Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today

Reviews / Votes

At a time when we need to actively recruit, fully prepare, and then continue to support novice English teachers, Hallman, Pastore-Capuana, and Pasternak have assembled an urgent and essential volume. The contributors present critical perspectives and rich dialogue around topics such as culturally sustaining pedagogies, technology integration, and handling the day-to-day stresses of classroom life. As an occasion for rethinking their methods courses-as well as the design of student teaching experiences-English educators can use this book to examine the social, emotional, and intellectual demands placed on our teacher candidates, and how we can respond to those challenges with empathy, tenacity, and hope. -- Dr. Troy Hicks, professor of English & Education, Central Michigan University, author, Crafting Digital Writing (2013) & Because Digital Writing Matters (2010) As teacher candidates work their way toward a license and a career, they each strive to define a viable persona. The methods class can support or inhibit this effort, especially when the methods class operates within institutional constraints that can seem counter to the goals of the course. The many contributors to Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today explore the intentions, efforts, and tensions common to the methods class. The essays in this collection, and the responses to them, reveal the complexities involved in using the methods class to foster a keen sense of professional identity that ultimately advances the cognitive, social, and emotional development of learners. -- Thomas M. McCann Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today: Exploring Identity and Professionalization is a critical contribution to the field of English education today, as it is grounded in robust research and theory with immediately practical applications to consider. Written by researchers in the field who possess decades of experience working with preservice and inservice ELA teachers, each chapter offers teacher educators and their methods students a critical space to examine, problem-solve, and navigate the myriad possibilities, potential challenges, and current changes in English education so that all students have equitable opportunities to succeed in the classroom and their communities. As a collection, this powerful work offers a valuable mosaic of much needed professional advice for the field and provides the promise of hope and growth in authentic ways. -- Nicole Sieben, Assistant Professor, Secondary English Education, SUNY College at Old West