Purpose: This study aims to explore how teachers changed literature instruction in English language arts (ELA) classrooms following personal loss, and identifies factors influencing those changes. The author argues teachers regulated their responses to literature according to emotional rules they perceived to be associated with the teaching…

Purpose: Faced with increasing systemic constraints and pressures, secondary school English teachers often implement transactional approaches to pedagogy and curriculum aimed at improving student results on external exams, which are then used to rank schools. Despite the pressure to teach this way, teachers acknowledge the power of literature,…

Purpose: Previous research shows that identity and academic learning are interdependent, so affecting one can affect the other. The purpose of this case study was to explore preservice English teachers' reading identities and their perceptions of reading identity development in the context of English classrooms. Design/methodology/approach: This…

This paper discusses the social positioning work three Appalachian adolescents engaged in during two literacy events drawn from a year-long critical teacher-researcher ethnographic study in a twelfth-grade English class in a rural Appalachian high school. Data analysis indicates that in these literacy events, the focal students positioned…