teresa [dot] strong-wilson [at] mcgill [dot] ca (Email)
(514) 398-4527 Ext. 094014
Room 415, Education Building
Areas of interest
- Literacy; most recently, teachers and new technologies: movement from print to electronicStories: Autobiography, Children’s literature, Narrative methodologies, Visual methods
- Social justice education, Indigenous education
- Participatory methodologies; action research; documentation & reflection on documentation in teaching
- Memory; childhood memory; storied formation/autobiography; memory work (methodology)
- The child, childhood, childhood memory, Reggio Emilia approach to children’s thinking
- Curriculum theory; especially currere (autobiography in education)
- The writings of W.G. Sebald as they pertain to memory, childhood, and currere
- Teachers; teacher thinking and change; professional development; teacher identity; teachers and stories; teachers’ life histories; teacher narratives; teacher portfolios
Description of research/teaching activities
I am primarily interested in the critical study of the relationship between thought and practice through investigation of the influence of stories on educational formation (“storied formation”) and change across memory studies, literacy and new literacies studies, early childhood, curriculum theory, teacher education, Indigenous education, and social justice education. My first book focused on the use of children’s literature with teachers for social justice education, and developed a methodology of using memories of stories (Bringing Memory Forward: Storied Remembrance in Social Justice Education with Teachers; Peter Lang 2008). Coming out of a 2008 SSHRC Workshop on Productive Remembering, I have co-edited two further books on memory, one that has been published (Memory and Pedagogy, eds. Claudia Mitchell, Teresa Strong-Wilson, Kathleen Pithouse & Susann Allnutt; Routledge, 2011), another that is presently under review Back to the Future: Productive Remembering and Narrative, eds. Teresa Strong-Wilson, Claudia Mitchell, Susann Allnutt, & Kathleen Pithouse). As a result of a longitudinal research relationship with New Frontier School Board’s Learning with Laptops (LWL) program and SSHRC-funded study, Changing Literacies, Changing Formations, the teachers/administrator/pedagogical leader, graduate students and I have a book in press called Envisioning New Technologies in Teacher Practice: Moving Forward, Circling Back Using a Teacher Action Research Approach (Peter Lang) (as well as peer-reviewed articles and a book chapter). A post-LWL study, Balancing Literacies, supported by an Internal SSHRC, has been following LWL teachers in their schools using a teacher action research approach.
I have published in several peer-reviewed journals, such as Changing English, Children’s Literature in Education, Educational Theory, International Education, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Learning Landscapes, Reflective Practice, Teachers and Teaching, and Theory into Practice. I am co-editor of the McGill Journal of Education with Anila Asghar, Annie Savard and Aziz Choudry. I am also Research Fellow for McGill's Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas (IPLAI), as part of the Institute's inaugural research theme, Memory and Echo (2009-12). For two years (2009-10), I led a Memory Gathering in the faculty connected to my work in IPLAI. An important continuing part of my teaching work is with teachers in the North.
I am presently looking at the educational implications of the writings of W.G. Sebald for memory, identity, childhood and curriculum. Following on a similar study involving pre-service teachers, I am also presently involved in SSHRC-funded research on Canadian teachers' use of literature for social justice in middle and secondary schools: a cross-national study with colleagues in five other provinces. In addition, I am working on an edited book with Kathy Sanford (University of Victoria) on the subject of portfolios in teacher education.
Sanford, K., & Strong-Wilson, T. (Eds.). (forthcoming) The Emperor’s New Clothes?: Issues and Alternatives in Uses of the Portfolio in Teacher Education Programs. Peter Lang.
Strong-Wilson, T., Thomas, B., Cole, A. L, Rouse, D., Tsoulos, D. & with teacher authors (Penny Bonneville, Bonnie Mitchell, Manuela Pasinato, Kelly Ryan, Marie-Claude Tétrault, & Bob Thomas) (2012). Envisioning New Technologies in Teacher Practice: Moving Forward, Circling Back Using a Teacher Action Research Approach. New York: Peter Lang.
Mitchell, C., Strong-Wilson, T., Pithouse, K., & Allnutt, S. (Eds.). (2011). Memory and pedagogy. New York: Routledge.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Bringing Memory Forward: Storied Remembrance in Social Justice Education with Teachers. (#23 in Complicated Conversation: A Book Series of Curriculum Studies. Series Editor: William F. Pinar). New York: Peter Lang.
Selected Book chapters
Strong-Wilson, T., Cole, A., & Noroozi, N. (Accepted). More than Window Dressing: The Place of Photographs in Teacher Identity Construction In K. Sanford & Strong-Wilson,T. (Eds.). The Emperor’s New Clothes?: Issues and Alternatives in Uses of the Portfolio in Teacher Education Programs.
Strong-Wilson, T. (under review). Remembering Childhood in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. In Strong-Wilson, T., Allnutt, S., Mitchell, C., & Pithouse, K. (Eds.), Back to the Future: Productive Remembering. Expected publisher: Transaction.
Strong-Wilson, T., Mitchell, C., Allnutt, S., & Pithouse, K. (under review). Back to the Future: Narrative and Productive Remembering. In Strong-Wilson, T., Allnutt, S., Mitchell, C., & Pithouse, K. (Eds.), Back to the Future: Productive Remembering. Expected publisher: Transaction.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Phipps, H. (in press). Very far away: Traversing the distance between imagination and actualization. In I. Johnston, & J. Bainbridge (Eds.)., Reading Diversity: Preservice Teachers Explore Identity, Ideology and Pedagogy through Canadian Picture books. University of Toronto Press. Revisions sent September 2011.
Strong-Wilson, T. (Accepted). Telling a woman’s life. In C. Chambers, E. Hasebe-Ludt, A. Sinner, and C. Leggo (Eds.), A Heart of Wisdom: Life Writing as Empathetic Inquiry.
Strong-Wilson, T. (in press). Slumbering narratives: Exploring the links between children’s literature and pre-service teacher identity formation. In McKinney, S., & McCluskey, R.(Eds.), Teacher: Image, Identity, Icon. Edwin Mellen Press.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2011). Threading Voices: Telling Intergenerational Digital Stories. In Memory and Pedagogy. Routledge.
Smith-Gilman, S., Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2010). Envisioning the Environment as Third Teacher: Moving Theory into Practice. In G. Goodman (Ed.), Educational Psychology: Critical Pedagogical Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2009). Seeing What I Mean: The Professional Portfolio as Object of Study. In K. Pithouse, C. Mitchell., & L. Moletsane (Eds.), Making Connections: Self-Study and Social Action. New York: Peter Lang.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Moving horizons: Exploring the role of stories in decolonizing the literacy education of white teachers. In D. Kapoor (Ed.). Education, decolonization and development: Perspectives from Asia,Africa and the Americas. Sense Publications. [reprint of special issue of International Education, vol. 37, no. 1, 2007]
Selected Journal articles
Strong-Wilson, T. (2010). Live through the Experience: Incorporating Indigenous Literature in the Classroom. Themed issue on Louise Rosenblatt. Insights (Publication of the John Dewey Society), 41 (2), 7-11.
Mitchell, C., Dillon, D., Strong-Wilson, T., Pithouse, K., Islam, F., O’Connor, K., Rudd, C., Staniforth, P. and Cole, A. (2010). Things fall apart and come together: Using the visual for reflection in alternative teacher education programmes. Changing English. 17, 1 (45-55).
Strong-Wilson, T., Harju, M., & Mongrain, N. (2008). Changing Literacies, Changing Formations: The Role of Elicitation in a Teacher Action Research Project Involving New Technologies. Teachers and Teaching, 14 (6), 447-464.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Gathering in the Dusk: Circling Back to Literacy Formations as Teachers “Learn with Laptops.” Changing English, 15 (2), 211-22.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008). Turtles All the Way: Simulacra and Resistance to Simulacra in Indigenous Teachers’ Discussions of Children’s Literature. Children’s Literature in Education, 39 (1), 53-74.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2007). Children and Place: Reggio Emilia’s Environment as Third Teacher. Theory into Practice, 46 (1), 40-47.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2006). Bringing Memory Forward: A Method for Engaging Teachers in Reflective Practice on Narrative and Memory. Reflective Practice, 7 (1), 101-13.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2006). Re-visioning One’s Narratives: Exploring the Relationship between Researcher Self-Study and Teacher Research. Studying Teacher Education: A Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 2 (1), 59-76.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2006). Touchstones as Sprezzatura: The Significance of Attachment to Teacher Literary Formation. Changing English, 13 (1), 69-81.
Wilson, T. (2003). Maxine’s Table: Connecting Action with Imagination in the Thought of Maxine Greene and Hannah Arendt. Educational Theory, 52 (2), 203-20.
Wilson, T. (2002). Excavation and Relocation: Landscapes of Learning in a Teacher’s Autobiography. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 18 (3), 75-88.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2007). This Issue. Theory into Practice, 46 (1), 1-4. (Reggio Emilia Special Issue; Guest Editor: T. Strong-Wilson)
Strong-Wilson, T. (McGill) & Preece, A. (Univ of Victoria) (Guest Editors). (2009). Children and Social Stories. English Quarterly.
Selected Invited Talks, Participation in Symposia and Conference Presentations
Strong-Wilson, T. (2012, January 27). Phantom Traces: The Implications of W.G. Sebald’s 'Coincidences' for Memory, Autobiography and Currere in Canadian Curriculum Studies. Invited Presentation in William Pinar’s EDCP 568 Curricula in their Historical Context: Curriculum Studies in Canada, UBC. [Invited]
Strong-Wilson, T. (2011, June). Waiting in the Grey Light: The Echo of the Child amid the Weight of Memory. “a past that has never been present”: Art, Philosophy and History. Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, University of King’s College, Halifax. Nova Scotia.
Strong-Wilson, T., & Phipps, H. (2010). “Difficult inheritances”: Linking emotion with criticality in developing pedagogical knowledge. CSSE, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Montreal, Quebec.
Tsoulos, D., Rouse, D., Cole, A., Ryan, K., & Strong-Wilson, T. (2010). Marching with the penguins: Turning points and professional development with new technologies. CSSE, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Montreal, Quebec.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2010). Memory’s Afterglow: Reclamation and Illumination in Residential School Stories in Children’s Literature in Canada. iPLAI’s Imagining the Child Symposium, McGill University, Montreal, QC. (Panel: Lyn Daniels, Monique Polak, Teresa Strong-Wilson, Lisa Taylor)
Strong-Wilson, T. (2009, October). Qualitative Research Methodologies: Prompting a Storied Awareness of Place. Presentation in Symposium Session, Methodological challenges and innovations in a multi-site Canadian research study across six provinces, with Ingrid Johnston and Lynne Wiltse. Advances in Qualitative Methods 10th International Interdisciplinary Conference, Vancouver, BC.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2009, May). What do life histories have to do with it? Capturing the past as it “hovers over the present” and future of technology, teachers and the curriculum. Provoking Curriculum Conference, University of Ottawa.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2009, March). Avoiding the Emperor’s Situation: Using Photographs to Provoke Discussion of Teacher Identity Construction in Professional Portfolios. In Panel with Kathy Sanford, Tim Hopper (UVic), Anne Phelan (UBC), Deborah Berrill (York), Susan Wray (Discussant; Montclair), The Emperor’s New Clothes: Changing the Story through Alternative Framings for Portfolio Construction in Teacher Education Programs. AERA, San Diego, CA.
Strong-Wilson, T. (2008, July 3). Teaching as “Inside My Head”: The Contribution of the Reading of Literature to Pre-service Teachers’ Conceptualizations of Themselves as Teachers. Teacher: Image, Icon, Identity. University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Sassi, K., Tanaka, M., Strong-Wilson, T. & Hermes, M; Sandy Grande (Chair) & Celia Haig-Brown (Discussant). (2008, March 27). Prompting Teacher Education Change: Transformation through Listening Deeply to Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, New York. [Invited]
Strong-Wilson, T. (2007, July 2). Gathering in the Dusk: Reflections on Changing Literacies and Changing Formations in a Teacher Action Research Project. School of Language, Literacies, Media & Drama Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. [Invited]