Expecting Too Much (and Too Little?) of Literacy Teachers (Reposted from My Medium Blog)

I was reading a professional text fairly recently that, in many ways, moved me to nod my head so frequently as I read that I resembled one of those bobble head turtles that you find at craft fairs and flea markets. There was so much I loved about what the authors had to say about our collective practice as teachers. But the deeper I got into the book, the less I nodded my head and the more I started to cringe at the expectations these authors had laid out for classroom teachers — at the range and the number of teaching practices they insisted were essential cogs in the instructional literacy wheel. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way; as a matter of fact, I often develop that same cringe-y feeling when reading professional texts — particularly those that, in recent years, have become the most popular or sought-after among literacy educators.