Two English Professors Share a Book Award From the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

Carlin Borsheim-Black and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides are the winners of the 2022 Outstanding Book Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. The authors were recognized for their book Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Anti-racist Literature Instruction for White Students (Teachers College Press, 2019).

This annual award recognizes a book that makes a significant contribution to the knowledge base of educator preparation or teaching and learning with implications for educator preparation. Sponsored by the AACTE Committee on Research and Dissemination, the award is given to a book that offers a fresh lens on current assumptions or practices, reorients thinking in the field, and shows potential for significant impact on policy or practice in educator preparation.

The authors draw upon experiences from their own and others’ classrooms to give discipline-specific practices for implementing anti-racist literature instruction in White-dominant schools. Some of the topics this book examines include designing literature-based units that emphasize racial literacy, selecting literature that highlights voices of color, analyzing Whiteness in canonical literature, examining texts through a critical race lens, managing challenges of race talk, and designing formative assessments for racial literacy and identity growth.

Dr. Borsheim-Black is a professor of English education at Central Michigan University. She is a co-editor of the Michigan Reading Journal. Professor Borsheim-Black holds bachelor’s degrees in English, mass communication, and English education from Minnesota State University in Morehead. She earned a master’s degree in English teaching and a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from Michigan State University.

Dr. Sarigianides is a professor of English education at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. She is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of California, Irvine and a Ph.D. in English education from Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City.