ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5398-024X

Date of Award

Fall 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

8-21-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational Theory and Practice

Program

Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

Alan Oliveira

Second Advisor

Carla Meskill

Committee Members

Julie Learned, Laura Wilder, James Paul Gee

Keywords

author, author’s intentions, author’s craft, the death of the author, literary instruction, literature, English Language Arts, Sociocultural theory, Activity theory, instructional resources, instructional planning, culturally-responsive teaching

Subject Categories

Curriculum and Instruction | Education | English Language and Literature | Secondary Education | Teacher Education and Professional Development

Abstract

Literary authors are often neglected in secondary ELA (English Language Arts) literary instruction. Teachers are unsure how to teach about the author and how much time to spend on establishing the context for the text when the goal is to “cover” a variety of literary texts as part of a planned curriculum during the school year. Acknowledging the role of authors’ intentions as well as their experiences and aesthetic decisions in the production of literature may provide new entry points into literary texts for students. This multiple-case study of secondary English teachers and their high school students in a “bounded system” of five classroom contexts located in a northeastern public high school is being conducted to analyze how teachers plan and implement curriculum for teaching about the author in literary instruction. Grounded in a framework of Sociocultural theory and Activity theory, this study will examine each classroom as an activity system using multiple data sources such as a teacher questionnaire, student and teacher interviews, observations, and student and teacher documents/artifacts. The following research questions will direct this inquiry: (1) What are secondary English teachers’ thoughts about literary authors and their works? (2) How do secondary English teachers think about literary authors and their works in planning literary instruction? (3) How do secondary English teachers think about literary authors and their works in teaching literary instruction? A central assumption of this study is that how teachers treat the author in instruction has a profound impact on student learning. Findings were that teachers utilized the author as a tool and a resource to teach literature to increase student engagement in support of literacy development, but each teacher responded from their past experiences as learners to form practices in which they displayed varied levels of appropriation of the author and supporting resources. Theoretical and practical implications were that authorial intention, once derogated as unnecessary speculation in literary analysis by the New Critics, was found to be pedagogically useful in teaching about the lived experiences of authors as a way into a literary text; also, from a deconstructionist standpoint, the author was viewed as dead in theory circa 1970, but was found to be pedagogically foundational for teachers. Practical implications were that author-driven professional development and collaboration could be positive sites of foundational change in which the author in literature may be utilized to support culturally-responsive teaching and learning.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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