The Role of Context in Learning to Teach Writing

Abstract

The yearlong qualitative study this article describes explores how three beginning elementary teachers in urban schools struggled with policy, students, and their own commitment of learning to teach writing to their students. Findings indicate that beginning teachers learned to teach writing by drawing on a variety of knowledge sources, that beginning teachers' writing instruction was heavily influenced by various aspects of their individual teaching contexts, and that because these various aspects of teaching context often conflicted with each other, creating tensions for the beginning teacher, learning to teach writing was strongly shaped by how each teacher learned to manage the various conflicting aspects of her individual teaching context. Implications for teacher education emerged and include focusing on writing pedagogy, examining teaching contexts and decision making within various settings, and using case studies to examine how experienced teachers work successfully within a variety of teaching contexts.