Engaging student teachers' hearts and minds in the struggle to address (il)literacy in content area classrooms.

The article presents information on preparing secondary-school teachers to support student literacy in subject-area classrooms. The author explains the need for the teachers to commit both heart and mind to improve literacy and implement reading strategies in addition to teaching content. She explains the curriculum she uses with student teachers to convince them that literacy is a matter of social justice, and that their students are at a political, social, and economic disadvantage without it. The author addresses obstacles to literacy instruction in the United States, such as the entrenchment of the lecture method of teaching, the refusal to see literacy as both pedagogy and social action, and the demographic differences between teachers and students.