This book approaches English instruction through the lens of figured worlds, which recognizes and spotlights how students are actively engaged in constructing their own school, peer group, extracurricular, and community worlds. Teachers' ability to not only to engage with students' experiences and interests in and outside of school, but also to build connections between students' worlds and their teaching, is essential for promoting student agency, engagement, and meaningful learning. Beach and Caraballo provide an accessible framework for working with students to use critical discourse, narratives, media, genres and more to support their identity development through addressing topics that are meaningful for students--their families, social issues, virtual worlds, and more. Through extensive activities and examples of students writing about their participation in these worlds, this text allows educators to recognize how students' experiences in the classroom affect and shape their identities, and connect such an understanding to successful classroom practice. With chapters featuring effective instructional activities, this book is necessary reading for ELA methods courses and for all pre-service English teachers.