English Education Program
Illinois State University
English Department
English Education Program, Mission Statement

(rev. 9/3/03)

Too often, the English classroom is viewed as solely a place for teaching discrete skills of English language syntax and grammar, or a place in which students learn how to apply literary scholarship techniques to what they read. It isn’t that these skills aren’t important, or that they aren’t part of the English curriculum, but they are best learned in the context of meaning making and engagement with ideas (Weaver, 1996 ). Young people learn how to read and write when those activities become meaningful to them. They will willingly read books if those books have something to say to them. “Books,” Janet Allen emphasizes, help us “know ourselves and others better” (Allen, p. 47). Young people willingly write when they have something to say and confidence that their audience wants to hear them and respect their ideas (Mayher, Lester, Pradl, 1983).

To create a more holistic model of English teaching that engages secondary students in meaningful literacy development and activities relevant to their own lives, and to prepare secondary students to achieve success and reap all the benefits of the 21st century, the English Education Program at Illinois State University has adopted five core theoretical and practical ideas for preparing novice and future teachers. They are:

• Teaching and learning for democracy
• Multicultural education and respect for the diversity of all learners
• Reader response theories of literary study
• Writing process models of composition
• Teacher-research and reflective practice as central to the improvement of teaching and learning

Teaching and Learning for Democracy
In the last few years we have established alternative decision-making and governance structures for broadening the scope of our program and building democratic relationships. The program has established an English Education Committee to advise the director on all significant policy matters. In addition, we have established an English Education Community Advisory Board composed of equal representation from the schools and the university. The Board also includes student representatives and representatives from community colleges. Our goal is to increase communication among all parties involved in teacher education and to give practicing teachers a substantial voice in the preparation of novice teachers.

Each strand of the Program contributes to our ultimate goal of preparing teachers who encourage their students to become independent lifelong readers, writers, and learners who can participate fully in a democratic society and who have the ability to make decisions that are both respectful of individuality and difference and that benefit the larger community and world. As Hurlbert and Totten (1992) point out, “The English classroom … is a good place to begin reading and writing and talking and listening together for a more democratic and ethical society and for a safer and healthier world … a good place for students and teachers to explore, through whole language philosophies and pedagogies, in cooperative and socially responsible ways, the issues and conditions affecting this time and the public lives we lead in it” (p. 2).

We also structure our English Education classrooms as learning communities in which teacher and student are in partnership and learn from one another (Freire, 1993). We emphasize the importance of creating safe and respectful environments for all students in which every voice can be heard. We give our students choice in a variety of ways: choosing books they want to read, preparing lessons using a variety of student-centered teaching techniques of their choice, and we negotiate other aspects of the curriculum with them, where possible. All of these strategies give students a greater stake in the learning environment, and more reason to want to succeed.

Students also become part of a larger community of educators through their participation in professional organizations. Our students are required to join the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE), and to subscribe to NCTE’s English Journal. They all attend the annual Conference of Illinois Teachers of English, (CITE), at which our student teachers serve as session chairs. They also attend the annual conference of the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE), and some also attend the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual conference.

Multicultural Education and Respect for all Learners
In these times of political, social, and economic emphasis on standards and high-stakes testing, we are in danger of excluding all but the most traditionally successful students from the right to succeed. The gap in test scores between middle and upper class white children, and urban and rural students of color and poor students in general, points not only to the disparity in school funding in poor communities and lack of high expectations for minority and poor children, but also to the alienating effects on young people when they have few experienced teachers who can provide individualized instruction and culturally sensitive pedagogies, and rarely see themselves reflected in the curriculum.

Geneva Gay argues that African, Asian, Latino, and Native American students will perform better through “culturally responsible teaching,” which includes: “caring, teacher attitudes and expectations, formal and informal curriculum and culturally informed classroom discourse.” She advocates the use of “multiple measures of achievement, when teaching is filtered through their own [students’] cultural experiences and frames of reference” (Gay, 2000).

To meet the needs of all students, English teachers today must become familiar with all issues that limit the possibilities for students, become advocates for creating greater equity, and become knowledgeable in effective pedagogies and curriculum. Multicultural educator James A. Banks (1994) points out that the achievement gap is widening between rich and poor students and that our schools are diverse in multiple ways that need to be addressed, including social class and sexual orientation. In her book, Dramatic Changes: Talking about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity with High School Students through Drama, Paula Ressler (2002) discusses the need for teachers to address the homophobic language and heterosexist assumptions so prevalent in our schools’ classrooms and hallways as part of the task of making schools safer and more supportive for all students. She gives examples of non-threatening drama-in-education classroom strategies teachers can use for doing this work effectively.

Patricia A. Dunn argues in her book, Talking, Sketching, Moving: Multiple Literacies in the Teaching of Writing (2001), that writing teachers can help students tap into diverse ways of knowing as they grapple with the sophisticated intellectual tasks involved in composing written texts. Drawing on what Paulo Freire calls "multiple channels of communication" (Freire, 1993), and on Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences," (Gardner, 1983 ) Dunn encourages teachers to use students' oral, visual, spatial, kinesthetic, and social talents as invention, organization, and revision strategies in their writing processes. By focusing on what students do well, teachers can design curricula and pedagogies to help students with special needs succeed in the least restrictive environment. In addition, such environments will challenge all students to work outside their conventional intellectual comfort zones, thus raising expectations for everyone.

Reader Response Theories of Literary Study and
Process Approaches to Writing
Our English Education methods courses emphasize reader response theories of literary study and process approaches to writing. We are presently working on integrating the literature and writing courses in order to reduce overlap and to help our students create curricula and practice pedagogies that emphasize natural links between reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing.

Reader response theories emphasize the transaction between reader and text, giving students authority over their own life experiences while teaching them to negotiate meaning with a text. It provides students opportunity to formulate ideas, debate viewpoints, and refine their interpretations. We have adopted texts by Louise Rosenblatt (1983/1938), Robert Probst (1988), Nancie Atwell (1998), and Janet Allen (1995) for helping our students better understand theories and practices of reader response teaching. This year our students are reading texts by Leila Christenbury (2000), Edgar H. Schuster (2003), and an anthology edited by Daniel Sheridan’s (2001). We continue to consider other texts as they come to our attention and are made available, searching for the works that will best help our students incorporate these ideas into their practice. We also emphasize the benefits of working with young adult (YA) literature as a genre for engaging students in reading and writing and for studying literary theory. Incorporating YA literature into the middle and high school curriculum is recommended in many of the language arts texts mentioned above, in addition to Anna O. Soter’s Young Adult Literature and the New Literary Theories: Developing Critical Readers in Middle School (1999) and John H. Busman and Kay Parks Haas Using Young Adult Literature in the English Classroom (2001).

Process approaches to writing offer democratic forums that welcome diversity by respecting differences among writers, emphasizing phases of writing instead of just finished products, and purposes and audiences for writing. The program draws on many of the holistic writing and assessment practices recommended in Bob Broad’s text, What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing (2003). We recommend the use of writing workshop and literature circles to help students learn how to listen and respond to feedback, collaborate with others, and become responsible to a community. Peer response is a training ground for discussion of and reflection on words, ideas, and the world. We also have worked with books by Brian Cambourne (1988); John Mayher, Nancy Lester, and Gordon Pradl (1983); and Tom Romano (1987); and essays from Lloyd-Jones and Lunsford (1989), to give our students more experience and understanding of writing as a process.

Although many high school and middle school language arts programs emphasize simple comprehension, literary devices, and formulaic and structural approaches to writing, our program emphasizes something different. We have found that preparing our students with more constructivist and holistic methods of teaching and assessment, including innovative pedagogical strategies that incorporate the arts (Dunn, 2001) and Drama-In-Education (Ressler, 2002), and holistic writing assessment (Broad, 2003), makes our students better able to engage their own students in learning and create a positive impact upon the cultures of the schools in which they student-teach and find permanent employment.

Teacher-Research and Reflective Practice
Our methods courses promote the professional “habit” of identifying, developing, articulating, and researching questions and problems candidates observe and encounter in their classrooms and communities. We require that candidates' plans for instruction and their plans for classroom research all reflect high quality research techniques. Texts such as Goswami and Stillman’s Reclaiming the Classroom (1987), Hubbard and Power’s The Art of Classroom Inquiry (1993), and Kutz and Roskelly’s An Unquiet Pedagogy (1991) provide theoretical and methodological guidance to students who must become reflective practitioners and teacher researchers of their own classrooms, if they are to be effective in helping their students become lifelong learners. The intended result is that prospective English teachers emerge from our program well prepared and strongly inclined to approach their classrooms as settings for seeking new knowledge about learning and teaching.

Realizing the Democratic Ideal
In addition to the five strands identified above, our English program also incorporates the dispositions outlined in the university’s conceptual framework, “Realizing the Democratic Ideal.” This concept underpins all teacher education at Illinois State University (Illinois State University Undergraduate Catalog). It emphasizes the importance of moral and intellectual development and is designed to support and enhance the standards and best practices established in each individual discipline. These concepts, discussed as moral and intellectual virtues include:

• Sensitivity toward the varieties of individual and cultural diversity
• Disposition and ability to collaborate ethically and effectively with others
• Reverence for learning and seriousness of personal, professional, and public purpose
• Respect for learners of all ages, with special regard for children and adolescents
• Wide general knowledge and deep knowledge of the content to be taught
• Knowledge and appreciation of the diversity among learners
• Understanding what affects learning and appropriate teaching strategies
• Interest in and ability to seek out informational, technological, and collegial resources
• Contagious intellectual enthusiasm and courage enough to be creative

“Realizing the Democratic Ideal,” combined with the five identified strands of English Education— teaching and learning for democracy, multiculturalism and respect for diversity, reader response and process methods of teaching writing, along with teacher-research and reflective practice—represent best practices in the field and reflect the knowledge base and philosophy of education we provide for our students who are preparing to be secondary language arts educators. This strong and flexible foundation for the preparation of future teachers is idealistic and informed enough by the scholarship of literacy to set the highest standards for the teaching of English. At the same time, it is firmly rooted in the practices, struggles, and issues that occupy practicing teachers of English and language arts today. Through this blend of resources, contexts, and orientations we teach our candidates what it means to serve the needs of all students and prepare them to be critical thinkers, lifelong learners, and active and informed participants in creating schools in which all students can achieve and thrive, as well as a more just society built upon democratic practices and principles.

Works Cited:

Allen, Janet (1995). It’s Never Too Late: Leading Adolescents to Lifelong Literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Atwell, Nancie. (1998). In the Middle 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Banks, James A. (1994, May 8). “Transforming the Mainstream Curriculum.” Educational Leadership 51 (8).

Broad, Robert. (2003). What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.
Bushman, John H. and Haas, Kay Parks. (2001).

Using Young Adult Literature in the English Classroom 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Cambourne, Brian. (1988). The Whole Story: Natural Learning and the Acquisition of Literacy in the Classroom. Auckland: Ashton Scholastic.

Christenbury, Leila. (2000). Making the Journey: Being and Becoming a Teacher of English Language Arts. 2nd ed. Porstmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Dunn, Patricia. (2001). Talking, Sketching, Moving: Multiple Literacies in the Teaching of Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinmann.

Freire, Paolo. (1993) Education for Critical Consciousness, New York: Continuum.

Gardner, Howard. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. NYC: Basic Books.

Gay, Geneva. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice NYC: Teachers College Press.

Goswami, Dixie, and Peter R. Stillman, Eds. (1987). Reclaiming the Classroom: Teacher Research as an Agency for Change. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Hubbard, Ruth S. and Power, Brenda M. (1993). The Art of Classroom Inquiry. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hurlbert, C. Mark and Totten, Samuel. (1992). Social Issues in the English Classroom. Urbana: NCTE.

Illinois State University Undergraduate Catalog. (2002-2003).

Kutz, Eleanor and Roskelly, Hephzibah. (1991). An Unquiet Pedagogy: Transforming Practice in the English Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Lloyd-Jones, Richard, and Andrea A. Lunsford, Eds. (1989). The English Coalition Conference: Democracy through Language. Urbana: NCTE.

Mayher, John S., Lester, Nancy B., & Pradl, Gordon M. (1983). Learning to Write/Writing to Learn. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Probst, Robert E. (1988). Response and Analysis: Teaching Literature in Junior and Senior High School. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Ressler, Paula (2002). Dramatic Changes: Talking about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity with High School Students through Drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Romano, Tom. (1987). Clearing the Way: Working with Teenage Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rosenblatt, Louise M. (1983/1938). Literature as Exploration, 4th ed. NYC: Modern Language Association.

Schuster, Edgar H. (2003). Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers through Innovative Grammar Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Sheridan, Daniel, ed. (2001). Teaching Secondary English: Readings and Applications. 2nd ed. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Soter, Anna O. (1999) Young Adult Literature and the New Literary Theories: Developing Critical Readers in Middle School. NYC: Teachers College Press.

Weaver, Constance. (1996). Teaching Grammar in Context. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.