Teachers' Perspectives about Students' Productive Textual Engagement in Social Studies

Y

29

Teacher Attitudes; Middle School Teachers; High School Teachers; Social Studies; Instructional Effectiveness; Primary Sources; Citizenship Education; History Instruction; Multiple Literacies; Vignettes; Value Judgment; Urban Schools; Suburban Schools; Learner Engagement; Reader Text Relationship; Teaching Models

0034-0502

Because close reading and critical analysis of multiple sources is central to social studies, understanding teachers' perspectives about productive textual engagement is imperative. This comparative study explored twelve 5th through 11th-grade social studies teachers' perspectives about supporting students' textual engagement via think-aloud interviews. Teacher-participants read hypothetical vignettes representing four paradigms of instruction with texts in social studies classrooms. Participants ranked the vignettes, provided reasoning about their value, and reflected on their own practices in relation to the paradigms. Participants placed higher value on fostering students' historical literacies and civic literacies than on supporting students' content-area literacies or traditional content acquisition. There were differences between how middle and high school teachers valued specific aspects of each paradigm and how they identified with each paradigm. The findings are discussed in relation to inferences and implications about how teachers interpret messages about productive textual engagement in the reform literature.

As Provided

2021

EJ1296372