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If you haven't read 'Rocket Night' (2016) by Alexander Weinstein, you should. Similar in theme to Shirley Jackson's (1948) 'The Lottery,' Weinstein's short story is about a horrifying annual ritual [...]

Culturally responsive instruction scholarship often presents a binary standard that teachers either satisfy or do not, a determination largely based on perceptions of observed practice. Yet, conclusions about teachers' cultural responsiveness are dubious when researchers do not account for teachers' intent. Conceptualizing cultural responsiveness as a continuum of dispositions, knowledges, and skills, this study asks: are certain culturally responsive characteristics more easily embodied and acted upon than others, and what accounts for these incongruences? Drawing on five months of data collection, this case study follows Margaret, a decorated English language arts teacher, and uncovers her culturally responsive characteristics based on her articulated instructional intent. Layers of deductive analysis across data sources (which include classroom observations of Margaret's teaching, transcripts from post-observation semi-structured interviews, and researcher notes) reveal that Margaret more readily embodied and enacted certain culturally responsive characteristics than others. Although she worked to promote student success and create a classroom environment embracing all students, Margaret insisted her provocative pedagogical choices--such as melding conversations of canonical literature with patriarchal critique--were not intended to foster students' sociopolitical consciousness or reflect her commitment to modifying curricula for equity. Tensions between Margaret's culturally responsive characteristics lie in her belief that "good" teachers assume ideological neutrality. Margaret's case asks stakeholders to centralize teachers' instructional intent and, in doing so, complicate culturally responsive teaching

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers' constructions of youth inform their text selections, particularly as they relate to a problematic author. Design/methodology/approach: As part of a larger, national study, the authors use interview data from 18 participants -- 9 who still teach and 9 who no longer teach Alexie -- to consider how teachers' constructions of youth play roles in their decisions to teach or avoid complex and controversial authors and topics, specifically the work and life of Sherman Alexie in the #MeToo era. Findings: Findings suggest teachers who constructed youth through asset-based frameworks -- as complex and capable -- were likely to keep teaching Alexie or have conversations about the #MeToo movement. Teachers who constructed students in deficit ways, as "not ready," harkened back to Lesko's (2012) critique, and were more likely to either remove Alexie from the curriculum entirely or engage students in conversations about the text only, leaving Alexie's life out of the classroom. Originality/value: Building on Lesko's work on constructions of adolescence and its intersection with Petrone et al.'s youth lens and Critical Youth Studies (e.g., Petrone and Lewis, 2021), this study describes the ways in which teachers' views of students served as rationales for their teaching decisions around whether, if or how to include the works and life of Sherman Alexie.

The purpose of the study was to examine the confluence of agricultural literacy, what it means to be agriculturally literate, and if a gap between agricultural literacy and being agriculturally literate existed. Two primary research questions framed this study: 1) How do agriculture professionals define agricultural literacy? 2) What does it mean to be agriculturally literate? While the terms literacy and literate are often used synonymously they have important and different meanings. This study used the Delphi Study Technique for determining consensus. The Delphi panel consisted of engaged agricultural professionals from seven states. These professions represented a broad spectrum of agricultural careers and experience. Each panel member was recognized as a leader in his or her field. The findings indicated that participants did not discern a difference between agricultural literacy and being agriculturally literate in regards to reading, writing, and speaking about agriculture. This study supports the conclusion that the terms agriculturally literate and agricultural literacy are used interchangeably. Agricultural professional may not be aware of the inherent differences between possessing agricultural literacy and being agriculturally literate.

The authors present research findings from a collective case study (n=5) conducted in a multimodal composition course for pre-service English teachers. Researchers studied how a course focused on how multimodal composition influenced pre-service teachers' identities as writers and their stances on literacy instruction. Data consisted of students' reflective writing on a graphic narrative assignment and were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Five themes characterize the data: the varied rhetorical decisions used to compose the graphic narrative; the recognition of multimodal composition as process-oriented; the paralleling of "writing" and "composing"; the interrogation of what counts as academic text; and the misreading and misunderstanding of the rhetorical situation and of multimodality. Implications for the field are offered as well.

As teacher educators, we have used Twitter with the goal of jumpstarting the professional learning networks and teacher identity development of students in our courses and programs. Our use of Twitter has evolved over time and can inform the work of other teacher educators. In this article, we offer examples of the benefits of incorporating Twitter in teacher education. We describe some of the common challenges we have experienced at our two institutions and across multiple semesters of use. Based on our collective experiences, we offer recommendations to others who are using or are considering using Twitter with preservice teachers.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine youth literacy and writing practices in select, contemporary young adult literature (YAL), especially how and why literate activity is sponsored, negotiated or occluded by teachers and schools. Design/methodology/approach: The authors position young adult fiction as case studies of youth composing in and out of school. Drawing on Stake's (1995) features of case study research in education, the authors present readings of "Gabi, a Girl in Pieces" by Isabel Quintero and "The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy" by Kate Hattemer that highlight particular problems and insights about youth literacy practices that are worth extended examination and reflection. Findings: Both novels feature youth engaging in powerful literacy and writing practices across a range of modes to critically read and write their worlds. These particular texts -- and other YAL featuring youth composing -- offer teacher educators and pre-service teachers opportunities for critical reflection on their evolving stances on literacy instruction; identities as writing and literacy educators; and pedagogies that enable robust literate activity. Originality/value: In the US educational context, teacher education programs are required to provide pre-service teachers numerous opportunities to observe and participate as teachers in public school classrooms. YAL offers a unique setting of experience that can be productively paired with more traditional field placements to complement pre-service writing teacher education. Reading YAL featuring youth composing can serve as a useful occasion of reflection on pedagogies that limit and/or make possible students' meaningful engagement with words and the world.

English teaching that satisfies curricula standards has often been siloed from instruction that advances the goals of social justice. Exasperated teachers may feel they can either meet the day-to-day demands of their profession or teach to dismantle social inequities, but not achieve the aims of both approaches. In this reflective practitioner piece, the authors offer pedagogical realism as a means to negotiate and reconcile these seemingly dichotomous orientations to English teaching. Using narrative inquiry, the authors illustrate a pedagogical realist approach to teaching 'The Wife of Bath's Tale'. This pedagogical anecdote intends to show both in-service teachers and teacher educators how they can teach for social justice while delivering 'traditional' materials.

Reflection is a vital process in teacher preparation and development. Dewey (1933) pioneered the concept of pedagogical reflection, an iterative process examining the pragmatic aspects of teaching through querying one's pedagogical choices, embracing doubt, and adjusting instruction to promote student achievement. Scholars have since offered a variety of insights on the phenomenon, particularly with regards to its relationship to teacher education. For some stakeholders in the field, reflection holds with Dewey's more traditional presentation of the term--that is, a process tied to fine-tuning instructional maneuvers in an effort to maximize pedagogical effectiveness. But this understanding of reflection departs from the aims of critical reflection, a practice encouraging teachers to explore their own complicated sociocultural positions in an effort to become aware of and disrupt the power structures that create inequitable conditions for K-12 students (Gay, 2010; Howard, 2003). In this context, this article attempts to untangle the ways in which teacher education standards and performance assessments--specifically, the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) standards, Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) Secondary English Language Arts Assessment Handbook, the Praxis Performance Assessment for Teachers (PPAT) Candidate and Educator Handbook, and the PPAT Reflective Practice Handbook--frame and portray the concept of reflection to teacher candidates. Specifically, it investigates: (1) How, and in what ways, do the InTASC standards, the edTPA Secondary ELA Assessment Handbook, the PPAT Candidate and Educator Handbook, and the PPAT Reflective Practice Handbook portray the concept of reflection? (1) Does this portrayal align with more traditional or critical conceptions of reflection? and (2) Do the documents negotiate traditional and critical portrayals of reflection and, if so, how? It concludes this work by discussing ways teacher educators can help their students reconcile potential incongruities in and among teacher education standards and performance assessments and, in doing so, position their students to think, and teach, in more socially just ways.

The article discusses the delights, dilemmas and suggestions in the implementation of electronic portfolios in English education, highlighting its impact to parents to assist students to become successful teachers in the future.

A personal narrative is presented which explores his experience of creating a daybook where he records his experiences and thoughts as an English professor.