Writing and becoming [a teacher]: Teacher candidates' literacy narratives over four years

This paper explores narrative inquiry practices in pre-service teacher education program. Written dialogue by teacher candidates provided deep and long term reflection during a 5-year initial teacher education program. This 4-year longitudinal study with 30 teacher candidate participants considers participants knowledge formation in becoming teachers, through writing and sharing of letters (with peers) of personal lived educational experiences, and personal stories of theory related to learning, teaching, and teaching practice over a significant period of time. The study discusses letter writing as a narrative inquiry practice in teacher education programs and implications of pre-service letter writing over a significant amount of time. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.