Jenni Eaton's research explores how teacher education prepares secondary English language arts teachers to facilitate justice-oriented writing instruction and assessment. She hopes her work will shape the way aspiring teachers are prepared to teach writing, equipping them to facilitate writing in ways that lead to increased student agency, voice, and success in secondary English language arts classrooms. Her work is rooted in humanizing and anti-racist pedagogies.
During her tenure as a graduate student at UMD, Jenni has engaged in a variety of work related to teacher education and professional development, including teaching and supervising student teachers in their internship placements, developing and facilitating professional learning aligned to the teacher career ladder defined in Maryland's Blueprint for Success, and undertaking research that seeks to understand how preservice teachers understand and enact equitable pedagogy with students in authentic writing classrooms. She also serves as a research assistant for the Racial and Social Justice Research-Practice Partnership Collaborative.
Jenni also holds an MFA in Writing and an MA in Teaching. She is a secondary English language arts teacher for Montgomery County Public School and has a fondness for teaching middle schoolers. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Writing at the University of Maryland Global Campus. When she's not reading or writing or hanging out with her family, she's up to her elbows in the dirt of her enormous vegetable garden.
The Graduate School Summer Research Fellowship, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 2024