bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rejoining the Learning Circle: When Inservice Providers Conduct Research
Authors: Rogers Paul , Whitney Anne Elrod , Bright Alison , Cabe Rosemary , Dewar Tim , Null Suzie Y.
Published: March 2024

In this article, a group of inservice providers and beginning researchers describe their experiences in learning to conduct evaluation research on a long-term school-university partnership program. We offer the practical lessons we learned in how to undertake such a study, and we share the immediate and powerful effects that the process of conducting the research had on the way we envisionand enact our inservice work. As the director of the inservice program noted, the problem we were addressing changed from “How can we convince others that we do good work?” to “How canwe make our work better?” This is a question at the heart of professional learning communities.
Extending the Conversation: Using Theater to Engage Cultural Identity: Implications for Students and Teachers
Authors: David Blazar
Published: March 2024

David Blazar shares his experiences teaching a unit based on the Broadway musical In the Heights as a way of engaging the cultural identity of his students, mainly Dominican Americans. He learned much about his students as a result, enabling him to connect with them as people but also to encourage their specific needs as students, thinkers, and writers.
Challenging Texts: Challenging Textbooks: Servants, Not Masters of Our Classrooms
Authors: Thomas P. L. , Schmidt Renita
Published: March 2024

Challenging Texts explores various ways of teaching literary theory to high school and middle school students.
Innovative Writing Instruction: Practice Makes Perfect! Realizing Classrooms as “Landscapes of Learning,” Not Places of Perfection
Authors: Ozier Lance
Published: March 2024

Innovative Writing Instruction publishes new approaches to the teaching of writing in high school and middle school.
Editor’s Retrospective
Authors: Reid Louann
Published: March 2024

A look back at Reid's editorship.
And the Winner Is … Choosing a Middle School Author Laureate
Authors: S. Gillespie Joannex
Published: March 2024

The real winners in this literary contest are Gillespie’s students.
Success with ELLs: We Are All Writers! Building Second Language Writing Skills in the ELA Classroom
Authors: DelliCarpini Margo
Published: March 2024

Success with ELLs suggests effective approaches to teaching English language learners in ways that can be of benefit to all students inÂ mainstream middle and high school English classes.
Teaching in the Dark: The Promise and Pedagogy of Creative Writing in Prison
Authors: Appleman Deborah
Published: March 2024

Creative writing can unlock creative potential, foster students’ love of language, and offer a powerful outlet for self-expression.
Adventures with Text and Beyond: Education for Empowerment: The Link between Multiple Literacies and Critical Consciousness
Authors: Hubbard Scott
Published: March 2024

“Adventures with Text and Beyond” explores various ways of teaching literary theory to high school and middle school students.
Challenging Perspectives on Young Adult Literature
Authors: Connors Sean P.
Published: March 2024

With its focus on classics, the Common Core State Standards may reduce attention to YA literature. Connors uses a Peanuts comic strip to demonstrate the literariness of seemingly less- sophisticated texts.
High School Matters: Capacity and Audacity—A Paradox?
Authors: Heller Stephen
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Cultural Awareness Logs: A Method for Increasing International-Mindedness among High School and Middle School Students
Authors: Thier Michael
Published: March 2024

A high school teacher describes an assignment that draws on Hall’s cultural iceberg to help students develop global perspectives and better close-reading and analytical skills.
Research for the Classroom: Trying to Find “The Funny”: A Teacher Writing Group’s Inquiry into Humor Writing
Authors: Dawson Christine , Hanson Kelly , Ponzio Christina , Robinson Eleanor Liu , VanRiper Jillian
Published: March 2024

“Research for the Classroom” publishes mini-studies of ELA classroom practices and suggests ways in which high school and middle school English teachers may study the effectiveness of their pedagogy.
High School Matters: Assessment: Our (Re)Inventing the Future of English
Authors: Chadwick Jocelyn A.
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Toward a Clearer Picture of Assessment: One Teacher’s Formative Approach
Authors: Noskin David Peter
Published: March 2024

The author describes the complex process one teacher goes through to create meaningful formative and summative assessments to define and support student learning.
High School Matters: In Search of Gravitas
Authors: Heller Stephen
Published: March 2024

This author argues that to prepare students to make meaningful contributions to society, teachers should adopt a more rhetorical approach toward literary study.
Political Language, Democracy, and the Language Arts Class
Authors: Shafer Gregory
Published: March 2024

It is important for students to understand and analyze political language so that they can be participatory members of a democratic society.
“Piercing the Dome”: The English Teacher’s Role in Democracy, Leisure, and the Common Core State Standards
Authors: Smilie Kipton
Published: March 2024

Emphasizing the importance of private deliberation and imaginative play prepares students for life outside of the democratic market.
Disabling Assumptions: Challenging Stereotypes about Disability for a More Democratic Society
Authors: Dunn Patricia A.
Published: March 2024

“Disabling Assumptions” explores how teachers’ use of a Disability Studies perspective can help make our society more inclusive.
High School Matters: Creating Synergy beyond the English Hall
Authors: Seale Tara
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Envisioning Assessment: “Too Much Foliage in Proportion to Fruit—I Think”: A Plea for Metalanguage
Authors: Hopkins Jed
Published: March 2024

“Envisioning Assessment” examines the roles assessment might be playing in the “bureaucratization” of our education system and considers the creation of an ideal educational world where assessment is supportive of education.
Carpe Librum: Seize the (YA) Book: Literary Slipstream: Using Contemporary YA Fiction to Connect Students with the Canon
Authors: Schmidt Pauline Skowron
Published: March 2024

This column hopes to serve as a space dedicated to conversation about Young Adult Literature and to celebrate adolescents, their reading, and their experiences by reviewing the texts that engage them.
Carpe Librum: Seize the (YA) Book: Let’s Hear It for the Girls: Resilient and Remarkable Women in Today’s YA Literature
Authors: Schmidt Pauline Skowron
Published: March 2024

This column hopes to serve as a space dedicated to conversation about Young Adult Literature and to celebrate adolescents, their reading, and their experiences by reviewing the texts that engage them.
The Moral of the Story: Young Adult Authors Speak on Morality, Obligation, and Age Appropriateness
Authors: DiCicco Michael , Taylor-Greathouse Paula
Published: March 2024

This article presents the responses of some young adult authors to questions about morality, the writing process, and the obligation of the writer to his or her readers.
EJ in Focus: The Art of the Impossible: Professional Study and the Making of Teachers
Authors: Taubman Peter
Published: March 2024

This article critiques dominant conceptions of teacher development and expertise and urges teachers to create opportunities to explore their own intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional lives.
Serendipitous Stories: The Use of Memoir Concept Albums to Teach Memoir Writing
Authors: Williamson Melissa
Published: March 2024

Memoir concept rock albums bridge the teaching of memoir by using a medium students know best: music.
Beyond the Stacks: Why High School English Teachers Should Be Talking about Books
Authors: Thompson Kierstin H.
Published: March 2024

In this article, the author shares interview data showcasing teacher expertise and calls for more focused professional development in reading and discussing literature.
Soft(a)ware in the English Classroom: Screen Capture Software for Flipped Instruction: The Flip Side
Authors: Beckelhimer Lisa
Published: March 2024

“Soft(a)ware in the English Classroom” seeks to identify the ways in which our teaching and learning lives are influenced by software.
From the Guest Editors
Authors: Brown Alan , Crowe Chris
Published: March 2024

The guest editors introduce this sports-themed issue.
Teaching with and about Sports-Based Documentary Films to Address Core Standards
Authors: Rodesiler Luke
Published: March 2024

Sports documentaries capture student interest and provide opportunities for activities and assignments that connect to popular culture, develop ELA literacies, and meet Common Core State Standards.
Lingua Anglia: Bridging Language and Learners: Multilingualism and Sports: Home Language, Cross-Training, and the Resource of Bilingualism
Authors: Hickey Pamela J.
Published: March 2024

“Lingua Anglia: Bridging Language and Learners” discusses critical, transformative, and powerful ways to support students’ acquisition of Standard English.
Rewriting the Common Core State Standards for Tomorrow’s Literacies
Authors: Cleave Jessica Van , Bridges-Rhoads Sarah
Published: March 2024

These authors highlight the push for reading the CCSS as a living document like any other, open to interpretation and creative implementation.
From English Language Arts Teacher to Literacy Expert: Reimagining Our Roles
Authors: Lannin Amy , Kohnen Angela , Kline Katie , Singer Nancy , Stokes Valorie , Knowles Amy
Published: March 2024

This article chronicles work that is focused on content-area writing, as stressed in the CCSS, and partnered language arts teachers with career/technical educators.
Lingua Anglia: Bridging Language and Learners: Vir Bonus Dicendi Peritus: The Art of Oral Argumentation
Authors: Watson Tim W. , Hickey Pamela J.
Published: March 2024

“Lingua Anglia: Bridging Language and Learners” discusses critical, transformative, and powerful ways to support students’ acquisition of Standard English.
Professional Book Reviews: The Rights of Readers in Our Schools
Authors: Fabelo Dora M. , Stella Krish , Barreto-Romero Natascha , Valdez-Gainer Nancy
Published: March 2024

Dora M. Fabelo, Krish Stella, Natascha Barreto-Romero, Nancy Valdez-GainerFour professionals who represent different capacities in one urban elementary school—principal, reading specialist, librarian, and classroom teacher—each select one book to review relating to the theme of “rights of readers.” The first book reviewed, A Declaration of Reader’s Rights: Renewing Our Commitment to Students, written by Bass, Dasinger, Elish-Piper, Matthews, and Risko, provides an overview of what is meant by “rights of readers” and what can be done in schools to address this issue. Next, Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word, edited by Toni Morrison, contains diverse chapters relating how censorship infringes on the rights of readers. DIY Media: Creating, Sharing, and Learning with New Technologies, edited by Knobel and Lankshear, examines do-it-yourself media as social literacy practice, thus calling for the rights of readers to engage with expanded definitions of what should count as text. Finally, Teaching for Joy and Justice: Re-Imagining the Language Arts Classroom, written by Linda Christensen, highlights the possibilities that arise when students are given the right to engage with reading and writing that reflects their diverse lives, cultures, and languages, affording opportunities to read and write social justice texts.
Focus on Policy: Life and Literacy in Haiti: A Conversation with Jocelyne Trouillot
Authors: Lehman Barbara A. , Logan Cheryl L. , Pellowski Anne , Bush Gail
Published: March 2024

A year after the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010, Lehman and Logan have a virtual conversation with Jocelyne Trouillot, author and publisher of Haitian Creole children’s books, founder of the Haiti section of the International Board on Books for Young People, and head of the Université Caraïbe in Port-au-Prince. They discuss the effects of the widespread destruction and Trouillot’s involvement in rebuilding her university and the Haitian education system, her work with traumatized children and colleagues, the workshops she developed for promoting new writers of children’s books, and her own writing. Anne Pellowski and Gail Bush, who have helped to lead these workshops in Haiti, also describe their experiences. Trouillot provides background for the status of language and literacy in the Haitian context.
Professional Book Reviews: Toward a Different Kind of Writing Instruction
Authors: DeFord Diane , Mills Heidi , Donnelly Amy
Published: March 2024

The authors explore new books about writing for audiences in early childhood through adolescence. These books provide clear direction on who must control learning: the teacher and the learner. Only a teacher who understands language, learning, and diversity can meet the needs of today’s diverse writers.
Understanding History through the Visual Images in Historical Fiction
Authors: Youngs Suzette
Published: March 2024

In the last ten years, historical fiction picturebooks have won numerous children’s literature awards and have assumed a prominent role in the literacy landscape of elementary and middle school classrooms. Whether read in read-alouds, study groups, as a focus of genre study, or as a supplement to the social studies curriculum, historical fiction picturebooks are a ubiquitous feature of elementary classrooms. What is problematic is the central focus in elementary reading education on teaching the strategies and skills necessary for understanding written text. When this is the case, the visual images and design features of the text are often overlooked, and readers’ construction of meaning with textual features (printed words) is privileged. This article highlights how purposeful instruction in visual and design systems of meaning of historical fiction picturebooks moved readers beyond literal elements of the texts and images, encouraged readers to construct meanings from a variety of perspectives, and created spaces for critical reading and inquiry.
Language Arts Teachers’ Resistance to Teaching LGBT Literature and Issues
Authors: Thein Amanda Haertling
Published: March 2024

In recent years, scholars and other educators have encouraged language arts teachers to include LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) issues and texts in their classrooms. Despite these efforts, scholars have pointed out that LGBT perspectives are seldom included in language arts pedagogy. Studies of teacher attitudes toward addressing LGBT themes in the language arts classroom suggest that teachers’ conflicted beliefs about these issues are at play in this absence. This study examines the discursive strategies used by current and prospective language arts teachers in an online course on multicultural literature instruction to justify and qualify why they held anti-homophobic views but simultaneously could not or would not teach LGBT texts and issues in their classrooms. This study provides useful implications for language arts teachers and teacher educators aimed at questioning status quo discourses and taking up more active stances toward combating homophobia and heteronormativity in language arts classrooms.
Professional Book Reviews: From Local to Global: Helping Students Make an Environmental Difference
Authors: Long Susi , López-Robertson Julia , Styslinger Mary
Published: March 2024

This column highlights books that provide practical and theoretical approaches for “going green.” Some of the strategies include school gardens, eco literacies, and how to address environmental issues both locally and globally. These books foster students’ critical thinking about ways to save their world by becoming eco-conscious.
Professional Book Reviews: Understanding Community Literacies as Foundational to Teaching Excellence
Authors: Williams Toni M. , DeFord Diane , Donnelly Amy , Long Susi , López-Robertson Julia , Styslinger Mary E. , Walker Nicole
Published: March 2024

The books reviewed here communicate that as educators, we can support academic success for all students by expanding understandings about home/community literacies. We can do this by tapping into the valuable resources that communities and families can provide. In particular, these texts focus on the expertise in communities too often marginalized in the curricular picture, helping us recognize why and how we must engage in educational efforts that liberate and educate rather than alienate and, as a result, oppress opportunities for students to succeed. Reviewed are: Urban Literacies: Critical Perspectives on Language, Learning, and Community (Valerie Kinloch); “Multiplication Is for White People”: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children (Lisa Delpit); Bridging Literacy and Equity: The Essential Guide to Social Equity Teaching (Althier M. Lazar, Patricia A. Edwards, and Gwendolyn Thompson McMillon; A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (Mark Warren and Karen Mapp).
Toward a New Mindfulness: Explorations of Home and Community Literacies
Authors: Hamel Erin Coccia , Shaw Sally , Taylor Tammy Smith
Published: March 2024

A teacher study group explores issues of home and community literacies with a goal of utilizing out-of-school literacies to support in-school literacy learning. The result was the beginning of a new mindfulness that allowed them to begin to recognize the existence and legitimacy of home and community literacies. They explored how their own biases impact literacy education and decided that their learning would require much more than a year-long exploration.
Professional Book Reviews: Cultivating Minds with Words, Stories, and Social Action
Authors: Spence Lucy K. , Jewett Pamela , Oglan Victoria A. , DeFord Diane
Published: March 2024

The four books reviewed in this issue address important topics in schooling today, including bullying, critical literacy, close reading of texts, and language use in the classroom. Bullying Hurts: Teaching Kindness through Read Alouds and Guided Conversations provides lessons for developing kindness, compassion, and an understanding of difference in elementary school children. Teaching Children’s Literature: It’s Critical! shows us how to teach young people to critically examine texts and to take action on social issues. Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading provides ideas on scaffolding students to become critically reflective readers who value and respect their thinking and the thinking of others. Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives shows us how to help children change counterproductive conceptions of their abilities and to develop the ability to engage with others to accomplish goals.
Adaptive Teachers as Innovators: Instructional Adaptations Opening Spaces for Enhanced Literacy Learning
Authors: Vaughn Margaret , Parsons Seth A.
Published: March 2024

Adaptive teachers are innovative in their teaching approach, assembling and reassembling their instruction based on their knowledge of effective pedagogy and the specific and individual needs of their students. This article presents descriptive case studies of two teachers’ adaptive teaching. These teachers taught in different contexts: a sixth-grade classroom in a suburban school in the Mid-Atlantic region and a third-grade classroom in a rural school in the Pacific Northwest. The researchers closely examined these teachers’ instructional adaptations and found that their adaptations often opened up spaces for students’ learning. Accordingly, these adaptations illustrate the innovative nature of effective literacy teaching.
Out of the Shadow of SSR: Real Teachers’ Classroom Independent Reading Practices
Authors: Sanden Sherry
Published: March 2024

Nearly a decade ago, the National Reading Panel concluded that there was insufficient research evidence supporting the classroom use of independent reading. While not an outright indictment, the resultant practical outcome called into question independent reading as classroom practice. One troubling aspect of this fallout was the limited scope of the NRP examination, based primarily on sustained silent reading (SSR) or similar programs, which may or may not reflect the ways that independent reading is enacted in real practice. This inquiry project identifies how eight highly effective teachers think about and use independent reading and illuminates important differences between SSR and their independent reading practices. Some vital components of their programs include teacher support for students’ reading independence, a focus on students’ reading growth, and a commitment to student-centered practices. Outlined in conjunction with accumulated scholarship, this examination provides insight into independent reading through the lenses of these highly effective teachers, allowing independent reading as a classroom practice to be drawn out of the shadow of SSR and better positioning it to reclaim its credibility in elementary literacy instruction.
Conversation Currents: The Framing of the Common Core State Standards
Authors: Shannon Patrick , Whitney Anne Elrod , Wilson Maja
Published: March 2024

In this recorded conversation, scholars Pat Shannon, Maja Wilson, and Anne Elrod Whitney unpack the context for and implications of the Common Core State Standards. What are their origins and intentions? What are their intended and unintended consequences? And how do they affect teacher and student agency? Shannon, Wilson, and Whitney discuss these and other questions at a moment when the Common Core is both ubiquitous and hotly contested.
Coaching Teachers’ Talk during Vocabulary and Comprehension Instruction
Authors: Robertson Dana A. , Ford-Connors Evelyn , Paratore Jeanne R.
Published: March 2024

Research has established the importance of teachers’ talk as a tool of effective literacy instruction, yet it is often neither sufficiently explicit nor strategic to make a substantial difference in what children know and do. Despite evidence of talk’s value as a teaching and learning tool, teachers are often unaware of its power or have difficulty harnessing it for productive use. Helping teachers examine classroom talk as a tool for strengthening student learning is, then, an important focus of professional development. This article focuses on some of the approaches coaches can use to engage teachers in joint investigations of talk within the context of their instruction with their own students. Each approach maintains a focus on observing instruction and examining student outcomes, and on teachers and coaches working together as “co-investigators” to improve learning for all students. The approaches to coaching range along a Coaching Continuum that can be tailored to teachers’ needs and their “readiness” for coaching. Examples are provided to illustrate the range.
The Art of Learning to Be Critically Literate
Authors: Harste Jerome C.
Published: March 2024

In this article, Dr. Harste argues that there are three components to a literacy program for the 21st century: meaning making, language study, and inquiry—all taught from a critical literacy perspective. He also outlines what the arts afford our understanding of literacy and learning and, in so doing, argues for an expanded definition of literacy, one reflecting our multicultural and multimodal world.
The 2010 NCTE Presidential Address: To Cherish the Interests of Literature
Authors: Jago Carol
Published: March 2024

Carol Jago’s presidential address, delivered at the NCTE Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida, on November 21, 2010.
Standpoints Why EGRA—a Clone of DIBELS—Will Fail to Improve Literacy in Africa
Authors: Hoffman James V.
Published: March 2024

This essay raises concerns over the future direction for educational aid designed to promote literacy in developing countries. The essay focuses on the EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment)initiative in Africa. At one level, this essay challenges the claims for empirical and research-based support for the EGRA. At a broader level, this essay raises questions regarding the viability ofexporting educational aid efforts to developing countries that are modeled after large-scale, highly prescriptive and mostly ineffective programs from the U.S. context. The essay argues fora reframing of educational aid that promotes research and development efforts that embrace a broadened view of what counts as literacy, a valuing of local contexts and a commitment to beguided by local expertise and problem solving capacities.
Announcing the Alan C. Purves Award Recipient (Volume 46)
Authors: Shabaker Michelle M. , Kushner Steven , Nixon Michelle , Tragos Melissa E.
Published: March 2024

The 2012 Alan C. Purves Award Committee is pleased to announce this year’s award recipient,Mary Christianakis. Her article, “Children’s Text Development: Drawing, Pictures, and Writing”(RTE Vol. 46, No. 1, August 2011), offers a compelling case for the acceptance and utilization of multiple semiotic tools (i.e., drawings, cartoons, sketches, diagrams) by older students in their writing, challenging those who consider these forms of writing development immature or inappropriate beyond the early childhood and primary classroom.
Traveling Literacies: Multilingual Writing on the Move
Authors: Leonard Rebecca Lorimer
Published: March 2024

This essay explores the lived literacy experiences of four multilingual immigrant writers in the US, showing first, how they have moved their literacy practices among multiple languages andlocations in the world, and second, how these practices have been destabilized and redefined by the social contexts they have met along the way. Aiming to unsettle the assumed durability ofliteracy practices on the move, the essay argues that multilingual literacy practices do indeed travel with writers across locations and languages, but to uncertain effect. These multilingualpractices appear to be too contingent on social dynamics to be easily accessed and deployed. Thus, even when writers migrate with fully developed multilingual repertoires—including fluency in English—they do not always experience the social mobility often promised.
Beyond Concepts of Print: Development of Concepts of Graphics in Text, PreK to Grade 3
Authors: Duke Nell K. , Norman Rebecca R. , Roberts Kathryn L. , Martin Nicole M. , Knight Jennifer A. , Morsink Paul M. , Calkins Sara L.
Published: March 2024

Drawing on the literature on concepts of print and graphics in text, as well as informal observations of children, we identified eight concepts that we posit are fundamental to understanding how graphics work in text: Action (static graphics can be interpreted as representing dynamic action), Intentionality (graphics are chosen by authors to accomplish a communicative purpose within a larger text), Permanence (graphics in printed texts are permanent and do not change), Relevance (graphics and written text are related), Representation (illustrations and photographs represent objects, but do not share the same physical properties as those objects), Partiality (not everything in the written text must be represented in the graphics), Extension (some graphics provide additional information that is not present in the written text), and Importance (some information in a graphic may be more important than other information). We administered a series of tasks to tap understanding of these concepts among 60 children in grades preK to 3. Results revealed considerable variation within any given grade level in children’s acquisition of concepts of graphics; some children have acquired concepts of graphics that their peers have not. In general, more children demonstrated acquisition of a given concept at higher grade levels. All or nearly all children displayed full acquisition as follows: Action—by the end of preK; Intentionality, Permanence, and Relevance—by the end of grade 2; Representation and Partiality—by the end of grade 3. Less than half demonstrated full acquisition of the concepts of Extension and Importance even at the end of grade 3.
Editors’ Introduction: Special Issue on Diversity and International Writing Assessment
Authors: Cushman Ellen
Published: March 2024

Editor Ellen Cushman introduces Mya Poe as the guest editor of this special issue on diversity and international writing assessment and previews the content of the issue.
Forum: Adolescents’ Writing in the Content Areas: National Study Results
Authors: Wilcox Kristen Campbell , Jeffery Jill V.
Published: March 2024

While many adolescents in US school settings do not achieve basic levels of writing proficiency, new standards and assessments hold all students, regardless of academic performance history and language background, to higher standards for disciplinary writing. In response to calls for research that can characterize a range of adolescents’ writing experiences, this study investigated the amount and kinds of writing adolescents with different academic performance histories and language backgrounds produced in math, science, social studies, and English language arts classes in schools with local reputations of excellence. By applying categories of type and length, we analyzed the writing of 66 students from California, Kentucky, New York, and Texas: 26 English learners (L2) and 40 native English speakers (L1), of whom 19 were identified by school norms as lower performing and 21 were identified as higher performing. We found the majority of writing tasks adolescents completed did not require composing more than a paragraph. Exceptions were essays in English language arts and persuasive essays and reports in social studies—almost half of which were source-based tasks. In addition, considerable differences were noted in the rangeof genres and amount of extended writing produced among L1 writers with histories of higher performance in contrast with L1 writers with histories of lower performance and L2 writers. These findings are discussed in light of Common Core State Standards shifts and the implications they hold for content area teachers who teach adolescents with different achievement histories and language backgrounds.
Toward a Pedagogy of Linguistic Diversity: Understanding African American Linguistic Practices and Programmatic Learning Goals
Authors: Perryman-Clark Staci M.
Published: March 2024

This essay offers an example of one course that focuses exclusively on Ebonics as a specific African American linguistic practice and on rhetoric and composition scholarship as the primary topics of investigation.
Instructional Note: Representing Clarity: Using Universal Design Principles to Create Effective Hybrid Course Learning Materials
Authors: Spiegel Cheri Lemieux
Published: March 2024

Principles of universal design are applied to hybrid course materials to increase student understanding and, ultimately, success.
Let’s Talk: Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Student-Faculty Dialogues
Authors: Cohen Mel
Published: March 2024

Engaging in a series of student-faculty discussions that highlight student perspectives on their own learning and faculty views on teaching provides opportunities for students and faculty to learn from one another and thereby enhance both teaching and learning.
What Works for Me
Authors: Wayne Moe Peter , Johnston Christopher F. , Kreiser Chris
Published: March 2024

What Works for Me includes brief descriptions of successful classroom practices.
Toward a Definition of a Writing Program at a Two-Year College: You Say You Want a Revolution?
Authors: Klausman Jeffrey
Published: March 2024

This article traces the arc of research on two-year college writing programs and looks at implicit patterns of belief that shape discussions of such programs to offer a definition, however tentative, of a model of a two-year college writing program.
Feature: Writing beyond the Page: Reflective Essay as Box Composition
Authors: Harding Lindsey
Published: March 2024

This article presents a digital, multimodal reflective essay assignment based on Geoffrey Sirc’s “box logic” that asks students to fill a series of boxes with images, found text, and their own commentary as they critically and creatively engage with their writing experiences through media artifacts, digital technology, and design decisions.
Talking, Learning, and Critiquing: Where Are We Headed?
Authors: Dudley-Marling Curt , Cazden Courtney B. , Souto-Manning Mariana , Jewett Pamela C. , Jennings Louise B. , Laman Tasha Tropp , Wilson Jennifer L.
Published: March 2024

This article includes three short essays written by experts in the field of talk and discourse who discuss where the field is going and remind us of issues of power and critical literacy that are inherent in the discourse.
Stories from the Past: Using the Language Experience Approach in Correctional Education ESL
Authors: Gardner Susanne
Published: March 2024

Susanne Gardner highlights a unit of study in writing that is grounded in a Language Experience Approach (LEA) and designed to support male inmates in developing and using English to share their life stories.
“If Only It Weren’t Such a Chore …”: What Talented Eighth Graders Have to Say about Their ELA Classes
Authors: Rose Suzanne M.
Published: March 2024

When asked to discuss their middle school language arts classes, talented eighth graders identified concerns and made suggestions for their teachers. Students voiced desire for choices in selecting reading materials, writing topics and genre. They preferred having extended periods of time to engage in reading and writing activities, rather than short, disrupted periods. As expected of middle level students, they prefer activities which allow them to talk to peers and work cooperatively. In addition, they appreciate instructional tasks which are grounded in the real world and which allow them to think critically. Students’ comments and suggestions are presented in their own words.
A Joy to Teach: My Experience with a Student Writer
Authors: Johnston Jim
Published: March 2024

When you work with a motivated student, coaching this budding writer becomes sheer joy. As with all teaching, this joy lies in watching your student grow and mature. This is the story of just such a relationship.
Postcard from the Middle Level Section: There Is Honor and Honesty in Student Voice
Authors: Vokoun Michael J.
Published: March 2024

Students don’t always have a choice—about what class to take, what to read, who will teach them. Sometimes, teachers don’t have a choice, either. But talking to other teachers … about any of it … brings a sense of community, triggers new enthusiasm and ideas, and reinserts choice into a teacher’s professional life and, ultimately, their students’ lives. NCTE offers myriad ways to join that community and find that support.
Using Student Voices to Guide Instruction
Authors: Elliott-Johns Susan E. , Booth David , Rowsell Jennifer , Puig Enrique , Paterson Jane
Published: March 2024

A collaborative team of five international teacher educators/researchers examine the importance of student voice for authentic discourse and instructional design in contemporary classrooms. Excerpts from their perspectives on teaching, research, and innovative programs are woven together and include suggested Actions/Reflections for the reader.
Coda—What Must Be Taught about Writing: Five Kinds of Knowledge and Five Kinds of Composing
Authors: Wilhelm Jeff
Published: March 2024

Students need to develop five kinds of knowledge to be successful in any kind of specific reading or writing task. These kinds of knowledge can be developed through five different kinds of composing that lead to deep understanding of how texts are constructed with specific content to create particular effects and meaning. Following this process helps students to meet and exceed many of the CCSS standards for writing narrative, argument, and informational/explanatory texts.
Bridging the Disconnect: A Layered Approach to Jump-Starting Engagement
Authors: Werner-Burke Nanci , Button Bobbi , Morral Melissa , Spencer Jessica , Spohn Jane
Published: March 2024

The authors describe the steps they took to ramp up their efforts to reach out to students by retooling their teaching. Four factors became essential: the use of writing as a tool for engagement and learning, the necessity to prepare students to compete in an increasingly digitized world, the motivational appeal of the graphic novel genre, and the need to interweave the social aspects of learning with teaching. For these students, the layering of alternate texts, computer-facilitated written discussion, and digitally supported illustration proved to be an effective combination. This project engaged students and enhanced their learning because it was built upon their need to bridge school literacy with their world, allowing them find value and build connections to real life.
Shakespeare in 3D: Bringing the Bard to Life through New (Old) Media
Authors: Kremer Nick , Sanders Harlow
Published: March 2024

Shakespeare didnâ€™t write scripts so much as he wrote playsâ€”live productions to be acted out in front of audiences through multimodal forms of expression.  Yet some teachersâ€™ script-only approach to the Bard inadvertently isolates students from the many visual, auditory, and performative elements that make his plays so enduring.  This article offers a varied remix of strategies for incorporating multimediaâ€”and the various literacy skills needed to comprehend themâ€”into the study of Shakespeare, including YouTube clips, graphic novels, audio recordings, and films. With a multimodal approach, the Bard can come to life in a 21st-century classroom.
Three Mentor Texts That Support Code-Switching Pedagogies
Authors: Hill Dara
Published: March 2024

This article informs us about the need for facilitating code-switching pedagogies that call for teacher-led scaffolding of students' home languages to negotiate informal and formal contexts for writing and speaking. Varied strategies are guided by three mentor texts the author has conceptualized or enacted in practice and research among middle level students. The three mentor texts guiding recommendations include Woodson's (2009) Peace, Locomotion, Fleischman's (1997) Seedfolks, and Curtis's (1997) The Watsons go to Birmingham-1963.
How Can Teachers Increase Classroom Use of Academic Vocabulary?
Authors: Larson Lisa , Dixon Temoca , Townsend Dianna
Published: March 2024

The purpose for this action research study was to answer the question: How can we enhance students' active engagement with academic vocabulary in social studies classes? In this article, the authors share the strategies they developed through their research that proved most effective in engaging middle school students with active academic vocabulary use in social studies. They consider both general academic words and content-specific words, and highlight the power of word walls, morphology practice, matching activities, word sorts, and vocabulary journals in helping students access the abstract and dense social studies texts they encounter in such classrooms.
Graphic Narratives and the Evolution of the Canon: Adapting Literature for a New Generation
Authors: Fassbender William J. , Dulaney Margaret , Pope Carol A.
Published: March 2024

Graphic narratives have been slowly trickling into English language arts classes throughout the United States, but few educators regard them as academic works with much value in the middle school classroom. This article explores the questions I had as a teacher when implementing graphic narratives for the first time in my classroom, such as: What is the best method to teach graphic narratives? What are the benefits/pitfalls of teaching outside of the traditional canon? What will middle level students think about reading a differentiated text? Do graphic narratives have a place within the traditional canon? With the guidance of Dr. Meg Dulaney, we studied the effects of graphic narratives with 25 eighth-grade honors language arts students.
News and Notes: The Canon and the Conundrum
Authors: Witte Shelbie
Published: March 2024

Witte, a Middle Level Section Steering Committee member, knows that teachers are experts when it comes to curriculum and the needs of their particular students in any given year. But she also knows that knowledge and experience can be shared to make every teacher stronger, more confident, and more knowledgeable in complicated times. She encourages readers to take every opportunity to interact with colleagues and share success stories. It’s the best way—perhaps the only way—to move the canon conundrum forward and serve our widely varied students.
A Tale of Two Authentic Assessment Tools
Authors: Stover Katie , Wood Karen D. , Donovan Erin , Paratore Jeanne R. , McCormack Rachel
Published: March 2024

With the pressures of high-stakes assessments in today's classrooms, it is not uncommon to find practices such as teaching-to-the-test and skill and drill. When only relying on traditional models of assessment that emphasize recall of facts and fixed responses, few opportunities exist to link instruction with student performance. Instead, ongoing authentic assessments allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in meaningful ways and help teachers make instructional decisions to foster continued student growth. This article describes and illustrates two alternative approaches to high-stakes and summative assessments, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Outcomes, and Threats) and Free Associational Assessment.
Young Adult Literature: Assessing Oneself: Young Adult Books for Middle Graders
Authors: Moss Barbara
Published: March 2024

This column explores ways middle graders can assess themselves through literature that examines their roles in their families, their society, and in relationships. Titles including The Fault in Our Stars (Green, 2012 ), Under the Mesquite (McCall, 2012) and Chickadee (Erdrich, 2012) are reviewed, and discussion questions are suggested.
Teaching the Common Core: Common Core in the Middle: Making It Work Requires Solving a Riddle
Authors: Shanahan Timothy
Published: March 2024

Shanahan couches a serious question within a playful riddle: What essential element is missing from the language of the Common Core State Standards? He offers clues, like “It is a word that appears no place within the Standards” and “If we don’t have plenty of this, we will likely fail with Common Core.” Ultimately, he reveals the answer and gives us one more weapon in our implementation arsenal.
Four Reasons to Write List Articles with Middle School Students
Authors: Morgan Denise N. , Benko Leslie , Hauptman Gayle Marek
Published: March 2024

In this article, we examine the benefits of writing list articles with students. Within a unit of study approach to teaching this kind of writing, students naturally meet many of the writing Common Core State Standards. Drawing from the writing experiences of 260 7th-grade students, we highlight what students gain from their opportunities to write list articles.
Writing Needs a Place to Play: Leaving Room for Rehearsing through Revision Centers
Authors: Gibbons Lauren
Published: March 2024

How do we get middle level students to write at the level for narrative writing that the Common Core State Standards require? To assist students in recognizing the various nuances found in narrative writing, young adolescents utilize a resource called revision centers. In revision centers, students read a text that uses a specific element of craft (in this case repetition), discuss the meaning and the effect of that element with their groups, find places in their own writing where they could replicate such a technique, and then rehearse possible ways to infuse skills into their own writing with a partner. Then, after ten minutes, students are asked to stand up and try it all over again at a different station, with a different text. This read-reflect-rehearse-repeat format encourages students to creatively imagine how their writing could look, ultimately enabling them to make a “move” that enhances content, instead of merely demonstrating a writing technique.
Teaching the Common Core: Reading, Learning, and Even Arguing across Multiple Texts
Authors: Baron Diane
Published: March 2024

This article focuses on reading, learning, writing, and talking across multiple texts. Student examples are shared as a teacher navigates her students across multiple texts, including electronic texts. To support students in learning how to read, write, and talk about nonfiction texts, the teacher utilized a text feature bulletin board and had students create a poster centered on a nonfiction topic utilizing text features. Through these experiences, students increased their scientific knowledge as they learned about the construction of nonfiction texts.
Teaching the Talk, Not the Text
Authors: Nachowitz Marc , Brumer Nancy
Published: March 2024

This article reports a research investigation into using digital tools to teach students to talk well and to build a talking community. Dialogic approaches to literacy instruction, where reading, writing, and speaking are used to build students' literary thinking and understanding, have a strong effect on improving students' understanding of literature. A knowledge-building framework“a theory of learning gaining momentum in studies of learning in science and mathematics classrooms, but largely untested on language arts teaching and learning” emphasizes progressive discourse and was used in a sixth-grade classroom as they created literary interpretations entirely through student-generated talk—digitally and through classroom discussion. Emphasizing debriefings of digital discussions, students were scaffolded into literate talk as they created literary interpretations. A computer-supported learning environment, Knowledge Forum, scaffolded students into progressive discourse where they learned how to create, extend, build on, and challenge other students as they created an overarching, literary interpretation. Student discussions are presented, giving evidence of students’ ability to engage in deep reading without teacher intervention. Examples of digital discourse and classroom discussions demonstrate student mastery of literary discourse. Suggestions for practitioners provided.
Using Formative Assessment to Improve Presentation Skills
Authors: Patel Pooja
Published: March 2024

The art of presenting is a critical skill that must be taught to middle school students. How can teachers make the skills used to give an oral presentation explicit? How can teachers teach students to systematically track progress and strengthen presentation skills? This article describes how one English and humanities teacher used the formative assessment framework to teach students to develop their oral presentation skills. Research on the effectiveness of formative assessment and the importance of teaching presentation skills is highlighted along with a discussion on the instructional process and student growth seen in this unit.
Teaching the Common Core: The Forgotten Language Arts: Addressing Listening & Speaking
Authors: Palmer Erik
Published: March 2024

The speaking and listening standards of the CCSS are often overlooked or reduced to a level of minimal importance in many schools. However, the ability to work well with others, to evaluate diverse messages, to create an engaging presentation, and to speak well in a variety of situations is critical as our students move on to additional schooling and/or careers. Palmer helps identify and define these essential Standards and advocates for teaching them specifically so that students can develop skills that will help them approach future educational and professional situations more critically.