When Teachers Lose Loved Ones

Affective Practices in Teachers’ Accounts of Addressing Loss in Literature Instruction

Bibliographic Data

ID10721561
AuthorsMandie Bevels Dunn (0000-0002-4067-6828, University of South Florida Tampa Florida USA, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume57
Issue3
Pages1049-1064
Publication date2022-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReading Research Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-0553 • E-ISSN: 1936-2722
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/rrq.460
OpenAlexW4205422193
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited36

Teachers’ efforts to build literacy classrooms inclusive of experiences of trauma and loss require attending to affective sensations and displayed emotions as culturally constructed and socially produced. Yet teachers’ personal loss experiences and their influence on literature instruction remain understudied, with literacy scholarship in this area typically focusing on students’ loss experiences. Using in‐depth interviews with secondary English teachers who had lost a loved one, I analyzed how affect and emotion moved through teachers’ understandings of teaching literature following loss. Teachers’ accounts made visible their interpretations of emotional rules for addressing loss, including responsibility for students’ needs, care for students, and uncertainty surrounding emotions in the classroom. Teachers described emotions as attaching to particular bodies according to their understanding of their identities as teachers. This paper explains how teachers navigate the many sensations present when teachers and students read literature together, as human beings who also lose people they love

Affect (linguistics) · Literacy · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Scholarship · Critical Race Theory in Education · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Literacy, Media, and Education · Psychology · Social Psychology

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