Sophia Sarigianides

Biography

Sophia Sarigianides studies efforts to effect antiracist literature instruction with white teacher candidates and white students, as well as the role of adolescent constructs in young adult literature and in teacher thinking. 

Before coming to Westfield State University, Sophia Sarigianides taught graduate English Education courses at Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to her work in New York City, she taught secondary English at the middle and high school levels for ten years.  As a transplant to Western Massachusetts she has fallen anew for autumn’s fall, has started cross-country skiing, and awaits her first view of a not-too-hungry bear.

Education

  • Ph.D. in English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
  • Professional Single Subject Teaching Credential, English, California State University, Long Beach
  • M.A. in English, University of California, Irvine (UCI)
  • B.A. in English, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), summa cum laude

Courses Taught

  • English 101: English Composition I

  • English 102: English Composition II

  • English 110: Honors English Composition II

  • English 338: Young Adult Literature in the ELA Classroom

  • English 350: Methods in the Teaching of English

  • English 397: Special Topics: Practicum in Secondary English

  • English 399: Special Topic: Theory & the Young Adult Novel

  • English 538: Young Adult Literature in the ELA Classroom (Graduate)

  • English 539: Advanced Methods in the Teaching of English

  • English 550: Methods in the Teaching of English (Graduate)

  • English 609: Contemporary Issues in English Education: Race & the English Classroom

Publications

Borsheim-Black, C. & Sarigianides, S.T. (2019). Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Sarigianides, S.T. (2019). Performative Youth: The Literacy Possibilities of De-essentializing Adolescence. English Education, 51(4), 376-403.
Sarigianides, S.T. (2019). Understanding Racial Melancholia: Analyzing Race-Related Losses and Opportunities for Mourning through American Born Chinese. In Ginsberg, R. & Glenn, W.J. (Eds.) Engaging with Multicultural YA Literature in the Secondary Classroom: Critical Approaches for Critical Educators. New York: Routledge, 74-82.
Sarigianides, S. T., Petrone, R., & Lewis, M. A. (2017). Rethinking the “adolescent” in adolescent literacy. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
2017, February. "Coerced Loss and Ambivalent Preservation": Racial Melancholia in American Born Chinese. Educational Theory, 67(1).
2016, Shifting the Abject: Examining Abjected Adolescence in Teacher Thinking. Curriculum Inquiry, 46(4), 388-407. DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2016.1205940.
2016, Winter. Acting Adolescent? Critical Examinations of the Youth-Adult Binary in Feed and Looking for Alaska (with Mark lewis and Robert Petrone). The ALAN Review, 43-50.
2015, February.  "The Youth Lens: Analyzing Adolescence/ts in Texts." Journal of Literacy Research (with Robert Petrone & Mark Lewis), 1-28.
2015, January. "How Re-thinking Adolescence Helps Re-Imagine the Teaching of English" (with Mark Lewis and Robert Petrone). English Journal, 104(3), 13-18.
2015, January. "Situating a Youth Lens within Children’s Literary Criticism and English Education." Journal of Language and Literacy Education.
2014, October. "Rampant Teen Sex: Teen Sexuality and the Promise of Happiness as Obstacles To Rethinking Adolescence." Journal of Youth Studies, 17(8), 1061-1076.
2012, November. "Tensions in Teaching Adolescents/ce: Analyzing Resistances in a Young Adult Literature Course." Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy, 56(3), 222-230.

Professional Service

  • 2018, November. Strategies for Preparing English Teacher Candidates For Teaching about Racism through Literature (with Carlin Borsheim-Black). Annual Meeting, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Houston, TX.
  • 2017, November. Preparing English Teacher Candidates To Teach about Racism through Literature (with Carlin Borsheim-Black). Annual Meeting, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), St. Louis, MO.
  • 2017, April. “Letting Myself Get Pulled Away”: Learning to Negotiate Race Talk Dilemmas in the English Classroom. Annual Meeting, American Education Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA), San Antonio, TX.
  • 2016, November. Racial Melancholia in American Born Chinese. In (session title) Complicating Youth, Literacy, Gender, and Race through the study of Young Adult Literature in English Teacher Education. Annual Convention, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Atlanta, GA.
  • 2016, April. Adolescents Learning about "Adolescence" in an AP English Class. American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
  • 2015, November. Applying the Youth Lens in High School. In (session title) Forwarding New Notions of Adolescence/ts Among Prospective English Teachers. Annual Convention, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Minneapolis, MN.