In teacher education, field work in community-based spaces (including foster homes and programs for homeless youth) is frequently contrasted with "traditional" field experiences in classroom settings, where beginning teachers are immediately introduced to teacher-centered models of instruction. This volume works against such a model, presenting a counter-narrative of new teachers' understanding of the act of teaching. By exploring their work with at risk youth in community-based sites, it unites the practical aspects of field work and with theoretical conceptions of teaching, and envisions how the work and the definition of "teaching" can be broadened.

Heidi L. Hallman is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Kansas. Her recent work has been published in English Education and Teaching Education, among others. In 2010, she received a grant from Conference on English Education for her research on prospective teachers' work with homeless youth.

Melanie N. Burdick is an assistant professor of English and director of composition at Washburn University. Her work has appeared in English Education and The Journal of Teaching Writing. In 2012 she was awarded a grant from the Council of Writing Program Administrators to study high school teachers' perceptions of college-level writing.

Introduction: Beginning at the Margins 1. Community Fieldwork in Teacher Education and Composition Studies 2. Composing Teachers, Teachable Students, and Teachable Spaces 3. Questioning Through Writing: Writing as Dialogic Response 4. Questioning Teaching: Disrupting a Teaching Mythology 5. Assumptions about Curricular Control and Expectations 6.Questioning Normal: Composing Ethical Representations of At-Risk Youth 7. The Promise of Work at the Margins: Community Fieldwork in Teacher Education and Composition Studies