(Re)negotiating Teacher Identities Across Two Discursive Frames of Critically Reflective Practice

T his paper explains how two very different, but linked, discursive frames of critically reflective practice provide the means through which a reconstructionist notion of identity can be enacted in talk about professional practice. It demonstrates how, using a teacher-authored picture book about professional practice, a researcher and a teacher "argue " back and forth about the kinds of identities that are readable, visually and verbally. The process itself inculcates a depth of critical reflection. A clear finding is that for a shift to a deeper form of critically reflective practice to occur, it is not important that co-reflectors reach a consensus on the alternative identities proposed during the talk. Rather, the goal is that they negotiate their ways through multiple perspectives of the professional world, some which uncomfortably challenge the status quo while others retain it. This paper examines a transcript of a one-on-one research interview between a first year teacher (named Lucas) and the author. While in his final year of a teacher education program, Lucas participated in the first stage of a two-stage study that was about ways of making critical reflection more critical. Then, he produced an explanation of a self-authored and illustrated picture book where he reflected on his practice teaching experiences. During that stage of the study he had been prompted to challenge any taken-for-granted assumptions about the world of preservice teaching he represented i