Modes of Engagement: Understanding Teachers’ Transactions with Mathematics Curriculum Resources

Drawing on research on elementary teachers in the United States, this chapter explores and theorizes the relationships that teachers develop with curriculum resources as they use them. The central argument is that teachers are positioned by and through their encounters with curriculum materials as particular kinds of users of them. The chapter examines modes of address in curriculum resources and modes of engagement taken up by teachers to illustrate how this positioning happens, including how teachers participate in it through their epistemological stances and orientations. Modes of address are experienced through various forms found in curriculum resource, including structure, look, voice, medium, and genre. Modes of engagement are seen in forms of teacher reading, including what the teacher reads for, which parts she reads, when she reads, and who she is as a reader. Four examples of teachers engaging with a curriculum resource designed to reflect the NCTM Standards are used to illustrate how modes and forms of address interact.

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