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Hybridization, Resistance, andCompliance: Negotiating Policies toSupport Literacy AchievementJodene Kersten aa California State Polytechnic University , Pomona, California, USAPublished online: 22 Sep 2006.

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The New Educator, 2:103–121, 2006Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1547-688X print/1549-9243 onlineDOI: 10.1080/15476880600657272

UTNE1547-688X1549-9243The New Educator, Vol. 02, No. 02, March 2006: pp. 0–0The New Educator

Hybridization, Resistance, and Compliance: Negotiating Policies to Support Literacy

Achievement

Hybridization, Resistance, and ComplianceJ. Kersten

JODENE KERSTENCalifornia State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California, USA

This article discusses a veteran teacher’s literacy pedagogy inresponse to policies at the district, state, and national level. Theyearlong ethnographic case study analyzed the teacher’s resis-tance, compliance, and innovative hybridization of both “official”and “unofficial” curriculum. The author collected data throughweekly co-planning sessions with the teacher and intern, fieldobservations, analysis of policy documents and curricular frame-works, and formal and informal interviews. Findings showed thatthe teacher’s hybridized literacy pedagogy engaged students andyielded significant growth in literacy as measured by authenticand standardized assessments. The paper concludes by offeringimplications for teacher educators and K-12 practitioners.

In the introduction of Ideology and Curriculum, Apple (2004) states, “Anunyielding demand—perhaps best represented in George W. Bush’s poli-cies found in No Child Left Behind—for testing, reductive models ofaccountability, standardization, and strict control over pedagogy and curric-ula is now the order of the day in schools throughout the country.”Cochran-Smith (2001) echoes Apple’s assertion by stating, “standardizationand prescription are being mistaken for higher standards” and the “politicalclimate emphasizes privatization and deregulation; raising student scores onstandardized tests has become the major and sometimes the only goal” (pp.3–4). Yet it is unlikely that policy reforms will produce identical outcomesin unique and diverse classrooms across the country, regardless of howstringently a policy is enforced. This may explain why the impact of policies

Address correspondence to Jodene Kersten, California State Polytechnic University, College ofEducation and Integrative Studies, 3801 West Temple Avenue, 5-254, Pomona, CA 91768,USA. E-mail: jmkersten@csupomona.edu

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such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is more salient in some classroomsthan others, particularly for schools that have not made Adequate YearlyProgress (AYP).1 Currently, many schools that do not achieve AYP mustcomply with state programs such as Reading First, which require the adop-tion and use of one of five basal literacy programs by well-known educa-tion publishers. Consequently, educators must shape their literacy planningand instruction within the requirements and expectations of NCLB and, pre-sumably, additional mandates at the district, state, and national level. Fortu-nately, teachers can develop creative means to comply with policies withoutcompromising effective and engaging pedagogy for their unique and oftendiverse students, particularly in urban schools. A commitment to appropri-ate and challenging literacy instruction can be reflected in thoughtful plan-ning and pedagogy and validated by students’ literacy achievement on bothauthentic and standardized assessments.

This article describes how one experienced third grade teacher in a mid-sized urban district negotiated and resisted policies at the district, state, andnational level through hybridized literacy practices. The term “hybrid” or“hybridization” describes how the participating teacher, Emily,2 shaped her liter-acy instruction by beginning with her own practices and, as various require-ments and curricula were introduced, she created hybrids by extracting thestrengths of her own practices, identifying the strengths of the various require-ments and curricula, and then blending the best of both for a unique pedagogy.By doing so, she stayed in compliance with the various mandates, maintainedher own pedagogy, tailored instruction to the unique needs and interests of herstudents, and included both the “official” and her “unofficial” curriculum in alimited amount of time each day. From August until May, for the entire schoolday, Emily mentored an intern from the local Teacher Education program, whichforced her to be explicit in how she developed hybrids and the rationale behindeach decision. This provided an ideal context for the intern, as well as theresearcher, to learn how Emily viewed learning, teaching, and policy in practice.

This in-depth study focused on Emily’s planning, instruction, and peda-gogy. I used Simon’s (1992) definition of pedagogy, which he asserts is a farmore complex and extensive term than teaching. He describes pedagogy asthe, “integration in practice of particular curriculum content and design,classroom strategies and techniques, a time and space for the practice ofthose strategies and techniques, and evaluation purposes and methods” (p.140). Pedagogy suggests a political stance, an integration of the teacher’sbeliefs and values into their practice. Emily worked to understand how her

1 In the state for this research, Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is based on: (1) the state-wide assessment program used to test and report student achievement in the core academicsubjects at certain grade levels, (2) attendance rates for elementary and middle schools; and (3)graduation rates for high schools.

2 Pseudonyms were used for all participants and locations in this study

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children learned best and shaped her pedagogy to be sensitive and respectfulof her students’ varied cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds. Inthis way she demonstrated values that were counter to the spirit and sub-stance of the testing atmosphere that threatened to control her pedagogy.

HYBRIDITY: WHEN POLICY MEETS PRACTICE

Researchers have repeatedly uncovered tremendous inconsistencies betweenwhat policies are intended to do and what transpires in classrooms (Cohen,1990; Cusick, 1992; Lampert, 1985; Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Lampert (1985)states that there is a belief that, “The teacher’s work is to find out whatresearchers and policy makers say should be done with or to students andthen do it” (p. 191). However, classrooms are complex environments whereteachers are constantly acting as “dilemma managers,” negotiating their ownidentity and the teaching challenges that arise each day while actively con-structing practices from their personal experiences as students and their pro-fessional education (Britzman, 2003; Cohen & Ball, 1990). Therefore, it is notsurprising that a one-size-fits-all policy may be incongruent with actual class-room practices. Consequently, in an effort to negotiate top-down policy intoeveryday practice, educators may develop hybridized curriculum and instruc-tion (Bisplinghoff, 2002; Cohen, 1990; Cohen & Ball, 1990). In the mostextreme cases, Cohen (1990) suggests that “entrenched classroom habitsdefeat reform” (p. 312). In his study of an elementary teacher’s mathematicspedagogy, Cohen described her hybridization of the new curriculum and herexisting, personal practices as another example of when, “Policy has affectedpractice . . . but practice has had an even greater effect on policy” (p. 311).The teacher made a genuine effort to incorporate the new curriculum andsome of the new suggested practices into her mathematics instruction, but herpedagogy had changed very little in light of the new policy.

Allen Luke (2000) offers another explanation for the mismatch betweenintended policy and unintended consequences. He states:

As any teacher knows, approaches old and new coexist within staff roomsand across schools despite the best attempts by material developers,researchers, and governments to swing the system in particular directions.

Luke then goes on to suggest that teachers create hybrid approaches that, “no textbook developer, researcher, or bureaucrat could have conceptualized” (p. 451).

In the written form, most educational policy appears rational and support-ive of student learning, higher test scores, and teacher development. However,as Luke and Cohen suggest, material developers, researchers, bureaucrats, andothers attempting to introduce and enforce new approaches and curriculumcannot possibly imagine the various ways teachers might hybridize existing

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practices with new mandates and materials. What may develop is an entirelynew pedagogy created through careful selection of the best existing practicesalong with new practices and curriculum suitable for the teacher and students.

In this study, the teacher’s practice reflects the argument of manyresearchers that policies such as NCLB are now impacting the ways in whichteachers are able to select and teach curriculum (Apple, 2004; Cochran-Smith,2001; Kohn, 2000; Nieto, 2003). Kohn (2000) asserts that, “High-stakes testinghas radically altered the kind of instruction that is offered in Americanschools, to the point that ‘teaching to the test’ has become a prominent part ofthe nations’ educational landscape” and sadly, “the test essentially becomesthe curriculum” (p. 29). Emily continued to allot time for test preparation, butresisted making test preparation the only curriculum by creating hybridizedliteracy practices. Given the circumstances, this was the best-case scenario.

METHOD

The research design for this ethnographic case study considered Spillane andJennings’ (1997) argument that a case-study approach to investigating teacherpractice “is well suited to in-depth analysis of complex issues like classroomteaching” (p. 451). Likewise, Florio-Ruane (2002) suggests, “To understandlocal knowledge in teaching and teacher education, we need in-depth studiesof individual teachers at work and of the variety of ways that teachers thinkabout and do that work” (p. 209). The objective of this year-long study was tolearn about the locally adapted intersection of policies and curricula as theyentered Emily’s classroom. Through formal and informal interviews withEmily and her intern, Greg, weekly observations of literacy co-planning ses-sions with Emily and Greg, weekly observations of literacy instruction, andmaterial analysis I reversed the typical approach of policy studies, doinginstead what Cohen and Ball (1990) describe as, “work from the classroomoutward” (p. 236). Through this approach, I could understand Emily’s deci-sion-making process and views of imposed policy on her practice.

Research Site and Participants

The student demographics at Westside Elementary closely paralleled the stu-dent population in its mid-sized, urban K–12 district. Approximately 59% ofthe students at Westside were identified as non-White, including African Amer-icans, Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans, while 41% were White. Morethan half of the students were eligible for free or reduced lunch; however,race/ethnicity was not the most significant determinant of which children wereeligible. The city offers a church sponsored refugee service and supports largeimmigrant communities which accounted for Westside’s significant Hmongand Vietnamese population since most families sent their children to Westside,

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their neighborhood school. This also contributed to a significant percentage ofEnglish Language Learners, primarily speakers of Vietnamese, Hmong, andSpanish. Approximately 100 of the 376 students took advantage of the district’s“school of choice” option, which allowed parents to enroll their children innon-magnet schools outside of their neighborhoods. The district provided bus-sing and, according to the principal, most of the children remained at theschool for the entire year for an average mobility rate in the district.

In April 2004 the local newspaper published an article describing howWestside Elementary was incorrectly labeled as failing to make AYP the previ-ous year. Twenty-six of the 27 elementary schools in the district were underper-forming, according to AYP measures, which may account for Westside’suncontested transition to a Reading First school status. Unfortunately, sinceWestside had been identified as a Reading First school for the previous eightmonths, they were already using the adopted basal reading program as the coreliteracy curriculum, which was purchased with Reading First grant money.Teachers had attended monthly Reading First professional development meet-ings and monthly after school in-service training for the basal reading programsince Fall 2003. Teachers were accustomed to, thought not happy about, fre-quent visits from Reading First representatives who monitored use of the basalreading program and teachers’ compliance with program mandates. Teacherswere also in the habit of attending weekly meetings with the school LiteracyCoach, who was also a Reading First representative, to discuss their literacypedagogy. In addition, the district required teacher training in Language Essen-tials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) and teachers were expectedto base their pedagogy on quarterly curriculum guides created by a team ofeducators in the district for math, language arts, science, and social studies. Atthe end of each quarter, approximately every nine weeks, students were testedon the contents listed in the curriculum guides in the four subjects.

After working with Westside teachers the previous year, I empathizedwith their frustration and confusion in how to absorb the various, and some-times conflicting, requirements into their literacy pedagogy. I also knew thatseveral teachers were resisting portions of these mandates, such as the dis-trict’s requirement of only teaching reading, not writing, for the first 90 min-utes of the 120-minute language arts block. Instead, some teachers werecontinuing to teach in ways that had produced effective learning in the past.Given these circumstances, I created this research project to delve into Emily’spedagogy since she refused to abandon years of experience and successfulapproaches to teaching literacy, for the sake of being in compliance withlocal and federal mandates that she believed did not teach reading and writ-ing. Additionally, she was committed to teaching her intern how to examinepolicy critically, teach creatively, and ensure literacy growth for all students.

Emily had an extensive history with the local university as a voluntary coop-erating teacher for interns and seniors in the Teacher Education program. She hadtaught middle school and elementary in the district for 13 years and credited her

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experiences at these various sites with her knowledge of teaching. Emily was com-mitted to sharing her pedagogy with novice teachers and maintained consistentuniversity involvement. She participated in local writing programs, district andnational conferences, and continually shared her desire to improve her pedagogythrough collaboration with colleagues and professional development opportuni-ties. Emily regularly accessed resources such as books and Internet sites outside ofthe “required” literacy program to meet the needs and interests of her students.

Data Collection and Analysis

In August 2004, Emily and I met for an informal interview to discuss her literacypedagogy, teaching career, and what she hoped to teach Greg about literacyplanning and instruction. Throughout the year, we engaged in a variety of for-mal and informal interviews, which revealed how she negotiated the requiredcore curriculum, test preparation, and curriculum guides. In my research notes,I often included dialogue with Emily’s colleagues, such as Greg, the other thirdgrade teacher, the principal, and the Literacy Coach, since she was constantlyengaged in authentic conversations with others about her practice. AskingEmily about her practice in an interview format may not have yielded the samerich details and insights. I continued to ask Emily for clarification through infor-mal meetings and telephone conversations for the duration of the study.

I participated in eight literacy co-planning sessions with Emily and Gregfrom September to December. These weekly 90-minute co-planning sessionswere audio taped as they discussed literacy instruction for the followingweek. This was an ideal time to ask questions about her decision making,such as which curriculum to include and exclude and how she selected mate-rials from the basal program and her own resources. I also used this time tolearn how she planned instruction and materials around the curriculumguides and how testing impacted her decisions. Emily was explicit in herdecision-making and rationale during these sessions for Greg’s benefit, whichrevealed how she thought about literacy and her students’ learning.

I observed literacy instruction on nine occasions during the first semester,which are included in this paper, and continued to observe during the secondsemester. During observations I documented the materials used (both basalprogram curriculum and supplemental curriculum), the type of instruction, andstudents’ text consumption and production. I visited the classroom on variousdays for an overview of a typical week, noting changes due to testing or otherinterruptions that affected instruction. I intentionally observed on the last daysof two major units in the first semester: the Book Club Mystery Unit and theFairy Tales, Folk Tales, and Tall Tales unit listed in the district curriculum guide.These were two days Emily refused to relinquish, despite time restraints andminimal connection to the basal reading program required by Reading First.

Finally, I analyzed the basal program curriculum and district’s thirdgrade literacy curriculum guide to understand Emily’s hybridization across

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and between various materials and resources. I also analyzed district, state,and national tests to deduce how they related to the other artifacts. Emilycontinually mentioned professional development books she regularly usedsuch as Strategies that Work (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000), Mosaic of Thought(Zimmerman & Keen, 1997), and Craft Lessons (Fletcher & Portalupi, 1998).I needed to understand how she was accessing these for information andteaching strategies and how they did or did not coincide with the ReadingFirst, the basal reading program, and district requirements.

I engaged in data analysis throughout the project by continually rereadingtranscriptions of interviews, co-planning sessions, and detailed field notes tosearch for what LeCompte & Shensul (1999) call “ideas, themes, units, patterns,and structures” (p. 45). By continually rereading data I could intermittently askEmily to clarify or answer questions from the data. I followed a three step ana-lytic process which included (1) inscription, (2) description; and (3) transcrip-tion (LeCompte & Shensul, 1999) to locate themes in the data. This three-stepprocess began in 2003 and concluded as data collection ended in January2005. Finally, over time and in multiple kinds of data, I used triangulation ofevidence (field notes from co-planning sessions and literacy instruction, formaland informal interviews, and material analysis) and a constant comparativeapproach to building, testing, and revising assertions to research the waysEmily negotiated the requirements of the curricular documents while maintain-ing her own literacy pedagogy. I also traced the work as she innovated out ofthis negotiation. The data from this study illustrated the complex hybrids cre-ated by Emily and possible implications for future and practicing educators.

FINDINGS

Hybridization was evident in Emily’s co-planning sessions, teaching, anddiscourse. She strategically integrated the required basal reading program, districtmandates, and her own valuable practices into the literacy block. Her resistanceto elements of the basal reading program that did not, in her opinion, teach read-ing and writing also occurred throughout the study. She believed that some of thepractices and curriculum of Reading First failed to motivate students and couldnot fathom why the district mandate excluded writing during the required ninetyminutes of uninterrupted literacy time. This requirement was contrary to what shehad read, learned through professional development, and experienced as a vet-eran teacher. Ironically, the Reading First grant application specifically stated thatthe basal reading program curriculum should be used as the primary instructionaltool to teach reading and as the primary reading program, but “does not implythat other materials and strategies are not used to provide a rich, comprehensiveprogram of instruction” (p. 36). These tensions, or conflicts, between mandatesforced Emily to strategize how to resist or comply with the mandates and how tohybridize her own best practices and curriculum with the “official” requirements.

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Emily’s hybridization often occurred between two distinct areas such asthe basal reading program and the district curriculum guides. At other times,hybridization was a result of several areas integrated into Emily’s own bestpractices unrelated to the various mandates and required curriculum. It wasextremely difficult to categorize these hybridizations since they typically cutacross multiple areas, reflecting the complexity of hybridization and the typeof innovative thinking and action required by educators. Emily frequentlydeveloped innovate strategies to integrate skills and requirements to be “incompliance,” while remaining devoted to her own literacy practices. Shedescribed her strategy during a co-planning session while discussing a profes-sional development presentation as, “You know how you can take snippets ofwhat people say? She had some really good snippets.” Emily was an expert atextracting snippets from various resources to teach the skills and strategies herstudents needed to become better readers and writers. Her hybridization wasintentional, thoughtful, and typically in response to the various mandates.

Emily’s hybridized literacy planning and instruction included her ownbest practices and curriculum as well as practices and curriculum related tomandates at the district, state, and national level. The table below shows thevarious requirements at each level. It is important to note that the districtand state requirements were strongly influenced by NCLB, specifically thefocus on accountability and standardized test scores made evident by thefrequency of standardized tests in each section. The requirements at the dis-trict and state level also illustrate what Apple (2004) describes as an attemptat strict control over pedagogy and curricula by educational policies (seeTable 1).

TABLE 1. Requirements at the District, State, and National Level.

Requirements Curriculum/Practice

District• Curriculum Guides Outline contents to be taught in nine week intervals

for math, language arts, science and social studies• Quarterly Tests Tests based on curriculum guides• Balanced Literacy Literacy lessons should include reading, writing,

listening, and speakingState: Reading First

• Basal reading program

Primary reading program

• Weekly meetings Grade level weekly meetings with Literacy coach/Reading First representative

• Standardized Tests (September, January, May)

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills & Developmental Reading Assessment

National• Standardized Test IOWA Test of Basic Skills (ITBS & ITED)• No Child Left Behind Overshadowed mandates and measures of achievement

at the state level

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The remainder of this section will discuss the ways in which Emilyresisted and complied with mandates and hybridized her own practiceswith various requirements to ensure her students’ literacy growth as mea-sured by standardized and authentic assessments.

HYBRIDIZATION

Extracting the Strengths of Test Preparation, Thematic Units, Book Club, and the Basal Reading Program

During the previous school year, a teacher from one of the high schools inthe district counted the number of days when a test was not being administeredin the district. He counted 16 days. Emily was well aware of the excessivetesting, pressure to improve test scores for AYP, and the district’s emphasison high stakes testing with the quarterly assessments, Dynamic Indicators ofBasic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), and Developmental Reading Assess-ment (DRA). As a Reading First school, teachers administered the DIBELSand DRA in September, January, and May and submitted scores to the Read-ing First Management team. Emily knew these tests assessed phonologicalawareness, alphabetic principle, and fluency with connected text but wasnot sure what the management team did with the data. She was also respon-sible for preparing her students to take the state exam in October of theirfourth grade year which would measure her teaching more than the fourthgrade teacher’s. The scores from this test were one of three factors used todetermine AYP. Rather than isolated test preparation, Emily developedinnovative practices to hybridize the format of the state test with require-ments from the district and the basal reading program. During my observa-tions of literacy instruction that included test preparation, it was difficult toidentify which activities were strictly related to test preparation since theywere embedded in engaging lessons based on full-length texts, such aschapter books and narratives in the basal anthology.

In September, after reading narratives aloud from the basal anthology,the students focused on comprehension skills, an important component ofthe state test. Emily used the anthology as required by Reading First, butwith a read-aloud format. Since she had a history of success with EnglishLanguage Learners and struggling readers, her class was overrepresented,with students far below the third grade reading level. Approximately 1/3 ofher students spoke Vietnamese, Hmong, or Spanish at home and most ofher students were at least one grade level or more below the third gradelevel. Therefore, many whole group literacy activities included read-aloudsso that all students could focus on comprehension, rather than decoding,and participate in the discussions. She also used this opportunity to demon-strate for Greg how to use the anthology and the comprehension questions

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from the Teacher’s Guide to be in compliance with Reading First and toteach comprehension skills and strategies for the test. In September Gregand I observed Emily model a read-aloud from the anthology with thewhole class, facilitate a discussion of the text, and ask comprehension ques-tions from the Teacher’s Guide. During the co-planning session the follow-ing week she reviewed the use of the Teacher’s Guide and commented toGreg, “The (basal program) teacher edition is good for that.”

In December and January, Emily taught a brief unit on generosity thatshe created. She focused on this quality since she felt it was a valuable char-acter building unit to which all students could relate and it fit well with thewinter holiday season. She used books from the school and public libraryfor read alouds and supported students as they co-constructed T-charts tocompare the various narratives. This strategy was similar to the prewritingactivity required on the state exam. Emily also used a rubric based on thestate test rubric. In the corner of the room where she conducted read-aloudswas a poster related to the state test with the acronym GLUE for the followingwriting checklist:

Give your opinion, do you agree?Link it to the titles you seeUse examples from both textsExplain how everything connects

This was an example of how Emily hybridized her own ideas for a the-matic unit, generosity, with test preparation. Her planning was deliberateand strategic and rather than abandoning her ideas for an engaging unit,she developed one that was innovative and prepared her students for thestate test.

Emily continued to use read alouds and discussions to prepare her stu-dents for the state test. During the second quarter she taught a “Folk Tales,Fairy Tales, and Tall Tales” unit as required by the district language arts cur-riculum guide. She used this as an opportunity to write comparison para-graphs using the Ojibwa and Algonquian versions of Cinderella to prepareher students for another requirement on the state test. After reading aloudSootface (San Souci, 1994) and Rough-Face Girl (Martin & Shannon, 1992),students created Venn diagrams and Emily guided them through the con-struction of a comparison paragraph. She began the lesson by asking, “Dothe stories show the theme that beauty is in the inside?“ She told the stu-dents they would need to answer a question similar to this on the stateexam in fourth grade and encouraged them to think about how they mightanswer this question in paragraph form. She repeated the question andbegan writing a paragraph while thinking out loud. Emily paid close atten-tion to details as she modeled her writing using an overhead projector,stopped after each sentence to ask the students what they thought, and then

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proceeded to create sentences with student input. Throughout the lessonshe reminded students to monitor appropriate grammar use and focus onthe question and the content of the narratives. At the end of the lesson, theart teacher took responsibility for the students and Emily, Greg, and Iwalked down the hall to the office. Emily used this time to explain to Gregand me the purpose of teaching the comparison paragraph as part of her lit-eracy instruction that day by stating:

What they do on the (state test), they have to write a personal narra-tive. They read these two texts that have the same theme. So theyhave to read two different books, right. So I will have read it earlierhere, so the theme is something . . . and then I’ll read another onehere and then write a comparison paragraph. So they have to readthe two books, then the comparison paper, and then write a personalnarrative

With Emily’s lesson that day, critical thinking and writing strategies devel-oped along with test taking skills. This occurred throughout the remainderof the study. Through this type of innovative hybridization, test preparationnever occurred in isolation.

Evidence of Academic Growth Measured by DIBELS

During an informal meeting in January, Emily shared with me that all excepttwo students showed marked improvement on one of the Reading Firstreading assessments, DIBELS, from September to January. In December shewas pleased because one of the two lowest scoring readers improved. Thestudent didn’t feel as though she had, but Emily assured her that she wasmaking progress by reading more words and retelling more than the initialassessment in September. Out of all her students, only one scored the same.However, most students doubled their scores. The one student who did notimprove was being assessed for learning disabilities at that time. Emily wasstill concerned about the lowest scoring students and acknowledged thatthey were making progress but wanted to see more improvement. On theassessment, the average score was 90. She noted that approximately half ofher students were at 90, which was grade level, but was still visibly discour-aged despite starting the school year with much lower scores. Some chil-dren scored a 45 in September, meaning many students displayed a greatdeal of growth by January. Emily did not care that it was still the middle ofthe school year and that she had another four months before the nextassessment, because she maintained high expectations for herself and herstudents. She acknowledged the growth but was constantly thinking abouthow to support her students to show even greater improvement by the endof the school year.

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COMPLIANCE

Emily frequently referred to the district curriculum guide for language artsduring co-planning sessions, so many of her lessons matched suggestions inthe Language Structure, Mechanics, and Grammar section of the guide. Shealso occasionally used the basal program Teacher’s Guide to make sure shewas addressing standards and benchmarks for 3rd grade, which wereincluded in a convenient chart at the beginning of the Guide. She encour-aged Greg to check both the district curriculum guide and basal programTeacher’s Guide to be sure the students were learning the necessary andappropriate skills and strategies for 3rd grade. The remainder of this sectionwill discuss ways in which Emily remained in compliance with ReadingFirst and district mandates, not because she was concerned with being outof compliance, but because these were effective ways to teach literacy.

Using Leveled Books from Basal Program for Guided Reading

The majority of Emily’s practice is best described as hybridized literacy ped-agogy. However, she also complied with the use of materials and suggestedpractices from the district and state mandates if she felt they effectivelytaught reading and writing and met the needs and interests of her students.As previously mentioned, Emily was deliberate and thoughtful in how sheplanned and taught, so compliance occurred but tended to be fairly selective.One way Emily complied with Reading First was the use of leveled booksfrom the basal reading program. She frequently commented that she “didnot mind these trade books” which she used for Guided Reading. The 25sets of leveled books were conveniently divided into four levels: very easy,easy, on level, and challenge. Emily conducted Guided Reading at leasttwice per week, for approximately fifteen minutes with each of her middleand high group readers. Four to five times each week during silent readingshe met with her struggling readers to teach strategies and skills. By Janu-ary, silent reading time was extended to 25 minutes, so she met with hermiddle/struggling readers who needed an extra boost to progress to a mid-dle group. Over the school year, these leveled books constituted a signifi-cant amount of time in her literacy program.

Emily felt the leveled books were useful for Guided Reading and shewas less resistant to using them because they coincided well with the district“Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and Tall Tales” unit. During a co-planning sessionshe stated, “It works out really well with the curriculum guide and it should . . .and I think that’s why they changed fairytales and tall tales to this time,because last time it was too late and we’d already read those”. The curricu-lum guide was new that year, so Emily was referring to changes made tocoincide with the basal reading program. She also discussed a play aboutPaul Bunyan in the fifth grade anthology that she planned to use. When Greg

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asked if it was too difficult for the students to read, Emily replied, “No—because they’re all improving”. Emily was confident that her students couldaccess more challenging texts with the appropriate support, so she was will-ing to use certain narratives and books from the basal reading program.

Using District Curriculum Guides to Create Thematic Units

Emily followed the curriculum guides because they paralleled state bench-marks and she wanted her students to do well on the district quarterly tests atthe end of each nine week period. During co-planning sessions, she referredto the “Skills and Strategies” section listed on the back of the guide, butexplained how she taught skills and strategies as they came up, not necessar-ily when they were listed in the curriculum guides. She offered an example ofteaching personification in the first quarter when she used Song of the Trees(Taylor, 1975) for Book Club (Raphael, 2002), but showed how it was listedin a different quarter on the curriculum guide. Emily often mentioned that shedid not mind the curriculum guides, however her one concern was that, “theydon’t tell how to get kids to learn, what are good strategies” which was whyshe frequently referred to books such as Strategies that Work (Harvey &Goudvis, 2000) and Mosaic of Thought (Zimmermann & Keene, 1997) whichoffered specific approaches and teaching strategies.

Emily taught thematically and began each year with a Mystery unitto engage students and prepare them for Book Club. All of the books,which were primarily from the Cam Jansen series (Adler & Natti, 1997) andBox Car Children series (Chandler Warner, 1977) were read aloud to maxi-mize participation and expose children to high quality, full-length literature.She included discussions and a writing component with each lesson. WhenI asked Emily whether the Mystery genre was on the curriculum guide, sheresponded that it fit with teaching “realistic fiction and picture books” dur-ing the first quarter. Unlike the curriculum guides beginning with sixthgrade, the third grade curriculum guide did not list specific texts to be read,providing some freedom for teachers to select texts as long as they fit therequired genre. Emily continued to teach the Mystery unit each year andcould reasonably argue that this was in alignment with the curriculum guiderequirement for the first quarter.

Another major unit listed on the curriculum guide for the second quar-ter was “Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and Tall Tales.” Emily used this opportunityto select books for Book Club, which included whole class read alouds ofThe Whipping Boy (Fleishman, 1986) and The Minstrel in the Tower(Skurzynski, 1988). She used these texts to comply with the requirements ofthe curriculum guide and to prepare students for the state test. Emily alsoincluded multicultural fairytales, tall tales, and folktales as whole group readalouds and examples to prepare her students to construct their own talesduring Writers’ Workshop. As part of the thematic unit, she creatively

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integrated folk tales, fairy tales and tall tales into the listening center withnarratives on CD such as Rapunzel: A Happenin’ Rap (Vozer, 2001), a rapversion of the traditional fairy tale. Students created a travel brochure to afairytale land in another literacy center. Also, the teacher assistant helpedstudents enact fairy tale plays at various reading levels. During co-planning,Emily jokingly said, “We won’t be doing (basal reading program) for a whilebecause of this unit,” which caused laughter. This was an example of howEmily stayed in compliance with the district curriculum guide, but with timelimitations, she needed to choose between a district mandate and a ReadingFirst mandate. Since she found the district curriculum guide topic to bemore engaging and in line with her own thematic teaching than the basalreading program anthology, she selected the district requirement instead ofReading First. By doing so, she was in compliance without compromisingher pedagogy.

RESISTANCE

Resisting the Basal Reading Program

In order to “be in compliance” with Reading First requirements, Emilyintegrated activities from the anthology into various literacy centers. Shealso tried to read one story per week from the anthology, but admitted onseveral occasions that this was not a priority. During our initial meeting,Emily stated that the anthologies were “too big and kids don’t get excitedabout reading them” and that the texts were inaccessible to English Lan-guage Learners and struggling readers below grade level. During the firstfew months, students listened to narratives from the anthology on a CDwith headphones at the listening center. Occasionally they completedcomprehension worksheets which Emily joked about by saying, “In casesomeone walks in we can say, ‘Yeah, they’re writing from this story!’”Eventually, she discovered that her students were not completing theworksheets and by the third week they could either complete the work-sheet or write a letter to Emily or Greg. She explained to me that therewas rarely time to talk with her students which was why letter writingbecame an option. During a co-planning session in September Emilyexplained, “I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about the(basal program) and thought it was really dumb that they have to respondto a written response that I haven’t modeled and I didn’t think they wouldspend that time engaged in writing at all.” She was primarily interested inengaging her students in an activity that was more meaningful and pro-ductive than a worksheet. While observing in September, I noticed that allof the students chose to write a letter rather than complete the worksheet.Each student produced more writing in the letters than what was required

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on the worksheet and Emily supported their decision to write a letterrather than filling in blanks on a worksheet.

By the last co-planning session in December, Emily admitted they had notused the basal program “in forever.” Instead, a majority of the literacy time wasdedicated to research reports on how different countries celebrate the winter hol-idays. Students worked in pairs and presented their finished reports at a “Parents’Night” in December. This was one thematic unit Emily taught each year and wasunwilling to relinquish for the “official” curriculum as required by Reading First.Over time it was also evident that she would not cease using Book Club to teachliteracy since she believed students preferred full length texts to the short narra-tives included in the basal program anthology. Emily’s resistance was not for thesake of resisting; rather, she justified her resistance by teaching instead what wasmost engaging and pedagogically appropriate for her particular students.

Evidence of Resistance through Personal Interactions

One requirement in the Reading First grant was weekly grade level meet-ings with the Literacy coach who was also the Reading First representative.At Westside Elementary, Linda filled this role and it was her responsibility tomake sure teachers were using the basal reading program. This caused ten-sion between Linda and her teacher colleagues. During a co-planning sessionin the fourth week of school, Emily was anxious to share a conversationthat occurred between Linda and herself. She was upset by the exchangeand shared in detail what transpired:

Linda approached me yesterday and said, are those normal centers thatyou do on Friday and let me rephrase that, anyway, we were in thecopy room and she said, are you doing the five parts of literacy3 and Isaid do you mean phonics, reading, writing, and . . . anyways, she saidare you doing that and I said yes, I’m doing that. And she said are youusing the core curriculum and I said, what is the core curriculum?(laughs) and she said (basal reading program). And I said, Linda, youknow I’m not using that. I use it once a week now and that’s really goodfor me and I’m doing the vocabulary and I’m doing parts of it but I’mnot using it every day. She said, you need to be using (basal readingprogram) every day and I said I am not going to use (basal reading pro-gram) everyday. For one thing, I sat in that meeting with you last yearand I told you that if you were going to make me do (basal readingprogram) that I am not in the right grade, that I am not going to use(basal reading program), that I do not think that teaches reading in anappropriate way and I do not think it gets kids excited about reading. I

3 The five essential components of reading instruction required by Reading First are: pho-nemic awareness, systematic, explicit phonics, vocabulary development, oral reading fluencyand comprehension strategy instruction.

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sat in that meeting and I told you and I told the Reading First personand I told (the principal) and (the principal) told me . . . So I said I amnot the right person for third grade and (the principal) turned to me andsaid yes, you are the right person to teach third grade. So you have toknow that part of the reason that I’m able to do this is because I haveprincipal support. And she told me you know you need to use it and Isaid until (the principal) tells me I need to use it, I’m not. I’m teaching ina way that I think is appropriate to kids and you know that way. Youknow that this is not the program that gets kids excited about reading.

Two weeks later, Emily recited the exchange practically verbatim, which I dis-covered after listening to the audio taped co-planning sessions back to back.The interaction with Linda was extremely upsetting to Emily and her responseto Linda was peppered with resistant language and emotion. There weremany interactions with Linda that resulted in frustration and anger, primarilybecause Linda represented Reading First and the basal reading program.

Through the previous discussion of Emily’s practice and her interactionswith Linda, it is evident that she was not resisting for the sake of resisting. Shereasonably justified resistance in the best interests of her students’ learning. Emilybelieved that the basal reading program did not elicit the same degree of excite-ment and engagement as letter writing, thematic units, and Book Club. Her resis-tance to Reading First and the basal reading program were based on successduring her previous years of teaching and her knowledge as a veteran teacher.

CONCLUSION

Given the current political climate, we can assume that pre-service teacherswill face policy-induced constraints and pressures similar to those in Emily’sschool. Tight control of curriculum and practice is far more likely to occur inunderachieving, urban schools serving a diverse student population similar toWestside Elementary. This is precisely why Emily provides an excellent exam-ple of how teachers, both novice and veteran, can resist and comply, andhybridize their pedagogy to fit their students’ needs and interests. Ultimately,Emily’s students demonstrated significant academic growth on both standard-ized and authentic assessments which is the presumed goal of policies suchas Reading First and No Child Left Behind. Naturally Emily was pleased withher students’ growth but stated several times that when her students scoredwell on district, state, and national tests, their scores would be attributed tothe basal reading program and Reading First rather than her consistent use ofhybridized literacy practices based on her own pedagogy. It was upsetting toEmily that her students’ literacy achievement gave credence and credit toNCLB and Reading First, which she argued was not responsible for theirachievement. Rather, she believed her students achieved academically despitethe various mandates at the district, state, and national level.

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One could certainly argue that Emily had fourteen years of experience andthere exists a connection between experience and the ability to critically exam-ine curriculum and create effective hybridized literacy pedagogy. Greg madethis point during a co-planning session when he expressed his wish for a “bagof tricks” to create lessons, rather than following the Teacher’s Guide. Emilyreassured him that over time he would amass a collection of ideas andresources so he wouldn’t have to rely on the basal program guides. It will takesome time for Greg and other novice teachers to develop the necessary knowl-edge and resources to hybridize their practice; however, even as a novice, newteachers can look critically at curriculum and policy and learn how to beginhybridizing their practices to the unique needs and interests of their students. Iwould not expect a new teacher to develop the same degree and quality ofhybridization their first year that Emily had as a veteran teacher. However, theywill be faced with the same requirements as Emily and to best meet the needsof their students, who may be English Language Learners from culturally andethnically diverse backgrounds, they need to consider this approach to literacyinstruction. Emily provided important mentoring for Greg, who learned byexample how to comply and resist when necessary and how to develophybridized literacy practices when possible. Emily also encouraged individualagency with comments such as, “If you’re a good teacher, you can make any-thing work . . . you can make it work.”

Emily continually emphasized to Greg the importance of literacy contentknowledge. She recognized the need for content knowledge when decidinghow and when to resist or comply with mandates and when to create hybrid-ized literacy practices. She demonstrated this for Greg by accessing professionalresources such as books and organizations. She wanted Greg to participate indistrict professional development to deepen his knowledge of elementary liter-acy. Teacher education programs also share a responsibility in preparing stu-dents with content knowledge, and when possible, providing mentors similarto Emily who model planning and instruction that is appropriate and most ben-eficial for students, despite the demands of various mandates. It would be unre-alistic to expect novices to teach like Emily; however, it is possible to supportnovices with academic preparation and mentoring to encourage thoughtfulconsideration of compliance, resistance, and hybridization.

At the end of the study, Emily and I met to discuss questions that surfaced asI analyzed data. When I asked how her practice looked different as a Reading Firstschool, she said she was using more of the basal reading program this year thanlast year by having students access the publisher’s webpage during literacy centertime and by reading aloud a story from the anthology every Friday. She admittedto “choosing based on what is valuable to learning” and “using snippets of what’svaluable,” but that the basal program was the first item to go if she felt time con-straints. Emily explained how she taught certain skills during Guided Reading tobe in compliance with the Reading First mandate, but that she knew the programbetter this year, the second year, which made it easier to decide what was

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valuable. Perhaps most importantly, Emily stated, “Part of how I make these deci-sions is from my credential program that said good teachers use authentic literacyto teach, not prepackaged curriculum.” When asked how her practice might lookdifferent the next year, if they were not a Reading First school, Emily said shewould not abandon the basal program, but would continue to match narratives toher own themes and use what complemented her “unofficial” curriculum whichincluded thematic units, Book Club, and literacy centers.

Months of data collection from co-planning sessions with Emily and Greg,interviews, and observations produced insights into Emily’s resistance andcompliance, and hybridization of her own best practices and various man-dates. Teachers in Emily’s position could rely on the basal reading program,which would meet Reading First requirements. However, Emily honored theindividuality of each student by tailoring curriculum to meet their needs andinterests and developed engaging and challenging “unofficial” curriculum,such as the generosity and “Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and Tall Tales” thematicunits. Rarely did she oppose policies to make a statement or resist for the sakeof resisting; rather she hybridized practices and complied with and resistedpolicies to meet the needs and interests of her students. In the past her stu-dents showed significant literacy development and growth with this type ofdecision-making in her pedagogy. Therefore, learning how Emily createdhybrids using the required basal reading program, district curriculum guides,and her own best practices is enlightening for future and practicing educators.

Finally, this research is important for current educators and teacher educa-tion programs because it illustrates the type of innovative resistance, compliance,and hybridization teachers might enact when forced to negotiate mandated cur-riculum with their own “unofficial” curriculum. For individuals in teacher educa-tion programs, this is an excellent example of how one might plan their literacyinstruction to “be in compliance”, without abandoning their own beliefs abouthow children learn to read and write. Emily was in a difficult situation, given thetension between her own knowledge of sound literacy pedagogy and mandatesat the district, state, and national level. Yet, she used “snippets” from varioussources, her teaching experiences, new knowledge from professional develop-ment opportunities, and the required curriculum to produce an exciting, engag-ing literacy program. Not only were her children enthusiastic about literacy, theyshowed profound improvement in their reading and writing abilities. This wasthe reality of one 3rd grade classroom at a diverse, urban Reading First schoolwhich has much to offer novice, future, and practicing teachers.

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