Powerful Voices and Pens: Developing Critical Stance with Adolescent Literacy in Content-Area Pre-Service Teacher Education.

This practitioner-research study investigated the effect critical literacy has on content area preservice teachers’ abilities (N=14) to perceive the sociocultural influences in text. The study further investigated how content area pre-service teachers engage in critical stance during situated reading practices that centered on discussions of young adult literature. Quantitative data were collected on a preand post Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ). Qualitative data collection included videotaped and audiotaped recordings, interviews, and dialogue journals. Results from a paired samples t test found there was a statistically significant difference between the LRQ preand post survey. Informed by grounded theory, reading young adult literature engaged content area pre-service teachers in critical stance through powerful voices in discussion and pens through dialogue journaling. Brown and Knowles (2007) offer that the period of adolescence is roughly defined as a period between the ages ten and twenty and is a time of rapid intellectual, psychological, and social growth in students’ lives. During these years, students develop a greater sense of what is right and what is wrong, the ability to inquire, reason, and problem solve, and students begin to grapple with their feelings and identity. These developmental changes are noteworthy because each one can and does influence adolescents’ literacy practices in varying degrees. Problem Statement Although the topic of adolescent literacy should be a school-wide issue in all middle schools, there is still reluctance on the part of content area teachers to endorse the literacy needs of young adolescents as a goal for their course objectives. Faced with national pressure toward standardization and constraints imposed by state and local policies, content area teachers are increasingly pressed for time to deliver instruction focused solely on the subjects they teach. As a result, content is increasingly taught in isolation and for the most part, content has been distilled down to what students are expected to know on statemandated tests (Au, 2007). In addition, content area teachers still place a heavy emphasis on the textbook; contemporary young adult literature is frequently not considered when content area teachers choose reading materials (Bean, 1997). A further view that is often found in content are classrooms is that the development of critical reading skills should be left to language arts teachers (Alger, 2007; Spencer, Carter, Boon, & Simpson-Garcia, 2008). However, the reluctance to address adolescent literacy in content area middle grade classrooms can be approached in teacher education courses. As an assistant professor of education, I have restructured my curriculum to move my content area pre-service teachers’ thinking beyond content to address the literacy needs of the young adolescents they will one day teach in middle school. My goal is for my students to understand that literacy for young adolescents is both pedagogy and an instrument to address relevant themes and issues found in content studies. To do so, I challenge my students to expand their thinking and to deliberately challenge their own implicit beliefs, actions, and cultural practices while reading prominent and challenging themes in young adult literature (Walker &