About

We believe that nurturing your habits and dispositions of inquiry, honing knowledge of research types and methods, and engaging you in research projects of various types will inform your teaching practices, expand your understanding of political and social contexts, and provide you with ways to examine your ongoing questions, dilemmas, and understandings about education, teaching, and learning.  

You can expect that your coursework, field experiences, and specialized workshops will support this commitment by deepening your knowledge of and methods for researching that include but are not limited to: 

• Recognizing that research is a central and ongoing responsibility of your teaching and informs subsequent teaching practices, leading to continuing cycles of research and inquiry
• Learning a range of research types, each emphasizing the differences in types of questions asked, methods used, sources of data, and what might be learned from each
• Engaging in reading, evaluating, and writing teacher research/cyclical inquiry projects to better understand how research informs practice
• Conducting research projects that focus on particular questions of importance to you both individually or collaboratively
• Developing your awareness of the ethical and political dimensions of research with specific attention to understanding research through a lens of decolonizing, humanizing, and more-than-human methodological practices and the implications of research findings that ignore these imperatives

We believe the more diverse our graduate classrooms are, the richer the learning experience; therefore, we recruit and support students, like you, who bring with them identities, experiences, and ways of knowing that traverse across global and local contexts and cultures.

You can expect that your coursework, field experiences, and specialized workshops will support this commitment through opportunities that include but are not limited to: 

• Including diverse voices within all coursework, not just in courses dedicated to the topic of diversity. 
• Designating your fieldwork placements and research sites in a variety of schools and neighborhoods. 
• Recruiting and supporting prospective students who bring with them diverse identities and experiences. 
• Engaging in ongoing work to understand the implications of deep-rooted cultural biases that exist within our institutions and ourselves.
• Working together to create an environment of openness and respect where diverse attitudes, beliefs, and ways of being are valued and included in the conversation

We believe that an English education program is only as strong as the professional relationships that develop among students, professors, and others in the field, relationships that support an ongoing dialogue into continued professionalism in the communities of practice through which you  engage the challenges and possibilities inherent in teaching and research.

You can expect that your coursework, field experiences, and specialized workshops will support this commitment through opportunities that include but are not limited to: 

• Envisioning education professionals and scholars as engaged in a career-long process of being, learning, and becoming
• Providing you with options to pursue careers in colleges and universities, school districts, NGOs, and other possibilities within the field of education

• Facilitating inquiry stances towards research and teaching practices via your coursework as well as by fostering professional learning communities that emphasize co-construction of knowledge and collegiality  
• Respecting your needs and interests as you work in close professional relationships with faculty
• Encouraging your active involvement in professional organizations via access to membership and conferences

 We are committed to supporting your study, critique, and use of the multiple literacies within the disciplines of literature, language and composition studies in order to deepen your knowledge and awareness of how these provide the foundations for meaningful and relevant teaching and learning experiences in ELA classrooms.

You can expect that your coursework, field experiences, and specialized workshops will support this commitment through opportunities that include but are not limited to:

• Enhancing your knowledge base and instructional repertoire necessary for designing innovative, effective, and engaging teaching and assessment of literature, writing, and language study 
• Encouraging you to be fluent practitioners of and critical inquirers into literature, teaching practices, language study, orality, composition, and criticism 
• Expanding knowledge of technology’s role in literacy instruction with emphasis on critical consumption and production 
• Recognizing and emphasizing the diverse means (print, digital, embodied, and otherwise) through which people communicate
• Embracing classroom approaches that link literacies to the worlds we live in and construct daily