Making Space for Informal Inquiry: Inquiry as Stance in an Online Induction Network

This study brings the concept of inquiry as stance to bear on current understandings of how inquiry occurs within online networks for teacher induction. The author presents a case study of an online network that allowed 36 new teachers to participate in informal, spontaneous conversations. Genre research is used to examine the on-network, off-network relationship of teachers' inquiry activity. Using integrated analysis of the online messages and of interviews that focused on teachers' contexts and actions, the author presents a holistic portrait of teachers' participation in informal inquiries. The online discussions allowed novice teachers to collaboratively consider new possibilities and to individually develop and reconsider their frameworks for teaching secondary English. Inquiry mentors and researchers should recognize and make space for inquiry as stance by attending to ties between new teachers' on-and off-list activities-to how teachers enact inquiry as stance within and beyond online spaces.