19, 164, 191, 195,201,218 Habermas, Jorgen, 11, 112, 129, 186 Haruf, Kent, 23, 76, 85 - 86, 90 - 91 Hayes, Elizabeth, 14, 19 - 20, 25, 86, 216 Heilbrun, Carolyn, 18 - 19, 91, 191, 201 hooks, bell, 178, 181 - 183, 186, 190, 193, 202 Hord, Shirley, 15,25, 132,212 Imagination, 206, 210 Induction, 107 Intertextuality, 18, 34, 147, 202 Kereos, Jo, 3, 113,202 Knowledge, 12 Construction, 223 Professional, 7, 108, 146, 188, 190 Kooy, Mary, 4 - 7, 11 - 13, 15, 34, 47, 117, 139, 163, 168, 171, 180, 1 8 5 186,210,219,221-222 Kubler-LaBoskey, Vicki, 99, 129, 154 Learning, 3 - 8 , 1 1 - 1 6 , 1 8 - 1 9 , 2 6 , 28, 33 - 34, 41 - 42, 64, 69, 83, 86, 8 8 - 8 9 , 9 8 - 9 9 , 101, 104, 106, 108, 115, 121, 123-126, 128-129, 132, 137 - 138, 142, 144, 151 - 152, 155 157, 161, 162-164, 171, 173, 178, 181, 184, 187-188, 190,205,209, 211-212,219-222 Through Language, 104 Lieberman, Ann, 10, 12, 15 - 16, 19, 25, 124, 189,218,221 Literacy, 7, 22 - 23, 29, 34, 103, 106, 125 -126, 165-168, 177-179, 181, 193 -194,201-202,204,222 Critical Literacy, 165 - 180, 180, 203, 208 Literacy Autobiography, 22, 34 - 35, 62, 71,73 Literature, 16, 18, 22, 30, 33, 3 5 - 4 1 , 45, 46 - 47, 50 - 53, 58, 62, 75, 88 92,100-101,104, 112-113, 130, 132, 135, 141, 174, 184, 190, 202, 205 - 206, 210, 214 - 215, 217, 219 - 220 Long, Elizabeth, 1 - 3, 13, 16, 141, 207, 210,214,219 Marshall, James, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17 Meaning Making, 34, 223 Mentor Teachers, 57, 63, 117, 178, 216 Model(s) of Teacher Development, 15

Narrative, 11, 14, 1 6 - 1 7 , 2 1 , 2 3 , 2 5 26, 110, 173,203,209-210 Narrative Inquiry, 21 Noddings, Nel, 17, 19, 92 - 94, 97, 121, 142,215,217 Novice Teachers, 14, 22, 27, 41 - 42, 61, 63,67,68,71,76-78,83,85-86, 93,95, 106, 113, 115-118,120, 125, 130, 146, 148, 154-1555, 160-161, 164, 175, 180, 182, 202, 213, 215, 221 -222 Attrition, 13, 119, 125 Classroom Management, 43, 113, 148 -151, 154 Oakes, Jeannie, 166, 170 One-shot Workshop, 3 Pagano, Jo Anne, 3, 14, 17, 25, 97, 191, 195,214,216 Personal Practical Knowledge, 7, 18 - 19, 164, 187 Professional Development, 3, 5, 10 - 11, 1 4 - 1 6 , 2 1 - 2 2 , 9 9 , 115, 174, 180, 211,218,222 Professional Knowledge, 7, 13, 34, 94 Professional Practice, 21, 25 Raphael, Taffy, 7, 12 Reading, 2, 5 - 1 4 , 18, 22, 61, 64, 7 4 76,81,98,104,125, 135-136, 138, 159, 165, 168, 173, 175, 185, 187, 192,210,214,219-220 Reading Life, 18, 22, 42, 58 - 69, 64 Reading Log(s), 5, 26, 74, 76, 97, 99, 116, 123, 189,203 Relational Learning, 8, 12, 149, 171, 215 Reprofessionalization, 12, 16 Rogoff, Barabara, 1, 11, 1 4 - 16, 18, 25, 107, 148, 160, 164, 173, 176, 180, 190 Rust, Frances, 15, 83, 99, 119, 132, 146, 160, 178, 180,210,212,221 Schon, Donald, 188, 190 School Change, 16, 129, 199, 206, 215, 221 School Culture, 98, 106,221 School Reform, 10 School Renewal, 10 Sexuality, 89, 136-143, 189, 192-193, 195, 197-198 Shore, Lesley, 19, 2 0 - 2 1 , 90, 141, 194, 200

Telling Stories in Book Clubs Smagorinsky, Peter, 7 - 8 , 12, 17 Smith, Michael W., 7 - 8 , 12, 15, 17, 49, 139, 151, 165, 167, 185,211 Social Learning, 2, 95, 141, 191 Social Construction of Knowledge, 25 Social Practice, 11, 14, 209, 222 Social Practices, 165,222 Stories, 11, 13, 17 - 18, 21, 23, 27 - 29, 33 - 34, 40 - 44, 49, 51 - 52, 56 - 57, 63-64,76,81,88,91,96,98, 101, 104, 112, 115, 117, 123-124, 129, 132 - 134, 136, 139 - 140, 144 - 148, 151, 153-154, 156-158, 162-164, 167-169, 173, 175, 177, 180, 188, 190-191, 194, 197,207,209-210, 212,214-215,217,223 Student Teachers, 106, 108, 110, 120, 121, 123, 154 Teacher Attrition, 11, 13, 117 Teacher Book Clubs, 9, 21 - 22, 29, 61, 63, 68, 173, 212, 218 - 219, 221 - 222 Teacher Development, 11 - 12, 14 - 19, 25, 61, 67, 110, 117, 147 - 148, 164, 175, 183, 185, 209 - 210, 212, 214, 218-221 Self-Directed, 15 Teacher Identity, 85, 148, 177, 201 - 202 Teacher Image, 2, 3, 66, 78, 82, 88 - 89, 91, 113, 181, 190,206 Teacher Induction, 41 - 42, 63, 68, 74, 86, 110, 113, 131, 147, 151, 157158, 162-164, 178,180,221 Teacher Inquiry, 13-14, 20, 22, 94, 126, 130,212,224,227-228 Teacher Knowledge, 4, 7 - 8, 12, 14 - 15, 16,17-22,25,29,32-33,42,77, 85,87,89-90,98, 107, 120, 1 2 3 124, 126, 129, 132, 138, 140, 146147, 154, 158-160, 162,164, 165, 167-168, 173-175, 178, 180, 182, 185-186, 188,201,206-207,211, 218,222 Teacher Mentors, 59, 63, 119, 178, 212 Teacher Stories, 15, 25, 27, 68, 82, 112, 133, 154, 165, 174, 178, 185, 210, 221 Teaching, 3, 16 - 18, 48 - 49, 83, 86, 88 - 8 9 , 9 5 , 101, 111, 124, 145, 150, 159, 164, 181,202,213,215,218

243 Strategies, 157,220 Traditional, 83 Teaching as Mothering, 19, 93, 142, 185, 215-216,220 Teaching Stories, 8, 65, 81, 97, 99, 101, 104-106, 113, 125, 129, 132, 176, 182-183,206 Telling Stories, 17, 28, 88, 117, 124, 162, 164 - 165, 209 - 210, 219, 222 - 223 Todorov, Tzvetan, 173, 190 Trimmer, Joseph R, 21, 34, 164, 176, 183 Vygotsky, Lev, 1, 3, 7, 11, 1 4 - 1 5 , 25, 98, 129, 132, 158, 160, 164, 173, 190, 194, 207 Wineburg, Sam, 16, 137 - 138, 148, 169, 211 Winfrey, Oprah, 1,4, 12 Winterson, Jeanette, 23, 134, 136- 138 Witherell, Carol, 92 Women Reading, 2, 4, 209 Women Teachers, 3, 8, 18 - 20, 22, 25, 80, 88 - 91, 95 - 96, 101, 139, 142 143, 191,195-196, 198-199,201, 209, 210, 211, 214 -215,218, 222 223 Workshops, 3, 14 Wortham, Stanton, 16 Zone of Proximal Development, 15, 21, 25, 132, 158