Advocacy: The Following Are Items On Which We Advocate Taking Action:

Promote teacher education program and course requirements related to strong background knowledge of both literature and literature methods.  It is essential that PTs acquire a strong background knowledge of a range of different kinds of literature, including not only American and British literature, but also young adult, multicultural, and world literature, as well as current literary critical approaches and work in both English language and ELL.  And, it essential that PTs take a separate literature methods course as opposed to one generalized English methods course, along with separate courses in teaching of writing and/or English language.  In some cases, the literature methods course may be a course that is combined with a young adult literature course.  

Provide authentic practicum experiences.  An essential component of the methods course is participation in authentic practicum/field experiences that provides PTs with opportunities to translate theories into practice specific to particular classroom contexts.  Authenticity is a key construct in teacher education (Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000). It requires activity faithful to actual professional activity. Providing context alongside theory and practice increases student knowledge about what it means to apply theory to real-world contexts. Authenticity assists with the candidates’ ability to transfer and apply theory to practice. In addition, many of the various challenges teachers face concern issues of diversity, and the lack of use of emerging technologies by new teachers in diverse settings is indicative of the inauthentic tasks in which these technologies are taught in university programs (Long et al., 2006).  Learning takes place somewhere within an activity, and the more authentic the situation, the greater the learning experience. The dependence of constructivism on the engagement in activities matches the link between increased authenticity and increased learning in all situations, including teacher education (Iverson et al., 2007).

Therefore, it is important for English education students to first experience literature as their future students might experience it, and then use those experiences to develop teaching strategies that will be relevant and engaging for K-12 students. This is difficult to do as it asks the teacher candidates to shed their personal ways of interaction with texts and to temporarily forget their love of literature—to accept themselves as “recovering English majors.” Yet, without the knowledge of how others struggle with reading, they cannot build the skills necessary to help solve those struggles. It is also important for candidates to have opportunities, beyond the student teaching semester, to interact alongside adolescents as they, together, interact with literature. They need to see how the imagination of adolescents works in reaction to reading stories, as well as how that process differs between cultures, across cultures, and at the meeting of cultures.

Methods instructors may provide PTs with specific case studies or scenarios related to issues faced in teaching literature (Alsup & Bush, 2003).  They may also connect the methods courses to working with pupils in practicum settings so that PTs can reflect on their experiences with these pupils in the methods courses by adopting an inquiry stance (Meyer & Sawyer, 2006).

Develop a CEE website that includes examples of effective literature instruction, resources, and links related to teaching literature, and opportunities for online sharing. This site could provide online resources related to different aspects of teaching literature; it could also include a wiki site to which participants could contribute teaching ideas and resources.  And, the site could include opportunities for online chat sharing for preservice and beginning teachers to swap ideas related to teaching literature (Scherff & Paulus, 2006).

The site could also provide streaming videos of exemplary literature teachers. PTs could then share their reflections on these videos in discussions in methods classes.  PTs could also create their own videos of their student teaching for sharing with peers and for inclusion in their teacher portfolios (Hall & Hudson, 2006).  In doing so, they could engage in inquiry-based analysis and reflection of these videos through sharing online comments.  

Collect stories from students and teachers and/or conduct action research studies about the act of reading literature and the effects of literary reading on writing and thinking.  Given the need to justify the value of literature within the curriculum to students, administrators, school boards, and the public, CEE members and/or PTs could collect stories from students and teachers and/or conduct action research studies about the act of reading or responding to literature and the effects of literary reading on writing and thinking.  In doing so, they could document the ways in which reading literature benefits people as well as how learning to respond to literature serves to improve writing and thinking.  These narratives, when collected together on the CEE site, could then serve as testimonials for use in efforts to promote or defend the centrality of literature in the English/language arts curriculum.  They could also be used to create pamphlets or flyers containing beliefs, actions, activities demonstrating the importance of literature in the classroom.

Provide support for beginning teachers in teaching literature.  Beginning teachers face extensive challenges related to teaching literature: preparing curriculum, accessing/reading texts, setting up individualized reading programs/book clubs, responding to students’ writing, evaluating/assessing students, and coping with potential censorship issues.  Because they are often overwhelmed, beginning teachers need support and mentoring to help them face these ongoing challenges.  CEE could create materials for training mentors related specifically to assisting beginning teachers cope with these challenges.  They could also provide resorce materials on the CEE website or sponsor publications designed for beginning teachers (Burke & Krajicek, 2006).