Complexities of Identity and Belonging

Engaging in artifactual literacy as a collective in a teacher education seminar class gives space for objects and texts to bring forth reimagined and alternative ways to be “teacher.” An elementary teacher education program utilizes a seminar space to invite teachers to write from artifacts to analyze, deconstruct, and reconstruct their teacher identities. The analysis and discussions of the reconstructed narratives that define, contest, or shape identities give needed distance from traditional and often constricting narratives of “teacher” and “teaching.” The investment of this critical identity work in teacher education is depicted in the analysis of two preservice teachers' collective writing in a digital space.