Embodied discourses of literacy in the lives of two preservice teachers

Abstract

This study examines the emerging teacher literacy identities of Ian and AJ, two preservice teachers in a graduate teacher education program in the United States. Using a poststructural feminisms theoretical framework, the study illustrates the embodiment of literacy pedagogy discourses in relation to the literacy courses' discourse of comprehensive literacy and the literacy biographical discourses of Ian and AJ. The results of this study indicate the need to deconstruct how the discourse of comprehensive literacy limits how we, as literacy teacher educators, position, hear and respond to our preservice teachers and suggest the need for differentiation in our teacher education literacy courses.

Keywords:

• preservice teachers
• poststructural feminisms
• literacy
• discourses
• embodiment