A FRAMEWORK-IN-ACTION FOR RECONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS IN LANGUAGE AND LITERACY TEACHER EDUCATION / Uma estrutura ativa para a análise reconstrutiva na educação de professores de linguas e literacidade

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a framework-in-action, informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics, to inspire reconstructive discourse analysis in language and literacy teacher education, with illustrative examples and provocative questions. We exemplify the use of the framework through the analysis of a community mapping project. We analyze the curriculum documents, as well as a sample of a racially aware educator’s community mapping project, through the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions, drawing relevant semiotic interpretations on the field, tenor, and mode. Findings highlight tensions in practice and possibilities for reconstructing curricular knowledge more deeply rooted in praxis that is intentionally transformative, context-specific, historically construed, and geopolitically sensitive. We pose a series of questions that educators can bring to bear on the discourse practices of teacher education. Whether one is studying texts, curricular documents, instructional dialogues, or policies, this framework-in-action provides tools and questions that may be useful for deconstructing whiteness and reconstructing anti-racism. It also situates teacher educators as agents of policy making and implementation who are able to reconstruct discursive practices to respond to pressing social needs in the context of literacy teacher education. The idea of a framework-in-action emphasizes the partiality of epistemological and ontological foundations and the need to connect our analyses in the social world in ways that make a difference.