Theory, design, and teacher experience in a literature-focused professional development

Abstract

This study answers a call for more transparency in descriptions of literature interventions that might inform future work in professional development design as well as literary pedagogy. The study draws on design-based research models to describe how principles of literary pedagogy were enacted in two iterations of a professional development program for U.S. secondary Language Arts teachers. The first iteration of the PD focused on surfacing teachers' beliefs about literature, helping them to leverage learners' everyday interpretive practices, to use affective evaluation to build literary interpretations, and to ask questions born of genuine curiosity. The second iteration revised the enactment of some principles and integrated activities designed to build trust in the learning community and make time for reflection on and integration of new concepts into current practice. Along with description, the study presents a preliminary experimental finding: teachers in the second iteration reported greater satisfaction with their learning experience, and were more likely to implement professional development practices in their classrooms. The study hypothesizes that these gains result from the integration of time and trust into the learning design.