Education Faculty & Staff Directory

Elizabeth

Stolle

stollee@gvsu.edu

• Professor

484C DeVos

616-331-6242

• Literacy, Educational Foundations, and Technology

• Literacy Studies
• Reading

As a literacy teacher educator, I connect my research with student learning and teacher education. As a former 8th-grade English Language Arts teacher in Illinois and a reading specialist/consultant in Arizona, I value teachers. I encourage my students/teachers to act as teaching professionals and to ignite a passion for literacy in their own students. Here at Grand Valley State University, I teach in our Literacy Studies program while serving as the program director.

• Literacy Studies
• General Education

Courses

• EDR 317: Class Consciousness: Popular Culture, Schooling, & Identity
• EDR 320: Language and Literacy: Development, Assessment, and Instruction
• EDR 321: Content Area Literacy
• EDR 621: Foundations in Literacy
• EDR 628: Literacy Instruction Across Disciplines (PK-6)
• EDR 630: Literacy Instruction Across Disciplines (7-12)
• EDR 625: Secondary Literacy: Learners, Text, and the Environment
• EDR 685: Literacy Instruction Practicum
• EDR 693: Master’s Project

Scholarly Interests

• Literacy and Reading
• Self-Study Research Methods
• Disciplinary Literacies & Interdisciplinary Instruction
• Teacher Education
• Critical Literacy (issues of power in education)
• Teacher Identity
• Literacy Tutoring
• New Literacies (intersection of technology and literacy)

• Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2007
• M.Ed., Arizona State University, 2003
• B.A., University of Michigan, 1998

Recent Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Stolle, E. P., & Frambaugh-Kritzer, C. (2025). Critical friendship as a self-study research tool: A comprehensive resource exploring the complexities. Springer.

• Stolle, E. P., & Frambaugh-Kritzer, C (2024). Critical friendship quality and trustworthiness: Our new understandings. Studying Teacher Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2024.2443572

• Frambaugh-Kritzer, C., & Stolle, E. P. (2024). Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a critical friend: The affordances and limitations. Studying Teacher Education, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2024.2335465

• Stolle, E. P., & Vanderground, J. L. (2024). Building a Beloved Community of Literacy in Professional Spaces. Michigan Reading Journal: 56(2). https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj/vol56/iss2/9

• Frambaugh-Kritzer, C. & Stolle, E. P. (2023). Making the familiar strange again: Pausing to re-evaluate the quality characteristics of critical friendship. In C. Edge, A. Cameron Standerford, & B. Bergh (Eds.). Pausing at the threshold (1st ed.). Equity Press. https://dx.doi.org/10.59668/558

• Stolle, E. P., Blennow, K., & Malmström, M. (2023). New understandings of liminality: Pausing at the threshold of action. In C. Edge, A. Cameron Standerford, & B. Bergh (Eds.). Pausing at the threshold (1st ed.). Equity Press. https://dx.doi.org/10.59668/558

• Blennow, K., Malmström, M., & Stolle, E. P. (2023). Countering discourses of derision: Moving towards action in teacher education in the USA and Sweden. Education Sciences, 13, 635, https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070635

• Stolle, E. P., & Frambaugh-Kritzer, C. (2022). Critical friendship as a research tool:

• Examining the critical friend definition continuum. In B. Butler & S. Bullock (Eds.) Learning through collaboration in self-study: Communities of practice, critical friendships, and collaborative self-study, Springer Publishing.

• Critical Friendship: As a teacher educator and self-study researcher with expertise in Critical Friendship (CF) as a methodological and reflective tool in education research. Her work focuses on examining the affordances and complexities of CF in supporting teacher learning, professional growth, and the rigor of self-study research. She continues to investigate CF as a research tool, exploring its role in ensuring trustworthiness, fostering credibility, dependability, and success, and defining the hallmarks of quality CF. Through this work, she seeks to provide practical guidance and conceptual clarity for educators and researchers who engage in self-study.
• Her recent book, Stolle, E. P., & Frambaugh-Kritzer, C. (2025). Critical friendship as a self-study research tool: A comprehensive resource exploring the complexities. Springer, offers a thorough exploration of CF, highlighting its potential as both a reflective and investigative tool for teacher educators and researchers.
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: As a scholar of teacher education, Stolle’s research centers on supporting teachers’ professional growth through culturally and contextually responsive pedagogy. Her work explores how reflective, student-centered learning experiences can help teachers develop in areas such as identity, diversity, justice, and action, enhancing their ability to foster equity in the classroom. Stolle is particularly interested in bridging theory and practice, examining how structured, practice-based professional development supports teachers in navigating complex cultural dynamics and enacting meaningful change.
• Field-based Instruction: Stolle’s research also focuses on practice-based literacy instruction and field-based learning experiences for pre-service teachers (PSTs). In collaboration with other Literacy Studies faculty, they are examining how clinically rich, authentic learning opportunities help PSTs bridge the gap between theory and practice, fostering the development of adaptive expertise in foundational and disciplinary literacy. Using self-study and reflective methodologies, the team investigates how practices such as co-planning, instructor modeling, scaffolding, and feedback loops support PSTs in building pedagogical content knowledge, refining instructional skills, and cultivating equitable literacy practices. This work emphasizes the transformative potential of field-based experiences to prepare teachers to respond to the complex, dynamic needs of diverse learners while strengthening confidence, professional judgment, and readiness for PK–12 classrooms.

 

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