Open gallery

A picture of Dr. Cody Miller in a blue shirt and mind cardigan.

Dr. Cody Miller, PHD

(He/Him/His)

Associate Professor

(585) 395-5526
hmiller@brockport.edu
Office: Brown Building 201

Recipient of the Chancellor's Award for

Teaching

Presidential Teaching Excellence Award Winner

Bio

I am currently an associate professor of English education. I served as an assistant professor at Brockport from 2019-2023. Prior to coming to Brockport, I was a public high school English teacher in Florida from 2012-2019. I love working with aspiring and practicing English teachers to incorporate young adult literature, graphic novels, and multimedia texts in English curriculum.

I live in Rochester with my husband and our ever-growing plant collection. I love exploring Rochester’s many independent bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, bakeries, and green spaces! I also enjoy playing tabletop games and reading music criticism.

Education

PhD (Curriculum and Instruction, English Education), University of Florida
Graduate Certificate (Educational Technology), University of Florida
MEd (English Education), University of Florida
BA (English), University of Central Florida

Areas of Specialty

English education
Young adult literature
LGBTQ topics in education

Courses Taught

EDI 728: Critical Literacy B-12
EDI 475/575: Practicum and Seminar in Adolescence English Edu
LST 715: Graphic Novel and Comic Studies
EDI 430/530: Education and Society
EDI 791: Seminar in English Education
EDI 436/536/WMS 436: Gender and Sexuality Topics in K-12 Education
EDI 465/565: Methods of Teaching Secondary ELA
EDI 647: Teaching Adolescent Reading, Writing, and Literature
EDI 445/545: Inclusive Middle Level Teaching in ELA
EDI 678: Issues in English Education

Research Interests

Critical English pedagogies
LGBTQ young adult literature
Book bans
Graphic novels and superhero texts in ELA classrooms
Popular culture/cultural studies in ELA classrooms
Teachers as public scholars

Children’s Literature Association Honor Article, “Queer Transgressive Cultural Capital in When the Moon Was Ours,” 2026
Honorable Mention for English Journal Edwin M. Hopkins Award, “Teaching Miles Morales: Suspended in a Time of Book Bans,” National Council of Teachers of English, 2025
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, SUNY, 2025
Journal of Literacy Innovation Article of the Year, “Reflections and Insights from Running a Professional Development Institute for Young Adult and Children’s Literature Social Justice Teaching Practices,” 2024
National Intellectual Freedom Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2024
Presidential Teaching Excellence Award, SUNY Brockport, 2023
Faculty-Student Engagement Award, SUNY Brockport, 2023
LGBTQIA+ Advocacy and Leadership Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2022
English Leadership Quarterly Honorable Mention for Best Article, “Confronting Concerns, Navigating Politics: Teaching Young Adult Literature in High School English Departments,” Conference on English Leadership, National Council of Teachers of English, 2021
English Leadership Quarterly Honorable Mention for Best Article, “Being a Radical Pragmatist: Reflections on Introducing LGBTQ YA Lit to an ELA Department,” Conference on English Leadership, National Council of Teachers of English, 2020
Paul and Kate Farmer English Journal Writing Award, “Miles Morales: Spider-Man and Reimagining the Canon for Racial Justice,” National Council of Teachers of English, 2019

Refereed Journal Articles

Hines, C., Miller, C., & Rodríguez-Astacio, R.M. (2026). Middle grades superhero graphic novels for reading joy, justice, and agency. Voices from the Middle, 33(4), 22-25.
Svrcek, N., Yurko, K.C., & Miller, C. (2025). Teachers’ perspectives on text selection in a time of book bans and censorship. Reading Horizons: Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 64(3), 59-81.
martin, s., Mattern, C., & Miller, C. (2025). How we survive: LGBTQIA+ young adult literature as maps for literacy educators’ grieving, teaching, and resisting. Dragon Lode, 43(2), 31-39.
Rodríguez-Astacio, R.M., Hines, C. & Miller, C. (2025). Striving for truth, justice and racial diversity: a critical race content analysis of DC Graphic Novel for Young Adults. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 24(1), 75-88.
Miller, C., Hines, C., & Rodríguez-Astacio, R.M. (2024). Teaching Miles Morales Suspended in a time of book bans. English Journal, 114(2), 33-40.
Miller, C., Colantonio-Yurko, K.C., & Svrcek, N.S. (2024). “A powder keg for them”: Teachers’ changing perspectives on text selection in a moment of mass book banning. Talking Points, 36(1), 12 – 21.
Pennell, P., Matos, A.D., & Miller, C. (2024). Queer transgressive cultural capital in When the Moon Was Ours. International Journal of Young Adult Literature, 5(1), 1-22.
martin, s.w., & Miller, C. (2024). Like a love/hate story: Reckoning with adultism and youth critique in intergenerational LGBTQ+ literacy spaces. English Journal, 113(6), 67-77.
Mertens, G., & Miller, C. (2024). Three characters and me(me): Positioning popular culture to unpack emerging teacher identity. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 11(2), 34-46.
Hines, C., Rodríguez-Astacio, R.M., Miller, C. (2024). Capes, culture, and racial representation in children’s superhero narratives: A critical race content analysis of DC Graphic Novels for Kids. Journal of Children’s Literature, 50(1), 10–21.
Miller, C., Svrcek, N., Yurko, K.C. (2024). “A good text with a well-intended teacher”: New educators developing and deepening social justice literature pedagogies. The New Educator, 20(2), 65-84.
Miller, C., Svrcek, N., & Yurko, K.C. (2024). Reflections and insights from running a professional development institute for young adult and children’s literature social justice teaching practices. Journal of Literacy Innovation, 9(1), 50-77.
Rodriguez-Astacio, R., Hines, C., & Miller, C. (2024). Criticality and the cowl: Teaching Black superhero narratives with DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults. ALAN Review, 51(2), 11-19.
Kelley, A., Watts, D., Miller, C., Yurko, K.C., Howard, J., & Johnson, N. (2023). Selecting and teaching young adult literature through Black historical consciousness principles. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 25(3), 37-66.
Abugasea Heidt, M., French, M.M., & Miller, C. (2023). Graphic novels as curricular counter-narratives for English language learners and emergent bilinguals. Multicultural Perspectives, 25(2), 116-125.
Miller, C. (2023). Learning from literature and legality: Supreme Court cases and young adult literature in a social foundations of education course. Democracy and Education, 31(1), Article 2. Available at https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol31/iss1/2/.
Yurko, K.C., Adams, B., Boehm, S., & Miller, C. (2023). Boundaries, objectification, and gender norms: Addressing sexual and gender-based harassment with middle grades literature. Middle School Journal, 54(1), 23-31.
martin, s.w., & Miller, C. (2022). The category is “pandemic queer”: Reading, connecting, and reimagining literacy with LGBTQ+ youth in the age of COVID-19. Radical Teacher, 124, 13-23.
Dowie-Chin, T., Miller, C., Boehm, S., & Worlds, M. (2022). “Freedom, freedom, where are you?”: A critical approach to examining music videos as protest and resistance. Special Issues: Critical Media Literacy, 2, 98-105.
Miller, C., Hines, C., Rodriguez-Astacio, R.M. (2022). With great power comes… youth empowerment?: A critical content analysis of Marvel’s superhero young adult literature. ALAN Review, 50(1), 33-44.
Miller, C., Boehm, S., Yurko, K.C., & Adams, B. (2022). Himpathy, herasure, and down girl moves: A critical content analysis of sexual assault in young adult literature. Journal of Literacy Research, 54(3), 298-321.
Adams, B., Yurko, K.C, Miller, C., & Boehm, S. (2022). Beyond perpetrators, victims, and survivors: Young adult literature as bystander intervention education. ALAN Review, 49(3), 42-52.
Miller, C., & Jeter, G. (2022). “We can position ourselves as experts”: Teachers learning to write and publish on national blogs. Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning, 14(2), 66-81. Available at https://surface.syr.edu/excelsior/vol14/iss2/4/.
Boehm, S., Yurko, K.C., Olmstead, K., Miller, C. (2021). When princesses become dragons: Critical literacy, Damsel, and confronting rape culture in English classrooms. Girlhood Studies, 14(3), 72-89.
Miller, C., Yurko, K.C., Nasra, K., Mufford, H., Sanchez, R., & Mulroy, A. (2021). Developing critical social justice literacy by reading young adult literature: Reflections and implications on future classroom practice. Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts, 8(1), 15-47. Available at http://ed-ubiquity.gsu.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Miller-et-al.pdf.
Miller, C., & Boehm, S. (2021). A civic and literary coalition: Analyzing young adult literature and news media in secondary ELA. The English Record, 71(2), 49-60.
Bittner, R., Miller, C., Pennell, S. (2021). We’re not sick, we’re not straight: Conversion therapy and the compulsory body in YAL. ALAN Review, 48(3), 27-36.
Svrcek, N., & Miller, C. (2021). Developing critical communities for critical conversations in K-12 classrooms. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 36(1), 10-19.
Mundorf, J., Miler, C., Hines, C., Worlds, M., & Del Riego, J. (2021). When the curriculum needs rescuing: Superhero graphic novels as disruptive curricular forces. Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, 60(2), 25-30.

Books

Greathouse, P., & Miller, C. (Eds.) (2022). Queer adolescent literature as a compliment to the English language arts curriculum (2nd edition). Rowman & Littlefield.

National Blog Publications

Miller, C. (2025, Jan 06). Fighting for intellectual freedom in the wake of the 2024 election. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved from https://ncte.org/blog/2025/01/fighting-for-intellectual-freedom/.
Miller, C. (2024, Jul 22). Project 2025 poses a danger to inclusive English language arts and affirming schools. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved from https://ncte.org/blog/2024/07/project-2025-danger/.
Miller, C. (2023, Nov 12). Advocates for the freedom to read continue to defeat book bans. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Miller, C. (2023, Oct 14). We need to talk about power and policy when discussing book ban efforts. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Miller, C. (2022, Dec 16). Learning from successful challenges against book bans in 2022. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Miller, C. (2022, Sep 12). The battle over books is a battle over democracy. We can win both. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Miller, C., & Hines, C. (2021, Jul 14). “Stepping up and speaking out”: Interrogating and teaching models of citizenship with Marvel comics. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Miller, C. (2021, Mar 09). Teaching Supreme Court cases using young adult literature. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Miller, C. (2020, Nov 16). Atticus Finch, Abraham Lincoln, and the imagination of white educators. Literacy & NCTE: The Official Blog of the National Councils of Teachers of English.

Media Appearances

Podcast interview for Words, Images, & Worlds: A Literacy Channel, “An interview Dr. Henry ‘Cody’ Miller,” February 2026
The Brockport Writers Forum interview with Justin Murphy, October, 2025.
Television interview for Rochester First, “‘An issue of democracy’: Activists against book bans hold panel discussion in Rochester,” June, 2025.
Radio interview for Connections with Evan Dawson, WXXI News, “Book bans, policy change, and where we go next,” June, 2025.
Magazine interview for Rochester Beacon, “Battle Over Books,” February, 2025.
Podcast interview for Hipocampo Children’s Books’ Off the Shelf!, “Banned Books,” November 2022 .
Video interview for SUNY Brockport, “Banned Books, Banned Rights,” July, 2022.
Journal interview for School Library Connection, “Research into practice. Fictional role models for social justice teaching: Interview with Henry Cody Miller, Mario P. Worlds, and Tianna Dowie-Chin,” 2021
Magazine interview for Education Week, “When school goes remote, many LGBTQ students lose a safe space,” 2021.
Magazine interview for Learning for Justice, 66, “The classical roots of white supremacy,” 2021.
Scholarship cited in CNN article, “Some of the most frequently banned books feature LGBTQ stories, library association says,” 2020.
Facebook Live panel, “Gene Luen Yang, Live with Banned Book Week.” Sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 2020.