This study employed a metaphor analysis approach to investigate instructor language as it relates to the positioning of agency within a college developmental reading course context. Agency, or the socioculturally mediated potential to act, is a crucial part of self-regulated, self-efficacious learning and contributes to identity formation and affirmation. Understanding where agency is being positioned via classroom discourse can have important implications for the teaching and learning transaction, including the construction of students' implicit theories about their literacy practices and their roles as active learners. As a type of discourse analysis, metaphor analysis allows for an unobtrusive, highly ecologically valid method of determining the underlying conceptualisations about a given topic that are held by participants in discourse communities. The article concludes with pedagogical implications.
IntroductionIn this article, we investigate instructor language use in a college developmental reading class as it relates to the positioning of agency -that is, where aspects of control are located -within the classroom context. We focus on the metaphorical language used by the instructor of the class and how that language can influence students' understanding of their role in the teaching and learning transaction, as well as their implicit theories of literacy practices. Specifically, we are looking at areas where the belief systems implicit in the instructor's language use run counter to the instructor's stated approach to literacy instruction. Through metaphor analysis we uncover the Discourse models (Gee 2005) implicitly in play in a college developmental reading class.Developmental reading curricula have existed in various forms in higher education in the United States for over a century (Stahl and King 2009). Recent analysis of ACT college entrance test outcomes has indicated that fewer than half of incoming college students in the US were prepared for the reading requirements of a typical first-year college course (ACT 2013), making college developmental reading courses a core aspect of how colleges provide academic support to struggling
In this article, we open with a discussion of stress and its potential impact on the teaching profession. We then follow with an empirical rationale for and steps in the implementation of potentially promising mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) interventions for teachers, particularly teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Body scan, calm breathing, focused attention, and relaxation are highlighted. A list of resources for further use of MBSR is included.
The International Exchanges on the Study of Writing Series publishes booklength manuscripts that address worldwide perspectives on writing, writers, teaching with writing, and scholarly writing practices, specifically those that draw on scholarship across national and disciplinary borders to challenge parochial understandings of all of the above. The series aims to examine writing activities in 21st-century contexts, particularly how they are informed by globalization, national identity, social networking, and increased cross-cultural communication and awareness. As such, the series strives to investigate how both the local and the international inform writing research and the facilitation of writing development.The WAC Clearinghouse, Colorado State University Open Press, and University Press of Colorado are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print editions. The publishers and the Series editors are committed to the principle that knowl-
vii § AcknowledgmentsThe editors would like to acknowledge and thank the many teachers and students from the Middle East-North Africa region whose perspectives and work are addressed in this volume.We sincerely thank Dr. Rula Diab and Dr. Michele Eodice for their reflections on the volume, as articulated in the foreword and afterword.We appreciate the guidance of the International Exchanges on the Study of Writing series editors-Terry Myers Zawacki, Magnus Gustafsson, and Joan Mullin-as well as our anonymous reviewers, for their support in bringing this work to fruition. Additionally, we are grateful to Ashleigh Petts at North Dakota State University for her help with proofreading the manuscript. And thanks to Mike Palmquist, for his promotion of research, exchange, and open-access scholarship through The WAC Clearinghouse.Finally, we are grateful to our own colleagues, friends, and families for their continued interest in and encouragement of our work.
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