Each of us is a mixture of fact and fiction, a weaving of tales set in our real bodies.                                                                                                                                                                                    Yann Martel, Beatrice and Virgil

I remember the terror and delight of teaching back there in my old school… The terror was that someday in the middle of a sentence, I would simply run out of things to say, and the class would...denounce me for the imposter that in my heart I knew I was.

And the delight of it was that if things ever somehow catch fire in a class, something happens in the air between master and students that is so much better and wiser and more alive than any of them that every distinction between who is taught and who is teaching all but vanishes.                                                                                                                                                                                                            Frederick Buechner, Sacred Journey

Each person’s stories are powerful ways of knowing.  My fondest memories, growing up in the Midwest, are of my grandma and aunt telling me stories—some fantasy and some family stories that teetered between truth and fiction. I have witnessed again and again the power of storying and locating our lives in the stories we read both in my own life and in the classrooms I share with young people from elementary school to the university. The kind of teaching Buechner describes in his memoir builds an ethos of shared lives that dismantles and interchanges hierarchical relationships of teacher and learner in a spirit of grace and growth.

My interest in how telling and imagining the stories of our lives create humanizing pedagogies led me to a Ph.D. in Literacy, Culture and Language Education at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.  My dissertation focused on imagining as a critical composing practice, particularly through digital storytelling, that generated discourses of emerging possibility for learners in two rural elementary classrooms. I continue to explore how we move between the real and the imagined to participate more equitably in classrooms and make sense of learning.

As part of the King community, I teach courses in literacy theory and practice, children’s literature, and methods courses for future teachers. My faith challenges me to pay attention to the “who” I teach grounded in Vygotsky’s understanding that learning must be cultivated rather than imposed in the context of meaningful social situations and interactions.  I enjoy the beauty of this area and also the opportunities I have to build relationships with students and colleagues that both challenge and support me. Teaching elicits and honors the gifts of perspective and knowledge that each person carries in our own stories that enable us to negotiate the big stories of the disciplines together.

Ph.D.    Indiana University, Bloomington, IN  

M.S.     Language Education, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN

B.S.     Nutrition Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN  

Publications

Coggin, L. (in press). Rural Settings. In K. Peppler (Ed.), SAGE Encyclopedia of Out of School Learning.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Syndor, J., Coggin, L., Davis, T., & Daley, S. (2015). The dialogic construction of a teaching vision: Pre-service teachers imagine their practice. In Ortlieb, E. (Ed.), Video as a Tool for Reflection in Literacy Education and Research. United Kingdom: Emerald Press.

Coggin, L.,Wohlwend, K., Buchholtz, B., Wessel-Powell, C., & Husbye, N. (2015).  Expanding early childhood literacy curriculum through play-based filmmaking and popular media. In V. Vasquez & J. Wood (Eds.) Perspectives & Provocations: Early Childhood Education. Urbana, IL: NCTE

Medina, C., Coggin, L.S., & Weltsek, G.  (2014). Foregrounding Emergence, Embodiment, and Critical Practices:  Performance pedagogies in literacy methods.  In J. Brass and A. Webb (Eds.), Teaching the English language arts methods: Contemporary methods and practices. New York: Routledge.

Penalva, S., Coggin, L. S., & Medina, C. (2014). Examining transcultural spiritual literacies among Latino children through artifactual mediations. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education 8(2), 92-107.

Coggin, L. & Medina, C. (2013).   Democratic Writing and Multiliteracies Work in Schools and Community Centers. In Meyer, R. & Whitmore, K. (Eds.) Reclaiming Writing. New York: Routledge.

Buchholtz, B. & Coggin, L. S., (2013). Chapter 2: Rethinking writing workshop: Media processes in a K/1 Playshop. In Wohlwend, K.E., Literacy Playshop:  New Literacies, Popular Media, and Play in the Early Childhood Classroom. New York: Teacher’s College Press.

Macharaschwili, C. & Coggin, L.S. (2013). A Skype-Buddy model for blended learning. Journal of Interactive Learning Research 24(2), 167-190.

Husbye, N., Buchholtz, B., Coggin, L. S., Wessel-Powell, C. and Wohlwend, K.E. (2012). Critical Lessons and Playful Literacies: Digital Media in the PK–2 Classrooms. Language Arts 90(2), 82-92.

Conference Presentations

Coggin, L., Syndor, J., Davis, T., & Daley, S. (November, 2016).  Exploring Pre-service Teachers Digital Stories: Metaphors That Changed Our Teaching. Association Literacy Educators & Researchers Annual Conference, Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Coggin, L., Syndor, J., Davis, T., & Daley, S. (December 2015). The Construction of a Teaching Vision: Pre-service Teachers Imagine Their Practice through Digital Storytelling. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Carlsbad, CA.

Coggin, L., Syndor, J., Davis, T., & Daley, S. (April 2015). The Dialogic Construction of a Teaching Vision: Pre-service Teachers Imagine Their Practice. AERA: Chicago, IL.

Coggin, L., & Medina, C. (April 2015). Mapping Cultural Imaginaries in Immigrant Children’s Dramatic Engagements. AERA annual conference: Chicago, IL.

Medina, C. & Coggin, L. (April 2015). Foregrounding Emergence, Embodiment, & Critical Practices: Performance Pedagogies in Literacy Methods. AERA: Chicago, IL.

Coggin, L. (December, 2013). A Tale of Two Storyboards: Textual and Embodied Resources for Literacy. LRA Annual Conference: Dallas, TX.

Coggin, L. (December, 2013). Creating Discourses of Possibility as an “Act” of Prospection. LRA Annual Conference: Dallas, TX.                                 

Coggin, L. & Buchholz, B. (November, 2013).  Embodied Resources for Multimodal Composing. Panel   presentation: Exploring Collaboration of Multimodal Literacies in Early Childhood: Digital Filmmaking, Designing, and Co-authoring,  NCTE: Boston, MA

Medina, C., Coggin, L., & Penalva, S. (November, 2012). Locating Latino/a Literature Within Larger Textual Ecologies: Pedagogies of Transcultural Memories, Trajectories and Emotions. LRA, San Diego, CA.

Coggin, L. (November, 2012). Storying as an Exploratory Process in the K/1 Classroom. Session: Literacy Playshop: Expanding Early Childhood Literacy Curriculum Through Play-based Filmmaking and Popular Media.  NCTE: Las Vegas, NE