Polic(y)ing time and curriculum: how teachers critically negotiate restrictive policies Christy Wessel-Powell Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Purdue University College of Education, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA Beth Anne Buchholz Department of Reading and Special Education, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, USA, and Cassie J. Brownell Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to theorize teacher agency as enacted through a P/policymaking lens in three elementary classrooms. Big-P Policies are formal, top-down school reform policies legislated, created, implemented and regulated by national, state and local governments. Yet, Big-P policies are not the only policies enacted in literacies classrooms. Rather, little-p policies or teachers’ local, personal and creative enactments of their values and expertise are also in play in daily classroom decisions. Little p-policies are teachers doing their best in response to their students and school contexts. Design/methodology/approach – Adapting elements of discursive analysis, this interpretive inquiry is designed to examine textual artifacts, situated alongside classroom events and particular local practices, to explicate what teachers’ policymaking enactments regarding time and curriculum look like across three distinct contexts. Using three elementary classrooms as examples, this paper provides analytic snapshots illustrating teachers’ policymaking to solve problems of practice posed by state and school policies for curriculum, and for use of time at school. Findings – The findings suggest that teachers ration (aliz)ed use of time in ways that enacted personal politics, to prioritize children’s personal growth and well-being alongside teachers’ values, even when use of time became “inefficient.” An artifact from three focal classrooms illustrates particular practices – scheduling, connecting and modeling – teachers leveraged to enact little p-policy. Teachers’ little p-policy enactment is teacher agency, used to disrupt temporal and curricular policies. Originality/value – This framing is valuable because little-p policymaking works to disrupt and negotiate temporal and curricular mandates imposed on classrooms from the outside. Keywords Literacy, English language arts, Teaching writing Paper type Research paper Introduction No Child Left Behind (NCLB). National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Race to the Top (RTT). Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Third grade reading bills. In the 60 years after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was enacted, and, particularly in the four decades since A Nation at Risk (1983) was released, revolving-door educational reforms continue to redefine processes Negotiate restrictive policies Received 1 December 2018 Revised 18 March 2019 7 June 2019 Accepted 9 June 2019 English Teaching: Practice & Critique © Emerald Publishing Limited 1175-8708 DOI 10.1108/ETPC-12-2018-0116 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1175-8708.htm