Everyday Advocacy: Teachers Who Change the Literacy Narrative
About this ebook
Once, teachers who knew their content area and knew how to teach it were respected as professionals. Now there is an additional type of competency required: in addition to content and pedagogical knowledge, educators need advocacy skills.
In this groundbreaking collection, literacy educators describe how they are redefining what it means to be a teaching professional. Teachers share how they are trying to change the conversation surrounding literacy and literacy instruction by explaining to colleagues, administrators, parents, and community members why they teach in particular research-based ways, so often contradicted by mandated curricula and standardized assessments. Teacher educators also share how they are introducing an advocacy approach to preservice and practicing teachers, helping prepare teachers for this new professionalism. Both groups practice what the authors call “everyday advocacy”: the day-to-day actions teachers are taking to change the public narrative surrounding schools, teachers, and learning.
About the author
Cathy Fleischer is a Professor of English Education and Writing Studies at Eastern Michigan University, where she co-directs the Eastern Michigan Writing Project and serves as Faculty Associate for the Office of Campus and Community Writing. She has taught courses, led workshops, and written widely about teacher advocacy for the past decade. Her other scholarship focuses on community literacy, teacher research, and writing teacher education.
Antero Garcia is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and Vice President of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Prior to completing his PhD, Antero was an English teacher at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles. His research explores the possibilities of speculative imagination and healing in educational research. Based on his research, Antero co-designed the Critical Design and Gaming School—a public high school in Los Angeles. Antero is the recipient of the Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy (with Nicole Mirra), Literacy Research Association, 2021; Early Career Achievement Award, Literacy Research Association, 2018; Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies, AERA, 2018; National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books about the possibilities of literacies, play, and civics in transforming schooling in America, including Civics for the World to Come: Committing to Democracy in Every Classroom (W. W. Notron, 2023); Everyday Advocacy: Teachers Who Change the Literacy Narrative (W. W. Norton, 2020); and a co-author (with Nicole Mirra and Ernest Morrell) of Doing Youth Participatory Action Research: Transforming Inquiry with Researchers, Educators, and Students (Routledge, 2015).
