English Education - Volume 46, Issue 3, 2014

This article addresses the importance of foregrounding social justice in teaching and assessing dispositions for preservice teachers in secondary English language arts. We provide a historical overview of dispositions and their politicization, and we address NCATE’s removal of social justice and its impending return. We conclude with possibilities for assessing dispositions for social justice and reflections on the implications for accreditation and consider what might be in store for the future of dispositions in English education.

This article explores Foucault’s counterintuitive views on intellectuals and activism through conceptual arguments, teacher inquiry, and qualitative data to create space to consider alternative approaches to political action in teacher education. After contrasting CEE’s political action agenda with Foucault’s critical project, I outline my early attempts to put Foucault’s ideas to work in a master’s level curriculum course. I then explore the case of two English teachers who attributed their professional renewal and local activism to moments of the course that were influenced by Foucault’s genealogies.

This article is a critical reflection in which I address epistemological and institutional collisions in beliefs and praxis that I’ve experienced as an instructor of English methods courses in Michigan State University’s secondary teacher preparation program.