LeeAnn Sutherland
Ph.D. Specialty Area: Literacy,
Language and Culture
Present Position: After one year as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow, I am currently an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Michigan. I work on two projects that involve curriculum development, teacher professional development, and the analysis of student learning as shaped by our collaborative work with teachers in Detroit Middle Schools.
Dissertation Topic: My dissertation's broad focus is "multicultural education" as it is theorized and as it is practiced in secondary schools. I looked closely at African American 11th grade girls as they read, wrote about, and discussed literature by and about African American women. I examined how the literacy practices in which they engaged both in and out of the classroom shaped the young women's meaning making and identity construction, and how their life experiences simultaneously shaped their readings of literature to which they were assumed to be able to relate.
Prior to coming to the SOE: Before coming to the SOE, I was a Lecturer II in the English Department at the University of Michigan. Incoming students took an impromptu writing exam or submitted a portfolio of previous writing to the university for assessment and placement in the writing program. I assessed that writing, did professional development for teachers across the state, tutored writers, and taught a writing practicum for those students expected to need additional support in order to be successful college writers.
What I Learned in the Program: I entered the doctoral program to learn how to conduct research in my own classroom, especially as I worked with students considered "at risk" (for any one of a number of reasons). Through the teaching and research opportunities afforded me here, however, I came to understand one of my gifts to be in teacher preparation and professional development. I also began to take on a "researcher identity," in which I considered the ways in which my past experiences and future work could affect *more* children if I conducted research in collaboration with middle school and high school teachers and students, and shared that research with both researcher and practitioner audiences. The biggest personal change I experienced, then, was to develop an understanding of the *potential* of my own work to extend beyond the 180 high school students I taught a year, or the 80 college students I taught a year, to become more far-reaching and potentially influential in the field of secondary education. In addition, my long-held interest in issues of social justice and equity has been fueled throughout my doctoral experience, and will continue to shape the work I do.
