Research: Examining Particularities of Praxis within a Literacy Practicum: A Case Study of Humanizing Pedagogies and Hope

This article addresses how teacher educators prepare literacy teachers to respond to the politicization of reading and literacy in current contexts. Utilizing a humanizing pedagogies framework, the authors explore four nested cases within a case study of one cohort of preservice teachers’ literacy mentoring in a two-semester course-based practicum. They ask how preservice teachers practice humanizing pedagogy and how they reflect toward their future teaching. A qualitative analysis of course artifacts reveals particularities in how participants learn about themselves as they mentor young readers, leverage those understandings to build their teaching practice, and connect their experiences to the politics of schooling. Participants envision cultivating belonging and critical literacy within their future classrooms, conscious of the conditions of schooling, and hopeful about their capacity to teach critical literacy. Implications for teacher education include designing spaces to come to know and meet preservice teachers where they are in their journeys toward humanization.