In this collection, Literacy and Learning in Times of Crisis: Emergent Teaching Through Emergencies, the contributors offer insights from theoretical, historical, and pedagogical lenses and these critical insights emerge out of their academic, scholarly, and personal experiences of teaching during crises. In some cases, authors have taught while battling COVID, and others have done so while addressing and acknowledging school-based violence. While some teach the analysis of the discourse of crisis, others critique the missteps of policy-making during calamity. More so, some authors examine the finesse of micro-teaching at emotional levels; others find the means to develop macro-structures of programmatic curriculum. Literacy and Learning in Times of Crisis highlights the educational decision making that educators have used to cope with the dilemmas that they and their students have faced at the turn of the millennium. Specifically, contributors to this collection offer a broad range of experiences, expertise, and engagement with pedagogy during emergencies that we currently face but also frame issues of emergencies that will inevitably challenge educators in the future.
"In the first half of 2020, as the onset of Covid converged with Black Lives Matter protests, wildfires, anti-Asian violence, and four years of Trumpist ultra-nationalism, it felt like we were living in an unprecedented state of emergency. Literacy and Learning in Times of Crisis is the story of how teachers responded to this moment of crisis: the emotional labor suddenly called for, the felt need for anti-racist pedagogies, the hidden fault lines in higher education that were revealed, and the resources teachers wish had been available." -John Trimbur, Professor Emeritus, Emerson College