Poetry and Cultural Identity: A Sociocultural Approach for Teacher Education Classrooms

Abstract

ABSTRACTFuture teachers often manifest a low confidence in their own writing and do not see themselves as writers. Developing an identity as authors requires ample opportunities for writing that sustain preservice teachers’ discourses and cultural models. As writing across the content areas is considered a powerful way of learning, creating spaces for future teachers to strengthen their writing skills and their predisposition for teaching writing must become a priority in teacher preparation. This article proposes that autobiographical poetry in particular allows aspiring teachers the freedom to explore their cultural identity while drawing upon various social literacies and can serve as a bridge between personal and professional reflection. Specifically, this paper features autobiographical poetry-writing activities implemented in two teacher education courses at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the Southwest of the US—a Bilingual Education/Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) course with 20 students, and a Content Area Literacy course with 34 students. These pedagogical practices are contextualized within a sociocultural approach that focuses on encouraging students to tap into their cultural and linguistic backgrounds as they prepare to develop their own pedagogies centered on agency and identity.