This article presents the author's keynote address from the 2011 CEE Summer Conference at Fordham University in which he challenges educators to rethink what they do and how they do it. He talks about English teacher education as literacy teacher education. He tries to sketch a picture of the status quo and its limits, and an alternative picture…

In 2003, the National Commission on Writing released "The Neglected "R,"" its report on the state of writing instruction in the nation's schools. The report identified an apparent paradox: writing, which the Commission defines as an essential skill for the many that has helped transform the world, is nevertheless increasingly…

This article argues that ELA teacher candidates and inservice ELA teachers need historical perspectives in their coursework and their practice. Using the life and career of Lou LaBrant, the author examines the value of placing current practice in the context of practice throughout the history of the field of teaching ELA. Patterns examined in…

In this article, the author emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the "hard stuff" of life in literacy classrooms. She considers how difficult experiences--exposed wounds and the "exposing" of wounds--function in literacy classrooms. She is particularly interested in how such experiences, as they enter the public spaces of schools and…

School is sometimes framed as a place for preparing, a place for becoming college and career ready. At times this approach positions school as an important space "within" the world of college and careers, envisioned perhaps as Dewey imagined it, as a safe place to try things, a space where real work of participation in society could be done but in…

The 19 individuals who gathered at Elmhurst College in the summer of 2009 to work on moving social justice theory into policy in English education had a singular goal--to codify a working framework for social justice in English education that could disrupt inequitable educational practices and empower all students to reach their potential…

English teacher educators' commitment to Deweyan progressivism has cost them in recent years. It has contributed to their being pushed to the margins when it comes to serious, top-level discussions about the direction of American education. This essay reexamines the case for progressivism and its relevance as an element of CEE's ongoing effort to…

This past summer fifteen teachers from the Detroit public schools and the metro Detroit area participated in Wayne State University's first Invitational Summer Institute as part of the Wayne State Writing Project. As the director of a brand new National Writing Project site, the author was apprehensive about what she could expect from herself, the…

The authors contend that new technologies have developed new literacies and new ways of thinking that are reshaping our lives. In the rapidly changing world, they argue, these new literacies and their practices must become central to effective English education programs. To frame their argument, they introduce the notion of "technological"…

This essay extends Robert Yagelski's discussion of "sustainability" in teacher education by examining how the processes of Cartesian-Newtonian thinking limit the ability of both standards reformers and English educators to think in genuinely new ways and to conceive of real change. The essay includes a discussion of how standards reform since the…

Language is foundational to all learning. Whether it is the medium for the communication of our thoughts or whether it comes from the texts we consume and produce, there is little doubt that we are constructed and we construct ourselves through language. For these reasons and more, the most important participants in our most important institutions…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), signed into law in 2002, bears certain resemblances to the war on terrorism in Iraq. Of course, NCLB will not directly produce any civilian casualties or smashed buildings, but the political strategies used to roll it out have been eerily similar to those used in the war against terrorism. Disturbing rates of…

In this article, the author features the Family Literacy Center, a service-learning project at the University of Utah's English education program. For the author and her students, Family Literacy Center has become a place to investigate the role of teacher-student or mentor-student relationships in learning and literacy development. The goals of…