Narratives of Social Justice Teaching

The Authors: sj Miller is Assistant Professor of Secondary English Education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. sj has published widely in journals and, most notably, won the 2005 Article of the Year Award from the English Journal for «Shattering Images of Violence in Young Adult Literature: Strategies for the Classroom». Most recently sj published (co-authored with Linda Norris) Unpacking the Loaded Teacher Matrix: Negotiating Space and Time Between University and Secondary English Classrooms which received the Richard A. Meade award from NCTE. Current research interests are in unpacking English teacher identity in spacetime as preservice teachers experience the larger matrix of the teaching world.Laura Bolf Beliveau is Assistant Professor and English Education Program Coordinator at the University of Central Oklahoma. She taught high school English in urban, rural, and suburban districts in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Laura’s research interests include emotional responses to teaching and the development of teacher identities, especially as they intersect with issues of diversity and social justice.Todd DeStigter is a former high school teacher who is now an English educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His principal scholarly interests are secondary English teacher education, urban literacies, the ways in which teaching and learning can promote democratic thought and action, and the social and political philosophy of John Dewey. Recently, Todd has taught courses in the methods of teaching English, the uses of literacy in a multicultural democracy, and the contributions of American pragmatism to progressive education. Most of his recent publications are based on the ethnographic research he conducts at a Chicago alternative high school for «at risk» students.David Kirkland is Assistant Professor of English Education at New York University. His research interests focus on youth culture, language and literacy studies, African American studies, and urban teacher education. He taught secondary reading and English language arts for five years in two major Michigan cities. Currently, he is writing two books: A Search Past Silence: Exploring Literacy in the Life of a Young Black Man and The Promise in their Eyes: Using Youth Culture to Teach Secondary English (with others).Peggy Rice, an Associate Professor of English Education at Ball State University, is a former elementary school teacher. For the past few years she has taught children’s literature and a senior seminar focusing on trends and issues in the teaching of Elementary English Language Arts. Her research focuses on critical literacy with preservice elementary teachers, practicing elementary teachers, and children. She is especially interested in understanding how children’s literature written from diverse perspectives can deepen understanding of others in order to dispel stereotypes and move toward a more equitable society.

«At this point in the history of education, it’s easy to be cynical about social justice. Too often it seems like talk without action, the wishful thinking of theorists and academics who fail to follow their ideas into real classrooms and see what happens when things get messy. The essays in this book are different. They tell stories that become bridges between ideas and actions. Such stories, by being true to the complexities of teaching for social justice, make it possible to be hopeful again.» (Don Zancanella, Professor of English Education, University of New Mexico)