Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today

Exploring Identity and Professionalization

Edited by Heidi L. Hallman; Kristen Pastore-Capuana and Donna L. Pasternak

This book focuses on English teacher educators’ experiences concerning professionalization and teacher identity. The term professionalization, itself, can be problematized (Popkewitz, 1994), as it connotes adherence to realities to professional norms that are based within particular histories. Yet, teacher educators must confront how to mentor prospective teachers into the field and how changes to the field manifest changes to what it means to be a professional.

In research about changes in English teacher education over the past twenty years, Pasternak, Caughlan, Hallman, Renzi and Rush (2017) presented five distinct foci of ELA programs that have evolved: 1) changes to field experiences within teacher education programs, 2) altered conceptions of teaching literature and literacy within the context of ELA, 3) increased adherence to standardization, 4) changing demographics of students in K-12 classrooms, and 5) increased expectations for use of technology within ELA. These foci impact how professionals in ELA are viewed both from inside and outside the profession and how they navigate these tensions in teacher education programs to define what it means to identify as an English teacher.

Throughout the book, chapter authors articulate dilemmas that focus around professionalization and teacher identity, questioning what it means to be an English teacher today. While some chapters suggest methods for increased awareness of tensions within practice, other chapters approach professionalization and teacher identity by asking what the limits of methods classes and teacher education might be in preparing ELA teachers and supporting them to remain in the profession.

Today’s political environment devalues teachers and teaching, a situation that has critics deriding the educational standards at institutes of higher education while concurrently lauding alternative programs that do not have to adhere to the same rigorous teacher certification requirements. English teacher educators are now being asked to design programs, soften requirements, and recruit and mentor teacher candidates to a profession that, in the past, certified more new English teachers than it could employ. The chapters in this book explore what it means to educate and be an English teacher educator under these conditions.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 206 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4758-4536-5 • Hardback • May 2019 • $87.00 • (£67.00)

978-1-4758-4545-7 • Paperback • May 2019 • $44.00 • (£35.00)

978-1-4758-4546-4 • eBook • May 2019 • $41.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Education / Teacher Training & Certification, Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / Language Arts, Education / Secondary / Language Arts

Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today

Exploring Identity and Professionalization

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

This book focuses on English teacher educators’ experiences concerning professionalization and teacher identity. The term professionalization, itself, can be problematized (Popkewitz, 1994), as it connotes adherence to realities to professional norms that are based within particular histories. Yet, teacher educators must confront how to mentor prospective teachers into the field and how changes to the field manifest changes to what it means to be a professional.

In research about changes in English teacher education over the past twenty years, Pasternak, Caughlan, Hallman, Renzi and Rush (2017) presented five distinct foci of ELA programs that have evolved: 1) changes to field experiences within teacher education programs, 2) altered conceptions of teaching literature and literacy within the context of ELA, 3) increased adherence to standardization, 4) changing demographics of students in K-12 classrooms, and 5) increased expectations for use of technology within ELA. These foci impact how professionals in ELA are viewed both from inside and outside the profession and how they navigate these tensions in teacher education programs to define what it means to identify as an English teacher.

Throughout the book, chapter authors articulate dilemmas that focus around professionalization and teacher identity, questioning what it means to be an English teacher today. While some chapters suggest methods for increased awareness of tensions within practice, other chapters approach professionalization and teacher identity by asking what the limits of methods classes and teacher education might be in preparing ELA teachers and supporting them to remain in the profession.

Today’s political environment devalues teachers and teaching, a situation that has critics deriding the educational standards at institutes of higher education while concurrently lauding alternative programs that do not have to adhere to the same rigorous teacher certification requirements. English teacher educators are now being asked to design programs, soften requirements, and recruit and mentor teacher candidates to a profession that, in the past, certified more new English teachers than it could employ. The chapters in this book explore what it means to educate and be an English teacher educator under these conditions.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 206 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4758-4536-5 • Hardback • May 2019 • $87.00 • (£67.00)

978-1-4758-4545-7 • Paperback • May 2019 • $44.00 • (£35.00)

978-1-4758-4546-4 • eBook • May 2019 • $41.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Education / Teacher Training & Certification, Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / Language Arts, Education / Secondary / Language Arts

Author

Heidi L. Hallman, Ph.D., is Professor of English Education in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on how prospective teachers are prepared to teach in diverse school contexts.

Kristen Pastore-Capuana, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of English Education in the English Department at Buffalo State College. She is the Assistant Director of the Western New York Network of English Teachers (WNYNET).

Donna L. Pasternak, Ph.D., is Professor of English Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She directs the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Writing Project.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Editors’ Introduction

Heidi L. Hallman, Kristen Pastore-Capuana, and Donna L. Pasternak

Section I: English Language Arts Teachers’ Professional Roles and Identities

Chapter 1: Engaging Preservice Teachers in Productive Struggle Through Antideficit English Education

Amber Warrington and Michelle Fowler-Amato

A Response to Chapter 1

Melinda J. McBee Orzulak

Chapter 2: ‘It’s Just Not What I Thought It Would Be:’ Novice Teachers Navigating Tensions in Identity

Katharine Covino

A Response to Chapter 2

Amber Warrington and Michelle Fowler-Amato

Chapter 3: The Potential of Problematic Practice: Educating Teachers for the Secondary ELA Classroom

Melanie Shoffner

A Response to Chapter 3

Brandon Sams and Mike Cook

Section II: External Pressures on Teachers’ Professionalization

Chapter 4: Writing Problems and Promises in Standardized Teacher Performance Assessment

Sarah Hochstetler and Melinda J. McBee Orzulak

A Response to Chapter 4

Connor K. Warner

Chapter 5: Changing English: Technology and its Impact on the Teaching of English Education

Donna L. Pasternak

A Response to Chapter 5

Julie Bell

Chapter 6: ‘We Need to Go Next Door and Talk about Our Lessons’: One State’s Context and Collaboration around Standards-Based Reform

Lara Searcy and Christian Z. Goering

A Response to Chapter 6

Jessica Gallo

Chapter 7: Making Video Recording and Reflection Meaningful for English Teacher Candidates

Julie Bell

A Response to Chapter 7

Christian Z. Goering and Seth D. French

Section III: Beyond English Language Arts: Challenges to our Profession

Chapter 8: More than left, right, up, down: Teaching Tensions in Non-ELA Literacy Methods Courses

Jeff Spanke and Chea Parton

A Response to Chapter 8

Melanie Shoffner

Chapter 9: Learning from Interns Who Leave the Profession: Emotional Labor and the Limits of the Methods Course

Brandon Sams and Mike Cook

A Response to Chapter 9

Jeremy Glazer

Chapter 10: Training for the Unsustainable: The Need to Consider Attrition in ELA Teacher Preparation

Jeremy Glazer

A Response to Chapter 10

Jeff Spanke

About the Editors

About the Contributors

Index

Reviews

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