Faculty Profiles

Janet Alsup is professor of English Education at Purdue University, where she has been a faculty member since 2000. She is a former department head in Purdue’s College of Education, as well as a former high school teacher. She has authored, co-authored, or edited six books, including But Will It Work with Real Students? Scenarios for Teaching Secondary English Language Arts (co-authored with Jonathan Bush, NCTE, 2003), Teacher Identity Discourses: Negotiating Personal and Professional Spaces (NCTE/Erlbaum, 2006), Young Adult Literature and Adolescent Identity Across Cultures and Classrooms: Contexts for the Literary Lives of Teens (Routledge, 2010), Literacy Teaching and Learning in Rural Communities: Problematizing Stereotypes, Challenging Myths (co-edited with Lisa Eckert, Routledge, 2015), A Case for Teaching Literature in the Secondary School: Why Reading Fiction Matters in an Age of Scientific Objectivity and Standardization (Routledge, 2015), and Millennial Teacher Identity Discourses: Balancing Self and Other (Routledge, 2019). She is currently working on a new book titled Entering Identity Portals: Critical Reflections on Leading, which integrates qualitative interviews with auto-ethnography and animal studies. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in English and literacy education.

Research interests include teacher education and professional identity development, the teaching of composition and literature in secondary schools, critical pedagogy, young adult literature, and qualitative and narrative inquiry.

Selected Publications

Books

• Millennial Teacher Identity Discourses: Balancing Self and Other. New York: Routledge, 2019.
• A Case for Teaching Literature in the Secondary School: Why Reading Fiction Matters in an Age of Scientific Objectivity and Standardization. New York: Routledge, 2015.
• Teacher Identity Discourses: Negotiating Personal and Professional Spaces. Mahwah, NJ:National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (LEA) Presses, 2006. 234 pp. +vii-xvi. [This book was published as part of the NCTE/LEA Research Series in Literacy and Composition.
• Alsup, Janet and Bush, Jonathan. But Will it Work with Real Students? Scenarios for Teaching Secondary English Language Arts, Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Press, 2003. 189 pp. + ix-xii. [This was a fully collaborative project with no lead author. However, I had primary responsibility for writing the Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 4, and the Conclusion.]

Edited Collections

• Eckert*, Lisa Schade and Alsup, Janet, Eds. Literacy Teaching and Learning in Rural Communities: Problematizing Stereotypes, Challenging Myths. New York: Routledge, 2015.
• Young Adult Literature and Adolescent Identity Across Cultures and Classrooms: Contexts for the Literary Lives of Teens. New York & London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2010. 225 pp. +v-ix.

Book Chapters, Refereed

• “Teacher Identity Discourse as Identity Growth: Stories of Authority and Vulnerability.” Research on Teacher Identity and Motivation: Mapping Challenges and Innovations, Ed. Paul Schultz, Ji Hong, and Dionne Cross Francis. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018, 13-24.
• “More Than a Time of Storm and Stress: The Complex Depiction of Adolescent Identity in Contemporary Young Adult Novels.” The Critical Merits of Young Adult Literature, Ed. Crag Hill. New York: Routledge, 2014. 25-37.
• Eckert, Lisa Schade and Alsup, Janet, “Continuing Education and the English Teacher: How Graduate Programs Transform Secondary Classrooms.” Teaching Teachers: Approaches in Improving Quality of Education, Eds. Issa M. Saleh and Myint Swe Khine. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2011. 215-226. [This was a fully collaborative project with no lead author.]
• “Beyond Member Checks: Moving Toward Transformative Data Analysis.” Change Matters: Qualitative Research Perspectives for Moving Social Justice Theory to Policy, Eds. sj Miller and David E. Kirkland. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. 97-104.
• “My Two Identities: Negotiating the Challenges of Being ‘Jointly Appointed.’” The Doctoral Degree in English Education, Ed. Allen Webb. Kennesaw, GA: Kennesaw State University Press, 2009. 211-219.
• Liu*, Lu, with Irwin Weiser, Tony Silva, Janet Alsup, Cindy Selfe, and Gail Hawisher, “It Takes a Community of Scholars to Raise One: Multiple Mentors as Key to My Growth.” Learning the Literacy Practices of Graduate School: Insiders’ Reflections on Academic Enculturation, Eds. Christine Pearson Casanave and Xiaoming Li. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 2008. 166-185.
• “Speaking From the Borderlands: Exploring Narratives of Teacher Identity.” Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education, Ed. Bronwyn T. Williams. Logan, UT:Utah State University Press, 2006. 109-121.
• “Protean Subjectivities: Qualitative Research and the Inclusion of the Personal.” Ethnography Unbound: From Theory Shock to Critical Praxis, Eds. Sid Dobrin and Stephen Brown. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. 219-240.
• “A Pedagogy of Trauma (or a Crisis of Cynicism): Teaching, Writing and the Holocaust.” Witnessing the Disaster: Essays on Representation and the Holocaust, Eds. Michael Bernard-Donals and Richard Glejzer. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. 75-89.
• Alsup*, Janet and Bernard Donals, Michael, “The Fantasy of the Seamless Transition: Writing From High School to College—a Dialogue.” Teaching Writing in High School and College: Conversations and Collaborations. Ed. Tom Thompson. Urbana, IL: NCTE Press, 2002. 115-135.
• “Washing Dishes or Schoolwork: Reflective Action as Renewal.” Updrafts: Case Studies of Teacher Renewal. Ed. Roy F. Fox. Urbana, IL: NCTE Press, 2000. 65-84.

Journal Articles, Refereed

• Premont, D., Kerkhoff, S., & Alsup, J. (2020). Preservice teacher writing identities: Tensions and implications. Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, 8 (1), 1-19.
• Kerkhoff*, S.N., Dimitrieska, V., Woerner, J., & Alsup, J. (2019). Global teaching in Indiana: A Quantitative case study of K-12 public school teachers. Journal of Comparative Studies and International Education, 1 (1), 5-31.
• Alsup, Janet. Literature in the Age of Google: Why Read Books When You Can Surf? Independent School. 76.2 (Winter 2017): 36-39.
• Richardson, Jennifer* and Alsup, Janet*. “From the Classroom to the Keyboard: How Seven Teachers Created Their Online Teacher Identities.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 16.1 (2015): 142-167.
• Shoffner, Melanie; Johnson, Tara Star; Alsup, Janet; and Sedberry, Tiffany. “The Difficulty of Teacher Dispositions: Considering Professional Dispositions for Pre-service English Teachers.” The Teacher Educator 49.3 (June 2014): 175-192.
• Alsup*, Janet and Miller, sj. “Reclaiming English Education: Rooting Social Justice in Dispositions.” English Education 46.3 (April 2014): 195-215.
• “Teaching Literature in an Age of Text Complexity.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 57.3 (November 2013): 181-184.
• “CEE and Life as an English Educator.” English Journal 101.1 (September 2011): 121-122.
• Alsup, Janet, Jonathan Bush, Elizabeth Brockman, and Mark Letcher. “Seeking Connections, Articulating Commonalities: English Education, Composition Studies, and Writing Teacher Education.” College Composition and Communication 62.4 (June 2011): 668-687. [This was a fully collaborative project with no lead author.]
• Zancanella, Don and Alsup, Janet, “English Education Program Assessment: Creating Standards and Guidelines to Advance English Teacher Preparation.” English Education 43.1 (October 2010): 65-71. [This was a fully collaborative project with no lead author.]
• Kuo, Nai-Hua* and Alsup, Janet, “’Why Do Chinese People Have Weird Names’: The Challenges of Teaching Multicultural Young Adult Literature?” The ALAN Review 37.2 (Winter 2010): 17-24.
• Alsup*, Janet; Conard-Salvo, Tammy; and Peters, Scott J., “Tutoring is Real: The Benefits of the Peer Tutor Experience for Future English Educators.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 8.2 (Spring 2008): 327-347.
• Alsup, Janet; Emig, Janet; Pradl, Gordon; Tremmel, Robert; and Yagelski, Robert, “The State of English Education and a Vision for Its Future: A Call to Arms.” English Education 38.4 (July 2006): 278-294. [This was a fully collaborative project with no lead author.]
• “Teachers as People.” Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice 18.1 (Spring 2005):19-24.
• “The Artistic Identity: Art as a Catalyst for ‘Self Actualization’ in Lowry’s Gathering Blue and Park’s A Single Shard.” The ALAN Review 31.1 (Winter 2004): 13-16.
• “Politicizing Young Adult Literature: Reading Anderson’s Speak as a Critical Text.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 47.2 (October 2003): 158-167.
• English Education Students and Professional Identity Development: Using Narrative and Metaphor to Challenge Pre-Existing Ideologies.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 3.2 (Spring 2003): 277-280.
• Alsup*, Janet and Wastal, Carrie King, “Writing Culture: Using Media Literacy and Popular Culture in the Middle and Secondary School.” The Writing Instructor (January 2002): URL: http://flansburgh.english.purdue.edu/twi/
• “Power and Play in the Classroom: A Discussion about Media Literacy with Donna E. Alvermann.” The Writing Instructor (January 2002): URL: http://flansburgh.english.purdue.edu/twi/
• “Seeking Connection: An English Educator Speaks Across a Disciplinary Contact Zone.” English Education 34.1 (October 2001): 31-49.

• ENGL 39100 — Composition for Teachers
• EDCI 42200 — Teaching English in the Secondary School
• EDCI 43400 — Teaching English in the Junior High/Middle School
• ENGL 49200 — Teaching Literature in the Secondary School
• EDCI 49800F — Seminar for English Education Student Teachers
• EDCI 55100 — Young Adult Literature
• EDCI 61300 — Seminar in English Education