Jenell Penn

Jenell Igeleke Penn is a clinical assistant professor. Her research, scholarship, and teaching interests center on critical literacies and the cultivation of affirming spaces and praxes for/with teachers, youth, and researchers of Color. She is also a Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color Fellow with National Council of Teachers of English.

Dr. Penn also serves as the Assistant Director of Teacher Education and the Director of Recruitment, Mentoring and Retention for Diversity and Social Justice for the Columbus Campus in the Department of Teaching and Learning. In these roles, she develops strategic initiatives that advance the college’s commitment to more diverse, equitable, and sustaining teacher education spaces. In addition, Penn chairs the college’s annual Equity and Diversity Educator Conference for preservice, in-service, and community educators.

A veteran educator, Dr. Penn taught secondary English Language Arts for nine years in the Central Ohio community and served as the Program Manager for the department’s 7-12 English Education and Social Studies Education licensure programs for four years.

·       Ph.D., Adolescent, Post-Secondary, and Community Literacies, The Ohio State University, 2020

·       M.Ed., Integrated Language Arts Education, The Ohio State University, 2007

·       B.A., English, The Ohio State University, 2006

• Access and Equity
• Curriculum and Instruction
• English Language and Literature
• English/Language Arts Teacher Education
• History Teacher Education
• Literacy
• Multicultural Education
• Social Justice
• Teacher Education
• Urban Education
• Women's Studies
• Young Adult (Adolescent) Literature

Dr. Penn’s research interests center around the cultivation of spaces for the literacies, languages, histories, and bodies of historically marginalized people. Currently, she is exploring how collective praxes, such as sister circles and mentoring, can impact the racial and gendered experiences of Black women undergraduate students at PWIs. She is also exploring the co-development of spaces for pre-collegiate students of Color interested in the field of education.

• Penn, J. (2021, December). Abolitionist Teaching. In Shelton, S. & (Eds;), Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education. Brill
• Clark, C. and Penn, J. (2021, November). Critical Digital Storytelling, Intersectionality, and Family Involvement. In Guzzetti, B. (Ed.) Genders, Culture, and Literacies: Understanding Intersecting Identities. Taylor and Francis/Erlbaum.
• Penn, J.(2021, November) Writing for the Soul: Dispelling Shame and Surveillance Through Sustaining Writing Practices. In Whitney, A. (Ed.) Growing Writers: Principles for High School Writers and Their Teachers. National Council of Teachers of English.
• Butler, T., Penn, J., and Merry, J. (2019, December) Pardon this Disruption: Cultivating Revolutionary Civics through World Humanities. In Kinloch, V., Burkhard, T. and Penn, C. (Eds.) Race, Justice, and Activism in Literacy Teacher Education. Teachers College Press.
• Penn, J., Clark, C., & Smith, J. (2018, September). Queering Conventional Narrative Elements with Lily and Dunkin. In Greathouse, P. Eisenbach, B. & Kaywell, J. (Eds.) Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Blackburn, M., Clark, C. & Schey, R. with Penn, J., Johnson, C., Williams, J., Sutton, D., Swenson, K., and Vanderhule, L. (2018, April). Stepping Up: Teachers Advocating for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Schools. Routledge.

• Penn, J. and Malone, H.L. (2021, July). Love, Literacy, and Light in the Pursuit of Racial Justice. Highlighted Session. Paper presented at the ELATE Summer Conference for the National Conference of Teachers of English. Louisville, Kentucky.
• Penn, J. (2020, November). Garret Spaces: Collective and Collaborative Praxes with and for Black Preservice Teachers. In T. Perry, CNV Poster Session. Poster presented at the Annual Convention of the National Conference of Teachers of English. Virtual.
• Penn, J. (2020, April). Collective and Collaborative Approaches to Qualitative Research. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting. San Francisco, CA. (Conference canceled)
• Penn, J. (2020, April). “I’m not crazy!”: Testifying, Knowledge Building, and Theorizing in Garrets with Preservice Teachers of Color. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting. San Francisco, CA. (Conference canceled)
• Penn, J. (2019, November). “She’s a copy and paste”: Black Preservice Teachers’ Resistances Against Whiteness in Teacher Education. In J. Penn (chair), Drawing on Racial, Cultural, and Historical Identities in Teacher Education. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the National Conference of Teachers of English. Baltimore, MD.
• Black, H., Johnson, C., Mbalia, K. Penn, J., Yee, F.C.(2019, November). Worlds Worth Fighting for: the wonder and awe of speculative fiction. Panel discussion at the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Baltimore, MD.
• Penn, J. (2019, February). Collective and Collaborative Approaches to Ethnographically-Informed Qualitative Research: What Black Feminist Thought Is Teaching Me. Paper presented at the Midwinter Conference for the National Conference of Teachers of English Assembly for Research. Birmingham, AL.
• Penn, J. (2018, November). Collective and Collaborative Praxes with Preservice Teachers of Color. Highlighted Session. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Literacy Research Association. Palm Springs, CA.
• Penn, J. (2018, May). “Don’t worry… I’ll get her there”: Embodying Black Feminist Praxis in a Consciousness Raising Collaborative Space with Preservice Teachers of Color. Paper presented at Discourse Analysis Conference. Columbus, OH.