Deborah Van Duinen

To strengthen and further inform our own pedagogy and practice we sought to collaborate across institutions. It offered us additional opportunities to examine our understanding, pedagogy, and practice through intentional inquiry, critical review, and examination of our own pedagogy and practice. In addition, the creation…

Pre-student teaching field placements are important learning experiences in which preservice teachers transition from theory to practice, and the purpose of these placements, described as “practice-based teacher education” (Ball & Cohen, 1999) is often similar across different institutions and teacher preparation programs. Specifically, these pre-student…

Readers learn the discourses or literacies of Dodola’s world (in the story of Habibi) through text and images that are fraught with rules—to which many readers cannot likely relate. Immediately and jarringly, readers learn, for example, that females should be virgins at marriage and that…

Habibi is a harrowing tale. It focuses on Dodola, who is sold into marriage at age nine. Soon her husband is killed, and she is taken by slavers. She escapes, along with Habibi (also called Zam), an African baby whom she adopts as her brother.…

When considering the possibilities of arts integration, an important area to consider is audience. Who is the audience for the art? Is it just the teacher? Does it include classmates? Could the audience be the student themself? Could the audience extend beyond classroom walls? Our…

An initial question for any teacher considering arts integration is about purpose. For what end do students create art in response to literature? To deepen their understanding of what happens in a text? To express feelings and reactions to the book’s topics/issues? Responding to literature…

Some aspects to consider when approaching art integration in co-equal ways are the emphases between process and product. It can be easy to value the final product at the expense of a carefully scaffolded artistic process. This is understandable as students (and teachers) often put…

A local professional artist stands in front of a group of students in a high school English language arts classroom. “Images are texts in the big sense of the word,” he begins. “Texts communicate, share ideas, and make connections.” He pauses. “Let’s read some images…