Pedagogical Content Knowledge and English: Three Chords and the Truth

The Metaphor of "Three Chords and the Truth" in English Education

• The title of the chapter is a reference to Harlan Howard, a prolific songwriter in the 1950s who wrote hits for artists such as Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, and Johnny Cash. When asked what was required to write a good country song, Howard famously replied, "three chords and the truth."
• Lou Reed later offered a variations on this, stating that "One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz."
• The authors, Pamela Grossman and Lee Shulman, apply this metaphor to the field of English education. They argue that while complex music is fine, there is a fundamental nobility in the early gospel, blues, and country roots upon which all rock music is built.
• Conversely, much research in English education is compared to the fictional band Spinal Tap’s experimental rock piece "Jazz Odyssey." The authors critique the field for reifying teaching mechanics into complex jargon rooted in political ideology or postmodern philosophy, often failing to address actual curricular concerns or cognitive architecture.
• Shulman’s work on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is described as an effort to steer the conversation back to "three chords and the truth" by explicitly asking: "What do English teachers need to know and do?"

The Identity Crisis of English as a Subject

• English is described as unique compared to other academic subjects like Mathematics, Science, Economics, or Geography. While those fields benefit from broad agreement on curriculum and definitions of success, English is characterized as a subject in a "perpetual crisis of identity."
• Harold Rosen (1981) famously defined English as "the least subject-like of subjects, the least susceptible to definition" (p. 5).
• Applebee (1974) asserts that the boundaries between the primary disciplines of language, literature, and composition have historically "blurred and wavered."
• The subject actually entails two distinct domains:
  • English Language (the discipline).
  • English Literature (the art).
• These domains are further broken down into two key components: reading and writing.
• Research in English is difficult because these areas (language, literature, thinking, and oracy) are not easily "detachable" in practice, despite how they are represented in research.
• Teacher Autonomy: English teachers often possess greater autonomy than teachers in other subjects. While some texts may be prescribed, teachers frequently choose the specific novels, poems, or prose they cover. This leads to a situation where the variation within the subject of English can be greater than the variation between other different subjects.

The Nature of Knowledge: Paradigmatic vs. Narrative Knowing

• While disciplines like Math and Science have clear metrics for comparing practitioner knowledge against expert knowledge, English is characterized by what Jerome Bruner (1986) calls "paradigmatic ways of knowing."
• English teachers often understand their subject in a narrative, rather than a classificatory, way.
• Example: Two teachers instructing a unit on Romantic poetry might both focus on context and themes like The Enlightenment or Edmund Burke’s concept of the Sublime, yet they may select entirely different poets and poems to illustrate these points.
• This diffusion raises the question: "If English represents a set of competing schools of thought regarding the very nature of reading and writing, what does it mean to know English well enough to teach it?" (p. 5).

The Concept of Being "Fully Literate"

• To be a good English teacher, Grossman and Shulman argue that one must be "fully literate."
• They cite the definition of Gordon Wells (1990): "To be fully literate… is to have both the ability and the disposition to engage with texts epistemically when the occasion demands."
• Epistemic engagement involves conducting a transaction between the representation on the written page and the representation in the reader's head to advance intellectual, moral, or affective understanding.
• A core characteristic of English literature study is that multiple, differing interpretations can be true simultaneously. This capacity to engage epistemically is described as the "legacy of a liberal education."
• Teachers must recognize that while texts are rooted in specific times and places, some transcend those origins. For instance, the fact that contemporary Japanese readers can find meaning in Shakespeare's King Lear is a testament to the greatness of the text (p. 6).

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and Student Misunderstandings

• A central tenet of PCK is that it is not enough for a teacher to know what students understand; they must know what students misunderstand.
• Effective instruction requires a strong grasp of subject knowledge and the theoretical assumptions underpinning it to anticipate common student misconceptions.
• Teachers need explicit knowledge of their own "predominant orientations toward literature" and theoretical stances to help students see the assumptions guiding certain readings of a text.
• The goal is to prepare students to be "critical consumers" of texts who can construct multiple meanings.

Writing Instruction and the "Curse of Knowledge"

• There is a critical distinction in writing instruction between procedural and declarative knowledge.
• Declarative knowledge (facts about writing) is easy to teach. However, teachers often possess expert-level procedural knowledge (the "how-to" of writing) that has become tacit.
• Tacit Knowledge: For teachers who grew up with standard English, the internalizing of linguistic rules was not self-conscious. They may rely on what "sounds right" to identify errors.
• The "Curse of Knowledge": Expert writers often cannot understand why novices struggle with "basic" aspects of writing because those processes are automated for the expert. This makes teaching a novice to write sophisticated fiction as difficult as "telling a stand-up comedian to be funnier."

Knowledge Growth in Teaching Research

• The chapter references Shulman’s (1987) model of teaching as an interaction of:
  1. Understanding.
  2. Transformation.
  3. Action.
  4. Evaluation.
  5. Reflection.
  6. Progressive development of new understandings.
• Research titled "Knowledge Growth in Teaching" tracked preservice teachers during their training and first year of teaching to see how they used undergraduate knowledge to construct new teaching understandings.
• Case Comparison: Lance and Vanessa.
  • When asked about the meaning of a poem, Lance objected to the question on disciplinary grounds (that prose cannot capture what poetry does, and specific questions promote a "bad way of thinking" about poetry).
  • Vanessa objected on pedagogical grounds (arguing that questions should be open-ended so students can find their own answers and get excited about the work).
  • This distinction highlights the clash between the appreciation of literature and the practicalities of teaching it.

The Case Method in Professional Education

• The authors advocate for a professional education focused on the interpretation of "cases of teaching" rather than prescriptive "best practice" proclamations.
• Practice is described as "messy," where neither problems nor solutions are always clear.
• Case Methods: Proponents argue it is better to study ten different cases of teaching Hamlet in various contexts than to be taught a single "best way."
• Developing a repertoire of cases allows teachers to build a flexible mental model that can respond to the "uncertainty and novelty" of actual classrooms.
• Once key pedagogical components are automated (through the use of these case-based models), a teacher's cognitive bandwidth is freed to focus on:
  • Behavioral issues.
  • Student questions.
  • Addressing misconceptions.
  • Helping specific students.

Conclusion: The Interaction of Knowledge Domains

• The authors state plainly that "subject-matter knowledge matters" (p. 8), as it dictates how teachers plan, select texts, and interact with students.
• However, subject knowledge alone is insufficient. Knowing Shakespeare is not the same as knowing how to teach Shakespeare to a diverse group of learners.
• Example: Lance struggled teaching Romeo and Juliet to ninth graders because he pushed "obscure theses" and "nuances in the language" that were irrelevant to his students. He lacked the PCK to adjust his expectations.
• Different domains of teacher knowledge—subject matter, PCK, and generic pedagogy (like classroom management)—are "inevitably interactive and interdependent." For student thinking to flourish, a teacher must also manage group dynamics effectively.