A national study of English teacher preparation in U.S. colleges and universities revealed that faculty address changes in content and context salient to English education particularly curricular demographic political and technological changes through initiatives at both the program and methods course levels. Programs require many hours of field placements and high numbers of credit hours in the subject area and in subject-specific methods and also distribute the responsibility for addressing institutional and pedagogical change across courses. Methods courses raise awareness of focal issues and allow opportunities for preservice teachers to discuss these issues. However opportunities are scarcer for applying knowledge by putting it into practice. This article discusses tensions in English education as they relate to conceptual coherence at the program and course levels as well as tensions between what we call awareness versus application.

This article explores the potential of using multimodal texts—particularly comics—as a way of engaging teacher education students in critical inquiry around literacy and ELA assessments. We describe a qualitative study into the use of a multimodal comics-form article within an ELA/literacy assessment course in an MEd program. Our findings suggest that teacher preparation students were able to effectively remix and play with both comics tropes and more traditional “academic” writerly discourses. The use of multimodal texts in teacher preparation helped students engage in dialogic and critical forms of inquiry around issues related to classroom practices and policies. We end by suggesting ways that English teacher educators can include similar texts and activities in their courses and teacher preparation programs.

In this article I argue that English educators must interrogate acts of physical and linguistic violence against Black and Latinx youth and take them into consideration when shaping curricula. English teachers can provide a space for youth to make sense of their racialized experiences. I highlight the marginal treatment of Black and Latinx languages in English classrooms and show the relationship between the racialized physical violence against Black and Latinx communities and the linguistic violence many Black and Latinx youth face in English classrooms. I then present examples of emerging solidarity movements between Black and Latinx activists and communities and illustrate how this renewed sense of solidarity can be leveraged to incite transformative learning experiences. I conclude with recommendations for how a language of solidarity framework can take place in all English classrooms.

Pedagogies of healing and critical media literacy are important especially in the wake of racial violence when mainstream media work to stigmatize characterize and marginalize Black youth by projecting them as dangerous Others. In this article we offer an overview of how mainstream media reinscribe and reinforce white supremacy which leads to anti-blackness. Next we discuss the impact that uncritical consumption of mainstream media narratives of Black people has on media consumers and how Black youth use social media as counter spaces. We then theorize about pedagogies of healing and critical media literacy as tools to encourage Black youth to investigate dismantle and rewrite the damaging narratives. We conclude with sample lesson plans and a discussion of how English educators have a responsibility to use our discipline to transform our world and raise awareness of the crisis of racial injustice.

Fifty years ago in 1966 the Anglo-American Seminar on the Teaching of English later known as the Dartmouth Conference brought together English educators from three nations—the United States England and Canada—to discuss the future of the school subject of English. The Dartmouth Conference is now considered to be a watershed moment in the teaching of English. In this article three English educators from three generations reflect on the meaning and significance of the Dartmouth Conference.

Tracking and other practices of homogeneously grouping students by so-called ability level remain a norm in American classrooms despite decades of research highlighting how they disserve and even harm student learning. Heterogeneous grouping by contrast benefits struggling learners a conclusion supported by a substantial body of research. Some of that research cautions however that these benefits may be perceived as coming at the expense of higher-performing classmates’ learning. This article reviews the literature contemporary case studies and the author’s personal experience to argue for and provide specific models of a heterogeneous English language arts (ELA) classroom. These models use deliberate practices of differentiated instruction to serve learners at all ability levels and furthermore do so in a manner that integrates the possibility for students to earn “honors” credit. The article argues that ELA is perhaps the ideal discipline in which to enact such structural shifts creating heterogeneous classrooms that work to the advantage of all learners.

This provocation is a personal essay of creative nonfiction. Playing with form the piece offers three scenes separated by a series of multiple-choice questions; readers must use this standardized-test format to create meaning and understand the text itself the nature of today’s high-stakes tests the story’s characters and the essence of teaching. While the names of the students and one staff member have been changed to protect their privacy the events are true to the author’s experience.

Teacher educators literacy scholars and classroom teachers are beginning to develop curricula that leverage digital literacy practices and make visible what elementary students are learning across modalities. Although this body of work provides valuable examples (e.g. digital storytelling innovative uses of digital apps and platforms creating podcasts and integration of tablets) of twentyfirst-century literacies in action little is known about how these curricular choices support Black girls as they navigate digital spaces. In this article I employ a Black girls’ literacies framework to better understand how classroom teachers can design curriculum with layered opportunities for Black girls to develop critical literacy practices in digital spaces. This framework makes visible how digital tools can (1) highlight technological capabilities (2) promote exploration of social issues (3) promote agency and confidence with digital literacies and (4) showcase learning across modalities as Black girls navigate their multiple political/critical historical intellectual collaborative and identity-laden literacies.

Despite the largely degrading media representations of Blackness historically Black girls and women have been strong activists disrupting narratives the media conveys about Black girl- and womanhood. Centering Black girls’ lived experience through critical media literacy can give them the opportunity to develop the language to identify deconstruct and problematize the complexity of power operating in media and negotiate visibility by counternarrating racist sexist and classist media narratives with authentic stories of Black girlhood. This article centralizes Black girls in media literacy by articulating the aims of the individual and collective endeavors of the Black Girls’ Literacies Collective (BGLC). The author unpacks critical media literacy for classroom teachers and shares practical ways to employ media literacy for youth social activism to alter the educational landscape to effect change.

In this Provocateur Piece the authors featured in the themed issue re-create a virtual kitchen table talk where they dialogue across their respective work as English teacher educators and scholars who foreground Black feminist/womanist epistemologies in their personal social and professional lives. They discuss what it means to be Black women mothers sisters and daughters who do work with Black girls in K–12 educational settings and Black women in teacher education. Why is it critical that all educators acknowledge Black girls’ literacies in their work? How are Black girls’ literacies honored in our work? What does it mean for us as Black women educators to do this work? How does it enrich our lives? What are the challenges? The piece ends with an open letter to Black girls as an affirming call for their reclaiming and redefining of their literate selves.

This Provocateur Piece recounts the story of Francis from teacher preparation to her decision to exit the profession after five years. I seek to provide a space for English educators to step back and think about how we prepare and support ELA teachers. Francis was prepared and able to celebrate the diversity of her students and her classrooms were spaces of equity and respect. And yet she is leaving the profession. Why? What can we do to keep this from happening?

Some of Kent Williamson’s friends and colleagues share remembrances of Kent.

In this companion to George Hillocks’s final article two of his students explore the “territory of literature” he maps out for teachers. We examine three claims George stakes in his territory:First teachers and students should understand literature as a source of argument about moral and philosophical concepts; second a sophisticated understanding of literature demands a set of explicit typologies that students can follow; and third students need a systematic way of identifying and interpreting the effects of literary devices and rhetoric. Then we look beyond George’s article to consider additional sources and critical approaches to teaching through concepts typologies and a rhetoric of literature. As members of the next generation of “Hillocksian” English educators we argue that George’s territory can be open land home to many literary traditions and visions.

This piece is a satirical look at the stultifying state of the English classroom in an age of over-testing. Bishop the eponymous new student at Henry Ford High School attempts to make sense of his classroom where students prepare for the next in a parade of tests that will measure their creativity. In this dystopia writing has been completely codified distilled to a series of formulae mechanisms and flow charts that purport to deliver writers to proficiency. Layered with themes of power politics and dehumanization the piece endeavors to caricature the folly of over-measurement while providing catharsis to those whose real-life classrooms are all too similar to the one depicted. The piece is followed by an actual missive the author received from his union representative after this piece had been accepted that demonstrates how fact isn’t far from fiction: life indeed imitates art.

The ethnic racial and cultural backgrounds of students in PreK–12 US schools are becoming increasingly diverse. However the teacher candidates (TCs) populating teacher education programs are overall not representative of this student diversity. To encourage the TCs enrolled in an undergraduate English education program to better understand the diverse communities in which they would teach I developed and incorporated a Community Inquiry Project into their required coursework. As students completed the assignments associated with the project they reflected on their experiences. An analysis of the reflections of three participants demonstrates how contact with the people and places of the community influenced their understandings of the community itself as well as of themselves as future teachers. This work draws from critical multiculturalism and contact theory to demonstrate how contact with community members during teacher education coursework can encourage TCs to name and question their own assumptions about others as they cultivate a more contextualized and diverse understanding of students.

In their first editorial new editors Tara Star Johnson and sj Miller discuss their scholarly backgrounds and their plans for the journal which include a call for work demonstrating diverse perspectives and multidisciplinary approaches.

In this our final editorial we reflect back on the goals outlined in our first editorial (October 2010) and what we accomplished in the past five years.Our vision for English Education was “to continue the solid reputation for both excellence and collegiality that has been built over the last four decades” (p. 6). We hope that you the reader feel we were successful in meeting this vision.

This article details the results of a survey project that seeks to understand the factors that influence teachers’ decisions about instructional texts in the English classroom. The survey delivered to 339 teachers in a western state where the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted asked teachers to identify influential factors in these decisions to discuss challenges they face in selecting texts and to speculate about the possible influence of the CCSS on these decisions. The results indicate that teachers attempt to make careful decisions about texts weighing curricular factors as well as student needs and interests. However teachers make these decisions in complicated contexts where resources are tight and practices such as whole-class novel study make these decisions difficult to make well. These results suggest that teacher educators evaluate traditional practices such as the whole-class novel to improve educational practice in English classrooms.

In this thought-provoking piece Muhammad articulates the development of a literacy collaborative for African American adolescent girls with an eye toward replicating practices adopted by the Female Literary Association of Philadelphia and other similar societies established in the mid-1800s. Muhammad outlines the features of the literacy collaborative and presents the benefits it evoked for participants including the reading of mentor texts freedom to write openly without censorship and uninterrupted writing time.

This article details the results of a survey project that seeks to understand the factors that influence teachers’ decisions about instructional texts in the English classroom. The survey delivered to 339 teachers in a western state where the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted asked teachers to identify influential factors in these decisions to discuss challenges they face in selecting texts and to speculate about the possible influence of the CCSS on these decisions. The results indicate that teachers attempt to make careful decisions about texts weighing curricular factors as well as student needs and interests. However teachers make these decisions in complicated contexts where resources are tight and practices such as whole-class novel study make these decisions difficult to make well. These results suggest that teacher educators evaluate traditional practices such as the whole-class novel to improve educational practice in English classrooms.

This article discusses the published work and career of James Moffett (1929–96) focusing in particular on Kanawha County West Virginia in the 1970s when his innovative textbook series—Interaction after adoption by the county was opposed by local and national conservative activists. The series was ultimately dropped by the district following a highly publicized protracted and at-times violent conflict after which other districts around the country followed suit shutting down the series. The article examines Moffett’s response to the censorship battle explores his later interestin spirituality and literacy and considers the implications of his work and his career trajectory for the teaching of English today.

University teacher education programs are the “foremost settings for learning how to teach” (Smagorinsky et al. 2003). Yet how to prepare preservice teachers to teach writing has received little attention from literacy researchers. Despite research reviews for reading teacher research currently one does not exist for writing teacher education. This article attempts to address this gap by presenting a 20-year literature review (1990–2010) of peer-reviewed studies focused on preparing preservice teachers to teach writing.

In this qualitative study we examined preservice teachers’ articulations of what it meant to teach literacy in urban settings and the roles that we as university instructors played in their understandings of the terms urban literacy and teacher. We framed the study within extant studies of teacher education and research on metaphors. Data indicated that the participants metaphorically constructed literacy as an object that could be passed from teacher to student and that was often missing hidden or buried in urban settings. Implications of the study suggest that faculty members are one factor among several important influences in preservice teachers becoming professionals and the metaphors faculty use in teaching preservice teachers deserve careful consideration.

The editors look back on their editorship of EE and introduce the current issue.

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.

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.

Authors Roark Mulligan and Kay Dawson describe a project in which preservice teachers worked in primary grade classrooms focusing on mentoring young children in writing. In spite of the authors’ initial fears that preservice teachers would find these experiences irrelevant the authors found that the preservice teachers “witnessed a rapidity of development that could not be observed on any other grade level.”

This article offers both a rationale and a proposal for the meaningful contribution of English faculty to the preparation of English teachers. We draw on data from teacher licensure tests and interviews with English and English Education faculty to underscore contradictions among the various voices in English education and to identify ways of bringing English faculty more meaningfully into the conversation. While analysis of our quantitative data suggests correlations between Praxis II exams and other measures of candidates’ content knowledge and skills analysis of interview transcripts and course documents reveals clear differences. We conclude with recommendations for involving English faculty in teacher preparation to balance out the contradictory and dominant voices in English education.

Recent research and theoretical work on whiteness in teaching highlights reific monolithic discourses that position white teachers as deficient resistant naive and ignorant. I seek to complicate similar reductive portrayals through a two-year case of one high school teacher’s racial identities and subjectivities in and beyond the English classroom. Drawing on post-structural performance theories of identity and subjectivity I pinpoint the material and sociopolitical forces that constrainthe white teaching body and reorient attention to the power of people in daily motion: subverting making themselves known in multiple ways always and already becoming. This performative perspective may provide productive lenses for white teachers in antiracist higher education who support teachers living and working in white skin.

The editors introduce the content of this issue.

This article describes an adolescent’s development of multiliterate and multilingual writing practices and identities. It further explores how a literacy teacher enacted a writing pedagogy of multiliteracies that assisted the youth in building writing practices and identities. Data include interviews of the young woman and her teacher classroom observations and literacy artifacts produced and used by the adolescent. These data are analyzed using theories of identity positioning communities of practice and multiliteracies. Findings include that the youth developed her writing practices and identities over time and across multiple contexts of multiliterate and multilingual practices. Within and across these communities the dimensions of apprenticeship positioning and recruitment of multiliterate and multilingual repertoires were essential to the youth’s development of writing practices and identities. These dimensions were also central to the literacy teacher’s enactment of a writing pedagogy of multiliteracies. The article asserts that attending to the processes through which young people develop their multiliterate and multilingual repertoires and identities can assist educators in creating supportive literacy environments for youth. It offers recommendations for literacy scholars and educators in this regard.

This article extends the conversation on English education as preparation for democratic participation. The author journeys through a cycle of action research analyzing one classroom case study to improve her practice of curricular negotiation in a methods of teaching writing course.

Editors Leslie Rush and Lisa Scherff along with graduate student Christine Maddox Martorana discuss issues related to text selection and introduce the articles in this issue.