bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“You Could Argue It Either Way”: Ambivalent White Teacher Racial Identity and Teaching about Racism in Literature Study
Authors: Borsheim-Black Carlin
Published: June 2023

This study presents a portrait of a White high school English teacher in an effort to understand the relationship between her White racial identity and her teaching about racism within a unit on A Raisin in the Sun in a predominantly White teaching context. The author argues that the teacher’s ambivalent White racial identity contributed to lack of clarity and conviction in terms of purpose, which presented a pedagogical dilemma that ultimately undermined her practice. Acknowledging ambivalent identity and compensating for ambivalence in practice could provide pedagogical support for English teachers when they strive to teach about racism in secondary English classrooms.
Critical Conversations in English Education: Discursive Strategies for Examining How Teacher and Student Identities Shape Classroom Discourse
Authors: Vetter Amy , Schieble Melissa , Meacham Mark
Published: June 2023

This research examined how preservice teachers in a university classroom used discourse analysis of video-recorded lessons to explore how identity markers such as race shaped classroom interactions. Findings from the study indicated that preservice teachers employed 10 different discursive strategies to engage in critical conversations. Identifying these discursive strategies offered insight into preservice teachers’ entry points for engaging in such dialogue. From that information, we offer potential narrative starters and questions that educators could use to deepen critical conversations in their English education courses.
Learning to Teach Writing through Dialogic Assessment
Authors: Beck Sarah W. , Cavdar Diler , Wahrman Allison
Published: June 2023

Learning to teach writing is a complex process influenced by many factors. Formative assessment holds promise as a place for preservice teachers to gain a better understanding of students’ unique struggles as writers and of writing as a complex, challenging skill. The authors of this article describe how working with a dialogic method of formative assessment gave two preservice teachers unique insights about their students as writers and transformed their understanding of writing development. We argue for the benefits of incorporating more experience with formative writing assessment into the preservice education of English teachers.
Middle School Writers’ Attitudes and Beliefs on Revision Paired with Transmediation during a Flash Fiction Unit
Authors: Batchelor Katherine E.
Published: June 2023

This article describes the results of a study that examined middle school students’ written revisions as well as attitudes and perceptions regarding revision when paired with transmediation. Existing research on revision is thin on transmediation’s affordances and students’ voices regarding revision. Situated within a social semiotic, multimodal literacy framework, this article addresses how students began to see revision’s purpose and process as more meaningful and substantive as a result of transacting with their transmediated objects during a flash fiction unit of study.
Electing to Heal: Trauma, Healing, and Politics in Classrooms
Authors: Garcia Antero , Dutro Elizabeth
Published: June 2023

Among the lessons that emerged after the recent presidential election is a recognition that teachers are generally not prepared to address the intersections of healing, politics, and emotion in classrooms. Now, more than ever, English educators must address trauma in classrooms, while also recognizing how individuals and groups are positioned differently in the material and emotional stakes of this election. Drawing on research, the voices of teachers, and our experiences over this past year, we call for more expansive conversations among English educators across perspectives concerned with creating safe, relational, anti-oppressive classrooms.
Translating Theory to Practice: Exploring Teachers’ Raciolinguistic Literacies in Secondary English Classrooms
Authors: Seltzer Kate , los Ríos Cati V.
Published: June 2023

This case study of two secondary English teachers integrates a critical translingual approach in two urban classrooms. Our inquiry is guided by two questions: (1) How did two teachers engage critical translingual approaches in their classrooms? (2) How did their positionalities shape implementation of these approaches? This article illustrates how teachers’ stances and practices can be affected by their identities, pointing to the ways that diverse teachers must approach their translanguaging pedagogies with an understanding of raciolinguistic ideologies. We end with a call for teacher educators to help teachers engage the transgressive elements of translanguaging in English classrooms and hone their raciolinguistic literacies so that they can design classroom learning in more humanizing ways.
Provocateur Pieces: From “Turning the Page” to Getting Our Noses out of the Book: How NCTE Can Translate Its Words into Activism
Authors: Asher Golden Noah , Bieler Deborah
Published: June 2023

This article raises questions about the role of NCTE in an era of widespread education reform that often runs counter to a wide body of scholarship and members’ understandings of ways to build strong, equitable educational systems. The authors call on NCTE to reinvent itself primarily as a space from which to take action toward equity and justice. This provocateur piece offers a loving critique of NCTE’s notion of advocacy at a time when neoliberal education reforms limit educators’ capacity to carry out our collective responsibilities to marginalized and vulnerable youth.
Policy, Practice, and Dialogue: A Framework for NCTE Action and Relational Strategy
Authors: Zuidema Leah A.
Published: June 2023

This essay is an invited response to Noah Asher Golden and Deborah Bieler’s Provocateur Piece in this issue in which they share a loving critique of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). This response highlights and extends Golden and Bieler’s observation about “the strengths of our members: policy, practice, and dialogue.” The response essay illustrates how NCTE, an association for literacy educators, could use “policy, practice, and dialogue” as a framework to drive and connect its work.
Reopening Racial Wounds: Whiteness, Melancholia, and Affect in the English Classroom
Authors: Grinage Justin
Published: June 2023

This article critiques a classroom encounter between a Black student, Richard, and a white student, Nick, that complicated the white English teacher, Mr. Turner’s, attempt to facilitate a discussion about racial progress in America. Students positioned their bodies on a continuum between 1, no racial progress since the 1930s, and 10, full racial equity. When Richard positioned himself at the low end of the continuum and Nick located himself on the high end, a disruption occurred after Mr. Turner moved his body toward Nick while verbally validating Richard’s perspective. I argue that the classroom’s affective register was altered by racial melancholia, reopening racial wounds and reproducing whiteness, evoking emotions I call “melancholic affects.”
Complicating Censorship: Reading All American Boys with Parents of Young Adults
Authors: Boyd Ashley S. , Darragh Janine J.
Published: June 2023

In this article, we describe findings from a discourse community created for parents to discuss potentially controversial young adult literature. Focusing on participants’ reactions to All American Boys, the study explores how parents responded to issues of racism in the United States and investigates how participants conceived of the text for their own children and in English classrooms. We distinguish four themes in the parents’ responses: identifying with injustice, seeing Whiteness as a protection, stereotypes versus individuality, and reading as parents. Implications for preservice and inservice teachers, as well as teacher educators, involve preparation for leading difficult conversations and for working with parents toward transparency in classroom texts and topics.
From Connected Learning to Connected Teaching: Reimagining Digital Literacy Pedagogy in English Teacher Education
Authors: Mirra Nicole
Published: June 2023

Many teachers still struggle to find a coherent and meaningful framework for incorporating new literacies into their instruction. This case study examines the teaching and learning that took place in a New and Multimodal Literacies class for preservice English teachers to understand how the ideas of connected learning are generative yet challenging as educators seek to create transformative, technology-integrated, and equity-oriented literacy learning experiences for students. Findings suggest that when teachers explore technological tools with connection in mind, they can develop instructional experiences that forefront student interests and critical literacy learning. The study offers a vision of connected teaching to guide digital literacy teacher education into the future.
Electrical Evocations: Computer Science, the Teaching of Literature, and the Future of English Education
Authors: Liam Lynch Tom
Published: June 2023

In this conceptual essay, the author argues that computational methods and computer science more broadly should be embedded into English education programs. Positing that computational methods can deepen and expand the way literature is already taught in many English education programs and secondary English classrooms, the author first makes a theoretical case for English educators to embrace computational methods, then shares a prototypical assignment called a mixed literary analysis. The essay concludes with a series of concrete recommendations for English educators who wish to explore further how to embed computational methods into their professional pursuits and programs.
Provocateur Piece*: Becoming Meddler
Authors: Van Cleave Jessica
Published: June 2023

In this piece, I draw on Erica McWilliam’s model of Meddler in the Middle to disrupt familiar notions of teaching. The Meddler in the Middle provides an alternative to existing teaching models—the Sage on the Stage and the Guide on the Side—and foregrounds twenty-first-century skills such as problem solving, collaboration, and critical thinking. I explore possibilities for meddling in the context of high school English classrooms and teacher education courses through my teaching experiences; then I contemplate how the Meddler might function in our current standards-based environment.
Learning to Teach Diverse Learners Together: Results from an Innovative Placement Structure
Authors: Choi Yunjeong , Meier Joyce , Cushman Ellen
Published: June 2023

We explore the ways in which preservice teachers (PSTs) develop a practice in practice (Darling-Hammond, 2010) with diverse learners when placed in classrooms with college writing mentor teachers. Analyzing survey data and instances of stated confidence in PSTs’ activity logs, we share results that reveal a significant increase in the novice teachers’ perceived ability to teach diverse learners when placed in this context. Results also demonstrate a model of Teacherly Reflective Inquiry Practice (TRIP). These results suggest that placements with college writing instructors acting as mentor teachers can facilitate the development of collective efforts to teach diverse learners.
Adding It All Up: Infographic Meta-Reflections on the Teaching of Writing
Authors: Pytash Kristine , Testa Elizabeth
Published: June 2023

Many teacher education programs consider reflection to be critical as preservice teachers appropriate tools related to the teaching of writing. The purpose of this research was to explore three preservice teachers’ analysis of written reflections that they composed while taking a writing methods course embedded in two field experience sites. The following research questions guided the study: (1) What themes did preservice teachers identify in their reflective writing? (2) What do their meta-reflections demonstrate about their learning to teach writing? This study provides implications for how preservice teachers can develop into reflective writing practitioners.
“The creative aspect woke me up”: Awakening to Multimodal Essay Composition as a Fugitive Literacy Practice
Authors: Ohito Esther O.
Published: June 2023

This article details a self-study dissecting an interracial group of students’ theories of Blackness in a postsecondary classroom. I begin by conceptualizing fugitive literacy practices as tools with which to awaken and animate education as the practice of liberation from whiteness and anti-Blackness. I then approach multimodal essay composition as one such practice and illuminate its application in a classroom. I show how this practice affirmed students as empowered producers of knowledge. I contend that pedagogues must pivot away from the disruption of whiteness and anti-Blackness as a defined target, and turn toward the destruction of both as a desirable goal. I conclude by considering further inquiries that this provocation invites vis-à-vis curriculum and pedagogy in English teacher education.
Multimodal Cuentos as Fugitive Literacies on the Mexico-US Borderlands
Authors: Gonzales Laura , Ybarra Mónica González
Published: June 2023

In this article, we examine fugitivity and fugitive literacies as they are enacted by transfronterizx youth—young people who cross and experience life on both sides of the border between Mexico and the United States. Through a community-based literacy project located on the border between El Paso, Texas, USA, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, this article focuses on storytelling and multimodal creation, what we refer to as multimodal cuentos. Findings illustrate the ways in which Chicanx/Latinx transfronterizx youth exhibit, build, and sustain their ways of resisting white, Western, hegemonic definitions of literacy through communication and creativity. We theorize the notion of fugitivity on the border and share potential implications for language and literacy education for Chicanx/Latinx border crossers.
Editorial: A New Generation of Fugitive Scholarship
Authors: Lee Carol D.
Published: June 2023

Guest Editors’ Note: The Fugitive Literacies Collective is a constellation of critical scholar-friends of color assembled from the 2016-18 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color (CNV) cohort. The Collective is committed to resisting hegemonic academic norms and mores. Our members think, study, write, and publish together in an intentional effort to irradiate the knowledges, complexities, and tensions that percolate when possibilities for the real or fictive liberation of historically marginalized and dehumanized persons and communities are embraced as desirable and worthwhile purposes for educational research(ers). The Collective seeks to embody and animate humanizing approaches to the intellectual labor of scholarship by enacting collaborations that honor a horizontal approach to the co-construction of knowledges while also highlighting literacies that break from educational practices that are inextricably rooted in anti-black, racist, and colonialist ideologies. This special issue of English Education features work from a fraction of the collective that theorizes and illustrates fugitive literacies by variously examining ways of knowing and meaning-making practices across multimodalities. The issue opens with an introductory editorial written by CNV cofounder Carol Lee that sets the stage for the ensuing critical conversations. To borrow from the Combahee River Collective, this issue is our proclamation to the world that we choose—and are ready for—a lifetime of work as freedom-seeking scholars of liberatory literacies.
Sex and Sexuality in the English Language Arts Classroom
Authors: Wesley White John , Ali-Khan Carolyne
Published: June 2023

Sex (sexual acts) and sexuality (sexual orientation and gender identity) have become common topics in the news and public discourse. Although sex and sexuality influence adolescents’ experiences with school and schooling conversely shapes youth sexualities, research shows that schools do little to help adolescents make sense of their developing sexual identities. We believe that ELA classrooms are a natural fit for addressing this shortfall. Using the journey of one ELA teacher, we illustrate the ways that issues of sex and sexuality influenced and shaped students’ and their teacher’s classroom experiences. We seek to encourage ELA teachers to rethink the implications of sidestepping issues of sex and sexuality in their classrooms.
Provocateur Piece: “I know you don’t live in Detroit, right?” An Attempt at Racial Literacy in English Education
Authors: Neville Mary L.
Published: June 2023

This essay begins with my memory of a provocation from a former student about my presence in Detroit as a white English teacher—a provocation invoking the intersections of race and space. The incident inspired the creation of an English education methods syllabus centered in racial literacy frameworks, analyses of space, and prioritizing youth voice for English teacher educators and preservice teachers. It is my hope that this essay offers space for English educators to respond meaningfully to student analyses of power and oppression through English curricula.
Research: Unsettling the “White Savior” Narrative: Reading Huck Finn through a Critical Race Theory/Critical Whiteness Studies Lens
Authors: Dyches Jeanne , Thomas Deani
Published: June 2023

This case study, which investigates twenty-four 11th-grade students of American literature, asks: What successes and challenges did students experience when reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through a critical race theory (CRT)/critical Whiteness studies (CWS) lens? Findings reveal that applying a CRT/CWS lens helped students understand and identify CRT/CWT tenets while reading the novel and extrapolate these tenets to their social worlds. However, 42 percent of students resisted the unit by using the White Talk discourse strategy of wishing they could “just read the book”; other students demonstrated White rage. The study offers several implications for ELA teacher education.
Research: “It Doesn’t Feel Like a Conversation”: Digital Field Experiences and Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions of Writing Response
Authors: Heron-Hruby Alison , Chisholm James S. , Olinger Andrea R.
Published: June 2023

Research shows that preservice English teachers (PSETs) lack opportunities to respond to student writing and that they may view student writing through a deficit lens. To address this need, the authors developed the Writing Mentors (WM) program, a digital field placement that gave PSETs experience providing feedback to high school writers. In this analysis, we examine how PSETs’ views of response were shaped by their digital interactions with high school writers. The challenges of interacting asynchronously created opportunities for PSETs to identify limitations in the mode of communication, propose approaches to providing feedback, and reflect on how teacher feedback can nurture or constrain relationships with students. These findings point to the promise of critical reflection on the disruptive potential of digital feedback for supporting PSTs’ response to student writing.
(Re)Active Praxis: Inspired Alchemy: Reconceptualizing Lesson Planning as Creative Work
Authors: Hurst Heather
Published: June 2023

Lesson planning is frequently presented to teacher candidates through a lesson template, but as shown elsewhere in the field of ELA teacher education, formulas constrict creativity and inspiration. In this essay, I propose that English educators reconceptualize lesson planning as a creative process.
Research: Viral Loads and Downward Spirals: English, Citizenship, and a Context of Crises
Authors: Spanke Jeff
Published: June 2023

This study examines five novice teachers’ perceptions of their preparation, interests, and abilities to integrate citizenship education into their secondary English language arts classrooms. The English teachers in this study highlight the difficulty in promoting progressive, social justice curricula without first grounding that pursuit in personal and participatory citizenship. Thus, as the United States awaits its return to normalcy after COVID-19, this study considers how English teacher educators may anchor courses in ideas of personal, participatory, and justice-oriented citizenship.
Research: “Peeling off the Mask”: Challenges and Supports for Enacting Critical Pedagogy in Student Teaching
Authors: Behizadeh Nadia , Thompson-Smith Cheryll M. , Miller PJ
Published: June 2023

In this article, we examine a teacher candidate’s beliefs, teaching practices, and challenges to and supports for critical pedagogy during student teaching at an urban middle school. We also consider whether involvement in an ELA methods course influenced the teacher candidate’s beliefs and/or teaching practices, particularly regarding writing. Through this inquiry, we identify ways to better support teacher candidates in learning and enacting critical pedagogy in English language arts.
(Re)Active Praxis: Inside a surreal black studio, my students and I, we dance
Authors: ife fahima
Published: June 2023

In this lyrical reflective essay in four parts, I ruminate on teaching as poetics, the teaching of contemporary poetry, the teaching of histories of settler colonialism and antiblackness inherent in curriculum design, and teaching as adoration. I practice teaching to learn how to move with and love my students, to encourage them to move with and love their future students. I then reflect on my practice after and in between meditation, so the poetics here is an invitation to meditation.
Research: Affective Reader Response: Using Ordinary Affects to Repair Literacy Normativities in ELA and English Education
Authors: Joshua Coleman James
Published: June 2023

Literacy normativities reinforce the colonial, racist, and anti-queer underpinnings of English education, and today these normativities are propelled by the English teacher imagination. To render these normativities visible, this study traces the affective reader responses of an inquiry community of queer educators and reveals normative reading practices that animate how English teachers imagine and feel their classroom worlds. In particular, ordinary affects—those that are subtly felt and often overlooked—spotlight interpretive norms and normative feelings that hide the field’s ongoing commitments to colonization, racism, queerphobia, and more. Contributing to Critical English Education (CEE), this article concludes by calling for multiple prisms of interpretation to dismantle literacy normativities in English education and ELA.
Research: An Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition
Authors: McGrail Ewa , Hawley Turner Kristen , Piotrowski Amy , Caprino Kathryn , Zucker Lauren , Greenwood Ellen
Published: June 2023

Drawing from the Beliefs for Integrating Technology into the English Language Arts Classroom, as well as prior scholarship on digitally mediated communication, rhetorical studies and composition, assessment, and digital literacies, this theoretical article presents a framework for creating and assessing digital multimodal compositions. The Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition conceptualizes digital multimodal composing through three interconnected and layered domains: audience, mode and meaning, and originality. Though the three domains are defined individually, they are inextricably linked within the recursive processes and products of digital multimodal composing to contribute to intended meaning. The authors describe and justify the domains, present assessment considerations, and conclude with implications for practice and suggestions for designing assessments relevant to context and task.
Research: “Writing is so much more than just writing in English”: Teacher Candidates Taking Up Translanguaging in a Teacher-as-Writer Experience
Authors: Machado Emily , Gonzales Grace Cornell
Published: June 2023

Teacher-as-writer experiences, in which teacher candidates engage deeply in their own writing and consider its implications for their pedagogies, are common features of writing methods courses. However, most existing research on these assignments has focused on the experiences of educators who write and will teach exclusively in English. We explore the experiences of bilingual teacher candidates who engaged in a teacher-as-writer assignment in our writing methods course, which we redesigned through the lens of translanguaging pedagogies (García et al., 2016). Drawing on theories of translanguaging (García, 2009) and raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015), we describe how two teacher candidates experienced invitations to compose across languages in ways that were simultaneously empowering and complicated. Ultimately, through this article, we seek to bring needed recognition of linguistic and racial diversity to discussions of teacher-as-writer experiences and to highlight the pedagogical potential of translanguaging in writing teacher education.
(Re)Active Praxis: A Year’s Long Journey into the 2021 English Language Arts Teacher Preparation Standards
Authors: George Marshall A. , Pasternak Donna L. , Goering Christian Z.
Published: June 2023

In this article, the three co-chairs of the 2019–2021 Steering Committee for the English Language Arts (ELA) 7–12 Preparation Standards share the history, development, and meaning of the recently adopted 2021 NCTE Standards for the Initial Preparation of Teachers of English Language Arts 7–12 (Initial Licensure).
Research: “Can Someone Please Say Something?”: Avoiding Chaos in a Virtual Environment
Authors: Moran Clarice M. , Marlatt Rick
Published: June 2023

This study investigated the experiences of preservice secondary English language arts (ELA) teacher candidates (n=12) as they attempted to complete their crucial student teaching field experience during the 2020–2021 pandemic crises. In addition, it looked at their university supervisors’ (n=3) experiences as they sought to mentor and guide the teacher candidates through a virtual environment. Findings indicated both positive and negative consequences for participants. Overall, the student teachers and university supervisors remained optimistic about the internship experience and found value in it. Yet the complexities of schedules, digital platforms, and expectations took a heavy toll with one student dropping out and another deciding to go to law school after finishing their education degree. Implications for supporting student teachers and mentors in virtual environments are included, along with recommendations for future research on promoting the cultivation of digital pedagogy in ELA preservice coursework.
Research: Connections Matter: Building Engagement in Online Learning Spaces
Authors: Turner Kristen Hawley , Brannon Ivelisse Ramos
Published: June 2023

This article documents the yearlong inquiry of a high school English teacher in New York City who participated in a networked professional learning community (PLC) of English educators exploring the question, “How do we engage students in remote and hybrid learning situations in the current sociopolitical context?” Forced to teach remotely, the teacher focused on building connections among her students, using their feedback as a primary tool to design and improve responsive instruction. Through participation in the PLC and feedback from her students, the teacher learned important lessons from others, with others, on behalf of her students, and about her own processes of learning and thinking. This teacher’s journey offers several lessons for teacher education, grounded in the influences of ecology and affective interactions on student engagement.
(Re)Active Praxis: Humanizing Online English Teacher Education through Critical Digital Pedagogy
Authors: Garcia Merideth , Piotrowski Amy
Published: June 2023

As English teacher educators who research and experiment with digital literacies in the classroom, we felt prepared for many of the pedagogical and technical aspects of the shift to emergency remote teaching. However, the realities of teaching and learning in a society under widespread, long-term stress illuminated the necessity of addressing the social and emotional toll of the pandemic in our teaching as well.
Research: Reading The Serpent King to Connect to Students’ Lives and Experiences in Rural Contexts
Authors: Boyd Ashley S. , Darragh Janine J.
Published: June 2023

In this article, the authors describe a qualitative case study of one secondary teacher and her ninth-grade students in the rural Northwest reading Jeff Zentner’s novel The Serpent King. This work is situated in the recently developed theory of Critical Rural English Pedagogy which highlights the import of devoting attention to the unique aspects of rural life as well as having students critique and analyze related representations. Researchers collected the focal teachers’ lesson plans, activities, handouts, and student work and observed class discussion seminars once per week. They also conducted three semi-structured interviews with the teacher and engaged in weekly informal conversations with her. Through open and thematic coding, they discerned how the teacher constructed a culturally affirming and rich unit that honored her students’ lives and allowed them a space for validation and storytelling. Implications for pre- and inservice teachers are shared, including this illustration as a model for Critical Rural English Pedagogy, a group often missing from this scholarship.
(Re)Active Praxis: The Crop of Fall 2020: Rural Anxieties and Preservice Identities
Authors: Spanke Jeff
Published: June 2023

This reflective piece draws on the author’s experiences of simultaneously teaching a college-level young adult literature seminar alongside an upper-level methods course on teaching literature in the secondary schools. While this was not his first time teaching the two courses during the same semester, what makes this particular experience unique was that he taught both courses face-to-face in the midst of a global pandemic. Additionally, his midsized, Midwestern university’s largely rural, first-generation student population responded to the complex chaos of 2020 in culturally specific and pedagogically profound ways.
(Re)Active Praxis: Valuing Linguistic Diversity: Transforming the Teaching of Grammar for Rural Preservice Secondary English Teachers
Authors: Cook Leslie S.
Published: June 2023

This essay examines how I reconfigured a required applied grammar course taken by preservice teachers at the university where I teach. Because a significant number of the preservice teachers I work with come from and will teach in rural areas in the southern Appalachian region, the course redesign aimed to increase their confidence in their own language abilities and prepare them for the linguistic diversity they will find in their future classrooms. Drawing on research by linguists, especially Black English scholars, and using a combination of systemic functional linguistics and linguistic pragmatics, I explore how and why I transformed a traditionally taught grammar course to one that values linguistic plurality.
Research: ELA Teachers and Whiteness: Hesitancy as Barrier to Teacher Agency Development
Authors: Cook Mike P.
Published: June 2023

This study examines ways preservice teachers transfer their developing agentive identities—specifically around race/ism, inequity, and whiteness—from the teacher education context to secondary English language arts classrooms, as well as barriers preventing that transfer. This inquiry utilized qualitative case study methods to conduct in-depth analysis of six ELA preservice teachers’ written reflections, class discussions, and student-instructor conferences. While the preservice teachers showed evidence of developing “theoretical agency” in the teacher education context, they often struggled to maintain their agentive poses within secondary ELA contexts. Their struggles manifest as hesitancy connected to their awareness of and navigation of their own whiteness. Findings suggest preservice teachers need opportunities to interrogate whiteness through curricula and structural inequities and to engage in agency development across a variety of contexts.
(Re)Active Praxis: Disrupting Segregated Knowledge Flows: Reflections from an Evolving Abolitionist
Authors: Marsh Valerie Lieberman
Published: June 2023

Amid a time of social protest against systemic racism, the author recalls an experience of her own racism as a white literacy researcher and ELA educator. She acknowledges and describes her racism as both a means to redesign teaching practice and an invitation to other ELA educators to allow the discomfort that can come with reflection. Drawing on Bettina Love’s articulation of abolitionist teaching, as well as scholars in critical English pedagogy and critical literacies, the author focuses on the problem of segregated knowledge flows and shares ways in which she is disrupting this systematic tendency.
Research: High Fidelity: Factors Affecting Preservice ELA Teachers’ Commitment to Antiracist Literature Instruction
Authors: Sarigianides Sophia Tatiana , Borsheim-Black Carlin
Published: June 2023

As the U.S. grapples with a racial reckoning, teacher educators need to know what education programs can do to send preservice teachers into the field committed to engage in antiracist teaching and confident that they can do it well. This semester-long, bi-institutional qualitative study of preservice teachers in two white-dominant methods courses for the preparation of English teachers examines the research question: What factors contribute to preservice teachers’ commitment to teaching about racism in the context of literature study? Defining commitment as a combination of intention and demonstrated ability to enact antiracism in future antiracist teaching through Love’s concept of abolitionist teaching, as well as Kant’s conception of a categorical imperative, this study identified four factors affecting participants’ commitment to antiracism: 1) knowledge about race and racism; 2) the role of participants’ racial identity in doing antiracist English teaching; 3) experience with antiracist pedagogies; and 4) field-based experiences tied to race. Implications from the study focus on the need to connect teachers’ racial identity understandings to discipline-based teaching; modeling discipline-centered antiracist pedagogies; and helping candidates to racialize field experiences as part of their preparation.
Research: Learning to Teach Writing by Becoming a Writer: An Examination of Preservice Teachers’ Engagement with the Writing Process
Authors: David Ann D. , Grote-Garcia Stephanie , Trout Inci Yilmazli , Hall Susan , Harding Letitia
Published: June 2023

Finding ways to develop preservice teachers (PSTs) as both writers and teachers of writing can be a heavy lift for teacher education programs. This article presents a portion of the data from a larger study undertaken as longitudinal, formative design research. Data were gathered from 410 PSTs over a three-year period across four courses in teacher education and English language arts at a private liberal arts university in a southwestern state. Two research questions guided the study: (1) How do preservice teachers engage in practices grounded in process discourse in the context of their teacher education courses?; and (2) How do preservice teachers’ beliefs about their writing self-efficacy change during a semester of engaging in writing with a focus on process discourse? Key findings of the study included PSTs engaging in prewriting activities (e.g., reading, researching) but engaging less in writing while preparing to write (e.g., quicklist, webs). Furthermore, the PSTs utilized peers in revising writing but did not visit those with the most knowledge and skill in supporting writing (e.g., professor, writing center). Finally, PSTs’ confidence in their writing, which was higher at the start of courses than previous research often indicates, decreased across their time in the courses.
Research: “I want them to see writing as a joyful thing to do”: Noticing Texts as Equity-Oriented English Education
Authors: Neville Mary L.
Published: June 2023

In this article, I consider how pre- and inservice educators notice texts they enjoy in their daily lived experiences and how this positioning may support an attention to equity-oriented English education. I focus on texts that educators working in professional roles, ranging from literacy coaches to elementary and secondary ELA teachers to administrators, notice in their daily experiences. Drawing on a curricular assignment in a writing pedagogy course, I consider how educators relate the texts they find interesting to their own understanding of equity-oriented writing instruction. I examine for how teachers consider the texts of their lives and how such attentiveness might help them build humanizing, equity-oriented curriculum with and for students. I also seek to disrupt the overwhelming emphasis on writing as what is needed to pass a standardized assessment. This alignment toward enjoyment may support English educators as they, in turn, support and view students and their languages and literacies as worthy and brilliant.
Research: Exploring Trends in a Growing Field: A Content Analysis of Young Adult Literature Scholarly Book Publications 2000–2020
Authors: Suico Terri , Donovan Sarah J. , Boyd Ashley , Hill Crag , Bickmore Steven , Unsicker-Durham Shelly
Published: June 2023

To understand trends in what seems to be an explosion of books written about young adult literature (YAL), the authors conducted a content analysis of scholarly books published between 2000 and 2020. The question What trends in YAL research and pedagogy do the books published in this span of time reflect? guided this inquiry to support English teacher educators in their engagement with YAL scholarship within and beyond teacher preparation. After examining 191 books, with the majority of them focusing on research and theory in YAL, findings emerged in five areas: critical events in society, shifts in public education, literacy movements, publishing trends, and scholarly community influence.
Emphasizing the Sensuous: Writing for a Richer Life
Authors: Brannon April
Published: June 2023

The author advocates for increased attention to sensory-based writing, arguing that increased awareness of the sensuous leads to a richer life. A writing exercise for each of the five senses is included.
Finding Value in the Process: Student Empowerment through Self-Assessment
Authors: Warrington Amber , Graeber Lauren , White Holland , Saxton John
Published: June 2023

Four English language arts teachers formed an inquiry group to design approaches to writing assessment that would support and foster student writers’ agency, empowerment, and freedom.
Making Room for the Writers: Creating Time and Space for Secondary School Writing
Authors: Buckley-Marudas Mary Frances (Molly)
Published: June 2023

This article focuses on how adolescent writers took up an invitation to write and share a piece of work in school that wasn’t tied to a grade. Students’ responses to this invitation are examined in an effort to revise some of the typical approaches to teaching writing.
Comics, Collage, and Other Things with Crayons: The Power of Composing with Image
Authors: Thomsen Jessi
Published: June 2023

This article examines the power of composing images as students construct identities and shape their own worlds. It illustrates student empowerment through agency, intellectual engagement, and community investment and suggests that composing with images forms a bridge back to alphabetic-centric composing.
More Than Words: Student Writers Realizing Possibilities through Spoken Word Poetry
Authors: Woodard Rebecca , Coppola Rick
Published: June 2023

This article illustrates an enactment of culturally sustaining writing pedagogy through composing, performing, and responding to spoken word poetry.
Maximizing the Heuristic Potential of the Enthymeme
Authors: Shank Ben Roth
Published: June 2023

This article explores how Aristotle’s enthymeme can serve as an effective prewriting tool for literary analysis in the high school classroom. By foregrounding audience and purpose, the enthymeme clarifies for students their necessary content and options for organizing their ideas.
Teaching Revision as an Act of Voice and Agency
Authors: Mazura Christopher , Rapant Jacqueline , Sawyer Mary
Published: June 2023

Revision is arguably the heart of the writing process, but teachers and students may sidestep the complexities in favor of the quick finish. By surfacing the classroom ecologies and practices involved in supporting student writers, the authors discover revision as a site for the development of agency.
“The first essay I’d like to show you …”: 1:1 DV for Writing Assessment and Reflection
Authors: Narter David
Published: June 2023

This article explains the many advantages of Digital Video (DV) Assessments, student DV portfolios, and student DV introductions. It provides a pedagogical and humanitarian rationale for such practices and offers some unexpected results, such as unique and improved teacher-to-student rapport.
Fostering a New Approach to Vocabulary, 30 Years in the Making
Authors: Ford Robert D. , Lee Megan E.
Published: June 2023

Two school leaders and ELA teachers share the process through which they convinced their department to abandon the vocabulary workbooks they had been using for more than 30 years, the collaborative process through which they fostered a new approach, and the initial results of its implementation.
Global Leaders’ Views on the Teaching of Writing
Authors: Lacina Jan
Published: June 2023

Leaders have the opportunity to inspire, to motivate, and to make a positive difference in the lives of teachers and adolescents. This article focuses on international literacy leaders and their views of the teaching of writing.
Erase the Space: Short Distance Writing Exchanges and Public Discourse in the High School English Classroom
Authors: Burtch Derek
Published: June 2023

The polarization in American culture illustrated in deteriorating public discourse has been front and center since the 2016 election season, but these tensions have been brewing longer. Writing exchanges between different schools can be part of the solution to the problems facing students.
Reducing Fear with Recitations: Improving Public Speaking through Poetry
Authors: Hanna Jennie L.
Published: June 2023

While the value and importance of helping adolescents learn the art of public speaking is clear, it can be a difficult subject to teach. This article shows how public speaking skills can be interwoven with poetry analysis by participating in the Poetry Out Loud program.
English Learners (ELs) Have Stories to Tell: Digital Storytelling as a Venue to Bring Justice to Life
Authors: Castañeda Martha , Shen Xiang , Claros-Berlioz Esther
Published: June 2023

This article discusses digital storytelling as a coalitional literacy practice as a venue for learners, including English learners (ELs), to learn from each other’s stories rooted in social injustices.
Using Genius Hour to Change What We Do with What We Know
Authors: Coke Pamela K.
Published: June 2023

The author asks, “Where can we, as English language arts teachers, create room in our classrooms for curiosity— for students and for ourselves?” She outlines ways to use Genius Hour to help create an equitable, level classroom with access and ownership for all.
Writing toward Democracy: Scaffolding Civic Engagement with Historically Marginalized Students
Authors: Ehst E. Suzanne , Caskey Lewis
Published: June 2023

This article describes the implementation of a persuasive writing unit with mostly Latinx students in a “focused track” at a Midwestern high school. The authors scaffold not only writing skills but also the experience of engaging policy issues and power structures.
What Language Communicates: Surfacing Language Ideology with High School Students
Authors: Limlamai Naitnaphit
Published: June 2023

This article describes how the author would teach a unit about gender and language with an increased knowledge of ideology about language.
On Second Thought: Teaching for Social Justice through Sports Culture
Authors: Rodesile Luke , Premont David
Published: June 2023

This article presents one teacher’s effort to reflect and reconsider a missed opportunity to teach for critical literacy and promote social justice through the exploration of racist nicknames, mascots, and logos in sports culture.
Decolonizing ELA: Confronting Privilege and Oppression in Textual Spaces
Authors: Sinclair Meredith N.
Published: June 2023

This article uses Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper as the core of a unit challenging students and teachers to confront and dismantle systems of oppression.
Striving toward Woke English Teaching and Learning
Authors: Storm Scott , Rainey Emily C.
Published: June 2023

The authors offer an illustration of a pedagogical routine designed to support students’ critical consciousness and literacy learning through the collective examination of shared texts.
Pedagogies of Radical Hope: Funds of Identity and the Practice of Literacy in New Arrival Programs
Authors: Lamping Sally , Mcclelland Bronwen
Published: June 2023

After teaching together in a program for adolescent newcomers in South Australia, Sally Lamping and Bronwen McClelland continued their conversations about developing programs for English language learners that inspire “radical hope.”
Lights, Camera, Courage: Authentic Assessment and Multimodal Composition
Authors: Robinson Bradley
Published: June 2023

Working in a predominantly white high school in the rural South, Bradley Robinson offered his seniors a documentary-style film assignment that stirred controversy in the school community and transformed his identity as a teacher.
More than a “Lather, Wash, Rinse, Repeat” Education
Authors: Pastore-Capuana Kristen
Published: June 2023

Returning as a researcher to the high school where she taught for twelve years, Kristen Pastore-Capuana observed a tenth-grade teacher who believes in a “messy” classroom where students explore uncharted terrain.
Finding a Way to Stay: Making a Path for Sustainable Teaching
Authors: Burns Kelly , Moyer Emily Richards , O’Donnell-Allen Cindy , Robbins Molly
Published: June 2023

Four National Writing Project teachers reflected on the nagging exhaustion they witnessed in their ELA colleagues and responded by developing a theory of change that they call “sustainable teaching.”
“I Don’t Know What to Write”: Para-expertise and Student Writing
Authors: Williams Amy D.
Published: June 2023

Amy D. Williams examined the journal entries of a student who thought of herself as a struggling writer to look for evidence of the student’s para expertise—important knowledge gained through lived experience that may be difficult for students and their teachers to articulate.
A Playful Approach to Teaching Visual Literacy
Authors: Walsh-Moorman Elizabeth
Published: June 2023

After participating in a provocative summer workshop on Visual Thinking Strategies at the Cleveland Museum of Art, literacy specialist Elizabeth Walsh-Moorman felt inspired to develop a day-long professional learning experience at the museum for twelve of her colleagues.
Journeys Inward: Soundings
Authors: Woerner Brian
Published: June 2023

Brian Woerner questions his teaching of the essay and maps a journey for himself and his students beyond the bounds of formula, to a place of possibilities.
Creating School Work that Students Value
Authors: Duggan Timothy J.
Published: June 2023

As he reflected on a significant artifact from his own eighth-grade year, Timothy J. Duggan contemplated the importance of offering assignments that make students feel invested and proud.
Whose Ghost Is It, Anyway? Teaching Shakespeare Using Primary Documents
Authors: Steelman Sheridan
Published: June 2023

Studying historical artifacts from the sixteenth century as they read Hamlet, Sheridan Steelman’s juniors made compelling connections to the characters and plot.