Educating Otherwise

Abstract

This chapter describes a transdisciplinary approach to preparing future educators for teaching multicultural literatures within diverse classrooms. The project combined an English course with an education course to deepen student awareness and understanding of multiculturalism while also encouraging student engagement and support of diverse communities and schools in our area. Over the course of the project, in-class student learning was enhanced through team teaching, intercultural assignments, a field trip, and a capstone project where students applied what they learned through creating lesson plans for use in their future classrooms. The learning community focused on dialogic application; the instruction and activities of the course were developed to suggest models students may later adapt in their own classrooms. The chapter demonstrates the efficacy of the approach and concludes with remarks on the utility of the learning community by a former student who currently teaches high school English.