Working Toward a Socially Just Future in the ELA Methods Class

Abstract

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.

In 2014, Pasternak, Caughlan, Hallman, Renzi, and Rush published a literature review in Review of Education titled “Teaching English Language Arts Methods in the United States” in which they posed the question, “What is the state of the English education methods course in the 21st century?” Interested in understanding how teaching and learning in the English methods course had shifted since Smagorinsky and Whiting’s (1995) national study that explored syllabi used across the 1992 to 1993 academic year, Pasternak et al. (2014) reviewed the literature in Research in the Teaching of English, English Education, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Journal of Literacy Research (JLR), and Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, looking specifically at the following areas: preparing to teach literacy skills, integrating field experiences with methods, preparing for work with standards and high-stakes assessments, preparing for linguistic diversity and English language learners, and integrating technology into teaching and learning.

In this article, we build on Pasternak et al.’s (2014) review by revisiting and expanding this body of literature with a focus, instead, on working toward social justice in secondary English language arts (ELA) preservice teacher (PT) education. In doing so, we ask the following research question: How are teacher educators preparing secondary ELA PTs to enact social justice teaching in the ELA class?

The question we bring to this review of literature is one that educators invested in ELA teacher preparation have continued to ask over time. In June 2009, 19 teacher educators participating in the policy summit of the Conference on English Education (CEE; now called ELATE) at Elmhurst College collaborated on a position statement titled “Beliefs About Social Justice in English Education.” Defining social justice as a goal, grounded theory, stance, pedagogy, process, framework for research, and perhaps most important, promise, this group of teacher educators argued,

We ground our work in the belief that English teaching and English teacher preparation are political activities that mediate relationships of power and privilege in social interactions, institutions and meaning-making processes. Such relationships, we believe, have direct implications for how we achieve equity and access in English classrooms. We feel it impossible to prepare English teachers or to engage in serious English study without meeting these goals. (CEE, 2009)

The efforts of this group culminated in an important policy change. In 2012, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) revisited their standards for initial preparation of ELA teachers, Grades 7 to 12, opting for new accreditation requirements. This included the addition of Standard VI, which called for secondary ELA teacher education programs to demonstrate PTs had “knowledge of how theories and research about social justice, diversity, equity, student identities, and schools as institutions can enhance students’ opportunities to learn in English language arts” (NCTE, 2012). How teachers come to understand theories and research about social justice within methods courses might vary; however, as the CEE (2009) position statement argues, “Social justice to one person might not be social justice to another person.”

We, too, see the value of a “non-prescriptive” (CEE, 2009) approach, inviting teacher educators to implement responsive pedagogy that prepares PTs for the local contexts in which they will teach. We also think it is important to recognize teacher educators’ efforts, since the implementation of the CEE (2009) position statement, to explicitly name the knowledge, dispositions, and practices that could better prepare secondary ELA PTs to “teach all students more fairly and more equitably” (CEE, 2009). This might include a commitment to

• learning with and from students and their communities (e.g., Paris & Ball, 2009);

• expanding what counts as text, genre, language, and literacy practice (e.g., Kirkland, 2010);

• preparing all students to become critical consumers and producers of texts (e.g., Morrell & Scherff, 2015);

• considering how teachers’ cultural positionality affects teaching and learning (e.g., Garcia & O’Donnell-Allen, 2015);

• developing an awareness of inequities within schools and society (e.g., Bieler & Burns, 2017);

• questioning whether or not practices and policies increase or limit access and participation (e.g., Warrington & Fowler-Amato, in press).

We reference this conversation in which scholars invested in English teacher preparation have continued to engage to demonstrate the field’s commitment to supporting PTs in developing social justice teacher identities in ELA methods classes. Although we do not see this list as comprehensive, we draw on it as a means of considering what teacher educators might work toward in methods courses and related field placements.

Similar to the teacher educators whose work is referenced above, Lamar Johnson has actively contributed to the conversation on how to prepare secondary ELA PTs to enact social justice pedagogies. In his 2017 JLR article, “The Racial Hauntings of One Black Male Professor and the Disturbance of the Self(ves): Self-Actualization and Racial Storytelling as Pedagogical Practices,” Johnson argues that the field of English education must “take action to eradicate a system that blocks the chances of creating the impossible—in this case, a more just and equitable world” (p. 499). In his article, Johnson proposes teacher educators consider the possibilities of Dantley and Green’s (2015) framework for social justice leadership, which aims to “hold educational leaders and educational leadership preparation programs accountable to the project of grounding their work in a substantive social justice/civil rights agenda” (p. 822).

We, the authors of this literature review, are a group of teacher educators invested in preparing secondary ELA PTs to recognize and fight the inequities present in the high school ELA classes and communities in which we taught—inequities that are still present today. Four of us identify as White, and one identifies as biracial. Four of us identify as female, and one identifies as male. All of us identify as middle class. We make it a part of our practice to reflect on our own racial, social, cultural, gendered, and other identities and how these identities affect our teaching and research. As stated in the CEE (2009) position statement, “We believe that English education can disrupt . . . inequitable hierarchies of power and privilege,” and we are committed to reflecting on teaching and learning across ELA education to increase access for those who have historically been marginalized in academic spaces and beyond. Like Johnson, we, too, see the relevance of Dantley and Green’s (2015) framework and believe it can be drawn on to better understand how the field has negotiated its promise to work toward social justice in ELA methods classes and related field experiences.

Theoretical Framework

Looking across the research published over the past 18 years in secondary ELA PT education, we use Dantley and Green’s (2015) social justice framework to better understand how the field has actualized its “promise” (CEE, 2009) to work toward social justice in ELA methods classes and related field experiences. Dantley and Green (2015), drawing on Paulo Freire’s (2004) Pedagogy of Indignation, present a “more radical approach to social justice” education that “emanates from a deeply abiding anger over the educational conditions that many of our nation’s underserved children and youth are currently experiencing” (p. 825). This indignation can fuel change, as educators “usurp and disrupt unjust practices in educational institutions” (Dantley & Green, 2015, p. 825). Therefore, the first part of this framework incites educators to enact indignation and anger for social justice, calling on them to recognize inequities and reflect on their own roles in contributing to or countering injustice. In our findings, this aspect of the framework aligns with our focus area of the research on PTs’ beliefs about students and PTs’ roles as teachers.

Part 2 of the framework argues the need to not only embody a historical imagination—recalling past successes while believing in a more just future—but also to embrace a prophetic imagination. Dantley and Green (2015) write, “The prophetic imagination leads to creating an alternative community where politics of justice and compassion replace politics of exploitation and oppression” (pp. 828-829), presenting a call to action that incites transformation. In our findings, this notion of historical and prophetic imagination aligns with our focus area of teacher educators’ work to broaden PTs’ understandings.

Parts 3 and 4 of this framework introduce the idea that preparing teachers for social justice work in schools means holding ourselves accountable to graduates of our programs and the local communities in which we work. Dantley and Green (2015) suggest that this accountability will result in stakeholders’ “grappl[ing] with their purpose and existence” (p. 831), but this consequential discomfort is the only way to ensure our anger and prophetic imagination will reach the communities we serve. In our third and final section of the findings, this aspect of Dantley and Green’s framework draws our attention to the research on transitions between university coursework and school-based fieldwork as one space to consider accountability to students and communities.

Dantley and Green (2015) argue that “The historical imagination is undergirded by a divine frustration or creative tension because it not only foresees teleological promises of the future but it is also cognizant of the past victories. It therefore engenders a dual mobilization within leaders” (p. 828). We use this framework not as a way of excluding articles that fail to report work toward social justice, but as a way to make sense of the literature that does exist, highlighting absences and spaces of promise. In an effort to embrace historical imagination, we delve into “the divine frustration” (p. 828) in our discussion, honoring what the field has accomplished while acknowledging the efforts that still need to be made in working toward justice.

Method

The 48 articles we examined for this review were published across 21 journals between 2000 and 2018; we identified them through an interactive database of peer-reviewed literacy teacher education scholarship called CITE-ITEL (see Maloch and Dávila in 2019 for a description of CITE-ITEL and the article selection process). In our review, we looked specifically at articles that posed questions related to the preparation of secondary ELA teachers in initial licensure programs.

Our research team designed a systematic process for cross-checking articles included in the CITE-ITEL database that responded directly to our research question. We recorded abstracts, level of teacher certification, methodology, research context, research questions, participants, data collected, analytic process, and findings on a shared spreadsheet. As we read each article, we returned to our research question to guide our decisions about which articles to include in our data set. Because secondary ELA PTs develop knowledge, tools, and practices specific to the discipline in ELA methods classes, adolescent literacy classes, and content area literacy classes, we have chosen to include articles that explore secondary ELA teacher learning across all three contexts and related field experiences.

A total of 48 articles met our parameters; across these articles, we engaged in four rounds of analytic coding. In the first round, we engaged in thematic coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The research team then met to discuss and collapse codes based on variations in our own language (e.g., “PTs’ developing agentive identities” and “PTs’ identity” became the category “identity”). This discussion resulted in larger categories such as reading instruction, writing instruction, critical approaches, identity, and competing definitions of ELA curriculum. The group collapsed these larger categories and came to consensus on four potential focus areas: PTs’ developing beliefs and identities, PTs’ responses to new practices, broadening understandings, and transitioning from university to secondary classrooms.

In a second round of coding, we used these focus areas to engage in axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In doing so, the research team noticed the way PTs’ responses to new practices were embedded in the other areas, so we eliminated this focus area. We then reviewed the articles a third time to ensure that each was appropriately categorized and a fourth time to collectively renegotiate what, if any, articles would be eliminated. Ultimately, guided by Dantley and Green’s (2015) framework, we decided to keep all 48 articles because of their focus on learning from past successes while believing in a more just future.

Findings

Responding to the guiding research question—How are teacher educators preparing secondary ELA PTs to enact social justice teaching in the ELA class?—our review of the literature yielded three focus areas: (a) PTs’ developing beliefs about students and themselves, (b) teacher educators’ efforts to broaden understandings, and (c) university-to-classroom transition. The articles included in each focus area are highlighted in Table 1 (in the online, supplemental archive) and explored throughout the findings section of this literature review.

Indignation/Anger for Justice: PTs’ Developing Beliefs About Students and Themselves

To develop anger toward unjust conditions, educators can “deepen their engagement with students and come to see themselves as affecting students’ lives in monumental and substantive ways” (Dantley & Green, 2015, p. 827). In PT education, this involves PTs critically examining assumptions and biases about students and engaging in self-reflection on their own developing identities. The sections below explore nine articles related to secondary ELA PTs’ beliefs about students and their own roles and identities. Although some of these articles showed PTs examining assumptions and engaging in self-reflection with the purpose of teaching for social justice, not all nine articles had that specific purpose or goal.

Beliefs and assumptions about students

Three articles focused on PTs’ beliefs and assumptions about students. PTs in young adult literature courses conceived of adolescence as a problematic stage of life, positioned adolescents from a deficit perspective, as in need of adult intervention, and thought of their roles as counselors, therapists, or sculptors (Petrone & Lewis, 2012). PTs engaging in service learning with homeless youth questioned assumptions about traditional teacher–student binaries and their mentees’ lives (Hallman, 2012). PTs considered how these assumptions affected their work in the classroom and developed new understandings about the roles they might take on when interacting with learners. Similarly, in Vetter, Schieble, and Meacham’s (2018) article, PTs used video analysis to think together about teacher and student identity positions. They reflected on ways labels assigned to students influenced their beliefs about students. Through discursive strategies such as relating, noticing, and naming, PTs reflected on their interactions with and individualized support of students. Vetter et al. (2018) argued understanding these strategies might help teacher educators invite PTs into critical conversations, thinking about teaching and learning at both local and structural levels.

Beliefs about teacher roles and identities

Six articles focused on self-reflection activities that helped make PTs’ teaching identities visible for examination, such as video analysis, reflective journals, and interactions with youth. Schieble, Vetter, and Meacham (2015) presented the case of one PT engaging in discourse analysis of classroom interactions within her own student-teaching video. Analyzing moment-to-moment classroom interactions helped this PT understand “whether and how she enacted her preferred teacher identities (facilitator and advocate)” (p. 245). The PT’s analysis illuminated power structures that challenged her ability to enact her preferred identities and instead control student discussion and facilitate test preparation.

Looking at reflective journals as a means to explore three PTs’ evolving teacher identities, Hinchion (2017) highlighted the role participatory learning played in PTs’ identity formations. Hallman (2007) showed tensions in the ways PTs presented themselves in electronic teaching portfolios. Although PTs wanted to appear competent to professional audiences, they also wanted to present themselves as continually developing and inquiring into their teaching roles, a stance their university professor advocated. The multiple roles and identities PTs demonstrated within their e-portfolios offered opportunities for PTs to interrogate identity shifts across contexts.

Other researchers considered PTs’ self-efficacy as ELA teachers in relation to their experiences in coursework (Filatov & Pill, 2015). Although most teachers expressed confidence in their abilities to affect students’ learning, those who expressed weak self-efficacy emphasized a lack of university preparation as the most important factor in the development of their beliefs. The findings suggested several key factors instilled self-efficacy in ELA teachers: exposure to practical ideas and techniques, building a knowledge base around adolescent literacy, gaining practice through teaching placements, and experiencing successful teaching.

In addition to reflective activities within methods classes, researchers also investigated how fieldwork in “unofficial” school spaces aided PTs’ reflection on their roles and identities as teachers. Hallman and Burdick (2011) looked closely at PTs’ experiences in after-school tutoring programs. The out-of-school context allowed PTs to question traditional teacher identities and disrupt their own mythologies regarding teachers’ roles in relation to students. McGuinn and Naylor (2009) explained how teacher educators supported PTs’ developing teacher identities by facilitating email exchanges with high school students around King Lear. In their online interactions, PTs shifted between different stances in relation to their students, becoming more and less formal, dialogic and dominant, encouraging, and instructive. The online space, subject to fewer habits and traditions for student–teacher interaction, proved to be a flexible location for different types of student–teacher relationships and thus allowed PTs to experiment with different identities.

Historical and Prophetic Visioning: Teacher Educators’ Efforts to Broaden Understandings

Articles included in this focus area highlight teacher educators’ efforts to further develop PTs’ disciplinary understandings, thinking with PTs about the knowledge, tools, and practices that have historically been valued in secondary ELA teacher education and considering how teaching and learning might shift to better prepare all students for active participation in a rapidly changing, pluralistic society.

In total, 23 articles demonstrate the work teacher educators have done to broaden their understandings and the understandings of PTs to ensure these participants developed new perspectives about (a) the teaching of readers; (b) the teaching of writers; (c) equity and inclusion; (d) teaching, learning, and thinking with digital tools; and (e) the act of teaching itself.

Broadening understandings of the teaching of readers

A total of 10 articles focused on teacher educators’ efforts to broaden understandings about the teaching of readers, addressing the roles young adult literature, popular culture narratives, political texts, drama, and poetry might play in the classroom.

Noting PTs’ personal responses to young adult literature, Glenn (2012) found that exploring counter-narratives created opportunities for PTs to develop new understandings about race and privilege as they made connections with characters whose lived experiences differed from their own. Lewis and Petrone (2010) argued PTs saw young adult literature as a transformative tool that might support students in making sense of their understandings about adolescence. PTs also drew on young adult literature as they interacted with adolescent readers within methods courses. For example, as PTs emailed students about Ironman, their confidence grew, and they learned how to differentiate instruction (Stallworth, 2001). In addition, as PTs implemented a critical approach to literacy instruction in response to American Born Chinese, they engaged in conversations with students about race and identity (Schieble, 2011).

Staples’s (2013) article focused on a teacher educator’s invitation to PTs to draw on Chandler’s (2000) gaze framework as they engaged with popular culture narratives, utilizing the language of film techniques to explore who was looking at whom and how this affected the story. In addition to allowing PTs to organize their thoughts in response to a traumatic event, this experience demonstrated the importance of offering “pedagogical care” (Staples, 2013, p. 37) as students made sense of challenging ideas presented in media.

Looking at PTs’ responses to political speeches, Dávila and Barnes (2017) found that PTs expressed a lack of interest and knowledge in politics throughout adolescence. Yet, PTs voiced the importance of learning how to navigate political differences within the classroom. As PTs in Pitfield’s (2011) study engaged with contrasting views about the relationship between drama and ELA, they found value in exploring plays in the ELA class. In addition, they believed the incorporation of drama encouraged creative decision-making and allowed students to further develop communication skills. Although PTs recognized the relevance of incorporating drama into the ELA class, they voiced concern about teaching standards outside of ELA.

By exploring definitions of poetry, analyzing the work of poets, and composing poems in a wiki, PTs developed new pedagogical understandings. Reflecting on their experiences, PTs emphasized the importance of beginning with contemporary poetry, creating a supportive and communal environment and limiting analysis that hindered student access (Hughes & Dymoke, 2011). Similarly, Bruce and Chiu (2015) and Carlson and Archambault (2013) argued that after having opportunities to use digital tools such as VoiceThread and digital video, PTs recognized how these tools increased the relevance of poetry study by encouraging student response.

Broadening understandings of the teaching of writers

Six articles focused on teacher educators’ efforts to support PTs in developing new understandings about writing and teaching writers. While Hochstetler (2007) discussed instructors’ approaches to preparing PTs to teach writers, most articles focused on lessons learned through composing with digital tools.

Two articles demonstrated the potential of wikispaces for collaborative composing. PTs used wikispaces to reflect on their growth, play with form and style, and respond to others’ poetry. However, researchers argued that PTs needed additional support to take advantage of the multimodal affordances of wikispaces (Dymoke & Hughes, 2009; Hughes & Dymoke, 2011). Similarly, after composing with digital video, PTs voiced that such tools could engage student learners while still allowing them to practice the kinds of thinking writers do when drafting and revising print texts (Bruce & Chiu, 2015).

Looking at partnerships formed between PTs and high school students, Barnes (2018) explored ways in which blogging allowed all participants to share their experiences with writing. These conversations taught PTs that high school students’ writing was heavily influenced by rules, guidelines, and timetables provided by teachers. While interacting with PTs, students voiced appreciation for opportunities to write for authentic audiences and purposes. Rush’s (2009) article revealed that PTs developed new understandings about the teaching of writers as they linked theory to practice through multigenre writing. In doing so, PTs recognized that multigenre writing has the potential to increase student agency and engagement as writers communicate knowledge gained through research.

Broadening understandings of equity and inclusion

Five articles described efforts made to increase PTs’ understandings of equity and inclusion. Burley (2003) focused on supporting PTs in developing new understandings about language. As PTs discussed language histories, developed understandings about language acquisition, compared languages, planned lessons for language development, and articulated their developing beliefs, they formed stronger identities as teachers of language and broadened their definition of ELA as a discipline.

Two researchers looked closely at PTs’ interactions with counter-narrative texts. Glenn (2012) discussed how engaging with counter-narrative texts provided PTs with opportunities to challenge assumptions about people of color and consider their own Whiteness. Looking at PTs’ and secondary students’ interactions in a virtual classroom, Schieble (2011) found that while PTs and students discussed race and identity in response to a graphic novel, they continued to position racism as an individual struggle rather than an institutional concern. Skerrett, Warrington, and Adonyi Pruitt (2014) also explored the relationship between race and identity. Looking at PTs’ participation in critical conversations about teaching and learning, the authors described how a PT used blogging to position herself and her peers as racially literate ELA educators. However, this PT’s classmates rejected race as a framework for knowing.

Gort and Glenn’s (2010) article focused on challenges Glenn navigated while revising her methods course to better prepare PTs to meet the needs of students learning English as an additional language. The findings highlighted Glenn’s struggle to balance EL-oriented content and ELA content, to navigate the perceived discomfort in the classroom that grew out of a focus on EL-oriented content, and to acknowledge areas in which she had room to grow.

Broadening understandings of teaching, learning, and thinking with digital tools

Nine articles demonstrated teacher educators’ efforts to introduce digital tools in methods classes, focusing on the use of digital video and digital medium VoiceThread to teach poetry; the role of email, class blogs, wikispaces, and discussion boards to engage in conversation about teaching and learning; and the use of technology, broadly conceived.

Findings highlighted in four of the 9 articles demonstrated that PTs responded positively to the use of digital tools despite noting that they had more to learn about implementation (Bruce & Chiu, 2015; Carlson & Archambault, 2013; Dymoke & Hughes, 2009; Katić, 2008). Exploring digital tools provided PTs with opportunities to extend their thinking (Dymoke & Hughes, 2009; Hughes & Dymoke, 2011), make connections between print and non-print methods of composition (Bruce & Chiu, 2015), and grow as writers and teachers of writers (Barnes, 2018; Dymoke & Hughes, 2009). As PTs practiced using these tools, they built racial perspectives on teaching ELA (Skerrett et al., 2014) and developed new understandings about differentiation (Stallworth, 2001). The discussions PTs engaged in through their use of these tools provided professional support (Barnes, 2018; Nicholson & Bond, 2003) but other times discredited PTs’ prior knowledge and developing understandings around supporting student learners (Skerrett et al., 2014).

Although a number of articles demonstrated that PTs recognized the value of digital tools to support learning, Katić (2008) argued that PTs’ conceptions about the use of technology grew out of their personal experiences, rather than the perspectives presented in their courses. In addition, PTs sometimes failed to embrace the tools’ transformative potential.

Broadening understandings of the act of teaching in ELA classes

Five articles focused on teacher educators’ efforts to broaden PTs’ understandings of teaching strategies. Of these, two addressed teacher educators’ invitations to PTs to consider the roles and responsibilities of ELA teachers. Bach and Weinstein (2014) addressed PTs’ exploration of the reality show and website Teach: Tony Danza, which served as a springboard for conversation about managing classrooms, engaging in course content, forming teacher–student relationships, and assessing understandings. Similarly, Rush’s (2009) study demonstrated PTs reflecting on teaching through multigenre writing. Although PTs were nervous to communicate through creative writing, opportunities to write in a range of genres supported them in making connections between theoretical concepts and their work in classrooms.

Two articles focused on teacher educators’ invitations to PTs to practice and reflect on the skills needed to plan and implement lessons. Looking at a teacher educator’s effort to model scaffolding, Jay (2002) found that while PTs grasped the concept, they struggled to incorporate scaffolding in their planning. Similarly, Bell’s (2007) article demonstrated the challenges of implementing micro-teaching, as PTs viewed micro-teaching as performance rather than an authentic teaching experience.

Teacher educators also invited PTs to link theory to practice through field experiences associated with methods courses. Researchers looked at teacher educators’ efforts to prepare PTs for dialogically organized instruction, which “provides students with frequent opportunities to engage with core disciplinary concepts through sustained, substantive dialogue” (Caughlan, Juzwik, Borsheim-Black, Kelly, & Fine, 2013, p. 212). As PTs employed dialogic teacher discourse, new patterns of interaction were established, increasing student participation.

Accountability to Graduates and Communities: University-to-Classroom Transition

Scholars and teacher educators already know the transition from teacher preparation programs into secondary classrooms is fraught with “competing centers of gravity—settings with conflicting notions of effective practice” (Smagorinsky, Rhym, & Moore, 2013, p. 147). We also know that despite the social justice–oriented pedagogies PTs are often exposed to in teacher preparation programs, when they enter the classroom, PTs are faced with oppositional ideas centered around standardized test preparation, formalist readings of literature, and grammar instruction (Brauer & Clark, 2008). Therefore, in this focus area, we review scholarship from 16 studies that take up the possibilities and challenges embedded within university and K–12 partnerships in an effort to better understand how PTs can enact social justice curriculum. The following focus area is organized around two themes: (a) the enactment of socially just teaching practices in field placements and the first years of teaching and (b) relationships and tensions that result from competing and conflicting traditions of ELA instruction.

Enacting socially just teaching practices

Three articles in this section considered aspects of social justice teaching practices (e.g., appreciative stances, students as designers) and explored the pedagogical understandings PTs enact. Athanases, Wahleithner, and Bennett (2013) explored the relationship between an inquiry-focused university curriculum and 15 PTs’ learning about multilingual students and their writing processes. They found that PTs’ inquiries into students’ writing resulted in more appreciative perspectives of students. Similarly, Jobe and Pope (2002) found that when methods instructors took on an appreciative lens in responding to student writers, PTs were more likely to take this stance during student teaching. In another study, PTs struggled to enact student-led discussions, despite having practiced in their university methods course (Williamson, 2013). Williamson (2013) observed that these “high leverage practices” (p. 34) are difficult to implement and suggested PTs may need explicit instruction around how simulation activities in coursework can transition into secondary classrooms.

Relationships and tensions between university and high school contexts

The articles in this section considered PTs’ teaching and learning when negotiating competing ideologies and frameworks. Each article explored relationships between major stakeholders (e.g., university programs, secondary classrooms, standards-based reforms) involved in the preparation of secondary ELA teachers.

An important partnership in teacher preparation programs is between a mentor—university based or school based—and a PT. Mentoring scholarship reasons that both university and school contexts play critical roles in supporting PTs’ negotiation and disruption of traditional school contexts (Stevens & Lowing, 2008). Street (2004) examined the role of mentoring during PTs’ field experiences and found school-based mentors helped PTs negotiate school contexts (i.e., physical space, teaching practices, conceptual understandings), whereas Bieler (2010) found that university- and school-based mentors also supported PTs as they reflected on and negotiated tensions of practice, allowing them space to act agentively in their own teaching. In order for PTs to develop autonomous reflective practices, mentoring relationships need to allow for PTs “to imagine and rehearse agentive action” (p. 421) in real teaching contexts. Mentoring interactions provide space for praxis and contribute to PTs’ discursive tool kit, ultimately supporting their abilities to engage with competing ideologies around ELA instruction.

Friedman and Wallace (2006) described a unique collaboration between a college of education, a college English department, and a high school ELA department. This collaboration developed from an inquiry into how the university could better prepare PTs to design and enact culturally relevant pedagogy that supported students’ access to literary theory and content. The researchers found that despite the logistical and ideological difficulty of the collaboration, PTs saw benefits in both their learning and teaching, as did mentors, university English professors, and high school faculty.

Most PTs are not learning in spaces like Friedman and Wallace (2006) describe, and the siloing of departments in institutions often causes tension. Eight articles explored these tensions, juxtaposing university methods courses with field placements and postgraduation classrooms. Smagorinsky, Gibson, Moore, Bickmore, and Cook (2004), Smagorinsky, Wilson, and Moore (2011), and Smagorinsky, Wright, Murphy-Augustine, O’Donnell-Allen, and Konopak (2007) found new teachers struggled to enact student-centered, progressive practices within schools, which were oriented toward tradition and testing. Each reported that the high school context had the greatest impact on these teachers’ instructional practices. For example, teachers who asserted beliefs about the importance of student-centered curriculum and pushed against traditional grammar instruction in their student teaching reverted back to traditional worksheets when pressured by schools (Smagorinsky et al., 2007). Similarly, Dunn et al. (2018) found PTs experienced tensions between socially just teaching approaches that gave more agency to students and the external constraints they imagined facing in schools, such as other teachers’ perceptions of “progressive methods” (p. 51) and pressure to teach canonical literature. Other articles reported that even when there was ideological alignment between the preparation program and classroom contexts, the methods PTs drew on most were from their own schooling histories or present contexts. For example, Benko (2016) found that teachers reported utilizing their methods course the least in their teaching, drawing instead on the district-made curriculum and their own schooling experiences.

Bickmore, Smagorinsky, and O’Donnell-Allen (2005) also explored tensions caused by ideological mismatch, illuminating the fragmented ideological traditions within a teacher preparation program. The authors suggest that this fragmentation resulted in PTs’ “trial and error” approach to instruction. Many of these articles focused on tensions caused by conflicting ideologies across institutions, whereas Bickmore et al.’s article illuminated the consequences of a teacher preparation program that was “too diffuse and random to provide the kind of conceptual continuity” that would allow PTs to develop “a strong, consistent vision to guide” (p. 47) their instruction.

Other articles explored tensions around different definitions of ELA education by involving one of the more authoritative “institutions” in education: the standardized test. Hungerford-Kresser and Vetter’s (2017) article discussed the tension between novice teachers’ understandings of what it meant to prepare students for “college and career readiness” and the state-standardized curriculum, which, ironically, were supposed to “conveniently coexist” (p. 416). The teachers felt stymied by high-stakes testing but relied on personal experiences of postsecondary life and a focus on collaboration to create meaningful instruction for students.

Smith, Bowen, and Dohm’s (2014) article also considered ELA ideologies present in standardized tests. The researchers noted disagreement between the Praxis II exam and the curriculum used in a teacher preparation program. Participant interviews demonstrated that this difference was the result of conceptual mismatch between the faculty’s understanding of literacy and the conception of literacy embedded in the test.

Discussion

In their article “The Trouble Is English: Reframing English Studies in Secondary Schools,” Brauer and Clark (2008) acknowledge competing mandates and purposes within the field of English, which can lead to a grab bag of curricular approaches. They challenge teacher educators to make explicit the sociopolitical implications of curriculum design and implementation, stating, “A merely celebratory approach to the diverse manifestations of the discipline may naturalize curricular choices that are never sociopolitically neutral” (p. 294). Although the sociopolitical nature of preparing secondary ELA teachers to enact socially just pedagogies underlies many of the articles included in this literature review, this was not consistent across the literature. We encourage teacher educators to prioritize this aim, working toward social justice, as we ask PTs to reflect on their beliefs about students and themselves, broaden understandings about teaching and learning, and navigate tensions across university and school contexts. Engaging in this work requires modeling and enacting socially just teaching practices in methods classes while thinking with PTs about our reasons for doing so and supporting them in this work as they move from the university to the secondary classroom.

While we recognize the literature does not represent all that is taken up in secondary ELA methods courses, we find ourselves returning to Rude’s (2009) argument that “the identity of any academic field is based in part on the research it conducts” (p. 175). Many articles explored here highlight teacher educators’ invitations to PTs to reflect on, name, shift, and ultimately enact particular beliefs about students and themselves. The research shows PTs recognizing and challenging assumptions about students through critical conversations, reflections on work with youth, and analysis of teaching journals, portfolios, and videos. Although these articles did not demonstrate PTs expressing anger or indignation, the reported experiences have the potential to support PTs in recognizing and disrupting deficit perspectives toward students, becoming aware of ways they are participating in unjust school rituals and practices, and seeing themselves as capable of creating change in their classrooms and communities. Teacher educators and researchers might continue to explore how teachers’ identities as social justice educators develop over time, noting how PTs take up teaching practices aligned with those identities, particularly as they move across sociopolitical contexts. Teacher educators and researchers might also look into ways in which PTs take up identities in relation to particular topics explored within ELA education, for instance technology, language, race, or topics not present in the literature we reviewed, such as gender, sexuality etc.

This review demonstrates teacher educators’ invitations to engage in prophetic visioning; in methods classes, PTs explored a multitude of genres and tools that could be utilized in their teaching or throughout their literate lives. Despite teacher educators’ commitment to introducing PTs to alternative ways of exploring and representing their thinking, PTs consistently voiced nervousness about interacting with unfamiliar genres and tools, often failing to embrace their full potential. Teacher educators might continue to consider how to encourage open-mindedness, play, and a commitment to taking on the stance of a learner in working toward the implementation of “a pedagogy of multiliteracies” (New London Group, 1996) in secondary ELA classes. In addition, teacher educators might more explicitly address how opening up what counts as text, genre, language, and literacy practice has the potential to increase access and participation, one goal of working toward social justice in schools and communities.

While PTs were invited to practice planning and implementing instruction in methods courses, articles included in this review suggest that PTs might experience greater gains by linking theory to practice through field experiences or virtual classrooms. Field experiences within methods classes, which can take place in spaces outside of the classroom, have the potential to support PTs in developing understandings about not only the young people they teach but also the communities that are home to these young people.

Finally, while teacher preparation programs often encouraged PTs to employ pedagogies that were responsive, student-centered, and committed to promoting social justice, the research shows the inherent complexity and tensions that come with this tremendous responsibility. Researchers draw attention to ways PTs were both supported and constrained in these spaces, and some acknowledge the complex and powerful ways PTs negotiated diverse teaching contexts. These articles also demonstrate the compromises made by novice teachers in their new teaching contexts and call for teacher educators to rethink how they are supporting PTs to sustain social justice pedagogies across their careers. Further studies on mentorship of PTs working toward equity and inclusion in diverse contexts are needed, with attention to the alignment between university coursework and mentor teachers’ beliefs and practices. Researchers might also look at PTs’ enactment of critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies, addressing how field experiences affect choices PTs make during preservice and induction years and how preservice programs can better prepare PTs to negotiate unjust school structures, such as standardized testing, mandated curricula, and tracking.

CEE’s (2009) position statement, “Beliefs About Social Justice in English Education,” reminds us,

As a field of process, practice and research, we are committed to interrupting current practices that reproduce social, cultural, moral, economic, gendered, intellectual, and physical injustices.

While literature featured in this review explores PTs’ engagement in conversations about diversity, power, and privilege, many of the articles fail to mention the positionality of the participating PTs, teacher educators, and researchers engaging in this work and neglect to discuss how positionality might have affected teaching and learning. If we are to truly interrupt current oppressive practices, we need to understand and address how schools continue to be spaces that privilege Whiteness. In doing so, we must consider the roles that we, teacher educators and researchers, play in maintaining the status quo. In addition to committing to continued study and negotiation of our own positionalities, we must make it a priority to support PTs as they engage in critical reflection on their racial, social, cultural, gendered, and other identities, noting how these identities resist or reify normative racial discourses. The authors of this review argue that collaborating on this piece is one important step toward engaging in historical and prophetic imagining (Dantley & Green, 2015), revisiting our history in an effort to continue working toward a socially just future. And, yet, this review is just a beginning; we must all continue working together to imagine, design, and sustain educative spaces built on justice and compassion instead of fear and oppression. Such imagining is crucial if the field is to keep its promise to PTs, our schools, our communities, and ourselves.

Supplemental Material

TB_1_Fowler-Amato – Supplemental material for Working Toward a Socially Just Future in the ELA Methods Class

Supplemental material, TB_1_Fowler-Amato for Working Toward a Socially Just Future in the ELA Methods Class by Michelle Fowler-Amato, Kira LeeKeenan, Amber Warrington, Brady Lee Nash and Randi Beth Brady in Journal of Literacy Research