Changing Preservice and Inservice Teachers' Commitment to Literacy as a Pathway to Social Justice

Abstract

Discipline-specific teachers' commitment to teaching literacy within their content area to their students is often minimal. This chapter addresses how the authors sought to enhance teacher candidates and inservice teachers' commitment to content-area and disciplinary literacy with the use of virtual literacy circles in undergraduate and graduate level content-area literacy courses. The students read from selected texts with a focus on literacy as a social justice issue. Using a virtual platform, students responded virtually through two focused cycles. Following the project and virtual discussions, the students completed a post-assessment aimed at evaluating whether they had a change in their commitment to literacy and literacy instruction. The students' post-assessment responses were analyzed by the authors, using the lens to evaluate the students' posts within the virtual literacy circles to assess what led the students to change their commitment to literacy. Limitations, recommendations for future research, and implications are discussed.