‘But You Are Changing Everything I know!’ Teachers’ Views of Pedagogical Change: A Case Study of a Literacy Intervention with Immigrant-Origin Latinx Students

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study analyzes how teachers change their pedagogies in response to a reading and writing intervention designed specifically for Biliterate Latine English language learners. Through the analysis of structured interviews this paper examines teachers’ perceptions of and reactions to the intervention. Teachers responded to curricular change in three domains; surface, consensus, and mindful level changes. The level of change in classroom practice, we find, is dependent upon the level of a given teacher’s disposition to new knowledge that informs pedagogical practices. These findings highlight the ways that teachers working with Latinx students experience curricular change. This work is significant because it can help educational leaders understand why some professional development and interventions lead to change and why others don’t and the impact that it can have in bolstering literacy development for linguistically and culturally diverse students. This work provides an inside look as to how teachers experience new literacy interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Literacy Instruction in Multilingual Settings
• Bi/Multilingual Learners
• Bilingualism
• Curricular Change

Introduction

Pre-service teacher preparation programs aim to equip teachers with the necessary skills needed to survive a challenging new profession, while ongoing professional development aims to help in-service teachers hone their craft with the latest methods and research (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005; Darling-Hammond & Rustique-Forrester 2005; Sparks, 2002; Stoll et al., 2003). Regardless of when training is delivered, there are inherent tensions in creating instructional support for the demanding profession of teaching that does not overwhelm teachers’ limited time and energy. Attempting to change the practices of teachers can be alienating when done ineffectively (Desimone, 2009; Evans, 2000), and research suggests that the vast majority of teachers in the United States are not satisfied with the scope of their professional development nor with the time and resources given to update their practice (Fullan, 2007). Yet every day, teachers work hard to implement the instructional practices that they believe best serve students in their classrooms.

This qualitative study analyzed the ways teachers responded to a research-directed approach that urged teachers to update how they taught reading and writing to bi/multilingual, immigrant-origin, Latinx high school students (Valdés et al., 2017). We focus on teachers’ responses to that intervention, drawing upon structured interviews and classroom observations.

Teachers, schools, and districts, across multiple national contexts draw on a myriad of resources and professional learning opportunities in hopes of designing and implementing lessons that will help students meet current content standards demands. Ball and Cohen (1999) refer to this type of teacher learning as a “patchwork of learning opportunities – formal and informal, mandatory and voluntary, serendipitous and planned – stitched together into a fragmented and incoherent ‘curriculum’”(p. 26). In most school settings, this opportunistic stitching together of curricula and lesson planning can isolate teachers that would benefit more from collaborating with peers and teacher leaders, something the research indicates is not only what teachers want but is what is more effective (Lieberman & Miller, 1999; Nguyen & Hunter, 2018).

Frequently school leadership turns to often expensive professional development providers who implement programs designed to improve test scores. Other schools turn to local universities and research-led interventions to achieve instructional reforms that may bring about transformative instruction and learning that will translate to higher test scores. Yet, we know little about how teachers respond to such curricular changes. Improvement efforts could bring about change, and with change comes a myriad of challenges that are worth taking a deeper look at. The following research question guided this study: In what ways did teachers change their pedagogies in response to a reading and writing intervention? How did teachers respond to curricular changes in reading? How did teachers respond to curricular changes in writing?

In the next section we provide a theoretical framework on teacher learning and teacher change in schools. Then we provide context of the study. We then describe our study design that informed the reading and writing intervention, including some of the literature supporting the instructional changes that informed this work. We then present our findings. Finally, we conclude with a discussion, limitations and implications of our study.

Teacher professional development

Teachers, like students need the opportunity to develop their professional capacities in and outside of the classroom. When school administrators use top-down professional development approaches, they can create a deeper disconnect between the teacher’s interests, needs, and desired areas of growth (Desimone, 2009; Guskey & Yoon, 2009). Professional Teachers require professional development (Wilson & Berne, 1999) and yet what the field knows about this area of education is rather limited. Even more limited is what we know about professional development for teachers that work with larger numbers of immigrant-origin Latinx students and/or students with linguistically diverse backgrounds and the way that such teachers build capacity to foster literacy and develop adaptive expertise. As Desimone (2009) points out,

What we do know about teacher learning and professional development is that it is lacking coherence across district goals and/or school wide goals. The lack of congruence that professional developments have with teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are often isolated experiences and what often becomes an isolated work.

Additionally, some scholars suggest that teachers in diverse classrooms need research-based instructional practices that will activate teacher learning, placing them as the change agents in innovative approaches in the classroom (Guskey & Yoon, 2009). Teachers of immigrant-origin students who have rich linguistically diverse repertoires need to be equipped in different ways so that such teachers are able to respond and include those linguistic repertoires in their instructional practices and classroom experiences (Faltis & Valdès, 2016).

This work highlights the ways that teachers respond to curricular change and the particular ways in which teachers either resist or construct new knowledge about changing practices in reading and writing.

Learning perspectives

Using the theoretical framework in teacher learning perspectives (Russ et al., 2016), we analyzed teacher interviews during the third year of the intervention to understand how teachers responded to curricular changes in their reading and writing pedagogies. In their work, Russ, Sherin and Sherin approach teacher learning under three basic paradigms: process-product, cognitive learning, situative and social-cultural perspectives. In the process product perspective, the study of teacher learning is focused on changes on teachers’ pedagogical actions. In the cognitive perspective, the study of teacher learning is focused on changes to teachers’ knowledge. Finally, in the situative and social-cultural perspective, the teacher is viewed as always socially, culturally, and historically situated. This third perspective assumes that learning can only be understood within a larger social system. These three perspectives provide a sense of guidance in understanding how teachers learn. Russ et al. (2016) work suggests that teachers demonstrate their knowledge by the changes that they make in instruction in the classroom.

We employed Russ et al. (2016) learning perspectives in the process of analyzing the teachers’ interviews of their changes. To examine how teachers talked about their changed practices as reported in the interviews, we applied Russ et al. (2016) framework to understand how teachers in our study changed their pedagogical literacy approaches because of the intervention. We used the process-product perspective to examine ways in which teachers’ instructional choices reported to be changed. We also took into account teachers’ changing cognitive perspectives as outlined by Russ et al. This is the perspective that focuses on the ways that teachers’ learning is transferred to change in teacher knowledge. In particular, examining how teachers adopted the research underlying the design study regarding linguistically diverse students and how they learn to read and write. Finally, we used the situative and sociocultural perspective to examine how teachers talked about their experience in implementing the initiative as they responded to peer pressures or saw themselves as part of a team developing something of their own. The analysis was situated within the larger system within which it took place, including the characteristics of the school, the teachers, and the policy environment. As we further examined how teachers reported how they changed their instructional choices, we found that the established categories from Russ et al. (2016) were not sufficient in describing what the data revealed. Therefore, three other categories emerged that are informed by Russ et al. (2016) learning perspectives. More on this is provided in the data analysis section.

Methods

Setting: biliteracy college preparatory

This study examines the ways that teachers changed their pedagogies in response to a reading and writing intervention in a small charter high school whose focus was to serve immigrant-origin Latinx students.¹ At the time of this study, Biliteracy College Preparatory, located in northern California, served approximately 415 students, grades 9-12th, from the surrounding community and the school population was 99% Latinx ancestry. As stated in its mission, Biliteracy College Preparatory goal is to enable underserved high school immigrant-origin Latinx to become bi-literate in English and Spanish, and develop competencies in mathematics and science. The school teachers operated under the belief that achieving these goals would ensure the students’ ability to successfully complete requirements for a high school diploma and pursue the post-secondary educational opportunities of their choice. The vision of Biliteracy College Preparatory is to be recognized as the premier provider of high school English Language Learner educational programs, thus ensuring innovative, successful leaders with critical thinking, decision-making, information technology, and communications skills.²

Context of the study: the reading and writing initiative and the common core

The Reading and Writing Initiative (RWI) was implemented in response to the increasing language demands that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) would require of linguistically diverse students enrolled in Biliteracy College Preparatory , where the study took place. The goal of the intervention was to better support immigrant-origin Latinx students in their pathways for college and career readiness through the development of their reading and writing proficiencies. Typically, immigrant-origin students are perceived to have low literacy skills by their teachers and very little opportunity is provided for them to enhance their reading abilities and writing skills. This intervention, at its core, operated under the assumption that the more students were presented with opportunities to read and write the higher the chances would be for their literacy development, despite their language acquisition status.

Drawing on Valdés (2003) theory of action for reading and writing, the RWI had at its core three basic assumptions that are based on Valdés (2003) idea of reading and writing theory of action. These are: (1) reading and writing are fundamentally connected, (2) explicit instruction in navigating texts using specific strategies is encouraged, and (3) writing is about expressing ideas. Table 1 summarizes the intervention’s three major undergirding principles.

Table 1. Reading and writing intervention undergirding principles (adapted from Valdés et al., 2017).

Reading & writing as fundamentally connected

The more students read and write, the more their reading and writing will improve. Reading also improves writing and writing also improves reading.

Explicit instruction in navigating texts

Immigrant-origin Latino students, like all students, benefit from targeted literary focus Instruction in reading comprehension strategies, to predict, question, monitor, infer, visualize, summarize, and to interpret ideas In understanding the characteristics of different types of text genres, using graphic organizers and model texts Class discussion as a method to further engages students with important concepts in written texts

Writing is about expressing ideas.

Themes and ideas that matter to students. Instructional contexts that values student voice Writing combines skills and understanding for students, Writing involves thinking and planning; it is a process, Student writers learn how to compose, revise, edit… to refine their writing, Students consider their audience(s). Students learn to communicate ideas as effectively as possible.

Several points in this model need to be highlighted. In this intervention program researchers and teachers drew on the use of different genre types and models in order to develop multiple methods of reading and writing. Teachers were encouraged to promote the idea that reading and writing were fundamentally connected. Educators were also encouraged to carefully select in which multiple access points were made available to students. For instance, this included accessible language as an important characteristic to select the text. Accessible language affords students the opportunity to have entry points to the text as it also provides models of language that is useful for students to later use in conversations (during class discussions) or for written use.

Teachers also focused on the discursive practices of the subjects, such as argumentation and explanation. In addition, the use of classical or canonical literatures was placed on hold. Traditionally, California state standards, for example, emphasized American or British Literatures in the 11th and 12th grades. Instead, teachers selected and used model texts in their class readings that they would ask their students to write that were selected based on the thematic focus for a given unit. For example, if students were to write an argumentative text at the end of any given unit, teachers were encouraged to select texts that were argumentative in nature. The change toward thematic was done in order to be able to draw on the students’ attention to ways in which the author used argumentative language throughout the texts. This would in turn provide a written model for students on disciplinary discursive practices. To provide more linguistic entry points and cultural relevance to the students, the intervention reared away from canonical books that provided limited access points to ELLs and moved toward informational texts. Informational texts include nonfiction writing, written with the intention of informing the reader about a specific topic in which students are able to practice skills such as identifying the author’s point of view and purpose, building an argument, identifying recurring themes and main points. Students engaged in informational texts about gentrification in their neighborhoods, readings that related to language and power, and reading themes that were relatable to their daily lives. On the writing front, teachers were urged to implement process writing that focused less on grammatical correctness of the language forms and function and far more on content and development of ideas.

Reading and writing instruction at the school prior to the intervention

Prior to the intervention, teachers at the school were engaging their students in minimal writing activities in the classroom across the content areas. In the Language Arts classrooms, teachers taught novels exclusively and limited exposure informational texts were embedded into the reading curriculum. The English department held a strong commitment to reading western and European literary canons.

Reading

The school was operating under a different model of instruction in which reading and writing were taught in isolation. As reported by teachers in the English and Spanish departments at the school, reading was novel-based as teachers would gather over the summer during staff professional development and agree on what novels teachers would prefer to teach per grade level. For the most part, the English department focused heavily on teaching literature ranging from American classics like, The Great Gatsby and Shakespearean novels such as Hamlet to Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf. Some teachers dove into dystopian young-adult literature. Yet little attention was paid to the linguistic needs of such immigrant-origin Latinos in accessing the texts and interpreting them in ways that included their vast linguistic repertoires as bi/multilingual students. The social science department reported that prior to the implementation of the intervention, the reading was not rigorous – a page length of text maximum and very minimal surface level questions to get students to understand the reading.

Writing

In terms of writing, teachers did not spend much time in process writing. Teachers reported that for the most part a formulaic approach to writing was implemented in which students were instructed and trained to use a five-paragraph writing model in which a heavy emphasis on the use of a thesis and three body paragraphs was taught. Students wrote everything in long hand and occasionally teachers required students to submit a typed final draft. Some teachers reported to have implemented occasional journaling in which free or creative writing took place. Students wrote personal and narrative stories and teachers used creative projects to encourage writing. Some teachers reported that students were asked to write summaries and to undertake creative projects as means to help students understand the novels. In the social science department one teacher reported that students used Venn diagrams in order to compare and contrast ideas and did not use essay writing as a means to get students to read primary sources.

Participants

This intervention was conducted across three departments and four grade levels (9^th-12^th): English Language Arts, Social Sciences, and Spanish Language Arts. A total of six teachers participated in this reading and writing intervention across the three departments. The majority of teachers at Biliteracy College Preparatory had a strong desire to serve the community that they taught and demonstrate great respect for parents and their school community’s linguistic and cultural background. Given their commitment to equity and schooling, they approached their practice from a social justice perspective in which their student’s bi/multilingual ism was viewed as an asset as opposed to a deficit. Operating from that stance, at a minimum, teachers demonstrated openness to learning new approaches to teaching reading and writing in which their student’s bi/multilingual ism and biculturalism was centered in the curriculum. Two participant teachers were native Spanish speakers (Latinx of Mexican American Descent) and the remaining four (3 Anglo, 1 Asian) had knowledge of Spanish and made strong attempts to learn the language in order to better communicate with students and parents. All teachers in the study had less than ten years of teaching experience. Table 2 below provides more details about the teachers that participated in this study.

Table 2. Participating teachers’ background.

Teacher Pseudonym	Grade	Department	Age	Ethnicity	Years of service at the school
Ms. Clara	9^th	ELA^a	31	Latinx	5
Ms. Joy	10^th	ELA	30	Anglo	2
Ms. Love	11^th	ELA	30	Asian	2
Mr. Gosling	12^th	ELA	32	Anglo	6
Mr. Goodwill	10^th	Social Science	26	Anglo	4
Mr. Calma	11^th/12^th	AP Spanish Literature	34	Latinx	6

When the study began, teachers worked independently of each other among the three departments. Teachers were collegial and cordial with one another and overall, the teaching staff was enthusiastic about working with each other.

Six teachers became a focal point in this study. The career experience of the participating teachers ranged from one year to six years. The teachers whose interviews were included in the analysis varied in terms of how long they had been in the study, how long they had been at the school, and how many years of teaching experience they had. The focus group also included content teachers who had tenure at the school and had a range of understanding of the importance of literacy in achieving academic success. While some of the teachers were on board with the intervention from the beginning, others had only joined at the time the interviews were conducted, as the intervention expanded. Content teachers who had been at the school for some time were included in the focus group intentionally because of their continued expressed concern for their student’s writing development. These teachers understood that historically, students at this school were not performing well on standardized tests that required students to engage in performance tasks that involved short written answers, extended responses and essay questions. However, teachers did not know how to make gains in student writing and complex reading analysis.

We included the entire English department, as this was the first department to implement the initiative and one teacher to represent the social science department and another from the Spanish department. During the time that the data was collected both the social science and the Spanish department had only three teachers in each department. The decision to select one teacher from each department in social science and Spanish was mostly made due to the years of experience that other teachers in the department held. The teachers were selected this way in order to ensure that there was a range of experience represented. This selection was based on two criteria: years of service at the school and overall years of teaching experience. Teachers were asked a series of questions regarding their own experience in the participation of the reading and writing initiative before the implementation of the initiative, during the intervention, and future ideas of the program. All interviews were transcribed in full and coded. Categories of focus were then selected.

Data collection

This study centers teachers as bearers of knowledge in investigating pedagogical changes they implemented in a literacy intervention designed specifically for bi/multilingual Latinx students to bolster biliteracy skills in both English and Spanish (Mangin & Stoelinga, 2011). The primary author of this research, served as a teacher and instructional coach during the first two years in which the intervention was implemented. Data sources such as classroom observation notes, teacher meeting notes and conceptual memos were collected during the pilot stage (year one) of this study, and during year two. However, during the third year of the intervention, at the time this data was collected, the primary author of this paper collected and analyzed teacher interviews.

Data analysis

Using a qualitative approach (Miles & Huberman, 1994), author one interviewed each teacher to gather their experience at three points of the intervention (past, present, and future). All interviews were audio recorded with teachers’ consent prior to the recording. Interviews were transcribed in full (see Appendix B for the interview protocol). Each interview ranged from thirty-five minutes to one hour and thirty-five minutes and were conducted in the teacher’s classroom or in school spaces that the teachers selected.

Author one initiated data analysis by creating initial coding categories (See Appendix C) that reflected eight anticipated categories that teachers might have responded to regarding the before, during, and future steps in the intervention (Saldaña, 2013). Such anticipated categories emerged from the first review of the data and informed by the theoretical framework that emerged from the literature (Russ et al., 2016). Data for a second time as additions and adjustments were made to the initial coding system during the first round of coding (Silverman, 2006). The primary author of this study coded each interview in full, applying multiple-codes whenever appropriate.

Throughout the coding process, adjustments and additions were continually made to the codebook during each round of reading and coding individual transcripts (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The primary author of this paper made adjustments that were necessary because teachers indicated other areas of concerns that were initially not anticipated. Author one, then went back to the data and coded them one final time using multiple codes in developing themes that eventually developed the results section of this paper. Then the codebook was finalized and all transcripts were re-coded in full according to the finalized categories (See Appendix D).

In carrying out the analysis of the teacher responses it was important to return to the original theory of action of the reading and writing intervention as a way of anchoring these responses and teachers conceptualized instructional changes. The three basic assumptions informing the intervention were:

1. First, reading and writing are fundamentally connected: The more students read, the better they will write.

2. Secondly, explicit instruction in navigating texts using specific strategies is particularly helpful to non-English-background students.

3. Lastly, writing is about expressing ideas.

Noting these underlying theoretical perspectives, the analysis revealed that teachers reported having experienced instructional changes in the three different ways described above; surface pedagogical change, consensus pedagogical change and mindful pedagogical change. Such changes were vividly reported in the interviews conducted with the teachers. In the following section we will discuss some of the changes that they reported.

Findings

We found that teachers shift in pedagogies in response to this reading and writing intervention could be categorized in three different types of actions:

• Surface pedagogical change

• Consensus pedagogical change

• Mindful pedagogical change

While we have drawn on the work of Russ et al. (2016) in our thinking, we found that the data necessitated that we formulate new ways of understanding the teacher’s response to the instructional changes. We found that teachers in the study responded to change along a spectrum, to which we applied three distinct categories: mindful pedagogical change, consensus pedagogical change and surface pedagogical change. These are described below.

Surface pedagogical change

Surface pedagogical change is the condition in which teacher instructional movement remains inert, where existing pedagogical practices remain mostly intact. They continue their instruction as usual due to their own set ideologies and/or lack of supportive structures that schools and districts provide for enhancing and expanding teacher learning and practices. Little attention is given to the ways in which linguistically diverse students could capitalize on their vast linguistic repertoires. Some change might occur at the surface level with the intent to comply versus to understand.

Consensus pedagogical change

We describe consensus pedagogical change as characterized by the practice of initiating instructional change as a means to conform to a group norm. This type of change refers to the instructional shifts caused in response to collaborative efforts to new teacher knowledge. Teacher instructional shifts occur only under the conditions in which teachers collaborate with one another and attempt to implement instructional changes as a means to comply with the acceptance of the group on any given instructional idea.

Mindful pedagogical change

We define mindful pedagogical changes as instructional shifts caused by internalized understandings of particular ideas related to improving instruction. In this case, instruction related to improving the reading and writing of linguistically diverse students. Teachers acquired new knowledge that led to altered instructional choices. The alterations came from their own desire to enhance their curriculum in ways that provided inclusion of the vast linguistic repertoires that immigrant-origin Latinos possess, as bi/multilingual students in both reading and writing. This deep understanding causes teachers’ practice to change instruction in ways that is self-initiated and enhances their own understanding as practitioners.

Table 3 summarizes these three distinct types of teacher pedagogical change. We were able to identify these three layers of changes that teachers reported to have experienced and that first author of this study observed over the three-year period the reading and writing intervention was implemented.

Table 3. Teacher pedagogical change (TPC).

Surface Pedagogical Change	Consensus Pedagogical Change	Mindful Pedagogical Change
Business as usual teaching	Some if not many new practices implemented	New practices implemented and a demonstrable willingness to explore further
Modification of pedagogies not consistent	Change of teacher practices because of peer influence	Deep understanding leading to teacher’s practice to change
Uncompromising acceptance to new knowledge	Evidence of new knowledge emerging	Internalized knowledge leading to updated pedagogies

In the interviews all six teachers agreed that reading and writing were fundamentally connected and further agreed that the more students read, the better they could write. All six teachers also agreed that writing needed to be more focused on ideas and less centered on grammatical approaches to writing. Hence, in these areas, the teachers had reached at the least the level of consensus pedagogical change. However, the area that remained ambiguous as far as what teachers implemented and conceptualized with depth of understanding was the second underlying assumption of the initiative: that explicit instruction in navigating texts is helpful to non-English-background students. Some teachers in this area attained only surface pedagogical change. Based on what teachers reported in their interviews, we found that teachers did not understand what it meant to provide their students with explicit instruction in navigating texts. This lack of understanding was demonstrated in the various ways that teachers reported implementing strategies to decode complex texts. For example, four of the six teachers reported that annotating and reading charts felt redundant and they felt discomfort with the recommended strategies of, “talking to the text” to bolster reading comprehension in both languages. “talking to the text” in this intervention meant, that students using post-it notes would annotate their questions of the reading as they read along. While these teachers implemented the strategy, they did not understand why such strategies were being implemented. While there was an understanding on how to implement complex text in the curriculum these four teachers were not fully convinced it was necessary. Hence, they were engaged in surface pedagogical change rather than mindful pedagogical change or even consensus pedagogical change.

To exemplify how teachers conceptualized their own pedagogical change I draw on excerpts of interview data in the next section.

Surface pedagogical change

Some teachers reported a sense of longing for classical literature to still be included in the curriculum. A shift in text selections, from classical cannons to informational texts was created as part of this initiative with the end goal in mind that students would have multiple access points linguistically. An important shift to bolster reading that is relevant for linguistically diverse students. Teacher responses indicated a lack of understanding in the purposeful selection of reading informational texts for their students and why those shifts were necessary in responding to the linguistic needs of the students. To exemplify this point, we draw on the responses of the following teachers regarding their conceptualization of a shift in text selection:

But you are changing everything I know! Novels are the way I grew up learning to read. Uhm getting rid of the novels is something that I don’t fully see purpose in, I feel like outside of these school walls when I talk to other teachers in other schools it’s always that, “oh, you don’t teach books?” kind of statement and well that is always difficult to defend.

- Ms. Clara

In this response, the teacher expresses her mourning for novels. While the teacher had made instructional shifts in selecting texts that were not literary novels, a lack of conceptualization of the linguistic entry access points that such novels fail to offer to linguistically diverse students was still lacking. The teacher was in fact defending their previous ideas around teaching, that reading novels “is very prevalent outside,” and that exposure to novels was an essential part of her own schooling experience. While Ms. Clara complied to the change, she remained vocal about this point throughout the intervention and lobbied for the return to novels at nearly every meeting. Here we see a teacher displaying surface pedagogical change.

Another teacher also reported discomfort with moving away from incorporating entire literary novels into the classroom instruction.

How do we read a whole book in the initiative, is that possible? And I think that it is. And we’re going to figure it out by asking kids to take their books home and read on their own. Uhm, you know, so do we do that? Is it reasonable, now that students have skills, to read on their own?

- Ms. Joy

The intervention influenced a major shift in reading instruction, as it encouraged explicit instruction in navigating mostly informational texts using specific strategies during guided, in-class instruction. Teachers were asked to modify reading instruction by teaching students to annotate as a skill that activates the reader. In suggesting that students should take the novels home, the teacher is moving away from the sociolinguistic necessity to provide the students explicit instruction in reading complex texts in the classroom that underline the intervention. Guided reading in class that implements skills like talking to the texts provides linguistically diverse students additional language learning opportunities that native speakers typically acquire implicitly. Talking to the text enriches language and literacy learning opportunities to include detailed vocabulary instruction, variables concerning second language text structure (e.g., semantics, syntax, morphology), and cultural relevance. In class reading teaching approach addresses these variables, enabling language and literacy instruction to be emphasized as students read complex text in class and annotate.

These responses evince a disconnect with the why behind the thematic, shorter form text selection that dovetail with the supported reading instruction to take place in the classroom. It also ignores the reality of teaching an immigrant population in a low socio economics status neighborhood where the home lives of many students provide few opportunities for them to have extensive homework and reading assignments when many of them work after school or take care of their family members.

Consensus pedagogical change

Teachers appeared to reach consensus pedagogical change in the way they conceptualized that reading instruction should take place at the school as they reported that they agreed on the majority of the driving tenants of the initiative. As mentioned above, the six teachers all seemed to support the idea that reading and writing were fundamentally connected and that writing was about ideas. This consensus pedagogical action is evident in some of their comments.

Displaying consensus pedagogical change, another teacher reported the implementation of annotating in her classroom, a literacy skill that all teachers used during the intervention:

In terms of what strategies students need in reading instruction, the initiative taught me that students need help in analyzing complex texts. So annotating is a skill that they may not know yet in order to best analyze texts and once they have all of that it makes it easier for them to write. I’ve come to understand that in the initiative we read to write.

- Ms. Love

The fact that all of the teachers used annotation after the intervention demonstrates that the intervention did result, on one level, in consensus pedagogical action. However, in order to help students of linguistically diverse backgrounds more than just annotating texts is required. The teachers’ responses suggest that moderate change in pedagogical action took place, but a deeper understanding of how reading and writing function as an asset to linguistically diverse students was still developing.

Perhaps the area in which teachers displayed the most consensus pedagogical change was in claiming, or failing to claim, this initiative as their own. While teachers that participated in the reading and writing initiative attended meetings with great commitment demonstrated by observable engagement during meetings, various teacher responses suggested that teachers still perceived this initiative as steps to be implemented rather than self-owned learning that leads to mindful instructional choices. One teacher reported:

We haven’t been very responsive to the changes and the feedback; by “we” I mean the entirety of RWI teachers in the SS, Spanish, and English classes. We are very dedicated to creating interesting and creative dynamics units. That’s been awesome and encouraging. But as far as retooling the framework, in which it works, which stuff is tried, which stuff do we need to develop, which stuff needs more kind attention… I think we have not been as responsive as we need to be.

- Ms. Love

This response suggests that the teachers perceived their role in the reading and writing initiative as merely implementers rather than innovators and co-creators of the initiative.

Another teacher reported:

I don’t think the group has the ownership of it that they should. This is our thing! We are the ones that are implementing it and making it happen, I think a lot of the problems would take care of itself if we saw people really kind of say, “Hey this is mine, I want to protect it and see it succeed.” I see very little movement in development and I would like to see more.

- Mr. Gosling

This response suggests that teachers are still making sense of their role in the initiative and the way in which their ownership could impact instructional shifts. While the teacher in this interview longs for more teacher movement in the team, we have yet to understand to what degree teachers are truly moved in their practices in ways that are mindful and responsive to the new knowledge gained. This teacher’s response reveals the surface pedagogical change that teachers in the initiative experienced in taking ownership of the underlying principles of the intervention.

This lack of ownership suggests that teacher practices were often reliant on agreed-upon instructional techniques, rather than taking ownership of the knowledge they had gained regarding the underlying principles of the initiative and creating their own approaches to share with the group. While teachers reported to be responsive in creating interesting and creative units, these teachers reported that the retooling of instructional strategies needed more hand holding and guidance by the researcher that led the initiative, while other teachers demonstrated an ability to move beyond the framework of the initiative and create deeper innovations while retaining its foundation. Teachers who were not fully taking ownership of the reading and writing initiative were not going to move into the territory of mindful pedagogical change.

Mindful pedagogical change

Writing instruction was the domain in which teachers commented on experiencing the most mindful pedagogical action, as all six focus teachers reported to have shifted the way they taught writing as a result of the intervention implemented at the school. Enhancing writing instruction, especially for bi/multilingual learners, involves encouraging students to create original texts for authentic communication purposes, such as informing, persuading, or explaining. This improvement can be achieved by employing scaffolded modeling and practice to make visible how each type of text functions to fulfill its specific purpose. Bi/multilingual children, who encounter multiple languages in their homes and communities, bring diverse language and literacy experiences to school (Valdés et al., 2017) and yet too often such adolescents in secondary settings find themselves in learning ecologies that allow very little room for their writing skills to be bolstered (Kibler & Castellón Palacios, 2022). For bilingual adolescents, the development of writing skills is influenced by dynamic bilingualism and the ways in which such bilingualism is nurtured in the classroom across content areas (O. García & Wei, 2015). As reported by one social science teacher, a major change in his instruction took place in writing:

So, the difference was that I didn’t want to get rid of reading sources and analyzing them but the way that the RWI changes what I do is that obviously writing major essays is now part of my social science curriculum. We’re talking about going through an entire writing process in history class; this was not something I was ever considering prior to the initiative.

- Mr. Goodwill

Here we see that this teacher found a way to implement process writing in his curriculum, a practice that is not often embraced in high school social science classrooms as too often writing instruction is used for the preparation of high stakes writing exams such as advanced placement courses in social science classes. Writing as a practice is a form of communication and a social process in which bi/multilingual learners are given the opportunity to organize their ideas in creative ways. Teaching bi/multilingual learners that their ideas are important and should be communicated in writing hinges on the effectiveness of instructional process, continuous practice, and a positive learning environment that honors and includes their multilingualism. The response in the above excerpt displays a deep understanding on the importance of writing instruction that moved the teacher to take mindful pedagogical change leading him to ultimately alter the way he taught writing in his classroom, as he incorporated the use of essays and process writing despite the content-specific demands of a social studies classroom. Another teacher in the literacy intervention shared:

I really feel like one of the things the RWI does is that it marries reading and writing; you are explicitly reading to write. In fact, you say that in your class almost every single time there is a new reading: “Remember we read to write, all the assignments that come in the reading are typically geared to be stepping stones towards the writing.”

- Mr. Gosling

Mr. Gosling’s comment above reflects an acceptance that reading and writing are fundamentally connected and that as such they should be taught jointly, not separately. Teachers play a vital role in assisting students as they engage in meaningful literacy activities encompassing both reading and writing processes. In his response, the teacher demonstrates an understanding of the interconnectedness of such processes and took mindful pedagogical change in which he adapted writing instruction to be in conversation with reading instruction. This was made evident in the essay writings that took place each quarter for a total for six essays during one academic school year. Most of these essays were also accompanied with class discussions, presentations that were all connected to thematic reading units. This approach is vital for the language development of bi/multilingual adolescents, as it nurtures their reading, oral, and written language skills.

Another teacher reported that because of his implementation of process writing he began to notice a change in the way students were responding to writing. He reports:

I’ve started to see more success with my students getting their quotes and evidence into the essay where in the past I’ve seen essays that are narrative base, first person experiences without the actual input of the articles that we read in class. That would fill the notion that we read to write.

- Mr. Gosling

Here we see that this teacher has developed a deep understanding of how purposeful selection of texts can help students develop their writing skills. This idea supports the intervention’s tenet that students read to write. Mr. Gosling’s response demonstrates, in part, that he understands the importance of students providing evidence for their claims; and that in fact students have been instructed to cite and provide evidence in writing for their claims. Furthermore, he seems to understand that this evidence could come directly from the texts students read in class, further demonstrating the connection between reading and writing and the importance of incorporating informational texts that model writing that students can imitate. Writing instruction should be situated within a comprehensive and demanding curriculum for bi/multilingual learners, however such curriculum should also include model texts from their readings that displays writing features that they can then use in their writing marks the difference. The responsibility of teachers is to furnish instructional materials and activities that align with and push students at their language production level, offering access to academic content. Mr. Gosling did this by selecting reading texts that students later might be able to site in their own writing. In this response we see the teacher displays mindful pedagogical action in that he understands why students are being asked to read carefully selected texts and how that pedagogical approach could impact immigrant-origin Latinx students’ writing in positive ways.

Another teacher reflected on reading and writing practices before the reading and writing initiative and after.

In terms of what the students need to learn to develop their literacy I have thought plenty about how they read, annotate, analyze and once they have all of that, once they have all the evidence, it makes it easier for them to write. Which is something I knew inherently, but never considered that it was something that needed to be taught, explicitly.

- Ms. Hope

This teacher’s response suggests that the teacher has continued to think about the newly implemented reading and writing instruction model and its purpose in developing stronger bi/multilingual readers and writers. This response also demonstrates the teacher’s willingness to explore new ways to teach reading and writing and to admit that perhaps what she initially believed regarding reading and writing instruction needed to be revisited, demonstrating mindful pedagogical action.

Discussion: understanding teacher change

The major findings of this study tell a story of a group of teachers that were eager to learn and willing to participate in a reading and writing initiative that would improve the literacy skills of immigrant-origin Latinx students. Yet the ways in which their learning was displayed, as evidenced by what they reported in the interviews and what the first author observed over three years, reveal that teachers responded to change in varying levels. An intervention will not cause change but rather the learning that teachers are able to internalize because of the content presented in an intervention has the potential to move teachers to action. As observed by many researchers before us (Bolam et al., 2005; Bryk et al., 1999, 2010; Cohen & Hill, 2000; Evans, 2000; Guskey & Yoon, 2009; Hall & Hord, 2005; Nguyen & Hunter, 2018) change relies on learning and change is a process that takes time. Learning must first take place in order to move teachers to mindful pedagogical change.

First let us look at how teachers responded to changes in reading. Teachers in this study reported a consensus pedagogical change in reading as they were able to all agree that reading and writing are fundamentally connected and that as such both should be taught together versus separately. In their responses, teachers reported that they understood that students should read to write (see extract one) and that students need explicit help in analyzing complex text (see extract two). Yet two out of the four teachers in the English department reported that they missed incorporating classic literature in their curriculum. Classic literature was discouraged in this intervention as such texts have limited linguistic entry points for immigrant-origin Latinx students. It has also been deemphasized in new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that prioritize informational and nonfiction texts for the instruction of high school students. Such reports in the interviews displayed a consensus pedagogical change as teachers agreed on shifting a practice, in this case, text selection, but a disconnect with the why behind the text selection shift was lacking. Teachers that displayed mindful pedagogical change reported willingness to explore new ways of teaching writing and were even willing to admit that perhaps their own beliefs about literacy needed to be revisited (see extract seven).

Second let us look at how teachers responded to changes in writing. Teachers in this study experienced a mindful pedagogical change in writing as all six-focus teachers in the study reported to have shifted the way they taught writing because of what they have learned from the intervention. Teachers reported adopting the writing process as part of their daily literacy development strategies even in content areas like social science and Spanish (see extract five).

While the small sample size of this study presents limitations, this study contributes to an understanding of the importance of teacher interventions in helping the literacy development of bi/multilingual Latinx students. But perhaps even more importantly, the study highlights the consideration that educational leaders must undertake in implementing such changes and understanding the ways in which teachers may respond to them.

This study raises the question of how instructional changes for immigrant-origin Latinx students need to be retooled keeping in mind students’ bi/multilingualism and their linguistic needs (Faltis & Valdés, 2015; Valdés, 1992). Immigrant-origin Latinx students bring with them a vast linguistic toolkit that should be incorporated and welcomed in their literacy development at the secondary level (Martínez, 2010, 2013).

This study further raises the question of how instructional changes and school-wide initiatives can impact teacher learning. In an era of accountability where changes in instructional practices are often demanded by standardized testing, teachers are perhaps the most impacted by these demands since most of the change ultimately depends on their ability to respond to such demands and their willingness to make instructional shifts that are adequate to prepare their students to meet the new standards. Changes of this magnitude require learning on the part of the teachers and such learning implies that school leadership will support and provide adequate guidance (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Putnam & Borko, 1997, 2000; Wilson & Berne, 1999). In the case of teacher leaders, which this intervention was directed by, our study indicates that providing ownership over the process is something that needs to be maintained and made explicit throughout the process. This, adding to Nguyen and Hunter (2018) who found that minimizing conflict was critical for teacher-led reforms.

Without guidance and support, teachers are not being well situated to make mindful pedagogical changes that will bring about lasting and transformative change. When implementing curricular changes, school districts and school leadership should ask themselves how clear they are of the pedagogical shifts and goals that they aim to effect prior to implementing such programs. That is to say, to what degree is the motive for instructional change clear and how are those motives communicated to the teaching staff and supported by the school leadership?

Implications

When school districts hire out and/or decide to go about implementing new programs and curriculum it is important to consider the ways in which teachers will be impacted as a result of such changes. In addition to considering the ways in which teachers will be affected as a result of such program changes, it is also important to consider what support structures the district/school administration has set in place in order to nurture coherence. Yet very little work is put forth in the ways that teachers are supported in the process of constructing knowledge and learning about the reasons why change must occur (Carroll et al., 2003; Stahl, 2013). While new programs can easily be implemented in schools, it does not guarantee lasting instructional changes. Nor does it guarantee new teacher knowledge that will move instruction in ways that will bring about student progress. In fact, what is clear from the existing research in teacher learning is that the long-term trajectory of teacher learning will be complex. Long term trajectories of instructional change viewed from the perspective of some researchers implies that much of the teachers’ learning will occur during the act of teaching itself and over the span of time in which teachers are supported in ways that their knowledge is continuously enhanced (Kagan, 1992; Lieberman, 1995). This suggests that the process of change must be spread out over time and supported with sustainable structures (Borko, 2004; Bridges & Bridges, 2009; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Shulman, 1986). Carving out time for teachers to construct knowledge together during an academic school year is crucial so that they are allowed the opportunity to make meaning of what is being learned (Guskey, 2007). Such teacher learning time is also critical to instructional innovation and yet very little time is granted for teachers to do so upon the introduction of change (Hall, 1974; Hall & Hord, 2005; Hall et al., 1973; Hord & Roussin, 2013). Finally, if teachers are expected to have long-term lasting effects of their knowledge and as a result observable instructional change, administrative leadership must gain understanding on the ways in which learning takes place specifically among teachers. Interventions are not magic pills that solve all the problems in the school. Interventions, programs, and/or professional developments in the long term could impact fine-tuning of knowledge that is combined with the teachers’ accumulation of experience, be it long or short. The answer to lasting teacher knowledge development that leads to effective instructional changes is not necessarily a generic one-size fits all professional development program. Rather the findings of this study suggest that with change comes the opportunity of teacher knowledge to be developed and enhanced in ways that may ultimately benefit the needs of the changing demographics of American students. Change can be intimidating to teachers but change is often necessary in order to remain responsive and inclusive of linguistically and culturally diverse student needs. Evans (2000) notes that beyond the quality of the professional development, how teachers respond to change, or their willingness to embrace change, is a central factor in its success.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2024.2333898

Notes

¹ We use this term to best describe students that come from linguistically diverse backgrounds, whose bureaucratic labeling is more commonly known as English Language Learners. We refrain from using this term because most of the students that we observed in this study were language users of both English and Spanish with vast linguistic repertoires in both languages.

² Retrieved mission from the school website.