NCTE eBooks
NCTE Books Program
For more than eighty-five years, the NCTE Books Program has published resources for teachers’ professional development at every level, elementary through college.
NCTE books focus on current issues and problems in teaching, research findings and their application to classrooms, ideas for teaching all aspects of English, and other topics. Purchases through this site are for ebooks only. To purchase print copies of NCTE books, visit the NCTE Store.
Rhetorics of Overcoming
Rewriting Narratives of Disability and Accessibility in Writing Studies
Rhetorics of Overcoming addresses the in/accessibility of writing classroom and writing center practices for disabled and nondisabled student writers exploring how rhetorics of overcoming—the idea that disabled students must overcome their disabilities in order to be successful—manifest in writing studies scholarship and practices.
Allison Harper Hitt argues that rewriting rhetorics of overcoming as narratives of “coming over” is one way to overcome ableist pedagogical standards. Whereas rhetorics of overcoming rely on medical-model processes of diagnosis disclosure cure and overcoming for individual students coming over involves valuing disability and difference and challenging systemic issues of physical and pedagogical inaccessibility.
Hitt calls for developing understandings of disability and difference that move beyond accommodation models in which students are diagnosed and remediated instead working collaboratively—with instructors administrators consultants and students themselves—to craft multimodal universally designed writing pedagogies that meet students’ access needs.
About the CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) Series:
In this series the methods of studies vary from the critical to historical to linguistic to ethnographic and their authors draw on work in various fields that inform composition—including rhetoric communication education discourse analysis psychology cultural studies and literature. Their focuses are similarly diverse—ranging from individual writers and teachers to classrooms and communities and curricula to analyses of the social political and material contexts of writing and its teaching.
Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth is an autoethnography and cultural rhetorics case study that examines white supremacy in the author’s hometown of Grand Saline Texas a community long marred by its racist culture.
James Chase Sanchez investigates the rhetoric of white supremacy by exploring three unique rhetorical processes―identity construction storytelling and silencing―as they relate to an umbrella act: the rhetoric of preservation.
Sanchez argues that we need to better understand the productions of white supremacy as a complex rhetorical act and that in order to create a more well-rounded view of cultural rhetorics as a subfield we need more analyses of the way cultures of the oppressor survive and thrive.
About the CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) Series:
In this series the methods of studies vary from the critical to historical to linguistic to ethnographic and their authors draw on work in various fields that inform composition—including rhetoric communication education discourse analysis psychology cultural studies and literature. Their focuses are similarly diverse—ranging from individual writers and teachers to classrooms and communities and curricula to analyses of the social political and material contexts of writing and its teaching.
Say Yes to Pears
Sonic Literacy
Discover how to harness the transformative potential of audio by diving into the tools theories and materials you need to bring audio into your classroom.
Why Sound Matters
- Engage Students: Sound can powerfully engage students who are auditory learners and help those who are not develop their auditory processing skills.
- Empower Voices: Students can find their unique voices by listening to a diversity of voices across different sound genres.
- Enhance Literacy Skills: In a modern multimodal world students must learn to extract meaning not only from written and visual text but from audio content as well.
- Research-Backed Guidance: Learn the theory and science behind the power of sound in education.
- Practical Advice: Get actionable tips for designing assignments that utilize sound effectively.
- Classroom-Ready Materials: Access ready-to-use materials for a variety of sound text genres such as speeches podcasts audio dramas sound poetry and audio memoirs all conveniently included via QR codes.
Speak for Yourself
Susanne Rubenstein shows how to focus on voice in the teaching of writing to help students take ownership of their work enjoy what they’re writing and produce writing that shows depth of thought and originality of expression.
As writing instruction becomes more standardized and structured student voices grow silent. Speak for Yourself: Writing with Voice places a new emphasis on voice in the teaching of writing. Armed with the philosophy and concrete teaching ideas offered in this book teachers can find the courage to speak up in order to create writing classrooms where students take ownership of their work enjoy what they’re writing and produce writing that shows depth of thought and originality of expression. This book acknowledges the pressures English teachers face in today’s educational climate but challenges teachers to rally their expertise and enthusiasm so that student writers develop voice and speak for themselves.
Special Issues, Volume 1: Critical Media Literacy
Edited by Tom Liam Lynch this collection of essays drawn from NCTE’s many journals provides an excellent starting point for teachers who want to bring critical media literacy into their K-12 and college classrooms.
Critical media literacy is not a single star burning brightly in the night sky. It is more like a constellation a collection of stars that tell a story about how educators engage with young people through an array of communicative modes in the spirit of inquiry society and action.
About the Special Issue series:
Most teachers and students across the country are grappling with several important issues. We hear from many educators who are looking for compelling and engaging approaches racial literacy critical media literacy and trauma-informed teaching.
NCTE is responding to these needs with Special Issues a series of books designed to directly address these pressing topics in K-12 and college classrooms today. The first volumes collect content on these topics from across all of NCTE’s journals in one place to make the most relevant material accessible and practical.
Edited by expert practitioners in the field each volume contains teaching tips to help implement these approaches in classrooms.
Special Issues, Volume 1: Racial Literacy
Implications for Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Policy
Edited by Detra Price-Dennis this first volume of Special Issues: Racial Literacy gathers some of the most compelling and practical recent articles across NCTE journals addressing the importance of racial literacy and its implications for curriculum pedagogy and policy.
There’s a great deal of uncertainty discord and increased volatility across a number of critical institutions in our society. Each day on social media and TV news outlets we read listen to and/or watch events unfold that are linked to political economic health legal and educational inequities that can be traced to racist ideologies and practices. Public schools across the country are being subjected to pending state legislation and new laws that seek to limit how race—among other markers of identity—can be taught in K–12 classrooms.
Editor Detra Price-Dennis has curated this collection to show how teaching from a racial literacy perspective is in conversation with antiracist culturally responsive equity-oriented frameworks that uplift curriculum design and instructional strategies. These articles can help educators (re)imagine the classroom as a space that supports the development of racial literacy skills and practices with their students.
About the Special Issue series:
Most teachers and students across the country are grappling with several important issues. We hear from many educators who are looking for compelling and engaging approaches racial literacy critical media literacy and trauma-informed teaching.
NCTE is responding to these needs with Special Issues a series of books designed to directly address these pressing topics in K-12 and college classrooms today. The first volumes collect content on these topics from across all of NCTE’s journals in one place to make the most relevant material accessible and practical.
Edited by expert practitioners in the field each volume contains teaching tips to help implement these approaches in classrooms.
Special Issues, Volume 1: Trauma-Informed Teaching
This first volume of Special Issues: Trauma-Informed Teaching gathers some of the most compelling and practical recent articles across NCTE journals addressing the importance of trauma-informed teaching and its recent developments in the field.
We live in a time that requires attention to trauma. Educators and students are learning how to move forward in this precarious time which in many ways has amplified preexisting health racial economic and educational inequalities. The pandemic has shaped us in ways we have yet to understand fully but we know we must adapt and heal together. It is imperative that K-College educators not only consider trauma-informed teaching but also healing-centered teaching practices. As we think through ways to support the most harmed people in our teaching and learning communities we will move closer to a more equitable and just healing-centered profession.
Editor Sakeena Everett has curated this collection to show how to help K-College teachers integrate the most up-to-date approaches to trauma-informed teaching into their classroom environments. In this volume you will find valuable insights diverse perspectives innovative and exciting pedagogies as well as thought-provoking research methodologies that engage micro- and macro-level supports you need to get started today.
About the Special Issue series:
Most teachers and students across the country are grappling with several important issues. We hear from many educators who are looking for compelling and engaging approaches racial literacy critical media literacy and trauma-informed teaching.
NCTE is responding to these needs with Special Issues a series of books designed to directly address these pressing topics in K-12 and college classrooms today. The first volumes collect content on these topics from across all of NCTE’s journals in one place to make the most relevant material accessible and practical.
Edited by expert practitioners in the field each volume contains teaching tips to help implement these approaches in classrooms.
Special Issues, Volume 2: Critical Media Literacy
Bringing Critical Media Literacy into ELA Classrooms
During a time of increased book banning and censoring of scrutiny of the word critical and even calls for surveillance of K–12 teachers the burgeoning field of critical media literacy is more important than ever. These new challenges demonstrate the importance of teaching media literacy to address some of the most pressing needs of our youth. This second volume devoted to critical media literacy picks up where the first volume left off as it continues the work of defining this important area of focus and looks for practical and innovative ways to bring these important topics into ELA classrooms. Editors William Kist and Mary T. Christel have curated and edited a wide range of original essays by leading educators in the field focusing on pedagogical directions of critical media literacy integrating it into reading writing and interdisciplinary instruction and new ways of teaching about and with media.
Special Issues, Volume 2: Racial Literacy
Special Issues, Volume 2: Trauma-Informed Teaching
Sustainable WAC
A Whole Systems Approach to Launching and Developing Writing Across the Curriculum Programs
Winner of the 2021 Association for Writing Across the Curriculum/WAC Clearinghouse award for Best WAC Monograph
A 2008 survey of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs found that nearly half of those identified in a 1987 survey no longer existed twenty years later pointing to a need for an approach to WAC administration that leads to programs that persist over time. In Sustainable WAC current or former WAC program directors Michelle Cox Jeffrey R. Galin and Dan Melzer introduce a theoretical framework for WAC program development that takes into account the diverse contexts of today's institutions of higher education aids WAC program directors in thinking strategically as they develop programs and integrates a focus on program sustainability.
Informed by theories that illuminate transformative change within systems—complexity systems social network resilience and sustainable development theories—and illustrated with vignettes by WAC directors across the country this book lays out principles strategies and tactics to help WAC program directors launch relaunch or reinvigorate programs within the complicated systems of today’s colleges and universities. Acknowledging that every WAC program grows out of a specific institutional context and grassroots movement this book is a must-read for everyone currently involved in a WAC program or interested in exploring the possibility of one at their college or university.
Teach Living Poets
Teach Living Poets opens up the flourishing world of contemporary poetry to secondary teachers.
It is designed to give advice on reading contemporary poetry discovering new poets and inviting living poets into the classroom as well as sharing sample lessons writing prompts and ways to become an engaged member of a professional learning community.
The #TeachLivingPoets approach which has grown out of the vibrant movement and community founded by high school teacher Melissa Alter Smith and been codeveloped with poet and scholar Lindsay Illich offers rich opportunities for students to improve critical reading and writing opportunities for self-expression and social-emotional learning and perhaps the most desirable outcome the opportunity to fall in love with language and discover (or renew) their love of reading. The many poems included in Teach Living Poets are representative of the diverse poets writing today.
Teaching Composition at the Two-Year College
Volume 2
This sequel to Teaching Composition at the Two-Year College (2016) provides busy two-year college literacy instructors with key up-to-date professional readings focusing on important issues that have emerged since the first book was published.
Most of the sixty-three selections were previously published in scholarly journals and books including Teaching English in the Two-Year College and College English. Additional essays by current and recently graduated two-year college students give on-the-ground insight while introductions to the individual sections by the volume editors and others provide valuable context for the variety of articles.
Featured sections in this collection include
- Practical Advice from Students to Two-Year College Teachers
- Working Conditions for Teachers Are Learning Conditions for Students
- Hiring Diverse Faculty and Staff
- Students’ Right to Their Own Language
- Grading and Assessment
- Developmental Education Reform
- Working with Diverse Students
Teaching Literacy Online
Recipient of the 2025 Divergent Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research Publication
Teaching Literacy Online (TLO) is a practical guide for secondary and college teachers of English in digital and online environments. Like other practical “how to teach online” books TLO includes an overview of good practices and guidelines for teaching in digital environments and provides detailed suggestions and samples. The suggestions portion of the book focuses on applying the online teaching guidelines to literacy educators who are concerned about teaching literacies through
• digital organization;
• engagement with materials;
• analysis and synthesis of information; and
• the production of texts in a multitude of media and modalities.
By focusing on the engagement analysis and production of texts TLO puts literacy pedagogy as the driving force when making decisions about how to teach online and/or with various digital applications.
Teaching Macbeth
A Differentiated Approach
Teaching Phonics in Context
Text and Tech
Reading All Ways in K–8
This book champions a YES AND approach: YES to the power of print books interactive read-alouds and time-honored literacy practices AND yes to digital texts multimodal storytelling and open-ended creative tools that amplify thinking and understanding. When students have access to both traditional and digital resources we expand their agency increase engagement and empower them to develop a rich adaptable literacy skillset.
Through the lens of a diverse group of educators and the expertise of longtime teacher and consultant Kristin Ziemke you’ll discover how to create a balanced student-centered literacy environment where traditional texts and digital tools work together to enhance comprehension communication and critical thinking. Get ready to reimagine literacy for today’s learners—and tomorrow’s world.
The Hands of God at Work
Drawing from ethnographic data collected in Indonesia from 2009 to 2022 this book explores how an English-medium Indonesian PhD program in interreligious studies and three Muslim scholar-activists activate knowledge where languages intersect a process mediated by material circumstances within Indonesia and voices past present and future that both are audience to and transcend the traditional geographic and discursive borders associated with them.
As they negotiate translingually to make meaning at the borderlands where seemingly discrete discourses intersect they challenge false divides between rationality and spirituality; between the mind and body; between female agency and Islam; and between English and non-Western meaning-making. By exploring how these scholar-activists engage in translingual praxis to move knowledge from the discursive plane to the material plane and back again to effect social justice across multiple and intersecting languages audiences and contexts this book opens up new ways of understanding translingual negotiation where feminist scholarly activism and Islamic belief intersect. CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric
The Impacts of Censorship
Research on the Intersection of Censorship and Teaching English
This volume the first of two shares original research on the upsurge of censorship that has overtaken the English language arts classroom beginning in 2020. The articles in this volume feature research that examines censorship from a variety of angles and provide insight into:
- A national survey of English teachers that found that while a minority of teachers experienced direct censorship a vast majority of teachers are concerned about potential censorship and make book selections based on that well-founded fear.
- Research based on interviews with middle-school teachers about their book selections which found that while most feel well-prepared to select high-quality children’s literature they also feel constrained in their choices by both internal and external forces.
- Open-ended survey responses and storytelling to examine how teachers “worked around” restrictive curricular policies specific to the 1619 Project.
- The intersection of restrictive state legislation and policies the reasons for book challenges and the rhetoric around critical race theory and diversity equity and inclusion using critical policy analysis.
- Actions steps and policy strategies that teachers and administrators can use to prepare for and respond to book challenges.