“Know Who They Have in Front of Their Eyes”: A Justice as Praxis Paradigm for Teaching and Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-107
Author(s):  
Sakeena Everett
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Race Ethnicity

Inequitable access to learning opportunities has intersectional consequences for Black students in general and gifted education. Equally important, all students (regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic class, and grade-level), more often than not, lack invaluable opportunities to learn about the innumerable contributions of students and families of color in the United States and worldwide. To address these injustices, Ladson-Billings advocated for a shift from “justice as theory toward justice as praxis.” In this article, I unpack the components of justice as praxis work, and I discuss how I engaged in this work in my secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. I address the following questions: What does it mean “to be seen” from the perspective of a Black male academically high-achieving student? What is needed for teachers to adopt a justice as praxis paradigm to improve their teaching and learning with students who have not been well served in public schools?

Working Toward a Socially Just Future in the ELA Methods Class

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Fowler-Amato ◽  
Kira LeeKeenan ◽  
Amber Warrington ◽  
Brady Lee Nash ◽  
Randi Beth Brady
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
The Past ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Made In

This review of literature highlights the efforts teacher educators and researchers have made over the past 18 years to work toward social justice in secondary English language arts (ELA) preservice teacher (PT) education. Drawing on Dantley and Green’s framework for social justice leadership, we highlight the work that teacher educators have engaged in to support secondary ELA PTs in developing (a) indignation/anger for justice through exploring beliefs about students and themselves, (b) a prophetic and historical imagination through broadening understandings about teaching and learning, and (c) accountability to students and communities through university-to-classroom transitions. We close this article by drawing on this framework to honor what we, as a field, have accomplished while acknowledging the efforts that still need to be made in working toward justice in secondary ELA PT education and, ultimately, in the schools and communities in which our PTs teach.

It’s All about Personal Connections

2012 ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Luke Rodesiler ◽  
Lauren Tripp
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
English Language ◽  
Networked Learning ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Personal Connections ◽  
Arts Teachers

Given the potential of informal online learning via social networks for supporting the career-long professional growth of in-service teachers, research must be conducted to better understand the ways in which today’s future teachers are being prepared for and experiencing such practice. This chapter presents the authors’ efforts to move in that direction, a qualitative study describing six pre-service secondary English language arts teachers’ perceptions of self-directed networked learning during a teaching internship. Findings suggest that participants perceived networked learning as a viable and valuable approach to supplementing professional growth despite also perceiving challenges in the form of context, identity, and time.

The Promise of Anonymity: An Investigation of the Practices of ELA Teachers Facilitating Discourse about LGBTq Topics

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (12) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Sarah Schneider Kavanagh
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Instructional Practice ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Lgbtq Students

Background/Context As states and districts have begun adopting texts inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, debates about how LGBTQ issues should be represented in the curricular canon have emerged. While existing research investigates curricular questions that are arising as a result of LGBTQ curricular inclusion, scholarship has been slow to address the instructional questions presented by the introduction of inclusive curricula. Purpose This study explored how seven secondary English Language Arts teachers facilitated student engagement with LGBTQ-related topics. Analysis of data on teachers’ instructional practice and related decision-making sought to (a) determine what instructional dilemmas arose for teachers as they taught LGBTQ-inclusive content and (b) analyze the instructional decisions that teachers made to address these dilemmas. Participants Participants in this study were seven secondary English Language Arts teachers who (a) held strong reputations in their professional communities for supporting LGBTQ students and (b) had strong intentions to support LGBTQ students through LGBTQ curricular inclusion, reducing student prejudice, and advocating for and with LGBTQ students. Research Design This comparative case study was embedded in a larger qualitative study that investigated the instructional practice of LGBTQ-supportive teachers. This article reports on findings from an analysis of all data from this project that pertained to how teachers engaged students when teaching LGBTQ content. Data was collected over a six-month period and includes 22 teacher interviews, 28 observations of classroom instruction, 70 teacher log entries, and 25 teacher questionnaires. Findings/Results Analysis showed that participants felt a tension between a desire to make LGBTQ identity visible and a desire to offer LGBTQ students privacy. Participants employed two different approaches to navigating the visibility–privacy tension. Some created parallel engagement strategies for students, some public and some private, while others simultaneously allowed for privacy and visibility through the use of anonymity. Conclusions/Recommendations As conceptions of diversity expand to include sexual diversity, this study has implications for teacher preparation and professional development aimed at supporting teachers to attend to the unique needs of LGBTQ students within instructional practice.

Locating and Loving the Personal

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Suzanne Knight
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Language Arts Methods ◽  
Connected Knowing ◽  
Discrete Moments

In this chapter the author takes up the use of narrative inquiry within a secondary English language arts methods course. She focuses on two discrete moments that took place during one class session, where she and her students shared and discussed personal narratives. In particular, she explores the pedagogy that might be required to support a group of pre-service teachers’ work to become a connected knowing group, including the disruptive nature of vulnerability and risk taking.

Pearls, Groves, and Texts

2020 ◽  
pp. 259-271
Author(s):  
Allison Wynhoff Olsen
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Teaching Context ◽  
Teaching Content ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Personal Skills

This chapter situates secondary English language arts teachers as those who engage in a complex web of teaching people, teaching content, and examining the world. As such, ELA teachers must “place” their discipline in order to reach their students and be relevant to their teaching context. Reflecting on her experiences from nine years of teaching ELA in rural Minnesota, the author illustrates key moments that helped her understand the significance of teaching ELA “in place” as well as how it requires a blend of professional and personal skills beyond teacher preparations.

Preparing Pre-Service Secondary English Language Arts Teachers to Support Literacy Learning with Interactive Online Technologies

2013 ◽  
pp. 318-334
Author(s):  
Luke Rodesiler ◽  
Barbara G. Pace
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literacy Learning ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Literacy Events ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Arts Teachers

In this chapter, the authors present the framework and methods they employ to integrate online learning opportunities into an English teacher education program at a large, public university in the southeastern United States. The authors focus on their efforts to extend pre-service secondary English language arts teachers’ understandings of what constitutes literacy and what counts as text in the secondary English language arts classroom in a blended technology- and media literacy-focused methods course, a required component of a three-semester English Education Master’s degree program. Specifically, the authors document the ways they nudge pre-service teachers to consider the kinds of literacy events they might design and the types of literacy practices they might promote to support literacy learning with interactive online technologies and popular media in English language arts classrooms.

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