Teaching English Language Arts in a Northern Canadian Community: Four Teachers' Voices

• Author / Creator

  McKay, Marlene

• This qualitative case study helps fulfill the need for research into the influence of the Northern Canadian contexts. It explores, through the eyes of four participating language arts teachers who teach in the same northern community, how the northern contexts influence their personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, 1992) and their language arts classroom curriculum.
  My study is situated in an area of inquiry that involves questions about what teachers know, how they know, and how they continue to develop their practice over time. This study determines that the classroom language arts curricula of participating teachers have several key elements in common and that teachers in this study view themselves as curriculum makers who enact a classroom language arts curriculum that is primarily based on social constructivist principles. These northern teachers view language arts as more than just reading and writing and consider that the power of language extends into the arts and technology as well.
  Living and teaching in this northern community presents opportunities and challenges for these teachers. Relationships both inside and outside of the classroom are important considerations for them. Their knowledge of and connections to the school and the community are particularly important in developing these relationships. Finally, this study reveals that part of the teachers’ understanding of self is influenced by their sense of belonging or not belonging in the community.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Teacher Learning
  • Qualitative research
  • Northern
  • Teacher Knowledge
  • English Language Arts
  • Case study
  • Curriculum maker

• Graduation date

  Fall 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3VQ17

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.