Christopher Parsons

Chris Parsons is an Associate Professor of English Education, Chair of the Education Department, and the Coordinator of Secondary English Education. He teaches courses on the methods of teaching English in secondary schools, English grammar, secondary education, and field instruction for teacher candidates.

Chris’s current research focuses on the theory and practice of field instruction in secondary English teacher education, grammar instruction in middle and high schools, and ideologies about masculinity and literacy in secondary English classrooms. He is co-editor of the book Principles that Shape English Teacher Education: Pedagogy for Innovation and Change (Bloomsbury, 2024). His recent scholarship has been published in the above volume, in the journals English Education and Pedagogy, and in the edited collection, Methods into Practice: New Visions in Teaching the English Language Arts Methods Course.

Chris earned his Ph.D in 2017 from the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan, where his dissertation, Ideologies about Gender and Literacy in the Academic Lives of Young Men, won a Dimond Best Dissertation award. In a warmer past life, Chris taught high school English for five years in North Las Vegas, NV.