A taxonomic view of pretend play activity among 4- and 5-year-old children

Based on findings from a 6-month study that explored the nature of literate behavior in the pretend play episodes of eight preschoolers, a taxonomy of their pretend play activity is described and analyzed. Relationships between the different kinds of pretend play activity as demonstrated by these youngsters are examined in light of the taxonomy and other research. Implications of certain kinds of pretend play activity for emergent literacy development are also briefly discussed.     

The uncertainty and fragility of learning to teach: a Britzmanian lens on a student teacher story

This paper turns the kaleidoscopic lens of Professor Deborah Britzman’s writings on a student teacher story of learning to teach. It begins by briefly setting the context for the research. It then explains the study’s ontological and epistemological focus on experience and how student teacher and researchers create expressions of experience through an interpretative process. This leads to the design for interpretation in this study and to an explanation of why the work of Britzman became part of the interpretative layering for understanding student teacher Ciara’s texts. It continues by explicating Britzman’s concept of ‘struggle for voice’ as a metaphor for learning to teach and briefly makes comparison with the work of Bakhtin and his concept of the dialogical imagination. It then presents the layered interpretation in the form of indicative excerpts in a chronological story. Finally it focuses on the salient and pervading theme of affect and offers a brief commentary on its significance in initial teacher education and the need for developing an understanding for the feeling world of learning to teach.