Talking Back to Scripted Curricula: A Critical Performance Ethnography with Teachers' Collective Narratives

Abstract

Although research shows the importance of the teacher in effective instruction, there has historically been an underrepresentation of teachers' voice in curricular decision-making. Some recent comprehensive reform programs include the use of mandated scripted curricula, which the authors argue often serve to further silence teachers, constraining their capacity to independently act within the classroom. The authors' research seeks to speak back to such constraints as they attend to the lived experiences of teachers using scripted reading curricula, particularly Success for All. Situating this work as a critical performance, the authors viewed their in-depth interviews as performative, with each teacher narrating their own response to using and/or resisting the use of a scripted reading curriculum. Through a performative text, constructed as a three-act play, the authors interrogate relationships of power, knowledge, and political control at work within the context of teachers' lives, as well as other stakeholders.