This study utilizes a sociocultural activity theory approach to determine how, if at all, undergraduate coursework affects the attitudes of preservice English teachers, enrolled in a graduate teacher education program. Specifically, the study examines if there is any affect on the way the preservice teachers think about the teaching of writing with their students. Given the recent increased national attention on writing as an academic subject, this area seems particularly appropriate for examination at this time.
Through qualitative research methodology, including questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observations, the participants, this study seeks to answer research questions related to how preservice English teachers not only develop their own professional conceptions for teaching writing, but also how undergraduate English majors develop into graduate preservice teachers. Activity theory, which emphasizes the various settings that learners move through in the process of development, allows researchers to examine how movement across both physical and intellectual settings influences learning in a variety of ways. Findings from the study indicate that for many participants, their previous writing experience as undergraduates, as well as their field experiences as graduate preservice teachers, proved to be powerful influences on their personal writing practices, and plans for teaching writing. Even with the aid of writing-specific methods coursework in their teacher education program, many of the participants experienced difficulty in transferring those conceptual and pedagogical tools to their actual teaching practice.