I focus my presentation briefly on the pedagogical literature surrounding Zines but I center mostly on the process by which I introduce zine-making to my new secondary ELA teachers, highlighting particular tools I use to do so: how-to zine videos from teenagers themselves, pre-writing and visual composing strategies, stepsheets, gallery walks and single-point rubrics. I will also show examples of both the collaborative Zine and the individual Zines new teachers made. Starting out as new teachers with their adolescent students so entrenched in the digital realm, I hoped to get us writing together by emphasizing key structures vital to the composing process, which hands-on zine-making makes evident. Throughout the course, we focus on questions of student voice and its relationship to the visual (Thomsen, 2014) as well as the multimodal and multigeneric (Early, 2022). The zine is one way we think through these questions as the new teachers consider not only what their voice might sound like but what it might look like on the page. The focus on zines, in addition to introducing teachers to a less common classroom genre, allows us to consider the important balance in writing instruction between process and product, including attention to writing as making.
Student voice and student engagement in special education classrooms are often limited. In many classrooms, teachers remain at the center of instruction by providing directions, while students primarily serve as receivers of information. This study examined the impact of professional learning on student voice and engagement in a 12:1:1 high school special education setting. Four teachers participated in a pre-assessment survey about student voice in the classroom and indicated their interest in receiving training. Three modes of presentation were offered: visual aids, video modeling, and professional development. Teachers selected different modes for training: one selected video modeling, one selected visual supports, and two selected professional development. Pre-assessment data were collected through teacher observations using the Danielson rubric, and post-assessment data were collected after the intervention. Teachers who selected modeling and professional development improved their instructional practices and student engagement ratings by two points, while the teacher who selected visual aids improved by one point. Overall, the results suggest that student engagement improved following the intervention. Limitations of the study include the small sample size and the relationship between the evaluator and the teachers.
This presentation examines the design of experiential learning within an early childhood literacy course developed through a university-school district partnership. Teacher candidates engaged in authentic literacy assessment, data analysis, and intervention planning, illustrating how school-university collaboration can support P-12 literacy initiatives while strengthening clinically rich educator preparation.
