Pre-service teachers’ metaphors of teaching and literacy

The purpose of this study was to examine pre-service elementary teachers’ metaphors of teaching and literacy and then relate their metaphorical images of literacy to content presented in the reading methods course. Specifically, fifty-two participants generated responses to open-ended statements, “Teaching is. . .” and “Literacy is. . .” Results indicated that the pre-service teachers’ metaphors could be grouped into eleven themes for teaching and fourteen themes for literacy. Two themes of teaching that arose in previous research, nurturing and guiding, were evident in the responses of this population as well, illustrating their commonality and perhaps universal nature. The primary literacy theme was the parts/ingredients metaphor (N=8). Four dominant metaphors of literacy were identified: sequence of knowledge and skill, parts that come together as a whole, foundation of life, and journey. Twenty-three (or 44%) of the pre-service teachers wrote metaphors that related to content presented in the reading methods course. We advocate that future research should solicit pre-service teachers’ metaphors of literacy early in the teacher preparation program and students should be taught to examine their metaphors throughout the course of study. Further, novice teachers should be followed into the classroom and monitored as they engage in learning to teach. We believe the metaphor will continue to be a powerful conceptual means for framing and defining teachers’ awareness of their beliefs. Metaphors of literacy 2 Literacy is a seed. With some nurturing, it grows a stem, leaves, and eventually blossoms into beautiful flowers with strong roots to share with the world. ~ Pre-service Teacher A Literacy is like a smoothie. All the elements blend together to create a new product, but if the elements aren’t balanced, then the outcome is not as great. ~ Pre-service Teacher B Literacy is a long train. There are many stages in literacy, in many departments (i.e. fluency, comprehension, word knowledge, writing). Each train car is a new strategy, a reading stage, or literature obstacle. We all begin in the caboose (usually as young children) and move forward in our literacy development. Each bump along the track is like obstacles that we face with literature. Once we get to the front of the train, we are advanced readers. We can now see clearly for miles and miles, but are still learning. ~ Pre-service Teacher C Humans use words and images to interpret life, their experiences, their teaching, and even their view of a content area. Some, like Vygotsky (1962), argue that language itself defines and limits our thinking, just as our past experiences influence the way we view and interpret present and future experiences. Over the past two decades researchers and teacher educators have shown considerable interest in metaphors as a means to better understand how teachers perceive their most basic views about schooling, life, children, curriculum and teaching (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Munby, 1986; Provenzo, McCloskey, Kottkamp & Cohn, 1989; Tobin, 1990). A metaphor has been defined as a “figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another by way of suggesting a likeness or analogy between them” (Webster’s, 1961, p. 528). There is a growing body of literature that supports the study and use of teachers’ metaphorical images in understanding how they conceptualize their work and themselves in that work. Typically, teachers’ metaphors of teaching, children and life have been solicited, but rarely have teachers’ metaphors of a content area been explored. Few studies, if any, have specifically solicited pre-service teachers’ metaphorical beliefs about literacy. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine pre-service elementary teachers’ metaphors of teaching in general and Massengill, D., & Mahlios, M. (2008). Pre-service teachers’ metaphors of teaching and literacy. Reading Psychology, 29(1), 31-60. Publisher’s official version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02702710701568397 . Open Access version: http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Metaphors of literacy 3 literacy in specific and to relate the metaphors to the content presented in the pre-service reading methods course in which they were enrolled. Guiding questions include: 1. What patterns exist among the metaphors pre-service teachers used to describe teaching? 2. What dominant metaphorical views of literacy did pre-service elementary teachers possess? 3. How do these metaphorical views of literacy correspond with the content presented in the reading methods course? Theoretical Framework