Teacher authorship as critical self-reflection and engagement in authentic student writing

How can our students' authentic, every day social interactions provide us with opportunities to critically self-reflect and examine our practices as educators? In the summer of 2011, a book character, ‘Shawn Trenell’, was born, based upon characteristics of former students from my early teaching experiences, and I began recounting personal lessons gained following my first year of teaching. These reflections led to journaling and then to unexpected authorship. This paper is (1) an analysis of my critical self-reflective process as a former elementary educator and (2) the analysis of my two-book series, including the character development, each book's story plot and their associated moral/themes. Through this self-study inquiry, my aim is to emphasise the importance of teachers critically examining their own practice and to highlight the process of incorporating relevant experiences (to both students and teachers) into story form to serve as models for engaging readers, writers and preservice (PSTs) in authentic and meaningful ways.