Picturing Kids and “Kids” as Researchers: Preservice Teachers and Effective Writing Instruction for Diverse Youth and English Language Learners

Abstract

In this article, the authors—a team of veteran and preservice teacher educators and teachers—describe the results of a photovoice, Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) study that positioned diverse adolescents as researchers to explore these youths’, teachers’, and teacher educators’ perspectives on school and literacy pedagogies. We have examined how photo elicitation activities allow English Language Learning (ELL) youth to document their impressions of the purposes of, supports for, and impediments to school and literacy success. The findings detail lessons for teachers and teacher educators about exploring a “kids as researchers” approach to writing instruction and how to prepare traditionally racially and socioeconomically homogenous populations of future teachers for working with diverse young people.