Creating Praxis for Pre-Service Teachers

This chapter introduces a storied learning model to create opportunities for praxis within teacher education courses in order to humanize student experiences through book clubs. As many argue that people perceive the world in narrative form, embedding book clubs within methods courses creates opportunities for pre-service teachers to explore and reflect upon unfamiliar experiences, identities, and stories in order to cultivate their critical consciousness. Building off of Bishop's metaphor of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, as well as existing literature that discusses the use of book clubs in pre-service teacher methods courses, two case studies are offered highlighting theoretical and practical ways for book clubs to be embedded within methods courses. Case studies are followed by a framework for implementation that considers research in both critical pedagogy and reading comprehension.