Melissa Wetzel

Photo of faculty member Melissa Wetzel
Department Chair, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
H. E. Hartfelder/The Southland Corporation Regents Chair in Human Resource Development (Fellow)

Email: mmwetzel@austin.utexas.edu
Office: SZB 4.714N, SZB 4.708G
View Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
 

Melissa Mosley Wetzel is a Professor of Language and Literacy Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Her scholarship focuses on the preparation of teachers in literacy for equity-focused practices and the development of justice-focused coaching and mentoring in preservice and in-service settings. She draws from critical race scholarship and culturally sustaining pedagogy frameworks to prepare teachers within field-based literacy teaching experiences. She is also interested in critical literacy learning across the lifespan, particularly how teachers and students together design literacy practices that are transformative. She draws on qualitative methods in her work, primarily critical discourse analysis and ethnography. Dr. Wetzel teaches courses in elementary literacy methods, reading development, coaching and mentoring, literacy leadership, sociolinguistics, teacher inquiry, and critical approaches to studying classroom discourse.