Wendy Glenn photo fall 2022
Professor • Program Chair of Undergraduate Secondary Humanities Teacher Licensure
Literacy Studies • Humanities Education

Miramontes Baca Education Building, Room 244C
University of Colorado Boulder
249 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309

Wendy J. Glenn is Professor of Literacy Studies and Chair of the Secondary Humanities Undergraduate Teacher Licensure program. Her research centers on literature for youth and how story can be used to both foster connection and invite disruption. She served as President of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English (ALAN) and Senior Editor of the organization’s peer-reviewed journal, The ALAN Review. Dr. Glenn was named a President's Teaching Scholar in 2023, a Those Who Can Teach Gold Award recipient in 2019, a University Teaching Fellow in 2009, and a Fulbright Scholar to Norway in 2009-2010. She worked with incredible young people as a middle and high school English teacher in the Phoenix metro area.

Education

  • PhD Curriculum and Instruction in English Education, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences/ School of Education, Arizona State University, 2001
  • MEd Secondary Education, School of Education, Arizona State University, 1994
  • BA English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences/Honors College, Arizona State University, 1992

I explore questions related to teaching and teacher education in the areas of young adult literature and anti-oppressive and identity-affirming pedagogies. My first line of research centers on young adult (YA) literature (fictional texts intended for readers, ages 12-18). I draw upon critical theories to engage in literary analysis of YA texts to highlight the affordances and limitations of literature published for young people and how it is and might be incorporated into curricula and classrooms.

My second line of research centers on work with preservice and practicing educators around learning to teach for equity and justice. These lines of research have merged in explorations of how story might be used to support teachers in recognizing, better understanding, and responding to power and privilege in their and their students’ lives in and out of the classroom.

Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) •President-Elect, President, Past President •Senior Editor, The ALAN Review •Founding Chair, Chair, and Past Chair, Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) •Special Drafting Group, NCTE Statement on Classroom Libraries •Standing Committee Against Censorship •Chair, Special Drafting Group, NCTE Principles for Defending Intellectual Freedom in Education

My teaching is guided by the assumption that inviting classroom spaces and genuine student learning and development are predicated on the creation of a community in which each member feels valued, supported, and capable. When students and teachers work together to build trusting relationships growing from knowledge of and respect for individual needs and interests, opportunities for authentic learning, growth, and humanistic connection are fostered.

As an English Language Arts teacher in Arizona, I worked with middle and high school students who held diverse identities connected to race, class, language, and gender. As a university faculty member, I am a teacher of teachers, one who works with both preservice and practicing educators to collaboratively design, implement, and study practices that encourage affirming student learning and connections to the self, others, and the world.

Glenn, W. J. (In press for 2024). Authorial ideology and intention in presentations of place in YA immigration narratives. Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts.

Caasi, E., & Glenn, W. J. (In press for 2024). (Re)inscribing ideologies: Examining ideological positioning of Black women athletes in nonfiction for children and young adults. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly.

Glenn, W. J., (2023, online). Fictional girls who play to play: Pushing on narratives of competition in YA sports literature. Sport, Education and Society, 1-16.

Glenn, W. J., & Caasi, E. (2023). Teaching with disruptive aims: Countering narratives of Black women athletes in sports nonfiction for young people. The ALAN Review 50(2), 32-47.

Glenn, W. J. (2023). Designs of home: Living spaces as identity-shaping places. English Journal, 112(3), 64-70.

Ginsberg, R., & Glenn, W. J. (2022). “Everything is in us”: Collaboration, introspection, and continuity as healing in #NotYourPrincess. American Indian Quarterly, 46(1-2): 25-63.

Midgette, L., & Glenn, W. J. (2022). “It never starts with machetes”: Interrupting Intergenerational Transmission of Biases Through Speculative YA Fiction. The ALAN Review, 49(2), 30-41.

Glenn, W. J., & Caasi, E. (2021; 2022). Gendered assumptions in the framing of fitness in sports nonfiction for young adult readers. Children’s Literature in Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-020-09432-7.

Durand, S., Glenn, W. J., Moore, D., Groenke, S., & Scaramuzzo, P. (2021). Shaping immigration narratives in young adult literature: Authors and paratextual features of USBBY outstanding international books, 2006–2019. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 64(6), 665-674.

Glenn, W. J., & Ginsberg, R. (2020). Tensions between envisioned aims and enacted practices in the teaching of Muslim young adult literature. Teachers College Record(122)2, 1-44.

Ginsberg, R, & Glenn, W. J. (2020). Moments of pause: A model for understanding students’ shifting perceptions during a Muslim young adult literature learning experience. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(4), 601-623.

Glenn, W. J., & Moore, D. (2020). The authorial mediation of religious tensions in YAL narratives of immigration. The ALAN Review, 48(1), 13-27.

Glenn, W. J., & King-Watkins, D. (2020). Fictional girls who play with the boys: Barriers to access in the transition to male-dominated sports teams. Children’s Literature in Education, 51(3), 309-331.

Hernandez, M., Torres, F. L, & Glenn, W. J. (2020). Centering immigrant youth voices: Writing as counter-storytelling. English Journal, 109(5), 35-42.

Torres, F. L, & Glenn, W. J. (2020). The journey stories of young adult authors: Complicating contemporary immigration narratives. The ALAN Review, 47(2), 25-36.

Glenn, W. J., & King-Watkins, D. (2019). Being an athlete or being a girl: Selective identities among fictional female athletes who play with the boys. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 44(3), 290-309.

Ginsberg, R., & Glenn, W. J., Eds. (2019). Critical approaches for critical educators. Engaging critically with multicultural young adult literature in the secondary classroom. New York, NY: Routledge.