Faculty Directory
Michael Sherry, Ph.D.
BACKGROUND
Sherry holds a B.A. from Princeton University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Before joining the USF faculty in 2015, he taught English teachers in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Sherry began his teaching career as a middle and high school literature and drama teacher in New Jersey and has also taught in Europe.
TEACHING
Sherry teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in classroom communication, English teaching methods and writing pedagogies. He specializes in developing professional practices through the use of tools like reflective writing, digital video and teacher portfolios.
RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS
Sherry’s research addresses how teacher response during whole-class discussions and to student writing can enable and constrain participation, especially from students who are often marginalized by traditional classroom discourse practices. His research has appeared in Research in the Teaching of English, American Educational Research Journal, English Education and Teachers College Record. His current work includes the Student Writing Archive Project, an online database of student writing with teacher feedback accompanied by instructional materials and interview commentary from elementary, middle and high school teachers in diverse linguistic/geographic regions across the U.S.
Recent Publications
- Sherry, M. B. (2019). English education for a sustainable future (or why we need writing teachers at the end of the world). English Education, 51(4), 404-414.
- Sherry, M. B. & Lawrence, A. M. (2019). Put me in the game: Video games and argument writing for social action. English Journal, 108(6), 69-76.
- Sherry, M. B. (2019). That’s how the light gets in: Discussing teaching on the day after Parkland. English Journal, 108(3).
- Sherry, M. B. (2019). Tracking the emergence and development over time of a dialogic whole-class discussion genre in a ninth-grade history classroom. Dialogic Pedagogy Journal, 7, 27-54.
- Sherry, M. B., Dodson, G., & Sweeney, S. (2019). Improvising literate identities: Comparing cultural roles and dialogic discourse in two lessons from a US elementary classroom. Linguistics and Education, 50, 36-45.
- Sherry, M. B. (2018). How to make online discussions work: Writing to continue the conversation. Writers Who Care.
- Sherry, M. B., Messier-Jones, L. M., & Morales, J. (2018). Positioning in prospective secondary English teachers’ annotations of teaching videos. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 17(3), 152-167.
- Sherry, M. B. (2018). Reframing recitation: The dialogic potential of student responses in IRE/F. Linguistics and Education, 45, 110-120.
- Sherry, M. B. (2017). How the visual rhetoric of online discussions enables and constrains student participation. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(2).
- Sherry, M. B. (2017). Prospective English teachers learn to respond to student writing through the student writing archive project (SWAP). English Education, 49(3).
- Sherry, M. B. (2016). Bringing disciplinarity to dialogic discussions: Imaginative entry and dialogic discourse in a ninth-grade History classroom. Curriculum Inquiry, 46(2), 168-195.
- Sherry, M. B. (2014). Indirect challenges and provocative paraphrases: Using cultural conflict-talk strategies to promote student participation in whole-class discussions. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(2), 141-167.
- Sherry, M. B. (2014). The student writing archive project: Designing a searchable database of student writing and teacher commentary for English teacher preparation courses. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 14(3).
Service
Sherry serves as a co-editor of Writers Who Care, an online publication dedicated to authentic writing instruction. He has also served as chair or member of national committees like NCTE’s Promising Young Writers Advisory Board.
