This book focuses on English teacher educators' experiences concerning professionalization and teacher identity. The term professionalization, itself, can be problematized (Popkewitz, 1994), as it connotes adherence to realities to professional norms that are based within particular histories. Yet, teacher educators must confront how to mentor prospective teachers into the field and how changes to the field manifest changes to what it means to be a professional. In research about changes in English teacher education over the past twenty years, Pasternak, Caughlan, Hallman, Renzi and Rush (2017) presented five distinct foci of ELA programs that have evolved: 1) changes to field experiences within teacher education programs, 2) altered conceptions of teaching literature and literacy within the context of ELA, 3) increased adherence to standardization, 4) changing demographics of students in K-12 classrooms, and 5) increased expectations for use of technology within ELA. These foci impact how professionals in ELA are viewed both from inside and outside the profession and how they navigate these tensions in teacher education programs to define what it means to identify as an English teacher. Throughout the book, chapter authors articulate dilemmas that focus around professionalization and teacher identity, questioning what it means to be an English teacher today. While some chapters suggest methods for increased awareness of tensions within practice, other chapters approach professionalization and teacher identity by asking what the limits of methods classes and teacher education might be in preparing ELA teachers and supporting them to remain in the profession. Today's political environment devalues teachers and teaching, a situation that has critics deriding the educational standards at institutes of higher education while concurrently lauding alternative programs that do not have to adhere to the same rigorous teacher certification requirements. English teacher educators are now being asked to design programs, soften requirements, and recruit and mentor teacher candidates to a profession that, in the past, certified more new English teachers than it could employ. The chapters in this book explore what it means to educate and be an English teacher educator under these conditions.
Acknowledgements Editors' Introduction Heidi L. Hallman, Kristen Pastore-Capuana, and Donna L. Pasternak Section I: English Language Arts Teachers' Professional Roles and Identities Chapter 1: Engaging Preservice Teachers in Productive Struggle Through Antideficit English Education Amber Warrington and Michelle Fowler-Amato A Response to Chapter 1 Melinda J. McBee Orzulak Chapter 2: 'It's Just Not What I Thought It Would Be:' Novice Teachers Navigating Tensions in Identity Katharine Covino A Response to Chapter 2 Amber Warrington and Michelle Fowler-Amato Chapter 3: The Potential of Problematic Practice: Educating Teachers for the Secondary ELA Classroom Melanie Shoffner A Response to Chapter 3 Brandon Sams and Mike Cook Section II: External Pressures on Teachers' Professionalization Chapter 4: Writing Problems and Promises in Standardized Teacher Performance Assessment Sarah Hochstetler and Melinda J. McBee Orzulak A Response to Chapter 4 Connor K. Warner Chapter 5: Changing English: Technology and its Impact on the Teaching of English Education Donna L. Pasternak A Response to Chapter 5 Julie Bell Chapter 6: 'We Need to Go Next Door and Talk about Our Lessons': One State's Context and Collaboration around Standards-Based Reform Lara Searcy and Christian Z. Goering A Response to Chapter 6 Jessica Gallo Chapter 7: Making Video Recording and Reflection Meaningful for English Teacher Candidates Julie Bell A Response to Chapter 7 Christian Z. Goering and Seth D. French Section III: Beyond English Language Arts: Challenges to our Profession Chapter 8: More than left, right, up, down: Teaching Tensions in Non-ELA Literacy Methods Courses Jeff Spanke and Chea Parton A Response to Chapter 8 Melanie Shoffner Chapter 9: Learning from Interns Who Leave the Profession: Emotional Labor and the Limits of the Methods Course Brandon Sams and Mike Cook A Response to Chapter 9 Jeremy Glazer Chapter 10: Training for the Unsustainable: The Need to Consider Attrition in ELA Teacher Preparation Jeremy Glazer A Response to Chapter 10 Jeff Spanke About the Editors About the Contributors Index
