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The Young Adult Writing Project (YAWP)
Fees Middle School Writing Center
Information for Student Teachers
ASU English Education
PO Box 870302
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
Phone: 480.965.3105
Fax: 480.965.0605
Language & Literature Building Rm 215
Photo: Alleen Nilsen
Curriculum
& Instruction
Ph.D. Program
English Education
- About
- Program Objectives
- Career Goals of Graduates
- Description of Degree Requirements
- Other Requirements
- FAQs
- Apply
English Education Doctoral Student Network
The Interdisciplinary English Education Ph.D. Program is administered through the Division of Curriculum and Instruction with classes in both the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. It is under the direct supervision of English Education faculty members assisted by other faculty members, both from the English Department, and from the College of Education's Language and Literacy program. An Executive Committee oversees the program, which also includes other areas such as Art, Exercise and Wellness, Mathematics, Life Sciences, Language and Literacy, and Special Education.
The program produces teacher trainers and researchers in English education through coursework and mentoring in such areas as:
- Philosophy and sociology of American education including such current issues as national and state standards and high stakes testing.
- English linguistics and issues concerning usage and the teaching of grammar.
- Subject matter of special interest to secondary level teachers, e.g. literature that appeals to adolescents and will help them develop into lifelong readers, and the development of young people's writing and reading skills for a variety of purposes.
- The development of critical skills in relation to the Internet and other mass media.
- Techniques of teaching and political and education issues related to multiculturalism and the teaching of English as a second language.
- Skills and techniques needed to conduct and report on research as well as to understand other people's, research.
Most students entering this doctoral program expect to take faculty positions at colleges and universities where they will help to prepare other teachers of English in grades 6 through 14 (middle school through community college). Another possible career is to work in school districts as coordinators or directors of English programs, to work in publishing educational materials, or to fill some other leadership role connected to the teaching of English.
Description of Degree Requirements
Prerequisites
Admission to the program is open only to those with a minimum of
two years English teaching experience in grades 6-14 and a commitment
from an approved mentor in English Education.
In addition, applicants must also have a valid U.S. high school teaching certificate issued by a State Department of Education.
To be considered for
this program, students should have a solid background in English
as a discipline. Under unusual circumstances, candidates might be
admitted with deficiencies, which they will be required to make
up as part of their program.
Residency
After admission to the Curriculum and Instruction Ph.D. program
and prior to the completion of the comprehensive examinations, students
must spend at least two consecutive semesters (not including summer
sessions) as full-time students on the ASU campus.
Coursework
Students are required to take a minimum of 93 academic credit hours
(54 hours must be at ASU, including 24 hours of dissertation research
credit) beyond their bachelor's degrees. Where applicable,
credits from a master's degree can be included in this number. A
maximum of 9 credit hours, taken outside of a completed program
of study, may be included at the discretion of the Ph.D. committee. Most
students, especially those entering with a master's degree, accumulate
more credit hours than the minimum in order to fill the specific
program requirements. Click the link below to download a curriculum checksheet:
- PhD in Curriculum & Instruction checksheet: MS Word [25 K]
- PhD in Curriculum & Instruction checksheet: PDF [61 K]
- ASU Graduate Catalog: click here
Examinations
on Research and Writing
In addition to the examinations that students will take as part
of their coursework, they will have two other major examinations
or defenses.
Comprehensive
Examination for Advancement to Candidacy
After all course work has been completed, students, in consultation
with their chair and other committee members, will make arrangements
to take their comprehensive examination. This is a two-part oral exam
conducted by dissertation committee members to determine whether
the candidate is ready to move forward in conducting research and
writing a dissertation.
Part I
Part I is based on a discussion of three publishable articles that have been written during the time that the student has been working in the program. Two of the papers should be specifically on an English education subject (e.g. adolescent literature, the teaching of vocabulary, censorship, children's literature, composition or rhetoric, problems faced by English teachers, etc.), while one of the papers should be on a more general educational issue and its relationship to English Education (e.g. standardized testing, multiculturalism, in-service education, distance education, effects of the Internet, changing literacy requirements, political issues, etc.). It is highly commendable if one or more of the papers has been published or accepted for publication, but this is not a requirement. The committee members are responsible for judging whether the papers are of a high enough quality to be accepted as a chapter in a book or an article in one of the professional journals that English teachers read (e.g. English Education, English Journal, College English, Teaching in the Two Year College, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Voice of Youth Advocates, School Library Journal, Voices from the Middle, The ALAN Review, etc.) or in a research or professional journal read by educators, in general. One of the papers may be (but does not have to be) co-authored with the student's mentor. Students should begin thinking about these papers from their first year of study and should consult with their chair about appropriate topics. If they set themselves the goal of writing one paper each year as an extension of work they have done in a class or as part of an internship, etc., they will not only be ready for their candidacy exam, but will also have established a pattern that will stand them in good stead over their careers.Part II
Part II is a defense of the dissertation prospectus. The evidence that the student brings to this examination includes a prospectus (10-30 pages, MLA Format) for the dissertation. Suggested prospectus components include:
- Personal statement of how student came to his/her dissertation subject;
- Work plan (a plan of action for the year before defending dissertation);
- Dissertation topic and conceptual framework for student's study;
- Literature review (brief summary of the relevant literature);
- Disciplinary foundations/theoretical grounding;
- Description of research methodology/methods of inquiry; and
- Bibliography.
Defense
of Dissertation
The dissertation is to offer proof that students are able to understand
basic research in their field and to conduct quality original research. It
is to be conceived and carried out so that it will make a contribution
to advancing scholarship in English Education and in Curriculum
and Instruction. The dissertation will be administered in the
fashion outlined by the Graduate College and the overall guidelines
of the Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, which prefers five-member
committees, but will allow four-member committees if appropriate. At least one committee member must be an approved Curriculum & Instruction mentor from the
College of Education. The defense will be scheduled when the
chair feels confident that the work stands a good chance of being
accepted by the other committee members.
Ph.D. Program Frequently Asked Questions
How
will I support myself?
There are a limited number of scholarships available through the
Graduate College. Also, the English Department sometimes supports students by awarding them teaching assistantships,
mostly teaching one or two sections of freshman composition. Applications to the English Department need to be received by February 1. While
this kind of teaching experience can be valuable (at least on a
limited basis), the pay is relatively poor. A major
benefit is that tuition fees are
waived for students holding half-time teaching assistantships. We realize that most of our students are settled in life with
family responsibilities. This means that teaching assistantships
and the modest scholarships that are available are inadequate. Some of our students are able to obtain assistantships from ASU units that do not have their own graduate students to support. Others obtain faculty associate positions at community colleges or in the English Departments of one of the ASU campuses. Economically, it sometimes makes sense
for students to borrow money so that they can finish the program
in a timely fashion and then move on to jobs where they will receive
higher salaries than those paid to teaching assistants.
Why
must I spend one year in full-time status?
The purpose of this requirement is to allow you to become fully
immersed in an academic environment, much as you will be if you
take a faculty position. You are allowed to include on-campus teaching (up to six hours), but trying to take a full-time load of graduate classes while also keeping a full-time teaching position in a local high school is not advised. While technically such an arrangement might fill “the letter of the law,” it goes against its spirit.
If
I can afford only one year as a full-time student, which is the
best year?
Ideally, it makes sense to immerse oneself fully into the program
during the first year because this kind of immersion prepares students
to make the kinds of decisions that will help them through the rest
of the program. However, for many students this is impractical
because they begin the program while teaching in a local school
district. Some of these districts will give teachers financial
support in their seventh year (a sabbatical). In these situations,
the students try to begin their coursework through evening
classes and summer sessions, and then commit themselves to full-time
status during their final year of coursework and their advancement
to candidacy.
Must
my three articles be published (or accepted for publication) when
I go up for candidacy?
No. The idea is to get you thinking about publication and working
toward that goal, but because of time lags in publication and the
many variables involved, your supervisory committee will act as
reviewers for your articles and will perhaps ask for revisions and
improvements in hopes of helping you to place them in respected
publications.
Will
the person who agrees to mentor me, upon admission, be my dissertation
director?
Not necessarily. The policy of having a faculty member serve
as a "sponsor" for incoming students was established so that students
would not spend two or three years of work and then be unable to
find a dissertation chair. However, we expect there to be changes
because professors sometimes retire or transfer to other schools. Also,
over the course of your study, you may develop new lines of interest
that will fit better with a different faculty member. What
usually happens in these cases is that your original mentor remains
on your committee, but you ask someone else to be your chair. Your
chair must be one of the people listed below as approved dissertation
chairs.
Who
besides my mentor will supervise my dissertation and make judgments
on my portfolio?
As you take classes, you should be thinking about which of your
professors you would like to have serve on your five-member Ph.D.
committee. At least one of these committee members must be
an approved Curriculum & Instruction mentor from the College of Education. Your chair must be one of the
people listed below as possible dissertation chairs. You need to
think of more than five individuals, because some faculty members
are already serving on so many student committees that they will
be unable to accept your invitation.
What
kinds of dissertations do students write?
ASU has a long history of scholarship in support of adolescent
literature. Students have written about specific authors (Karen
Hesse), topics (characters' religious development), and genres (the
archetypal journey in winners of the Coretta Scott King Award).
When Professor Ken Donelson retired in May of 2002, he donated an
800-book collection of historical adolescent literature to Hayden
Library. These books, housed in Special Collections, could
be a resource for students working in the history of books read
by teenagers. The ASU Library also holds a nationally acclaimed
collection of materials dealing with the history of children's theater. Qualitative
studies have been conducted in relation to questions on gender and
literacy (both that of children and of well established women English
teachers). A doctoral student from another university came
to ASU and wrote her dissertation on the program that Professor
Lynn Nelson has developed to work with Native American students, while one of our students followed selected participants for the year after they participated in the Greater Phoenix
Area Writing Project. We
have had limited success with experimental studies in which a student
goes into a classroom and tries out a new model of teaching and
expects to find significant differences in before-and-after tests. While
such studies may be viable under appropriate circumstances, we have
found that neither doctoral candidates nor schools have the time
that is needed to bring about measurable changes, and so we now
discourage students from attempting these kinds of studies. The
most successful dissertations are written on topics that are of
interest to students and to their mentor teacher. For ideas,
see the interests listed by the names of the faculty mentors listed
below.
What
careers do previous graduates have?
Ours is a small program, and all of our students who have graduated
within the last few years have found rewarding jobs. One teaches at
Diné College in Arizona, one is at
California State University, Fullerton, one is
the language arts curriculum director for a suburban school system
near Minneapolis. Another graduate has a job as a new assistant professor at
the University of Connecticut, another at Colorado State University, and three others are at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Additionally, one has a tenured position with Mesa
Community College, and one (a student working jointly with English
and Language and Literacy) is a new assistant professor at Vanderbilt
University. Still another is at Louisiana State University at Monroe.
James Blasingame (Ph.D. University of Kansas): The teaching of composition, the six-trait rubric, adolescent literature, cowboy poetry. James.Blasingame@asu.edu
Jessica Singer Early (Ph.D. University of California Santa Barbara): Secondary Language, Literacy, and Composition, Teaching for Social Justice, Teacher Research, Writing as a Healing Practice. Jessica.Early@asu.edu
Maureen Daly Goggin (Ph.D. Carnegie Mellon University): Rhetoric, the teaching of composition, the history of English studies. Maureen.Goggin@asu.edu
Peter Goggin (Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania): Theories of literacy, literacy and technology, environmental rhetoric, composition theory. petergo@asu.edu
Neal Lester (Ph.D. Vanderbilt University): American literature, African American literature. Neal.Lester@asu.edu
Keith Miller (Ph.D. Texas Christian University): Rhetoric, the teaching of composition, African-American literature. Keith.Miller@asu.edu
*Alleen P. Nilsen (Ph.D. University of Iowa): Children's and adolescent literature, literacy and vocabulary development, gender issues, current events and their effects on English education. Alleen.Nilsen@asu.edu
Duane Roen (Ph.D. University of Minnesota): Composition, the training of teachers, issues in English education. Duane.Roen@asu.edu
Josephine Marsh (Ph.D. University of Georgia): Literacy gender issues, children's and adolescent literature. Josephine.Marsh@asu.edu
*Program Director. Many other English Department members are willing to serve on English Education committees.
For
more information or to apply:
call (480) 965-3105
visit the Curriculum
& Instruction Ph.D. Program's web site: http://coe.asu.edu/candi/phd.php
Information
revised October 2005.
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Page Contact: Alleen.Nilsen@asu.edu updated: June 23, 2008 |