(Re)Active Praxis: The Crop of Fall 2020: Rural Anxieties and Preservice Identities

Abstract

This reflective piece draws on the author’s experiences of simultaneously teaching a college-level young adult literature seminar alongside an upper-level methods course on teaching literature in the secondary schools. While this was not his first time teaching the two courses during the same semester, what makes this particular experience unique was that he taught both courses face-to-face in the midst of a global pandemic. Additionally, his midsized, Midwestern university’s largely rural, first-generation student population responded to the complex chaos of 2020 in culturally specific and pedagogically profound ways.