Multiple ELA teacher educators share assignments created for their ELA methods courses that intentionally connect to the development of critical agentic active ethical reflective and socially just ELA teachers a specific objective of methods coursework addressed in the ELATE position statement Beliefs about Methods Courses and Field Experiences in English Education.

This article examines the need to implement practical methods for helping teacher candidates in English language arts develop effective dispositions. The author suggests that candidates compose proleptic autobiographies—a form of discourse that describes an envisioned future as if it has occurred in the past—as a way to articulate the professional identities and dispositions to which they aspire. Citing examples from proleptic autobiographies composed by preservice teachers the author discusses emergent dispositions and the benefits they may yield including increased pedagogical creativity enhanced knowledge and skills and greater retention among early-career teachers.

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 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.

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.

This study explores a practice-based approach to learning to facilitate dialogically oriented textbased discussions. Through an exploration of rehearsals of discussion facilitation in a summer professional development program we identify two types of framing for coaching moments: ones that attend to generalities of discussion and ones that attend to novelty in discussion. We find that attention to generalities helps develop teachers’ efficiency in facilitation while attention to novelty helps develop an ability to innovate in response to students’ contributions. We consider how English teacher educators might balance a focus on efficiency with a focus on innovation in light of the value of adaptive expertise supporting teachers’ implementation of dialogic discussions.