This course is designed to help prepare literature educators for developing their teacher identities and pedagogies. Please note that this course is geared especially toward preparing to work with secondary-level students, and it is a graded course. We will begin by exploring what it means to be a literature educator – why and how we do this dynamic work– work that Leggo (2013) astutely asserts is “a profound responsibility” (p. 126). For the majority of the course, we will move through a variety of different kinds of texts: literature that is produced by and/or privileges marginalized voices such as those from LGBTQ+ and Indigenous communities, both print and spoken word poetry, nonfiction such as memoir and personal essays, graphic novels, picture books, film, drama, short fiction, young adult (YA) literature, and what we might call ‘risky’ texts. Such texts include trauma literature, and specifically, we will spend some time near the end of the course (2 classes) considering the pedagogical potential of bringing sexual assault narratives into middle and secondary-level literacy learning spaces. Throughout our work with all of these texts, we will consider how we might best select and teach literature so that we can create meaningful literacy learning experiences for adolescent learners. Finally, this course is created so that there is significant space for student voice and input, and so we will take time to learn from one another through ongoing projects. Students will also have an opportunity to decide what we learn or explore in more depth during a ‘flex day.’