Peter Smagorinsky – författare

This volume examines revolutionary constructs in literacy education and demonstrates how they have been gentrified, whitewashed, and appropriated, losing their revolutionary edge so as to become palatable for the mainstream. Written by top scholars in literacy education, chapters cover key concepts that were originally conceived as radical theories to upset the status quo—including Third Space, Funds of Knowledge, Culturally Relevant Pedagogies, and more. Each chapter addresses how the core theory was culturally appropriated and de-fanged to support rather than take down racial and societal hierarchies. Critiquing the harmful impact of watering down these theories, the contributors offer ways to restore the edge to these once groundbreaking ideas, reject racist and assimilationist trends, and support the original vision behind these liberatory theories. In so doing, this volume adopts a truly radical, critical stance that is essential for researchers, scholars, and students in literacy education.

This volume examines revolutionary constructs in literacy education and demonstrates how they have been gentrified, whitewashed, and appropriated, losing their revolutionary edge so as to become palatable for the mainstream. Written by top scholars in literacy education, chapters cover key concepts that were originally conceived as radical theories to upset the status quo—including Third Space, Funds of Knowledge, Culturally Relevant Pedagogies, and more. Each chapter addresses how the core theory was culturally appropriated and de-fanged to support rather than take down racial and societal hierarchies. Critiquing the harmful impact of watering down these theories, the contributors offer ways to restore the edge to these once groundbreaking ideas, reject racist and assimilationist trends, and support the original vision behind these liberatory theories. In so doing, this volume adopts a truly radical, critical stance that is essential for researchers, scholars, and students in literacy education.

Teachers, both in and beyond teacher education programmes, are continual learners. As society itself evolves, new settings and the challenges they provide require new learning. Teachers must continually adapt to new developments that affect their work, including alterations to qualification systems, new relationships with welfare professionals, and new technologies which are reconfiguring relationships with pupils. Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development is an international volume which clarifies the purpose of initial (pre-service) teacher education and continuing professional development, and the role of universities and higher education personnel in these processes. An edited collection of chapters by leading researchers from the UK, the US and Europe, it gains coherence from its theoretical orientation and substantive focus on teacher learning. This book: demonstrates the contribution of sociocultural and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) towards our understandings of teacher learningoffers a strong exemplification of a research focus on teachers as learners in specific sociocultural settingsshows what teachers learn, how they learn and where they learn, using specific research examples, in the context of broader interests in the development of professional practice and professional education. As the only volume now available that applies CHAT principles to teacher education and learning, Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development will be highly useful for teachers and teacher educators undertaking postgraduate and doctoral studies, particularly in the area of professional learning and development. It will also be of relevance to the continuing development of teachers and other school-based professionals.

Teachers, both in and beyond teacher education programmes, are continual learners. As society itself evolves, new settings and the challenges they provide require new learning. Teachers must continually adapt to new developments that affect their work, including alterations to qualification systems, new relationships with welfare professionals, and new technologies which are reconfiguring relationships with pupils. Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development is an international volume which clarifies the purpose of initial (pre-service) teacher education and continuing professional development, and the role of universities and higher education personnel in these processes. An edited collection of chapters by leading researchers from the UK, the US and Europe, it gains coherence from its theoretical orientation and substantive focus on teacher learning. This book: demonstrates the contribution of sociocultural and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) towards our understandings of teacher learningoffers a strong exemplification of a research focus on teachers as learners in specific sociocultural settingsshows what teachers learn, how they learn and where they learn, using specific research examples, in the context of broader interests in the development of professional practice and professional education. As the only volume now available that applies CHAT principles to teacher education and learning, Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development will be highly useful for teachers and teacher educators undertaking postgraduate and doctoral studies, particularly in the area of professional learning and development. It will also be of relevance to the continuing development of teachers and other school-based professionals.

The authors in this 2000 collection use Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of human development to frame their analyses of schooling, with particular emphasis on the ways in which literacy practices are mediated by social interaction and cultural artifacts. This volume extends Vygotsky's cultural-historical theoretical framework to embrace nuances of learning and development that are influenced by culture as instantiated through the experiences of race, ethnicity, and language variation. Rather than seeking to provide definitive answers to social questions using Vygotsky's core principles, the authors wrestle with educational problems through the mediation of Vygotsky's theory. In doing so, they both sharpen their focus on the problems and speak back to Vygotsky, helping to extend the foundation of his work to address modern problems. This collection serves as a form of collaborative inquiry that itself will stimulate further consideration of these topics.

The authors in this 2000 collection use Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of human development to frame their analyses of schooling, with particular emphasis on the ways in which literacy practices are mediated by social interaction and cultural artifacts. This volume extends Vygotsky's cultural-historical theoretical framework to embrace nuances of learning and development that are influenced by culture as instantiated through the experiences of race, ethnicity, and language variation. Rather than seeking to provide definitive answers to social questions using Vygotsky's core principles, the authors wrestle with educational problems through the mediation of Vygotsky's theory. In doing so, they both sharpen their focus on the problems and speak back to Vygotsky, helping to extend the foundation of his work to address modern problems. This collection serves as a form of collaborative inquiry that itself will stimulate further consideration of these topics.

This is not a 'how-to-do' book; it is a 'why-to-do' book. What is powerful about these chapters is that they are theory driven, and they thus allow us as researchers to understand when and why particular methodologies are appropriate for investigating particular problems in particular situations. The book is, therefore, in an important sense, a 'why-you-shouldn't' book because the authors deliberate on how the motivating theory for research is tied to the theoretical grounds for choosing a methodology. The authors grasp and reflect on the need for a researcher to fully understand a methodology's power and its limitations. They urge researchers to consistently pose the questions: Why should I use this method? What does it yield? What lens does it provide for the problem I am investigating? What must I account for in employing it? Speaking About Writing provides not only a range of methodologies to consider for the investigation of writing, but situating them in the context of one another enables the reader to consider the relative merits of each. Above all, the authors stress that research is driven by problems rather than methods, and that premise helps researchers consider what is potentially available through the tools provided by different methodologies." --William Smith, University of Pittsburgh Used as a comprehensive text and research tool, Speaking About Writing focuses on the issues involved in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. The approach goes beyond mere quantitative/qualitative differences to examine and critique the very underpinnings and assumptions of the distinct methodologies. Distinguished scholars discuss different writing methods--stimulated recall, think-aloud analysis, retrospective analysis, and intervention analysis. Contributors in discourse analysis look at the ways in which individuals interact with other members of the writing community during a more extended writing process--problem discussion, draft feedback and revision, and teacher conferences. Finally, concluding chapters allow for responses from critics to earlier chapters in order to provide clarification and explanation. Speaking About Writing is the perfect text for scholars and students in written communication (composition and english), communication, research methods, and psychology (cognition).

In this book Peter Smagorinsky and Joel Taxel analyze the ways in which the perennial issue of character education has been articulated in the United States, both historically and in the current character education movement that began in earnest in the 1990s. The goal is to uncover the ideological nature of different conceptions of character education. The authors show how the current discourses are a continuation of discourse streams through which character education and the national purpose have been debated for hundreds of years, most recently in what are known as the Culture Wars--the intense, often passionate debates about morality, culture, and values carried out by politicians, religious groups, social policy foundations, and a wide range of political commentators and citizens, in which the various stakeholders have sought influence over a wide range of social and economic issues, including education. The centerpiece is a discourse analysis of proposals funded by the United States Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). Discourse profiles from sets of states that exhibit two distinct conceptions of character are examined and the documents from particular states are placed in dialogue with the OERI Request for Proposals. One profile reflects the dominant perspective promoted in the U.S., based on an authoritarian view in which young people are indoctrinated into the value system of presumably virtuous adults through didactic instruction. The other reflects the well-established yet currently marginal discourse emphasizing attention to the whole environment in which character is developed and enacted and in which reflection on morality, rather than didactic instruction in morality, is the primary instructional approach. By focusing on these two distinct regions and their conceptions of character, the authors situate the character education movement at the turn of the twenty-first century in the context of historical notions about the nature of character and regional conceptions regarding the nature of societal organization. This enlightening volume is relevant to scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and students across the field of education, particularly those involved in character education, moral development, discourse analysis, history and cultural foundations of education, and related fields, and to the wider public interested in character education.

In this book Peter Smagorinsky and Joel Taxel analyze the ways in which the perennial issue of character education has been articulated in the United States, both historically and in the current character education movement that began in earnest in the 1990s. The goal is to uncover the ideological nature of different conceptions of character education. The authors show how the current discourses are a continuation of discourse streams through which character education and the national purpose have been debated for hundreds of years, most recently in what are known as the Culture Wars--the intense, often passionate debates about morality, culture, and values carried out by politicians, religious groups, social policy foundations, and a wide range of political commentators and citizens, in which the various stakeholders have sought influence over a wide range of social and economic issues, including education. The centerpiece is a discourse analysis of proposals funded by the United States Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). Discourse profiles from sets of states that exhibit two distinct conceptions of character are examined and the documents from particular states are placed in dialogue with the OERI Request for Proposals. One profile reflects the dominant perspective promoted in the U.S., based on an authoritarian view in which young people are indoctrinated into the value system of presumably virtuous adults through didactic instruction. The other reflects the well-established yet currently marginal discourse emphasizing attention to the whole environment in which character is developed and enacted and in which reflection on morality, rather than didactic instruction in morality, is the primary instructional approach. By focusing on these two distinct regions and their conceptions of character, the authors situate the character education movement at the turn of the twenty-first century in the context of historical notions about the nature of character and regional conceptions regarding the nature of societal organization. This enlightening volume is relevant to scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and students across the field of education, particularly those involved in character education, moral development, discourse analysis, history and cultural foundations of education, and related fields, and to the wider public interested in character education.

Covering the period between 1984 and 2003, this authoritative sequel picks up where the earlier volumes (""Braddock et al."", 1963, and ""Hillocks"", 1986), now classics in the field, left off. It features a broader focus that goes beyond the classroom teaching of writing to include teacher research, second-language writing, rhetoric, home and community literacy, workplace literacy, and histories of writing. Each chapter is written by an expert in the area reviewed and covers both conventional written composition and multimodal forms of composition, including drawing, digital forms, and other relevant media. ""Research on Composition"" is an invaluable road map of composition research for the next decade, and required reading for anyone teaching or writing about composition today.

L. S. Vygotsky and English in Education and the Language Arts focuses on the hugely significant contributions of L. S. Vygotsky to research, theory, and practice in English and the Language Arts, exploring the relevance of Vygotsky’s works for today’s teachers and researchers.Drawing on his 30 years of study, Smagorinsky interprets Vygotsky in relation to literacy education, teacher education, special education, and how life outside school has an impact on how people function within them. This insightful and accessible text firstly explores Vygotsky’s early life to situate him historically and culturally and goes on to trace his understanding of human psychology as it relates to the social contexts of schools and pupils’ lives at home. Vygotsky’s pedagogical ideas are then discussed in depth, with specific attention on the role of emotions, the zone of proximal development, expanding textuality beyond writing, and his belief in the primacy of socialization. This book illuminates new areas of understanding, and challenges common perceptions available through limited and selective readings, establishing Vygotsky as a complex developmental psychologist rather than a classroom practitioner.With points for discussion and reflection provided throughout, this text will be invaluable for student teachers, teachers, and academics in the field of English and the Language Arts.

L. S. Vygotsky and English in Education and the Language Arts focuses on the hugely significant contributions of L. S. Vygotsky to research, theory, and practice in English and the Language Arts, exploring the relevance of Vygotsky’s works for today’s teachers and researchers.Drawing on his 30 years of study, Smagorinsky interprets Vygotsky in relation to literacy education, teacher education, special education, and how life outside school has an impact on how people function within them. This insightful and accessible text firstly explores Vygotsky’s early life to situate him historically and culturally and goes on to trace his understanding of human psychology as it relates to the social contexts of schools and pupils’ lives at home. Vygotsky’s pedagogical ideas are then discussed in depth, with specific attention on the role of emotions, the zone of proximal development, expanding textuality beyond writing, and his belief in the primacy of socialization. This book illuminates new areas of understanding, and challenges common perceptions available through limited and selective readings, establishing Vygotsky as a complex developmental psychologist rather than a classroom practitioner.With points for discussion and reflection provided throughout, this text will be invaluable for student teachers, teachers, and academics in the field of English and the Language Arts.

“Upending deficit narrative of learning loss, combating broken approaches to racial equity, and wading deep into the contested waters of democratic principles of learning within today’s schools, Dr. Skerrett and Dr. Smagorinsky offer an accessible guidebook for making our classrooms sites of justice and joy. Perhaps most importantly, theirs is a book that reveals classroom practices as they really are--the voices of teachers are situated as co-authors in this important journey. I cannot think of a more timely or relevant book for English educators than Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times.”

— Antero Garcia, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University

Relevant instruction to move education forward instead of “back to normal”

Educators often bemoan the so-called learning gap that followed the upheaval to schooling in 2020, but the real learning gap will occur if the watershed events and social shifts of the early 2020s are not integrated into school instruction and learning. For today’s learning to be relevant to today’s students, it must reflect their lives and the true social worlds they inhabit. But how?

Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times empowers educators to engage students in critical thinking, literacy activities, and inquiry to investigate the personal and social issues of pressing importance to today’s middle and high school students. Six units of study, each co-authored by a teacher who road-tested the activities in their own classroom, guide teachers through the process of teaching literacy around the topics of identity, social inequity, global justice, empathy, racism and racial literacy, and conflicting ideas of patriotism. This urgent, timely guide to creating a relevant classroom includes:

Instructional methods, content knowledge, and learning activities for each unit that engage students in critical inquiry and social action. Insights and guidance from teachers who put the full unit plans in action with students. Reflection questions to help teachers envision the work in their own classrooms. Templates, rubrics, examples of student work, and other tools that help teachers to plan and implement activities that grow students’ capacity to understand and act in society.

Prime your students with the critical thinking, investigative, and communicative skills they need to connect themselves to broader social movements and create a new generation of educated changemakers.

A social updraft provides cultural meditational means that include people in a current headed "upward," allowing people of atypical makeups to become fully involved in significant cultural activity that brings them a feeling of social belonging.

A social updraft provides cultural meditational means that include people in a current headed "upward," allowing people of atypical makeups to become fully involved in significant cultural activity that brings them a feeling of social belonging.

Drawing together Smagorinsky’s extensive research over a 20-year period, Learning to Teach English and the Language Arts explores how beginning teachers’ pedagogical concepts are shaped by a variety of influences. Challenging popular thinking about the binary roles of teacher education programs and school-based experiences in the process of learning to teach, Smagorinsky illustrates, through case studies in the disciplines of English and the Language Arts, that teacher education programs and classroom/school contexts are not discrete contexts for learning about teaching, nor are each of these contexts unified in the messages they offer about teaching. He explores the tensions, not only between these contexts and others, but within them to illustrate the social, cultural, contextual, political and historical complexity of learning to teach. Smagorinsky revisits familiar theoretical understandings, including Vygotsky’s concept development and Lortie’s apprenticeship of observation, to consider their implications for teachers today and to examine what teacher candidates learn during their teacher education experiences and how that learning shapes their development as teachers.

Shortlisted for the UK Literacy Association's Academic Book Award 2021This volume explores the literacy education master’s degree program developed at Universidad de Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, with the aim of addressing the nation’s emerging social, economic, technological, and political needs. Developing the program required taking into account the cultural diversity, historical economic disparities, indigenous and colonial cultures, and power inequities of the Mexican nation. These conditions have produced economic structures that maintain the status quo that concentrates wealth and opportunity in the hands of the very few, creating challenges for the education and economic life for the majority of the population. The program advocates providing tools for youth to critique and change their surroundings, while also learning the codes of power that provide them a repertoire of navigational means for producing satisfying lives.Rather than arguing that the program can be replicated or taken to scale in different contexts, the editors focus on how their process of looking inward to consider Mexican cultures enabled them to develop an appropriate educational program to address Mexico’s historically low literacy rates. They show that if all teaching and learning is context-dependent, then focusing on the process of program development, rather than on the outcomes that may or may not be easily applied to other settings, is appropriate for global educators seeking to provide literacy teacher education grounded in national concerns and challenges. The volume provides a process model for developing an organic program designed to address needs in a national context, especially one grounded in both colonial and heritage cultures and one in which literacy is understood as a tool for social critique, redress, advancement, and equity.

Drawing together Smagorinsky’s extensive research over a 20-year period, Learning to Teach English and the Language Arts explores how beginning teachers’ pedagogical concepts are shaped by a variety of influences. Challenging popular thinking about the binary roles of teacher education programs and school-based experiences in the process of learning to teach, Smagorinsky illustrates, through case studies in the disciplines of English and the Language Arts, that teacher education programs and classroom/school contexts are not discrete contexts for learning about teaching, nor are each of these contexts unified in the messages they offer about teaching. He explores the tensions, not only between these contexts and others, but within them to illustrate the social, cultural, contextual, political and historical complexity of learning to teach. Smagorinsky revisits familiar theoretical understandings, including Vygotsky’s concept development and Lortie’s apprenticeship of observation, to consider their implications for teachers today and to examine what teacher candidates learn during their teacher education experiences and how that learning shapes their development as teachers.

Shortlisted for the UK Literacy Association's Academic Book Award 2021This volume explores the literacy education master’s degree program developed at Universidad de Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, with the aim of addressing the nation’s emerging social, economic, technological, and political needs. Developing the program required taking into account the cultural diversity, historical economic disparities, indigenous and colonial cultures, and power inequities of the Mexican nation. These conditions have produced economic structures that maintain the status quo that concentrates wealth and opportunity in the hands of the very few, creating challenges for the education and economic life for the majority of the population. The program advocates providing tools for youth to critique and change their surroundings, while also learning the codes of power that provide them a repertoire of navigational means for producing satisfying lives.Rather than arguing that the program can be replicated or taken to scale in different contexts, the editors focus on how their process of looking inward to consider Mexican cultures enabled them to develop an appropriate educational program to address Mexico’s historically low literacy rates. They show that if all teaching and learning is context-dependent, then focusing on the process of program development, rather than on the outcomes that may or may not be easily applied to other settings, is appropriate for global educators seeking to provide literacy teacher education grounded in national concerns and challenges. The volume provides a process model for developing an organic program designed to address needs in a national context, especially one grounded in both colonial and heritage cultures and one in which literacy is understood as a tool for social critique, redress, advancement, and equity.

How can schools foster more authentic and meaningful professional learning for their teachers? How do expert and veteran teachers respond to professional development activities? How do teachers’ personal and professional identities affect their commitment, career progression and impact in their classrooms? Drawing on narrative research carried out with working teachers, this book explores how engaging with critical intellectual research can be a site of transformation. It draws out powerful stories that highlight the complexities and challenges of reforming the personal, professional and political dimensions of teachers’ identities, and how they engage with professional learning. Through school-university partnerships and new approaches to postgraduate pedagogy, Transforming Identities through Research-led Professional Learning reconceptualises the university as an ontological site. It is key reading for teachers, teacher educators, policy makers and researchers with an interest in teachers’ professional learning, underscoring the potential of critical, intellectual knowledge and research work as transformational for veteran teachers.

Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference challenges assumptions that view people of difference to be "abnormal," that isolate attention to their difference solely in the individual, that treat areas of difference as matters of deficiency, and that separate youth of difference from the mainstream and treat them as pathologized. As outsiders to mainstream special education, the authors of this collection take a more social and cultural perspective that views the surrounding social environment as at least as problematic as any point of difference in any individual. Most of the scholars contributing to this volume work with preservice and inservice teachers and grapple with issues of curriculum and pedagogy. One of the primary audiences we hope to reach with this book is our colleagues and practitioners who have not made special education or disability studies the focus of their careers, but who, like we, are determined to engage with the full range of people who attend schools. Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference can be a valuable text for undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education, as it addresses key issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and differentiated approaches to educating the full range of students.

Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference challenges assumptions that view people of difference to be "abnormal," that isolate attention to their difference solely in the individual, that treat areas of difference as matters of deficiency, and that separate youth of difference from the mainstream and treat them as pathologized. As outsiders to mainstream special education, the authors of this collection take a more social and cultural perspective that views the surrounding social environment as at least as problematic as any point of difference in any individual. Most of the scholars contributing to this volume work with preservice and inservice teachers and grapple with issues of curriculum and pedagogy. One of the primary audiences we hope to reach with this book is our colleagues and practitioners who have not made special education or disability studies the focus of their careers, but who, like we, are determined to engage with the full range of people who attend schools. Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference can be a valuable text for undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education, as it addresses key issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and differentiated approaches to educating the full range of students.

 Because literacy is not just the English teacher’s job Think literacy is just for English teachers? Not anymore. Nor should it be when you consider that each discipline has its own unique values and means of expression. These days, it’s up to all teachers to communicate what it means to be literate in their disciplines. Here, finally, is a book ambitious enough to tackle the topic across all major subject areas.  Engage in this cross-disciplinary conversation with seasoned teachers and university researchers, and learn how to develop curriculum and instruction that are responsive to students’ needs across English/language arts, science, social studies, mathematics, visual space, and music and drama. Peter Smagorinsky and his colleagues provide an insider’s lens on both the states of their fields and their specific literacy demands, including: 

Reviews of current issues and state-of-the-art research informing literacy education Scenario-based activities for reflection and discussion, typifying the dilemmas and challenges faced by practicing teachers. Considerations of the textual forms and conventions required in each discipline Specific policy recommendations

Read this book on your own for immediate suggestions on how to improve literacy instruction within your course of study. Better yet, share it with colleagues and participate in a larger conversation about how your literacy expectations influence the ways students read and produce texts in other disciplines.

 The first comprehensive research handbook of its kind, this volume showcases innovative approaches to understanding adolescent literacy learning in a variety of settings. Distinguished contributors examine how well adolescents are served by current instructional practices and highlight ways to translate research findings more effectively into sound teaching and policymaking. The book emphasizes social and cultural factors in adolescents' approach to communication and response to instruction, and sections address literacy both in and out of schools, including literacy expectations in the contemporary workplace. Detailed attention is given to issues of diversity and individual differences among learners.Winner--Literacy Research Association's Edward B. Fry Book AwardÂ

The first comprehensive research handbook of its kind, this volume showcases innovative approaches to understanding adolescent literacy learning in a variety of settings. Distinguished contributors examine how well adolescents are served by current instructional practices and highlight ways to translate research findings more effectively into sound teaching and policymaking. The book explores social and cultural factors in adolescents' approach to communication and response to instruction, and sections address literacy both in and out of schools, including literacy expectations in the contemporary workplace. Detailed attention is given to issues of diversity and individual differences among learners.Winner--Literacy Research Association's Fry Book Award!Â

This edited collection will stand as the first volume that specifically describes service-learning programs and courses designed as part of teacher education programs in the fields of literacy education, secondary English education, elementary language arts education, and related fields. The contributing authors describe the programs they have developed at their universities and/or in their local communities, providing information about the rationale for their initiative, the design of the course, the outcomes of the experience, and other matters that will help literacy educators develop similar courses and experiences of their own.Additionally, this edited collection will fill a great gap in the field’s knowledge of alternative forms of teacher education. It will provide descriptions of service-learning initiatives that have been field-tested with demonstrable results. Thus far the field has produced widely scattered articles in journals covering a variety of disciplines, but no definitive collection of papers in which service-learning designed to promote literacy instruction is housed in a single volume edited for cross-referencing and thematic categorization.The two editors have developed courses and received grants to support service-learning initiatives at their universities and believe that others might develop similar programs if they had better understandings of their value and design. Their intention with this volume is to promote service-learning more broadly among literacy educators.

This edited collection will stand as the first volume that specifically describes service-learning programs and courses designed as part of teacher education programs in the fields of literacy education, secondary English education, elementary language arts education, and related fields. The contributing authors describe the programs they have developed at their universities and/or in their local communities, providing information about the rationale for their initiative, the design of the course, the outcomes of the experience, and other matters that will help literacy educators develop similar courses and experiences of their own.Additionally, this edited collection will fill a great gap in the field’s knowledge of alternative forms of teacher education. It will provide descriptions of service-learning initiatives that have been field-tested with demonstrable results. Thus far the field has produced widely scattered articles in journals covering a variety of disciplines, but no definitive collection of papers in which service-learning designed to promote literacy instruction is housed in a single volume edited for cross-referencing and thematic categorization.The two editors have developed courses and received grants to support service-learning initiatives at their universities and believe that others might develop similar programs if they had better understandings of their value and design. Their intention with this volume is to promote service-learning more broadly among literacy educators.