ENG 304 International Literature for Children and Young Adults
ENG 307 Teaching Writing: Elementary
ENG 308 Teaching Reading: The Necessary Skills
ENG 309 Teaching Literature to Children
ENG 400 Language Arts for Teaching

Research Interests

I'm interested in literacy, the teaching of reading and of literature and of writing.  I'm interested in how a people's literacy matters to them and to their lives, but also in the flip side, of aliteracy.  Who is aliterate?  Is it something that happens in cycles or all at once?  What can teachers do about it?

I spend as much time as I can overseas, working with and learning from educators in Central Europe and in Guatemala. I'm looking for international answers to children's education, in others ways of teaching reading and writing and valuing literacy, and in school reform.  Currently I'm studying international literature for children and young adults and thinking about the ways our children (and preservice teachers) can learn from the experience of reading these texts.

Publications

Klooster, D., Steele, J., & Bloem, P. (2001). (Eds.).  Ideas without boundaries: International education reform through reading and writing for critical thinking.  Newark,DE:  International Reading Association.

Klooster, D., & Bloem, P. (1995).  The Writer's Community.  New York: St. Martin's Press. 

Bloem, P. (2004). Correspondence journals: Talk that matters. The Reading Teacher, 58(1), 54-62. 

Bloem, P. (1999). Sharing international young adult literature. Bookbird, 37 (2), 51-55.