Teacher Educators As Critical Storytellers

"The volume describes and vividly illustrates the critical qualities that make PK-12 teachers both effective and memorable. These critical stories, and the editors' concluding conceptual analysis, will prove especially valuable to pre-service and in-service teachers who are engaged in the important responsibility of teaching our nation's youth. Each chapter will include an analysis drawn from research on identity in teacher education, theory, and research in education, psychology, and human development"--

This volume contends that effective teachers should reflect the student population in racial and cultural terms. Employing a critical storytelling framework, respected scholars from diverse backgrounds share the teaching practices of influential teachers that they learned from. Each storyteller identifies key concepts and principles that explain why the selected teacher was so memorably effective. Contributors: Judy A. Alston • Roslyn Clark Artis • Aimeé I. Cepeda • Theodore Chao • Antonio L. Ellis • Ramon B. Goings • Lisa Maria Grillo • Nicholas D. Hartlep • Jameson D. Lopez • Shawn Anthony Robinson • Theresa Stewart-Ambo • Amanda R. Tachine • Dawn G. Williams “Each chapter offers an intimate view of what it feels like to be taught by a teacher who affirms to the student: You belong here.” —Leslie T. Fenwick, AACTE “Compellingly weaves together the voices and experiences of a diverse group of authors who dare to write toward and for freedom.” —H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Education, Vanderbilt “For those who teach teachers, and for teachers everywhere, this book will serve as an invaluable resource and a source of inspiration for what can be achieved in the classroom.” —Pedro A. Noguera, Distinguished Professor and the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean, USC Rossier School of Education

Imperative Narratives is a guidebook for all educators on how to become a more effective teacher, staff member, or administrator. It covers every aspect of storytelling, including how to choose the stories you tell, various methods and modalities for delivering those stories, and the tricks to becoming a master storyteller.

Chapter 16: "Who Are Your Influences?" Interrupting the Tidy Production of Teachers of Reading -- Early Years -- Schooling -- Education -- Path to the Present -- Examples from My Work -- References -- Chapter 17: Farewell to Authority: Learning to Disrupt Relationships among Teachers, Learners, and Knowledge -- Manza-what? -- Disruption in Room 308 -- Toward a Democratic Syllabus -- Democratic Syllabus as Pedagogy -- More Tensions and Questions than Answers -- References -- Chapter 18: All About That Bass: Cultivating Socially-Just Literacy Teachers through Multicultural Literature and Multimodality -- Becoming a Sociocritical Literacy Teacher Educator: Reading the World and Word -- Multimodality Meets Multicultural Youth Literature: Enacting a Hybridized, Sociocritical Pedagogy -- Developing Socially Just Teachers through Multicultural, Multimodal Texts: The Journey Continues -- References -- Chapter 19: My Critical Literacy of Diagnosis: Teaching Reading Assessment in Teacher Education -- Literacy Autobiography -- Moving through Discourses of Disability Diagnosis -- The Power of "Normal" -- Teaching Reading Diagnosis and Remediation -- References -- Chapter 20: Learning to Plan, Planning to Learn: A Co-Narrative about the HTPE toward Disrupting Teacher Education -- Discovering the Need for Disruption -- Disruption of Praxis through Noticing Student Needs -- Using the HTPE to Refine our Praxis -- Praxis -- References -- Chapter 21: Possibility and Praxis in Teacher Education -- How We Became Critical Teacher Educators -- What We Do as Critical Teacher Educators -- Praxis -- Possibility-Considering a Critical Pedagogy for Teacher Education -- Possibility -- References -- Notes on Contributors -- Index

The journey of becoming a teacher is a complicated, emotional, and often intricate endeavor. Much has been written about pre-service teachers but rarely do we understand the journey through their own voices. Join nine pre-service teachers as they share their experiences, challenges, and victories through a series of powerful narratives. Committed to making the process more transparent for those embarking on a similar journey, the chapter authors share honest, personal, and heartfelt viewpoints about what it means to become a teacher. The nine pre-service teachers in this volume all participated in a yearlong student teaching in the renowned Elementary Holmes Master of Arts in Teaching program at Louisiana State University. Putting to practice critical perspectives about what it means to teach in the 21st century, these authors expose their vulnerabilities with a range of literary approaches including metaphor, reflective journaling, and storytelling. The volume is framed by teacher educator insights about the contexts and complexities of teaching. A must read for anyone preparing to student teach, or for those already student teaching, Student Teaching: A Journey in Narratives deals directly with the realities of learning to teach. Sometimes poetic, sometimes painful, these compelling personal narratives of novice teachers provide a poignant view of the struggles, fears, and celebrations developing teachers traverse on the journey to induction into the profession. Teacher educators and teacher candidates alike will find much to explore and discuss in these chapters. No stone of learning to teach is left unturned! – Lisa Delpit, Author of Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom and Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People's Children

The Storying Teacher: Processes and Benefits for the Classroom and Beyond introduces future and current educators to the inherent power of story and teaches them how to apply it to address social, cultural, and critical issues in various instructional settings. The text is divided into three parts. Part I defines storytelling, storying, and introduces a new concept that the author calls emotional truth. It demonstrates how storytelling is used across academic disciplines and introduces critical components of effective storytelling, including the creation of a unique narrative, the construction of identity, and the cultivation of a cultural-historical being. In Part II, readers explore the educational relevance of story and are provided with strategies for incorporating storytelling in the classroom. Part III connects storytelling with practice. Readers learn about the performative aspects of story and discover how story can foster emotional resonance, shape worldviews and attitudes, elicit specific responses, and more. Featuring insightful anecdotes and numerous application activities, The Storying Teacher helps educators successfully incorporate storytelling into their teaching repertoire. The text is well suited for educational programs and can also be used by novice or veteran teachers who would like to introduce new teaching methodologies to their classrooms. Ambika G. Raj, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree in education from The Ohio State University and specialized in culturally relevant pedagogy and educational drama. Currently, she is a professor of education at the division of curriculum and instruction at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Raj coordinates and advises students at the graduate and doctoral levels in various programs such as the Creative Literacies, Curriculum and Instruction, Early Childhood, and Storytelling certificate. She has taught at all levels, from Pre-K through doctoral-level courses, always incorporating concepts of story and educational drama to enhance learning and enrich the classroom experience.

The Storying Teacher: Processes and Benefits for the Classroom and Beyond introduces future and current educators to the inherent power of story and teaches them how to apply it to address social, cultural, and critical issues in various instructional settings. The text is divided into three parts. Part I defines storytelling, storying, and introduces a new concept that the author calls emotional truth. It demonstrates how storytelling is used across academic disciplines and introduces critical components of effective storytelling, including the creation of a unique narrative, the construction of identity, and the cultivation of a cultural-historical being. In Part II, readers explore the educational relevance of story and are provided with strategies for incorporating storytelling in the classroom. Part III connects storytelling with practice. Readers learn about the performative aspects of story and discover how story can foster emotional resonance, shape worldviews and attitudes, elicit specific responses, and more. Featuring insightful anecdotes and numerous application activities, The Storying Teacher helps educators successfully incorporate storytelling into their teaching repertoire. The text is well suited for educational programs and can also be used by novice or veteran teachers who would like to introduce new teaching methodologies to their classrooms. Ambika G. Raj, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree in education from The Ohio State University and specialized in culturally relevant pedagogy and educational drama. Currently, she is a professor of education at the division of curriculum and instruction at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Raj coordinates and advises students at the graduate and doctoral levels in various programs such as the Creative Literacies, Curriculum and Instruction, Early Childhood, and Storytelling certificate. She has taught at all levels, from Pre-K through doctoral-level courses, always incorporating concepts of story and educational drama to enhance learning and enrich the classroom experience.

"Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times shares the stories of students and a professor in a Cultural Foundations of Education Course. Storytellers in this volume grapple with issues of white privilege, racial microaggressions, bullying , cultural barriers, immigration, and other forms of struggle in educational settings. The disciplinary backgrounds of the authors are diverse: Psychology, Communication Studies, Higher Education Administration, and Educational Foundations. The authors write stories about their role(s) in resisting (or failing to resist) hegemony, and their contributions draw attention to critical problems scholars and practitioners find in 21st century schooling. This anthology was planned, written, and edited by course participants. The stories shared in each chapter were completely at the discretion of the author. By making themselves vulnerable, participants investigated stories that mattered to them. This book engages a community of critical voices in an uncritical age."