"But Will It Work With Real Students?": Scenarios for Teaching Secondary English Language Arts

by Janet Alsup, Jonathan Bush

Pedagogical narratives written by secondary teachers and thoughtful responses to these narratives by experienced teachers and teacher educators form the heart of this text. Alsup and Bush also include concise summaries of related theory and research and controversies in the field, through annotated bibliographies for continued reading, discussion questions, and suggested learning activities for preservice teachers.

Beginning with narratives about teaching literature, writing, language/grammar, second language learners in the English classroom, management, discipline, technology, and standardized testing, the authors contextualize these stories within the larger discipline of secondary English language arts teaching and provide a framework for teacher professional identity development by prompting continued thinking about curricular choices, teaching philosophies, and personal pedagogies.

Alsup and Bush include a final chapter describing how a secondary English teacher can use narrative action research in his or her class to become a critically reflective practitioner.

189 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 2004

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great scenario-based text for Methods courses, with lots of excellent resources and responses beyond the initial scenarios. I like using texts like these with preservice teachers, so they can get sense of what people in the profession are truly concerned about. I've used this one before, and will likely use it again.