Rate My Professor Samuel Tanner

Samuel Tanner is an Associate Professor of English Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Iowa College of Education. He earned his PhD in Critical Literacy and English Education from the University of Minnesota. Prior to his appointment at the University of Iowa in 2022, Tanner worked as literacy faculty at Pennsylvania State University Altoona for seven years and served as a high school English and drama teacher in the Twin Cities area for nearly 15 years. His professional trajectory spans classroom teaching, higher education instruction, and scholarly inquiry into language arts pedagogy.

Tanner's academic interests center on critical whiteness studies, improvisation, curriculum theory, anti-racism, and the role of race in educational contexts. His research examines whiteness in teacher practices, evaluation systems, and transformative pedagogies. Key publications include "Lesson Planning, Neoliberalism, and Whiteness" in Educational Researcher (2024), "Towards Transformative Critical Whiteness Pedagogies" in Whiteness and Education (2025), "More Than Surviving: Secondary Trauma in English Language Arts," co-authored with Kelsey Chingren-Lockhart in English Journal (2024), "Destructive Domains: Rethinking Teacher Evaluation in the Age of Accountability" (2023), and "Becoming Differently," an editorial in Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (2023). Tanner's scholarship has garnered over 350 citations according to Google Scholar metrics. He actively teaches and supervises courses in English education and teacher preparation programs, such as EDTL 4091 and CNW 4355. Additionally, Tanner served as the faculty speaker at the College of Education undergraduate commencement in 2023 and integrates his experiences as an improviser and creative writer into his educational work.