T. Hunter Strickland, Ph.D., assistant professor of Literacy Education, is the 2021 Excellence In Teaching award winner for Anderson University. He received a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy Education with a focus on English Education from the University of Georgia. Strickland also earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in English Education, both from the University of Georgia. His studies focused on young adult literature methods and courses in secondary English teacher education programs across the United States.
Strickland joined the Anderson University College of Education faculty in 2020. His teaching at AU focuses on PreK-12th grade literacy, including elementary literacy, secondary content area literacy, and English education. Through his understanding of young adult literature pedagogy, Strickland believes that the best literacy teachers of any grade level are teachers who foster their own identities as readers and writers.
His research interests include dialogic pedagogy and the use of young adult literature in both secondary schools and teacher education programs. Additionally, Strickland is interested in using Bakhtin’s concepts in analyzing young adult literature in order to engage with young adult texts and the students who read them.
Strickland’s research and articles have been published in “Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy,” “SIGNAL Journal,” and “Teaching for High Potential” (a publication of the National Association for Gifted Children). His book reviews have been published by the “Journal of Language and Literacy Education,” the “Dialogic Pedagogy Journal,” and the “Journal of Language and Literacy Education.” Strickland has also contributed chapters to “Clinical Experiences in Teacher Education: Critical, Project-Based Interventions in Diverse Classrooms.”