Oh, God: evangelical teachers, textual interpretation, and ELA classrooms

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how evangelical teachers’ religious identities influence their interpretation and teaching of texts in high school English Language Arts classrooms. Further, this paper examines how evangelical teachers make choices about how to balance the demands of their religious and teacher identities as they interact with texts in their own classrooms.Design/methodology/approachUsing Derridean deconstruction of the concept of ethical decision-making, the author uses critical discourse analysis to examine a conversation between two evangelical teachers as they talk about the tensions they feel as they teach The Crucible with their high school–aged students.FindingsThe findings show evangelical teachers’ religious and teaching identities were in tension across three themes: literary analytic frameworks, authorial intent and eternal truths and evangelism and fellowship.Originality/valueBy highlighting how evangelical teachers’ religious and teaching identities influence their classroom decisions, teaching practices and textual interpretations, this study offers another pathway through which teacher educators and researchers might examine the connection between teachers’ religious and teaching identities with the intent to invite more complexity into literary analysis.