Heeding the Call of America's Youth

Abstract

This chapter argues that English teacher educators must meet the needs in secondary English classrooms created by a growing diversity gap between students and the teachers who teach them. Those needs can be met, at least in part, by a curriculum that includes critical pedagogy in relation to the study of Young Adult literature about race. English teacher educators must model for pre-service teachers what careful Young Adult literature text selection looks like and train them regarding how to talk about racial justice in their future classrooms. If English education programs fail to incorporate Young Adult literature that focuses on race into their college classrooms, they are doing not only future teachers a disservice, but they are also contributing to and sustaining the systemic racism and the cycle of oppression that so often occurs in secondary English classrooms.