WHO I AM: sj MILLER, Ph.D.,
JOB TITLE: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Literacy Studies
WHERE I TEACH: University of Colorado, Boulder: School of Education
OFFICE: RM 114
EMAIL: sj.Miller@colorado.edu
OFFICE PHONE: 303-492-8360
OTHER WAYS TO FIND ME:
LIKES: My cats, working out, social justice, art-house films, reading, teaching, NPR, building intentional communities, love.
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
THEORETICAL FRAMES:
Social justice, critical race theory, feminist theory, geospatial theory, spatiality and temporal theories, critical discourse analysis, anti-bullying theory/pedagogy, critical literacy
At the center of my research is social justice which cuts across theory, epistemology and pedagogy.
JOB TITLE: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Literacy Studies
- Incoming Co-editor: English Education
- Co-editor: Social Justice Across Contexts in Education with Peter Lang
- Lambda Literary Board Member
WHERE I TEACH: University of Colorado, Boulder: School of Education
OFFICE: RM 114
EMAIL: sj.Miller@colorado.edu
OFFICE PHONE: 303-492-8360
OTHER WAYS TO FIND ME:
LIKES: My cats, working out, social justice, art-house films, reading, teaching, NPR, building intentional communities, love.
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
- Socio-spatial justice
- Preservice and inservice teacher dispositions
- Urban Education
- Marginalized/undervalued student literacies and identities
THEORETICAL FRAMES:
Social justice, critical race theory, feminist theory, geospatial theory, spatiality and temporal theories, critical discourse analysis, anti-bullying theory/pedagogy, critical literacy
At the center of my research is social justice which cuts across theory, epistemology and pedagogy.
About Me
sj Miller, an award winning teacher/writer/activist, is Associate Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Prior, sj was a high school English teacher for eight years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. sj has published widely in journals and presented widely in state and national conferences on a variety of topics related to teaching young adult literature, anti-bullying pedagogy, challenging the gender binary, multimodal applications of popular culture in secondary classrooms, and cultivating socio-spatial justice dispositions with secondary preservice English teachers. Most notably, sj won the 2005 Article of the Year Award from the English Journal for “Shattering Images of Violence in Young Adult Literature: Strategies for the Classroom,” and co-authored Unpacking the Loaded Teacher Matrix: Negotiating Space and Time Between University and Secondary English Classrooms which received the Richard A. Meade award from NCTE. sj co-authored Narratives of Social Justice Teaching: How English Teachers Negotiate Theory and Practice Between Preservice and Inservice Spaces, and Change Matters: Critical essays on moving social justice research from theory to policy. sj is former co-chair of NCTE’s CEE (Conference on English Education) Committee for Social Justice, and currently, CEE Executive Committee member, and consultant for the College Board, AP English Literature Table Leader, and AP Grant Mentor, providing best practices to secondary Pre- and Advanced Placement English teachers. Recently, sj helped draft the Beliefs Statement about Social Justice in English education and helped pass the NCTE Resolution on Social Justice in Literacy Education, which informed the newly-vetted CAEP Social Justice Standard 6. With a co-authored book entitled Generation Bullied 2.0: Prevention and Intervention Strategies for our most Vulnerable Students hot off the presses, sj was recently selected as a new incoming co-editor of English Education and Peter Lang series co-editor of Social Justice Across Contexts in Education.
sj Miller, an award winning teacher/writer/activist, is Associate Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Prior, sj was a high school English teacher for eight years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. sj has published widely in journals and presented widely in state and national conferences on a variety of topics related to teaching young adult literature, anti-bullying pedagogy, challenging the gender binary, multimodal applications of popular culture in secondary classrooms, and cultivating socio-spatial justice dispositions with secondary preservice English teachers. Most notably, sj won the 2005 Article of the Year Award from the English Journal for “Shattering Images of Violence in Young Adult Literature: Strategies for the Classroom,” and co-authored Unpacking the Loaded Teacher Matrix: Negotiating Space and Time Between University and Secondary English Classrooms which received the Richard A. Meade award from NCTE. sj co-authored Narratives of Social Justice Teaching: How English Teachers Negotiate Theory and Practice Between Preservice and Inservice Spaces, and Change Matters: Critical essays on moving social justice research from theory to policy. sj is former co-chair of NCTE’s CEE (Conference on English Education) Committee for Social Justice, and currently, CEE Executive Committee member, and consultant for the College Board, AP English Literature Table Leader, and AP Grant Mentor, providing best practices to secondary Pre- and Advanced Placement English teachers. Recently, sj helped draft the Beliefs Statement about Social Justice in English education and helped pass the NCTE Resolution on Social Justice in Literacy Education, which informed the newly-vetted CAEP Social Justice Standard 6. With a co-authored book entitled Generation Bullied 2.0: Prevention and Intervention Strategies for our most Vulnerable Students hot off the presses, sj was recently selected as a new incoming co-editor of English Education and Peter Lang series co-editor of Social Justice Across Contexts in Education.
My Teaching Philosophy
My pedagogy is framed by a deep commitment to social change and social justice through constructivism, social activism, and liberatory teaching practices. These theories lay the foundation for my teaching practices and praxis which are student-centered. I teach to enable preservice student teachers to develop a beginning teaching pedagogy by interrogating how their prior experiences shape their belief systems and how those belief systems shape their teaching practices and goals. I encourage preservice teachers to make meaning of how their belief systems have shaped their eventual teaching identities. Together we interrogate and deconstruct how we have been shaped by hegemony and the institutions in which we are embedded and discuss how we can reconstruct ourselves away from institutionalized thinking and practice. We do so by examining how our own prejudices, and if gone unchecked, can escalate into detrimental teaching patterns and practices. I assist my student teachers in creating socially and culturally relevant lesson plans that will meet the needs of the diverse learners with whom they will engage.
My pedagogy is framed by a deep commitment to social change and social justice through constructivism, social activism, and liberatory teaching practices. These theories lay the foundation for my teaching practices and praxis which are student-centered. I teach to enable preservice student teachers to develop a beginning teaching pedagogy by interrogating how their prior experiences shape their belief systems and how those belief systems shape their teaching practices and goals. I encourage preservice teachers to make meaning of how their belief systems have shaped their eventual teaching identities. Together we interrogate and deconstruct how we have been shaped by hegemony and the institutions in which we are embedded and discuss how we can reconstruct ourselves away from institutionalized thinking and practice. We do so by examining how our own prejudices, and if gone unchecked, can escalate into detrimental teaching patterns and practices. I assist my student teachers in creating socially and culturally relevant lesson plans that will meet the needs of the diverse learners with whom they will engage.
Newsworthy
Recent Resolutions by NCTE
Resolution on Confronting Bullying and Harassment
Resolution on Social Justice in Literacy Education
Interviews with the Press
Quoted in the KC Star: Common Core Standards
In Rush to Write, Students Leave Spelling, Grammar Behind
On National TV: Huffington Post-
responding to cyberbullying in California schools.
Sotomayor rocks with Dissent, a Landmark Move!
Click here to read
Click here to read
Amazing News From President Obama
See my co-written chapter in Gender and Sexualities in Education: A Reader by, Elizabeth Meyer and Dennis Carlson
"Heteronormative Harassment: Queer Bullying and Gender Non-Conforming Students"
"Heteronormative Harassment: Queer Bullying and Gender Non-Conforming Students"
Favorite Quotes
As Howard Zinn (2002) points out, educational practice is never neutral and the university is hardly benign in its various spheres of influence (e.g., the corporate, scientific, and military sectors of society) or its need to perpetuate business, governmental, and social practices, however corrupt or antidemocratic.
As MLK (1961) noted: "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, but It Bends Toward Justice.”
As President Abraham Lincoln once said: "I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go."
"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."
-Audre Lorde
"A system cannot fail those it was never designed to protect."
-W.E. DuBois
Be the change you want to see in the world.
-Gandhi
