When Princesses Become Dragons

In this article we offer curricular suggestions for teaching Elana K. Arnold’s young adult title Damsel, a subverted fairytale rewrite, using a critical literacy framework. In doing so, we outline how English curriculum has often upheld oppressive systems that harm women, and how our teaching can challenge such systems. We situate this work through the retelling of a fairytale trope given the ubiquity of such stories in secondary students’ lives. Our writings have teaching implications for both secondary English language arts classrooms and higher education fields such as English, folklore, mythology, and gender studies. We end by noting the limitations of such teaching.

Moving Beyond Interpretive Monism: A Disciplinary Heuristic to Bridge Literary Theory and Literacy Theory

In this essay, authors Todd Reynolds, Leslie S. Rush, Jodi P. Lampi, and Jodi Patrick Holschuh provide a disciplinary heuristic that bridges literary and literacy theories. The secondary English language arts (ELA) classroom is situated at the intersection between literary theory and literacy theory, where too often literary theory does not include pedagogical practices and literacy theory does not take disciplinary differences into account. Reynolds and coauthors propose an English Language Arts heuristic for disciplinary literacy to guide teachers toward embracing student-led interpretations. They explore the connections among the Common Core State Standards, New Criticism, and the ELA classroom and focus on the prevalence of interpretive monism, which is the belief that only one interpretation is appropriate for students when reading a literary text. The essay explicates a heuristic for ELA literacy that centers on students actively creating interpretations of and transforming literary texts. By embracing this heuristic, the authors assert, teachers can focus on student-led interpretations of literary texts and thus empower their students.

Social-Emotional Learning in Secondary ELA Classrooms

The author discusses the use of social-emotional learning practices, specifically Conscious Discipline and the RULER approach, in a secondary English language arts classroom. Also discussed are the implications and positive results that can come from an educator implementing practices that enable students to develop emotional literacy, executive functioning skills, and self-regulation. Educators can help to create environments that support social-emotional learning and cultivate positive relationships among students and with the teacher, which provide students the confidence and skills to be resilient, innovative learners. The author also provides some structures and activities for embedding social and emotional practices within academic curriculum and instruction.

What Now?

This descriptive case study centers the experiences of 12 preservice secondary English Language Arts (ELAR) teachers in their final two years of study as they navigate changing school environments in light of COVID-19 restrictions. The preservice teachers discuss successes and challenges with regard to their preparedness to teaching in online or hybrid modalities, their struggles to build learner engagement with social distancing restrictions within the classroom and some students who never log into class live, and similar struggles with intentional relationship building. From these emergent themes, the authors make recommendations on praxis for pre- and inservice teachers, teacher educators, and teacher education programs.

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

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?

Pearls, Groves, and Texts

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.

Working Toward a Socially Just Future in the ELA Methods Class

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.

Teachers as agents of change : how knowledge gained from secondary English language arts professional development impacts classroom practices

Gathering information about how secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers use pedagogical content knowledge gained from professional development (PD) to change their classroom practices in one Midwest Missouri school district has the potential to change how future ELA PD is delivered. The researcher examined teachers' perceptions through 21 individual interviews and a focus group as well as district archival surveys administered after three ELA content PD days during the 2017-18 school year. Participants shared their thoughts on effective elements of PD, how teachers implement classroom change and how those changes influence student learning, as well as how teachers know they are growing. This research is qualitative in nature utilizing purposeful sampling, open coding, and an hermeneutic method to identify themes and interpret responses. Data discovered the use of teacher experts, time for collaboration, and participating in reflective practices as the most important elements in gaining new knowledge and impacting classroom practices.