In order to better understand how young adult literature (YAL) is used in secondary English teacher education, this study examines course syllabi submitted by researchers recently published in "The ALAN Review." Using a framework built on Bakhtin's work, this article analyzes course objectives and goals for inherent social discourses to…

Though teacher education has long been considered a "weak intervention" (Richardson, 1996), inquiry into the effects of stronger, sustained models of preparation have been lacking, particularly in literacy education. In this longitudinal study, we traced a set of novice teacher candidates from their initial training in inquiry-based…

This paper reports on one aspect of a large-scale nationwide study that surveyed English teacher educators about English teacher preparation programs throughout the United States. One aspect of the study focused on how technology is integrated within the context of English teacher education programs, asking the question, "As an area of…

In this article, the English teacher educator authors explore the parallel journeys of their students and themselves that resulted from asking preservice teachers in their methods courses to participate in an assignment specifically crafted to examine the instructors' practice to cultivate reflection on the students' future practices. The authors…

This study, situated within the fields of English education and writing teacher education, illustrates not only "what" is happening in writing methods courses but why in its examination of writing methods courses and instructor influences. The writing methods course is identified by English educators and writing teacher educators as…

This article examines student teachers' investigations of issues related to writing pedagogy, response, and evaluation in an English methods course, including their use of descriptive review of student writing (Carini, 2001) to analyze adolescents' work collaboratively. Beginning with an examination of prevailing understandings of writing…

This article presents a study exploring preservice teachers' experiences with multigenre writing in a secondary English methods course. In multigenre writing (Romano, 2000), students write about their research in a variety of genres as an alternative to the traditional research paper, presenting exposition in narrative forms. Preservice teachers…

Isolation and a lack of support contribute to high attrition rates among novice teachers. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is one mechanism for providing anytime, anywhere support to teachers. Previous research in this area has focused on structuring such discussions to encourage cognitive engagement, yet little attention has been paid to how…

Students entering teacher preparation programs often exhibit a desire to be shown the magic bullet of teaching practice. When they fail to be presented with recipes for success, or when the instruction they receive in methods classes does not match their own understanding of instructional methods and what they believe methods should be, they can…

Research on teacher learning consistently documents the disjuncture between the practices beginning teachers encounter in university teacher preparation courses and those they reencounter in the K-12 classrooms in which they learn to teach. As preservice teachers enter teaching, they gravitate toward conventional K-12 practices, dismissing those…

The coeditors of the special Summit issue of English Education provide the context for the "crucial moment" that prompted the Conference on English Education (CEE) to take up the task of rethinking issues related to the preparation and continuing professional development of English language arts teachers and teacher educators. The process of…

In this article, the authors try to extend the complex and provocative conversations at the Conference on English Education Summit. They argue on several critical programmatic issues, including the need for greater program coherence, the continuing dilemma of the gulf between schools and universities, and both the promise and the problems of…