Exploring the Role Children’s Literature Plays in Preservice Teachers’ Curriculum-Making Capabilities: Designing Meaningful Lesson Sequences to Teach Writing

This study, conducted at a large metropolitan university in NSW, Australia, explores how children’s literature supports fourth-year preservice teachers’ (PSTs) curriculum-making capabilities in designing meaningful writing instruction. At a classroom level, curriculum-making involves the translation of curriculum into meaningful lesson sequences and is grounded in the interactions between the teacher, students, and content. Declining student engagement in writing and an increased emphasis on the teaching of isolated, mechanical skills are prevalent among English curricula in many countries. Thus, it is crucial to foster preservice teachers’ abilities to create and design engaging and purposeful writing experiences that motivate and inspire their students as writers. Through a qualitative data analysis of four PSTs’ reflections on completing a lesson sequencing assessment task, our findings reveal that children’s literature serves as a central driver supporting an interplay between their teacher choices, their understanding of student experience, and their awareness of the educational significance of the content and skills being taught. Using mentor texts, PSTs demonstrated strategic and fit-for-purpose pedagogical decisions that were aligned with students’ writing needs and saw consideration given to less segmented and decontextualised forms of writing instruction. This engagement enhanced PST’s understanding of and confidence in working as curriculum-makers who strive for more holistic approaches to writing instruction in their future classrooms.