Hope is the thing with metaphors: de-situating literacies and learning in English Language Arts classrooms

Abstract

In this article, we examine the relationship between classroom talk, teacher–student roles and paradigms for literacy and learning in two ninth-grade English Language Arts classes. Our goal was to understand how these roles and practices socialized students into norms for academic language and literacy as they read and wrote poetry in preparation for a high-stakes standardized essay. Drawing from social and critical approaches to literacy, we describe how a policy-driven narrowing of the curriculum also narrowed conceptions of literacy and knowledge. Differences in the treatment of students’ poems versus the Dickinson poem positioned students as unable to co-construct knowledge. The high-stakes essay, not yet assigned, drove almost all discourse about text, meaning and legitimate knowledge, essentially ‘de-situating’ literacy from the tasks and immediate context and prioritizing technical skills over communicative purposes. Implications for research, teaching and students’ development of academic language and literacy address the tension between meaningful literacy instruction and accountability demands of contemporary classrooms.