In this three-article format dissertation, I explore the use of drama-based research and pedagogy as a tool for preservice teacher (PST) education, specifically for opening up spaces for dialogue, possibility, and most importantly co-constructing critical consciousness, which is the ability to recognize and problematize structural inequalities and taking action for social justice.The first article examines the use of dramatic inquiry, a type of drama-based pedagogy, with the aim of understanding the opportunities and tensions of using dramatic inquiry in the process of co-constructing PSTs’ critical consciousness. Drawing on drama artifacts, field observation, and in-depth interviews with PSTs, I present the opportunities as the following themes: emotional engagement, interrogation of beliefs and assumptions, and dialogic meaning-making. However, there were tensions such as PSTs’ experiencing emotional overwhelm, feelings of being in an unsafe space, and a noticeable delay in their critical engagement. Despite these obstacles, the study also highlights these constraints as potential avenues for enhancing PSTs’ critical consciousness. The second article presents an ethnodrama, a form of drama-based research, to engage teacher educators and PSTs to examine classroom dynamics aimed at creating spaces for critical consciousness. Grounded in the principles of Bakhtin’s dialogism, this ethnodrama spotlights pivotal moments of dialogic and monologic moments within the dramatic inquiry discussed in Article One. This research paints a vivid picture of classroom dynamics capturing the complexity of these exchanges, thereby shedding light on how these interactions affect dialogue. Article three proposes drama-based pedagogy as a “pedagogy of the possible”, an approach to education from possibility studies. This conceptual paper responds to a call for scholarly dialogue in the field of possibility studies. Drawing on my own personal experiences of using drama-based pedagogy, I demonstrate how drama-based pedagogy aligns with the eight possibilities of pedagogies of the possible – the possibilities of (1) not knowing, (2) failure, (3) uncertainly, (4) movement, (5) anticipation, (6) dialogue, (7) care, and (8) responsibility. Showing drama-based pedagogy as a pedagogy of the possible emphasizes the open-ended nature of learning with drama, foregrounding the boundless potential for growth and transformation.

In this article-style dissertation, I explore how students used digital technologies, specifically three social media platforms, as multimodal writing platforms while creating a digital portfolio in a senior English class. These platforms are 1) Weebly pages: a website building platform, 2) Weebly Blogs: a feature of Weebly, and 3) Instagram: a photo/video sharing application. Under a multiliteracies lens, I examine the changing nature of literacies and the educational practices surrounding learning literacies when mediated through social media.

First, I conducted an analysis of how the students in this class designed their portfolios. This is done through an examination of each students’ Weebly homepage as well as an in-depth analysis two focal students across each of the social media platforms as illustrative cases. Findings show the students designed complex multimodal compositions that would have otherwise not been possible with the more formal, rigid forms of writing typical to this classroom. Implications for this study include embracing alternative authoring paths in classrooms beyond traditional forms of text-based writing to allow for students’ interests to be included through their designs.

I also examined how students used each of the platforms and the pedagogical implications for those uses. I found that students used Instagram to write multimodally, which allowed them to express ideas in non-traditional ways that are often not present in classrooms. Students used Weebly pages to publically showcase their writing, which afforded them an opportunity to extend their writing to a larger audience. Students used Weebly Blogs to communicate informally, which allowed them to reflect on connections to the text. I offer implications for how teachers can use social media in the classroom.

Finally, I outline how Ms. Lee and her students oriented to the value of writing in this unit. Findings indicate that Ms. Lee, like many others, privileged print-based forms of writing, even in a more expansive project like the portfolio unit. The students oriented to this value by predominantly making meaning through textual modes throughout their portfolios. Implications extend to teachers expanding their classroom practices beyond the traditional forms of literacy for which they are trained.

Teacher evaluation policies have recently shifted in the United States. For the first time in history, many states, districts, and administrators are now required to evaluate teachers by methods that are up to 50% based on their "value-added," as demonstrated at the classroom-level by growth on student achievement data over time. Other related instruments and methods, such as classroom observations and rubrics, have also become common practices in teacher evaluation systems. Such methods are consistent with the neoliberal discourse that has dominated the social and political sphere for the past three decades. Employing a discourse analytic approach that called upon a governmentality framework, the author used a complementary approach to understand how contemporary teacher evaluation polices, practices, and instruments work to discursively (re)define teachers and teacher quality in terms of their market value.

For the first part of the analysis, the author collected and analyzed documents and field notes related to the teacher evaluation system at one urban middle school. The analysis included official policy documents, official White House speeches and press releases, evaluation system promotional materials, evaluator training materials, and the like. For the second part of the analysis, she interviewed teachers and their evaluators at the local middle school in order to understand how the participants had embodied the market-based discourse to define themselves as teachers and qualify their practice, quality, and worth accordingly.

The findings of the study suggest that teacher evaluation policies, practices, and instruments make possible a variety of techniques, such as numericization, hierarchical surveillance, normalizing judgments, and audit, in order to first make teachers objects of knowledge and then act upon that knowledge to manage teachers' conduct. The author also found that teachers and their evaluators have taken up this discourse in order to think about and act upon themselves as responsibilized subjects. Ultimately, the author argues that while much of the attention related to teacher evaluations has focused on the instruments used to measure the construct of teacher quality, that teacher evaluation instruments work in a mutually constitutive ways to discursively shape the construct of teacher quality.