A growing body of scholarship in teacher education details methods for supporting inservice and preservice teachers in developing critical consciousness, particularly White preservice teachers. Less examined is critical consciousness development for Black preservice teachers. This study employs case study methods to examine beliefs and practices…

Urban teacher residencies and university-district partnerships are growing in popularity in the United States and are vital for the clinical practice of preservice teachers. Because urban residencies and university-district partnerships are situated in historically marginalized communities, they strive to prepare teachers with a mind and skill set…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine two teachers' beliefs and practices on teaching writing at an urban, high-performing middle school to determine: What discourses of writing are being taught in an urban, high-performing US public middle school? What factors prevent or enable particular discourses? Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on case…

The author analyzed an attempt to increase authenticity of writing in a middle school English language arts classroom. Drawing on a grounded theory of authenticity developed based on stated needs of a diverse group of students, the author and classroom teacher designed curriculum that sought to help students choose a valued topic, emphasize…

In this theoretical article, I argue that classroom teachers are in an ideal position to help students make sense of and take action regarding pressing social issues. Yet according to past research, writing instruction in the United States tends to focus on short, formulaic assignments that do not require criticality or connect to real-world…

A primary goal of teacher preparation programs should be to develop the reflective and critical problem-solving capacities of preservice teachers, especially social justice-oriented programs that prepare teachers to work in urban schools with historically underserved youth. Through an analysis of participants' biweekly posts to discussion boards,…

In this case study, we examine the consequential validity of using edTPA in a social justice-oriented, urban teacher preparation program. According to the developers of edTPA, a primary purpose is to support teacher candidate learning, yet our analysis suggests that edTPA does not support learning when used during student teaching. Our 16…