Introduction
Research into the content knowledge that teaching demands has advanced significantly in the area of STEM teacher preparation (Bell, Gitomer, et al 2019). In mathematics in particular, the subdomain of specialized content knowledge has been theorized (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008), measured, and linked to student achievement (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005). In the English Language Arts (ELA), research has not focused upon content knowledge for teaching, per se. There are large bodies of research describing the literacy practices of students and the procedural reading knowledge of expert literary readers, both of which contribute knowledge that is useful for ELA teaching and teacher education. However, these bodies of research generally contribute understandings of what teachers of literature should know, not what successful teachers do know.
In ELA, practice-based research on the particular ways of knowing content for teaching has centered on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK, Shulman, 1986), with limited research on specialized knowledge of content for teaching (SCK, Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008). The
existing research into SCK is focused at the elementary level and upon the knowledge required for teaching young learners to read. Despite the centrality of literature to ELA instruction, there remains a “paucity” (Grossman, 2001, p. 426) of research on the teaching of literature and teachers of literature.
A more complete picture of knowledge for teaching literature may require practice-based study of the knowledge demands of teaching literature. We know a good deal about the student
literacy practices and literary content knowledge. It would be useful to turn our attention to aspects of knowledge-in-use and to the teacher-knowers. Study of knowledge in teaching practice would allow pursuit of a question asked in research on mathematics teaching: what knowledge does effective instruction in the reading of literature require? (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008) While some work (Goldman et al., 2016) has begun to highlight the importance of meta-awareness of literary reading procedures for teachers of literature, Grossman’s (2001) questions about knowledge for teaching literature are as yet unanswered:
What is required to orchestrate deep and engaging discussions of a literary work? If the ability to listen carefully to students’ ideas and to build on them is one characteristic of a skillful discussion leader, how do experienced teachers develop such skills? What kinds of experiences would help them learn to listen differently, not for right answers but for the kernels of powerful
interpretations?…How might such activities come to influence classroom practices and, ultimately, student learning?” (2001, p. 428)
This study aims to contribute to building a theory of the special knowledge that teaching the reading of literature requires. Understanding this knowledge in practice would provide conceptual tools which could powerfully inform teaching and teacher education.
The questions driving this literature review are (1) what do we know about the content knowledge that teaching literature requires? and (2) how does the concept of a specialized knowledge of literature for teaching fit into or offer challenge to these understandings? This review is bounded in several ways: it is limited to knowledge for teaching the reading of literature rather than English as a second language, to consideration of practice and research in the United States, and, where possible, to the secondary level. This review explores what we know about content knowledge for the teaching of literature by considering (1) research on
student literacies, (2) disciplinary literacy research studying expert readers of literature, and finally, (3) practice-based research on teaching the reading of literature.
Research on the Content Knowledge That Teaching Literature Requires
A Still-Missing Paradigm: Research on Knowledge for Teaching Literature
It is important to understand the content knowledge demands of teaching literature because literature remains central to ELA instruction (Grossman, 2001; Grossman, Schoenfeld, & Lee, 2005; Juzwik et al, 2017) and teachers’ dispositions towards and knowledge of literature are central to that instruction: research has documented teachers’ power to shape student
responses to literature (Grossman, 2001, p. 426). And yet, as Grossman noted nearly twenty years ago, it is surprising that there is relatively little research on teaching literature or on teachers of literature.
Research on knowledge for teaching beginning into knowledge for teaching (Shulman, 1987; Wilson, Shulman, & Richert, 1987; Grossman, 1990) took a turn in the 1980s and 1990s, becoming more subject-specific. And yet, there was less of this research in ELA than in math and science (Grossman et al., 1997, p. 409). Research on knowledge for teaching ELA
documented the effects of subject-specific methods courses in developing pedagogical reasoning and a student-centered orientation to teaching literature (Grossman, 1990). Other work
documented gaps in new ELA teachers’ knowledge that make teaching literature difficult (Clift, 1991). Research from this period also suggests that teachers’ critical literary orientations affect how they teach literature (Grossman et al., 1997) and that secondary ELA teachers generally show a Reader Response or a New Critical approach to literature (Grossman, 2001).
Upon writing the last research handbook chapter specifically about the teaching of literature in 2001 (Handbook of Research on the Teaching, 4th Edition), Grossman wondered
whether there would be enough ongoing research on the teaching of literature for chapters in subsequent handbooks. The answers seems to be a qualified no: literature seems central to research in ELA, but it is not generally the concept in focus. For the past several decades, research on the teaching of ELA has focused more upon on student literacy practices, which includes a large body of work on student responses to literature (Grossman, 2001; Beach & O’Brien, 2018). There is also work on discussions of literature, literature learning at home, and the literature curriculum. There is a small but important body of work linking various approaches to teaching literature to student achievement (Grossman, 2001). However, in Gitomer & Bell’s 5th Edition of the Handbook of Research on Teaching (2016) and Lapp & Fisher’s (2018)
Handbook on Teaching the English Language Arts, there are no chapters on the teaching of
literature or the knowledge that teaching literature requires. Instead, literature is discussed in the context of major trends in ELA research: current work on disciplinary “expert” literary readers and literacy research into reading and writing. The content knowledge demands of teaching literature have not been a focus of research.
Especially given research documenting that the teaching of literature is largely
unchanged from the past and is at risk of failing to engage 21st Century learners or making the
school subject of English “obsolete” (Moje et al, 2017; Juzwik, 2017), it seems especially important that we consider the knowledge demands of teaching literature. We know a good deal about how literary experts read. We know quite a lot about student readers. While these are both useful to know, research has not yet described what kind of knowledge may be required to map successfully between knowledge of literature and knowledge of students, what this knowledge looks like in practice, how it develops, and if (as in mathematics) it significantly predicts student
learning. Specialized knowledge for teaching the reading of literature remains a “missing paradigm” (Shulman, 1986): a powerful potential link, as yet under-studied.
Research on Student Literacies
Literacies research asks, what do students do when they are reading literature? How do they make meaning of text? This research is explicitly positioned as useful for teaching; it aims to function as one aspect of the knowledge base for teachers of literature. For example, this work contributes useful developmental progressions of student responses to literature (Grossman, 2001, p. 420; for an example, see Thomson, 1987). As a teacher, understanding student readers is a logical place to begin, and one that may be less likely to result in deficit-based thinking (Moje, Giroux & Muehling, 2017).
Literacies research has contributed knowledge for teaching ELA that is useful for ELA teaching in several subdomains. Beach and O’Brien’s (2018) review of literacy research “informing ELA instruction” includes contributions in the following categories:
• research on reading comprehension and instruction • relationship between reading and writing
• relation between motivation, engagement and reading • research on composition
• on language use (by students in different linguistic communities) • on digital/media literacy
Hinchman and Appleman’s 2017 review of practice-based research on adolescent literacies also considers the categories of multimodal variety of texts, and research on student reading and writing and pedagogical practices. Their volume adds a focus in the categories of adolescents
using literacy practices to negotiate and perform their identities, and consideration of the variety of contexts in which adolescents read and write.
Research on literacy practices in ELA describes the diversity of student literacies both in terms of the diversity of cultural strengths student readers bring to reading and writing and also the diversity of modes in which they read and write, extending beyond the confines of traditional conceptions of literature and reading. A good deal of literacy research now operates from a critically aware conception of language as both an aspect of culture and a way that students discover and perform their identities (Moje et al, 2017). It contributes the idea that there are different kinds of “English,” and that teachers who privilege one standardized version of English in their classrooms risk enacting powerfully marginalizing practices (Paris, 2012). This body of work documenting the literacy practices of young people has led to calls for a more linguistically plural approach to the teaching of ELA (Juzwik et al, 2017). It is a major “irony” (p. xviii) that just as research has begun to acknowledge the diversity of literacies, “literacy teachers are faced with an increasingly urgent mandate for the standardization of instruction, including the
Common Core State Standards” (Hinchman and Appleman, 2017, p. xviii). Or, perhaps, the tension between increased plurality and standardization is not ironic at all, but makes perfect sense as a deliberate attempt to preserve literary approaches of the prior century, in the face of great change. Regardless, literacy research seems positioned directly in the middle of these competing arguments about what teachers should know and should do.
Literacy research on teaching literature. A developing body of literacy work informs
the teaching of literature by describing what student readers do and working backwards from that knowledge to infer what teachers should know or do. Catterson and Pearson (2017) summarize this research and use it to propose a 21st Century framework for “close reading” that reflects the
suggestions, based upon findings of literary literacy research and upon theories about learning (see Table 3-1).
21st-Century Close Reading Framework
1. Readers’ background knowledge “has a significant effect” on reading practices and comprehension (p. 462) [research-based]
2. Readers need authentic purposes and contexts for reading (p. 427) [based upon theories of situated cognition (Brown et al, 1989) and legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991)]
3. Readers benefit from “metadiscursive” awareness during close reading instruction (p. 465): having language to describe their own reading processes [research-based]
4. Readers benefit from a critical literacy approach which includes analysis of self, context, and culture, “with the goal of learning about social forces…and social action” (p. 466) [research- based]
5. Readers benefit from two-way, “dialogically organized” discussions, as opposed to didactic, teacher-driven inquiries into text [research-based]
Table 3-1: Summary of Catterson and Pearson’s (2017) 21st Century Framework for Close Reading, annotated with sources of their findings
In some cases, but not all, the literary literacies research base includes measurement of the effectiveness for student learners of the suggested pedagogies; as Grossman (2001) noted, that body of research is important, but small (see: Lee, 2007). The bulk of research describing student practices and pedagogies offers useful, research-based approaches for teaching literature, and seems to begin to build something close to what Shulman (1987) called for: the development of a body of case knowledge about student conceptions and practices in regards to reading of texts. Knowledge of content and students (KCS) is one of the critical domains of the knowledge base for teaching (Shulman, 1987; Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008); literacy research seems to fill in this domain, nicely.
Hinchman and Appleman (2017), in their introduction to their review of research on adolescent literacies, express the hope that the researchers use the findings of literacy research
“to argue for instruction and professional development that acknowledge the expertise of youth to enhance their reading, viewing, and composing, and, as a result, the opportunities that are available to them” (xiii). The ethos of literacy research seems to be that instruction should be aligned with student literacy practices. While this knowledge seems to be positioned
prescriptively in terms of what teachers should know – rather than describing what they do know and how such knowledge is enacted in practice – it does offer a helpful foundation for
development of a knowledge base for the teaching of literature.
Research on Disciplinary Literacy
Research into disciplinary literacy in literature (Lee and Spratley, 2010; Goldman et al, 2016; Rainey, 2015, 2016) contributes an alternative way to consider what subject matter knowledge is important for the teaching of literature. This research, often pursued through expert-novice studies, helpfully describes the “syntactic structures” (Schwab, 1973) of literary reading. Disciplinary literacy practices are what “professional” literary readers generally do when they are reading: how they make sense of text, use text to inquire, and how they build literary interpretations.
Dsciplinary literacy research in literature aims at illuminating pathways for the teaching of literature by pushing teachers beyond use of generalized “reading strategies” to offer more precise guides for students to become apprentices in literary reading. As Lee and Spratley (2010) note, reading instruction often focuses upon basic decoding and comprehension strategy, but adolescent readers need more complex and discipline-specific strategies in order to comprehend text in each content area. If teachers know how expert literary analysts read, they can align their instruction with these discourse-specific practices (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2018), and invite students into disciplinary modes of inquiry (Moje, 2015). By providing a more nuanced
aims at being useful for curriculum design and teacher education. While disciplinary literary literacy procedures would be useful for teachers to know, this framing is somewhat prescriptive:
Disciplinary literacy is based on the idea that literacy instruction needs to be more closely aligned with the mores, normative standards, traditions, skills, and social discourse practices of the disciplines if it is to be of much use and if content teachers are to embrace it (Shanahan and Shanahan, 2018, p. 281, emphasis added).
This body of research contributes understandings of the knowledge “needed” for teaching by breaking down the work of subject matter experts, so that their work might be more visible for teachers and, presumably, for students. But how exactly does a teacher do the work of aligning instruction with disciplinary literacies? It would require knowledge that is specifically for teaching. As Rainey (2015) notes, knowledge of literary literacy practices is necessary but not sufficient for disciplinary literacy instruction.
Disciplinary literary literacy research generally follows two tracks: one focuses on identifying the disciplinary practices of experts or comparing expert and novice readers; the other focuses on the learning outcomes from teaching these disciplinary literacy practices (Shanahan & Shanahan 2018, p. 284). How exactly this important knowledge becomes
knowledge in and for teaching – how teachers develop it, use it, and what it looks like in practice – is not the focus of most disciplinary literary literacy research. Some research, however, does seem to build from observation and description of the work of teaching disciplinary literacy procedures to students. Goldman et al (2016) and Rainey (2015, 2016) offer theories of disciplinary literary literacy that describe content knowledge in the context of the practice of teaching literature.
Rainey has studied literary literacy practices by comparing the literary reading of university professors and high school ELA teachers (2015) and describing in detail the reading practices of university-level teachers of literature (2016). Her work contributes to prior
understandings of knowledge for teaching with the finding that “holding disciplinary
understandings and disciplinary literacy practices is necessary but not sufficient for instructors’ abilities to provide disciplinary literacy instruction to students” (2015, p. xi). Rainey’s work positions disciplinary literacy as a way that teachers can work to build disciplinary literacy methods in student readings. It aims at understanding “How ‘disciplinary’ are the learning opportunities that students tend to receive in ELA classrooms? How might literary literacy practices best be taught in K-12 classrooms so they are not disconnected from larger cycles of inquiry and the social nature of disciplinary communities?” (p. 69).
In addition to observing the literary reading practices, Rainey derives a framework for literary teaching practices (see Table 3-2). The ways of reading and teaching literature that Rainey identifies push beyond content-neutral approaches to reading instruction. Her work synthesizes a more literary kind of inquiry for reading literature and constructing argumentation. Rainey argues (2015) that these literary literacy practices are necessary but not sufficient for the work of teaching. Pushing into the area of content knowledge for teaching literature, Rainey describes her subjects’ teaching approaches that aim to foster more these literary ways of reading. This research contributes a description of the work of teaching – not just reading – literature.
Disciplinary Literacy for Literature and for Teaching Literature
Literary Literacy practices 1. Seeking patterns
2. Identifying moments of strangeness, surprise and confusion
3. Articulating an interpretive puzzle
4. Recursively considering possibilities (reading and re- reading)
5. Considering contexts (histories of use and other contexts)
6. Making an original, text-based claim
Literary literacy teaching approaches 1. Posing a puzzle
2. Constructing a puzzle 3. Considering possibilities 4. Making claims
5. Inquiry process
Table 3-2: Summary of Findings by Rainey (2015, 2016)
Rainey’s descriptions of expert literary readers and their teaching are reinforced by another recent project, design-based research aimed at understanding the practices of constructing literary interpretation (Goldman, Britt, Brown, George, Greenleaf, Lee, and
Shanahan, 2016). This project drew upon Lee’s (2007) cultural modeling instructional method of rooting new concepts in students’ everyday linguistic practices. The iterative work of designing curriculum and teaching students the procedures of literary argumentation led to the development of five core constructs for literary reading (see Table 3-3).
Aspects of Expert Reading of Literature
1. Epistemology: drawing from the work of Lee (2016), the project defines three fields of knowledge that literature makes possible. Literature makes it possible to explore the human condition; literature is a platform for interactions between the text and “communities of readers who dialogue with one another within and across time”; and meaning is found in the relationship between form and content (p. 228).
2. Inquiry practices and strategies: Literary work involves developing interpretations. The authors draw upon Rabinowitz (1987)’s synthesis of literary reading strategies for rules of notice, signification, configuration, and coherence – “the knowledge readers bring before they open a book and that authors assume readers will bring” (p. 228).
3. Overarching concepts and frameworks: The authors synthesize several decades of literary theory to identify the “targets of interpretation” (p. 228), the various kinds of “problems” literary readers solve in texts (such as “problems of point of view…figuration, and structure”) in order to derive the meaning of the text. Literary readers work to know the text on three levels: within the language of a text, within critical frameworks, and among different texts.