Coffell

Thinking Themselves Free presents humane, tender portraits of a small group of teen mothers trying to finish high school, and describes the ways in which reading, writing, and schooling shaped these young women's lives. The book suggests ways in which deeply held ideas about class, appropriate gender roles, and the expression of emotion in school affect educators' relationships with students who are different from the middle-class norm. Teachers of teen mothers describe with poignancy the young women's struggles to balance motherhood, work, and school, and suggest how schools could change to become more open to the diversity of life choice these women express.
Because this book addresses the problems of struggling readers, working class students, and the teachers who serve them, its greatest audience will be among pre-service and in-service teachers and teacher educators interested in literacy education, qualitative research, education reform, gender equity, social justice, and the teaching of young adult literature.

Cynthia Miller Coffel earned her PhD from the University of Iowa. Her research has appeared in Reader, The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and The ALAN Review. Her literary nonfiction won the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize in 2006 and has been shortlisted in The Best American Essays 2008.