bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
When Writing Professors Teach Literature: Shaping Questions, Finding Answers, Effecting Change
Authors: Raymond Richard C.
Published: March 2024

The article explores writing-centered pedagogies that deepen student learning in literature survey courses. More broadly, the article also responds to Richard Fulkerson and Maureen Daly Goggin, who challenge professors of English studies to find disciplinary unity within the diverse epistemologies of rhetoric.
Arguing at Play in the Fields of the Lord; or, Abducting Charles Peirce’s Rhetorical Theory in “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God”
Authors: Newcomb Matthew J.
Published: March 2024

This article argues that the ideas of “play” and “abduction” in Charles Peirce’s work represent an inventive theory of argument that opens up the kinds of activities that can be called “arguments” and avoids some of the struggles over imposed beliefs with which recent argument theory has grappled.
“Good Will Come of This Evil”: Enslaved Teachers and the Transatlantic Politics of Early Black Literacy
Authors: Watson Shevaun E.
Published: March 2024

This essay offers an earlier chapter in the history of African American literacy by examining colonial literacy campaigns within the eighteenth-century Atlantic world.Â The discussion focuses on one such transatlantic effort spanning from London to Barbados, South Carolina, and West Africa, which used enslaved teachers as agents of literacy.
“Yes, a T-Shirt!”: Assessing Visual Composition in the “Writing” Class
Authors: Odell Lee , Katz Susan
Published: March 2024

Computer technology is expanding our profession’s conception of composing, allowing visual information to play a substantial role in an increasing variety of composition assignments. This expansion, however, creates a major problem: How does one assess student work on these assignments? Current work in assessment provides only partial answers to this question. Consequently, this article will review current theory and practice in assessment, noting its limitations as well as its strengths. The article will then draw on work in both verbal and visual communication to explain an integrative approach to assessment, one that allows instructors to consider students’ work with visuals without losing sight of conventional goals of a “writing” course. The article concludes by illustrating this approach with an analysis of an unconventional student text “a T-shirt”that students submitted as the final assignment for a relatively conventional writing course.
“Folksonomy” and the Restructuring of Writing Space
Authors: Nicotra Jodie
Published: March 2024

Metaphors that posit writing as linear, essayistic, and the province of a single author no longer fit the dynamic, newly spatialized practices of composition occurring on and via the Web. Using “folksonomy,” or multi-user tagging, as an example of one of these practices, this article argues for a new metaphor for writing that encapsulates how writing emerges spatially from dynamic, collective subjectivities in a network.
Advancing by Degree: Placing the MA in Writing Studies
Authors: Vandenberg Peter , Clary-Lemon Jennifer
Published: March 2024

Master’s programs have been absent from writing studies’ scholarship on graduate education, primarily because they are not sites of disciplinary research. The MA, however, should be valued in writing studies for its demographic and curricular diversity, its responsiveness to local conditions, and its intra- andÂ  interdisciplinary flexibility.
2010 CCCC Chair’s Address: Rethinking the Fourth C: Call to Action
Authors: Valentino Marilyn J.
Published: March 2024

This is a written version of the address Marilyn J. Valentino gave at the CCCC meeting in Louisville on March 18, 2010.
Composing Women’s Civic Identities during the Progressive Era: College Commencement Addresses as Overlooked Rhetorical Sites
Authors: Bordelon Suzanne
Published: March 2024

This essay examines women’s commencement addresses presented from 1910 to 1915 at Vassar College. These addresses are significant because they reveal the students’ rhetorical education and the “available means” upon which these women drew in developing a public voice. By prompting reflection and the potential for change, the commencement addresses also demonstrate the civic importance of epideictic rhetoric.
Review Essay: Activity Systems, Genre, and Research on Writing Across the Curriculum
Authors: Burton Vicki Tolar
Published: March 2024

Review of seven books on writing across the curriculum.
Response to Doug Hesse
Authors: Selfe Cynthia L.
Published: March 2024

Cynthia L. Selfe respondes to Doug Hesse’s comment on her CCC article.
The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition
Authors: Matsuda Paul Kei
Published: March 2024

The author suggests that English-only classrooms are not only the implicit goal of much language policy in the United States, but also assumed to be already the case, an ironic situation in light of composition’s historical role as “containing” language differences in U.S. higher education. He suggests that the myth of linguistic homogeneity has serious implications not only for international second-language writers in U.S. classrooms but also for resident second-language writers and for native speakers of unprivileged varieties of English, and that rather than simply abandon the placement practices that have worked to contain—but also to support—multilingual writers, composition teachers need to reimagine the composition classroom as the multilingual space that it is, where the presence of language differences is the default.
What Should College English Be . . . Doing?
Authors: Miller Thomas
Published: March 2024

Traditional priorities of English as a discipline are now significantly at odds with the material circumstances of college English departments. To address these realities, college English needs to become literacy studies rather than literary studies.
Texts of Our Institutional Lives: “Don’t You Mean ‘Slaves,’ Not ‘Servants’?: Literary and Institutional Texts for an Interdisciplinary Classroom
Authors: Ashton Susanna
Published: March 2024

The author describes an undergraduate course she taught on “Representations of Slavery.” In particular, she explains how the course involved studying an historic site on her university’s campus: the former slave plantation of leading segregationist John C. Calhoun. She also analyzes how her school represents the site on its Web pages.
“I Want to Be African”: In Search of a Black Radical Tradition/African-American-Vernacularized Paradigm for “Students’ Right to Their Own Language,” Critical Literacy, and “Class Politics”
Authors: Kynard Carmen
Published: March 2024

Stephen Parks’s book "Class Politics" fails to convey the complex interplay of social movements (including Black Power and socialism) behind the Statement on Students’ Right to Their Own Language. Attention to this rich history enables a better understanding of African American discourses than is provided in another influential book, Lisa Delpit’s Other People’s Children.
Texts of our Institutional Lives: From Transaction to Transformation: (En)Countering White Heteronormativity in “Safe Spaces”
Authors: Fox Catherine
Published: March 2024

On various campuses, including the author’s, “safe space” stickers are used to designate offices supposedly free of homophobia. The author critiques this practice, pointing out that it still privileges the white heterosexual subject while also obscuring connections between sexuality, gender, and race.
We Won’t Get Fooled Again: On the Absence of Angry Responses to Plagiarism in Composition Studies
Authors: Robillard Amy E.
Published: March 2024

Although many composition teachers feel anger when they discover that a student of theirs has plagiarized, they are more apt to reveal this emotion in personal conversations and in blogs than in published composition scholarship. The field’s scholarship should, however, disclose and analyze this common affective response.
Food Memoirs: What They Are, Why They Are Popular, and Why They Belong in the Literature Classroom
Authors: Waxman Barbara Frey
Published: March 2024

Through analyzing specific examples, the author identifies recurring themes of the genre known as the food memoir, calling attention in particular to its value as multicultural literature
Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement
Authors: Schneider Stephen
Published: March 2024

The author examines the history and rhetoric of the Slow Food movement, relating it in particular to protests against globalization.
Thinking Globally, Teaching Locally: The “Nervous Conditions” of Cross-Cultural Literacy
Authors: Eck Lisa
Published: March 2024

Teaching postcolonial literature to American college students involves taking them through a dialectical process of thinking about identification. In the first stage, students are encouraged to note similarities between their own lives and those of the work’s characters. With the second step, students examine how the work’s cultural and historical context makes the characters different from them in key ways. Finally, students use the differences that they have found in order to reflect on aspects of their own situations from a new angle. The author demonstrates this process through a discussion of her experiences teaching Tsitsi Dangarembga’s 1988 novel Nervous Conditions.
“To Be Lived”: Theorizing Influence in Creative Writing
Authors: Cain Mary Ann
Published: March 2024

As a field, creative writing must reject its traditional image of “uselessness” and realize its anticapitalist, antiprivatizing potential as a creator of public space. In part, this move would involve teaching students to question traditional notions of influence, as well as the modernist concept of the author as a lone,autonomous individual.
A House Divided: On the Future of Creative Writing
Authors: Andrews Kimberly
Published: March 2024

Reading for creative writers must be viewed as a critical practice, one informed and complicated by context, history, and theory, in part so that they can actively participate in the intellectual community of English studies.
Conversation at a Crucial Moment: Hybrid Courses and the Future of Writing Programs
Authors: Gouge Catherine
Published: March 2024

Because hybrid first-year college writing programs are an emerging phenomenon, it is important for composition specialists to identify their potential strengths and possible disadvantages. The author reviews the various forms that such programs have taken so far, and she engages in an extended critique of one particular institution’s model, questioning especially its claims to objectivity.
Texts of Our Institutional Lives: “What’s in a Name?”: Institutional Critique, Writing Program Archives, and the Problem of Administrator Identity
Authors: Lamos Steve
Published: March 2024

When scholars write about their research into writing programs’ archives,they often face the ethical question of whether to name the administrators who were involved in documents. The author identifies and provides examples of three basic orientations to this issue, which he calls overt-historical, covert-qualitative, and hybrid-institutional. Referring to his own research experience, he ultimately endorses the third approach.
Representations of the Field in Graduate Courses: Using Parody to Question All Positions
Authors: Mack Nancy
Published: March 2024

The author reports on and analyzes the inclusion of parody in her sequence of assignments for a graduate composition theory seminar. She contends that having students write parodies of particular theorists and theoretical camps enables them to gain critical leverage that they might not otherwise obtain on a field (in this case, composition studies).
Texts of Our Institutional Lives: Strategic Speculations on the Question of Value: The Role of Community Publishing in English Studies
Authors: Parks Stephen J.
Published: March 2024

The author discusses his experience in a university project that led to the creation of a first-year writing text based on interviews with members of a local neighborhood. In particular, he analyzes the negative reaction that many of the community’s residents expressed toward the text’s portrayals of them. From the tensions that developed, the author concludes that English studies must go beyond mere expansion of the canon and reflect upon the very nature of value, including the importance of “use-value” with respect to the production and circulation of community-generated texts.
“The American Way”: Resisting the Empire of Force and Color-Blind Racism
Authors: Martinez Aja Y.
Published: March 2024

Drawing on the work of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, the author examines how—in order to explain their positions in the academy—many students of color (including those who are both first-generation Chicano/a and first-generation college students) unfortunately rely on dominant color-blind ideology concerning freedom of choice and equal opportunity.
Forging a Mestiza Rhetoric: Mexican Women Journalists’ Role in the Construction of a National Identity
Authors: Ramírez Cristina D.
Published: March 2024

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, various Mexican women journalists pioneered a mestiza rhetoric that was resistant to oppressive ideologies.
Colonial Memory and the Crime of Rhetoric: Pedro Albizu Campos
Authors: Villanueva Victor
Published: March 2024

The author recounts his efforts to find out about Puerto Rican activist Pedro Albizu Campos, who was imprisoned chiefly because of his rhetoric.
Review: Space, Place, and the Public Face of Composition
Authors: Jack Jordynn
Published: March 2024

Reviewed are Making Writing Matter: Composition in the Engaged University by Ann Feldman; City of Rhetoric: Revitalizing the Public Sphere in Metropolitan America by David Fleming; and Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World by Nancy Welch.
Talmidae Rhetoricae: Drashing Up Models and Methods for Jewish Rhetorical Studies
Authors: Fernheimer Janice W.
Published: March 2024

The guest editor introduces the issue’s essays by reviewing previous scholarship on Jewish rhetorical studies. She points out that the question of how to define a distinctly “Jewish” rhetoric is hard to resolve. Ultimately, she argues, an author’s or text’s relation to Jewish traditions should be pragmatically determined, through analysis of specific historical or geographical contexts.
Life Writing Lite: Judy Garland and Reparative Rhetorics of Celebrity Life Writing
Authors: Janangelo Joseph
Published: March 2024

Judy Garland’s correspondence with magazines and fans in the early 1950s serves as a case study of rhetorical strategies that might operate in celebrity life writing aimed at reparation and self-justification.
Opinion: Self-Disclosure as a Strategic Teaching Tool: What I Do—and Don’t—Tell My Students
Authors: Tobin Lad
Published: March 2024

Self-disclosure should be not given some special status in student writing or in teaching. Nor should it be employed simply because it is an alternative to more traditional academic discourses. Instead, self-disclosure should be evaluated with the same rigor and respect that we bring to those other discourses, and should be employed only when it is an equally good or better rhetorical choice.
Lone Wolf or Leader of the Pack?: Rethinking the Grand Narrative of Fred Newton Scott
Authors: Mastrangelo Lisa
Published: March 2024

Historians of composition and rhetoric need to question the grand narratives that so far have predominated in their field, including those that turn particular figures like Fred Newton Scott into lone heroes.
Opinion: Writing for the Public
Authors: Rose Mike
Published: March 2024

The author discusses graduate courses he has taught that help students turn their academic prose into publically accessible opinion writing.
Teacher Quality: The Perspectives of NCTE Members
Authors: Marling Curt Dudley , Abt-Perkins Dawn , Sato Kyoko , Selfe Richard (Dickie)
Published: March 2024

In the often contentious debate over the state of American education, there is considerable agreement, supported by research, that teacher quality is a critical factor in student learning.
A High School English Teacher’s Developing Multicultural Pedagogy
Authors: Cook Leslie Susan , Amatucci Kristi Bruce
Published: March 2024

Literature often has been considered a quick and easy way to bring multicultural perspectives into the ELA classroom. Yet for effectual change, significant shifts in pedagogy prove more powerful than surface additions. In this article we focus on how a college of education’s multicultural mission statement intersects with one teacher’s life story.
Reconstructing English Education for the 21st Century: A Report on the CEE Summit
Authors: Miller Suzanne M. , Fox Dana L.
Published: March 2024

The coeditors of the special Summit issue of English Education provide the context for the ’crucial moment’ that prompted the Conference on English Education (CEE) to take up the task of rethinking issues related to the preparation and continuing professional development of English language arts teachers and teacher educators. The process of developing and enacting the collaborative inquiries before, during, and after this historic event are detailed, as well as an initial analysis of the significance of the Summit undertaking and products.
Candidate and Program Assessment in English Education: A Framework for Discussion and Debate
Authors: Koziol Steve , Joyce Stallworth B. , Tompkins Renarta H. , Bickmore Steven , Harden-Luster Leola , Ketter Jean , Marshall Jim , Philion Tom
Published: March 2024

This article is a summary of our working group’s continued discourse from the CEE Summit, where our discussions focused on English teacher candidate competencies, program assessment, the Standards and Guidelines, and NCTE’s roles and responsibilities. For the purpose of this special issue of English Education, our group chose to focus more specifically on issues related to candidate and program assessment and NCTE’s responsibilities in guiding our field in these areas.
Cultivating an Inquiry Stance in English Education: Rethinking the Student Teaching Seminar
Authors: Meyer Tom , Sawyer Mary
Published: March 2024

We argue that the student teaching seminar, a co-requisite to student teaching, may best be construed as a introduction to a teacher learning community and to inquiry-oriented professional development. Using a qualitative case study design and discourse analysis, we examine 60 Teaching Inquiries (TIs) occurring in student teaching seminars over a three semester period to better understand (a) the issues English teacher candidates raise in TIs and (b) how the field of English education manifests itself in the inquiry process. Our analysis finds that TIs reflect complex issues resting both in and out of traditional notions of The inquiry process enables seminar participants to develop the field’s knowledge-base and deepen their own pedagogical and ideological commitments. By complicating and situating English education, discussions bring together the world of the classroom and the world of the university, paving the way for mutual learning.
The Space Between
Authors: Petrone Robert
Published: March 2024

Over the last two years, the work of the CEE-GS has included the establishment of the organization, participation in the CEE leadership summit in May 2005, a panel discussion about PhD student issues at last year’s NCTE conference, and the establishment of a CEE-GS executive committee. Potential future pursuits include the development of a CEE-GS strand or forum at the NCTE national convention, representation on various NCTE and CEE committees, web-based communication among all members across the country, and publishing opportunities to discuss the organization and the issues it addresses.
Expressive Language and the Art of English Teaching: Theorizing the Relationship between Literature and Narrative
Authors: Juzwik Mary M. , Sherry Michael B.
Published: March 2024

How do teachers in diverse classrooms enact a transactional mode of literary response in their orchestration of classroom conversations about literature? This paper proposes that a theory of expressive language is central to answering this question and that the discourse genre of oral narratives may hold critically importance in accomplishing this challenge.
Composing Storied Ground
Authors: Schaafsma David , Pagnucci Gian , M.Wallace Robert , Stock Patricia Lamber
Published: March 2024

David Schaafsma, Gian Pagnucci, Rob Wallace, and Patricia Lambert Stock narrate their own linked academic histories as narrative inquirers.
Infusing Multimodal Tools and Digital Literacies into an English Education Program
Authors: Doering Aaron , Beach Richard , O’Brien David
Published: March 2024

In this article the authors stress the importance of using interactive Web 2.0 tools within methods courses and practicum sites by reflexively noting how and why these tools function to achieve certain rhetorical purposes and foster constructivist learning.
What We All (Supposedly) Know about the Poor: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Ruby Payne’s “Framework”
Authors: Dworin Joel , Bomer Randy
Published: March 2024

This article discusses a professional development text by Ruby Payne that claims to inform teachers about the lives and minds of children from poor households. We use Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Gee, 2005; Rogers, Malancharuvil-Berkes, & Mosley, 2005) to examine how the author enlists readers’ participation in deficit discourses about the poor.
Book Walk: Works That Move Our Teaching Forward Ancestors in Literacy: Sixteen Reading Researchers
Authors: Consalvo Annamary
Published: March 2024

Shaping the Reading Field offers the reader a compilation of short biographies, chronologically and thematically arranged, of 16 influential reading “pioneers.” English teachers and educators interested in undertaking and promoting research as professional development will find examples, researcher narratives, and guiding frameworks.
Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Literature-Based Discussions in a Cross-Institutional Network
Authors: Smith Emily R. , Anagnostopoulos Dorothea
Published: March 2024

This article examines how secondary English teachers serving as preservice mentors developed pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of literature discussions by participating in a cross-institutional teacher educator network. The joint creation of dialogic space in the English Educatorsâ€™ Network provided a context where mentor teachers expanded their understandings of discussions to a dialogic view of literature-based discussion involving the interaction of reader, text, and multiple worldviews.
Biographical Orientations to Secondary English Teaching within a Mosaic Context of Diversity
Authors: Skerrett Allison
Published: March 2024

This article explores how the contexts of secondary English teaching in Ontario, Canada, interacted with one teacher’s identity to produce teaching perspectives and practices that were monocultural in nature and limited in their multicultural and anti-racist emphases. In doing so, the article contributes to educational research that explores the range of factors that influence English teachers’ educational practices.
Writing for the Public: Teacher Editorializing as a Pathway to Professional Development
Authors: Perrillo Jonna
Published: March 2024

Teacher-written editorial columns in local newspapers can challenge the broad, simplistic conceptions of the profession that have been encouraged by contemporary politics and that obscure the real work of teachers. The publication of such columns written by a diverse group of teachers in the West Texas Writing Project has proved an important tool for fostering a stronger sense of professionalism in individual teachers and for promoting their expertise to the lay public and other educators in their community. It has also afforded teachers new models and tools for teaching writing to their own students. This article argues that English education faculty and teacher educators are uniquely qualified to help teachers develop their political voices and write about education issues for the public, and it provides readers with methodologies for preparing teachers to do so. In addition, an analysis of four teacher-written columns sets out specific roles teachers can envision and assume in advocating for school reform and in taking greater ownership over their work. For teachers such as these, an enhanced professionalism that comes from writing for the public about their education objectives is an important step in developing teacher leadership skills.
On the Horns of a Dilemma: Deweyan Progressivism and English Teacher Education
Authors: Tremmel Robert
Published: March 2024

English teacher educators’ commitment to Deweyan progressivism has cost them in recent years. It has contributed to their being pushed to the margins when it comes to serious, top-level discussions about the direction of American education. This essay reexamines the case for progressivism and its relevance as an element of CEE’s ongoing effort to reinterpret itself since the 2005 CEE Summit.
From the Secondary Section: Remembering What Is Important: The Power of Poetry in My Classroom
Authors: Wyhe Tamara L. C. Van
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Taking Time: Teaching Poetry from the Inside Out
Authors: Perry Tonya
Published: March 2024

“Taking Time” addresses challenges in teaching and curriculum that affect middle level education through focusing on the middle child in urban, rural, and suburban settings.
Persuasive Writing and the Student-Run Symposium
Authors: Mayer James C.
Published: March 2024

High school teacher James C. Mayer explains how a student-run symposium can promote “risk-taking and participation” and help students practice effective persuasion skills before demonstrating them in writing. The symposium places students in roles that encourage responsibility and ownership for discussion and learning, shifting the classroom context into a more meaningful experience for students and teachers.
Tools for Teaching: Resources for Issues and Innovations in Instruction
Authors: Ruggieri Colleen A.
Published: March 2024

“Tools for Teaching” helps you find the best print and electronic resources for teaching English language arts.
Making Meaningful Theater in the Empty Space
Authors: Shosh Joseph M. , Wescoe Jennifer A.
Published: March 2024

As teacher-facilitators, Joseph M. Shosh and Jennifer A. Wescoe emphasize the educational value of theater. To promote student leadership of a production, students audition for roles on and off stage and contribute to the technical aspects of the production through “crew days,” from which they build community and develop a sense of respect for the complexity of production. Additionally, Shosh and Wescoe implement writing activities to help students understand and develop their characters.
Approaches to Reading with Multiple Lenses of Interpretation
Authors: Troise Melissa
Published: March 2024

High school teacher Melissa Troise challenges students to recognize the relationships that exist between literary theories, such as Marxism, feminism, and postcolonialism, and urges students to expand their contexts for reading texts by accessing and combining theories. Troise believes theory provides students with the potential to better understand unfamiliar ideas and ideologies, even if they may not agree with them.
Research Matters: How Does Assessment Affect Creativity?
Authors: VanDeWeghe Rick
Published: March 2024

“Research Matters” provides teachers with review and application of research that illuminates the daily concerns and activities of English language arts teachers and classrooms.
Engaging Urban Learners in Reading: The Scarlet Letter
Authors: Whitaker Sandra
Published: March 2024

Using the overarching concept of the role of an outcast in society, high school teacher Sandra Whitaker persuades urban students to explore the relevance among their lives, the district-required reading, and research on historical and contemporary outcasts. From the unit, students gain an appreciation for Hawthorne and, importantly, ascertain the relationship between their actions and responsibilities as contributors within a society.
Urban Education: Urban Education: Moving Past the Myth of Structure
Authors: Patterson Nancy G. , Speed Renee
Published: March 2024

Although some educators commonly assume that the way to improve the writing of urban students is to provide “more structure,” Nancy G. Patterson and Renee Speed argue that this approach can instead be detrimental. In too many cases, structure characterizes control and colonization rather than the freedom for teachers to structure their curricula around self-selected relevant and challenging materials that “maximize student potential.”
Multilingual Students and Language Acquisition: Engaging Activities for Diversity Training
Authors: Arias J.
Published: March 2024

High school teacher J. Arias recommends valuable activities that teachers can use to “build communities of respect, tolerance, and acceptance” for language diversity in schools. Many of the activities are directed toward helping native English speakers empathize with and better understand English language learners’ experiences with language acquisition.
Creating Intentional Communities to Support English Language Learners in the Classroom
Authors: Rance-Roney Judith
Published: March 2024

Judith Rance-Roney calls on teachers to form intentional learning communities within their classrooms. The Culture Share Club, initially conceived to provide scaffolding for ELL students to acquire English and pass the statewide test in English, legitimized student knowledge by benefitting all students as they prepared materials for lessons and invested in shared experiences and responsibilities for classroom learning.
Teaching beyond the Test: The Possibility of Success
Authors: Main Kristin L.
Published: March 2024

Kristin L. Main teaches the Ontario Literacy Course, an alternative course designed to support students who have failed the required standardized test for high school graduation. She sees the purpose of the class as giving students a chance to feel successful and helping them to see the practical value of purposeful communication and integrated literacy in their daily lives.
Sharing Command of the Co-Teaching Ship: How to Play Nicely with Others
Authors: Sims Emily
Published: March 2024

High school teacher Emily Sims shares her experiences co-teaching inclusive classes as a first-year teacher. She imparts practical advice for successful co-teaching relationships between the content teacher and the special education teacher, from which both students and teachers can thrive.
Sketching to Create Meaning: The Story of a Second-Language Learner
Authors: Altman Chris
Published: March 2024

Chris Altman stresses the importance of helping English language learners ascertain the medium they best work with in interpreting information presented in class. Altman reminds us that meaning does not come directly from teachers giving students information, but from students productively making meaning and clarifying understanding through a variety of mediums.
“The Rose That Grew from Concrete”: Postmodern Blackness and New English Education
Authors: Kirkland David E.
Published: March 2024

For David E. Kirkland, the New English Education locates English language arts in the realities of youth, where texts emerge from students’ lives, and the notions of reading and writing in English classrooms are open to revision. Kirkland reflects on how “postmodern Black experience, especially as seen in hip-hop, gives English teachers one way of envisioning the New English Education.”
Stepping into the Classroom: “When People Own a Place, They Look After It”
Authors: Bigelow Terry Patrick , Vokoun Michael J.
Published: March 2024

“Stepping into the Classroom” shares innovative lesson ideas grounded in current literature or action research.
Research Matters: Authentic Literacy and Student Achievement
Authors: VanDeWeghe Rick
Published: March 2024

Research Matters” provides teachers with review and application of research that illuminates the daily concerns and activities of English language arts teachers and classrooms.
Tools for Teaching: Courage in the Classroom
Authors: Ruggieri Colleen A.
Published: March 2024

“Tools for Teaching” helps you find the best print and electronic resources for teaching English language arts.
Beginning with the Students: Ownership through Reflection and Goal-Setting
Authors: Harford Marisa
Published: March 2024

A secondary English teacher in the Bronx, Marisa Harford describes several self-reflective activities she has designed to improve students’ writing skills. Beginning a new school year with activities like Harford’s can focus students’ efforts all year.
Success with ELLs
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 in mainstream middle and high school English classes.
From the Secondary Section: Questioning Homework
Authors: Haas Kay Parks
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Doing Our Homework on Homework: How Does Homework Help?
Authors: Sallee Buffy , Rigler Neil
Published: March 2024

Over 180 students were surveyed to enable these high school teachers to rethink what works for homework and what doesn’t.
Mentoring Matters: Retaining Quality Teachers Is the Real Test
Authors: McCann Thomas M. , Johannessen Larry
Published: March 2024

“Mentoring Matters” focuses on effective ways to support new English teachers and student teachers.
Success with ELLs: Modifying Lessons for English Language Learners
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 in mainstream middle and high school English classes.
EJ in Focus: Getting Up Close and Personal with Living Authors
Authors: Nilsen Alleen Pace , Blasingame James
Published: March 2024

Well-known scholars and editors of adolescent literature describe the pleasures and pitfalls of working with real authors during school visits.
Devising Ensemble Plays: At-Risk Students Become Living, Performing Authors
Authors: Feffer Laura Beth
Published: March 2024

Helping alternative high school students write and produce their own plays allows them to experience the joys of authorship.
An LGBT/Queer Glossary
Authors: Chase Becca , Ressler Paula
Published: March 2024

This glossary includes terms and acronyms for understanding important concepts related to sexual identity and gender variance.
LGBT-Inclusive Language
Authors: Weinberg Michael
Published: March 2024

The chair of NCTE’s Gay Straight Educators’ Alliance proposes LGBT-inclusive language.
Playing in the Margins: Process Drama as a Prereading Strategy with LGBT YA Literature
Authors: Zanitsch Jason
Published: March 2024

The author uses educational drama to enable students to understand and counteract homophobia. Many suggestions for classroom practices are highlighted.
Gender Variant and Transgender Issues in a Professional Development Book Group
Authors: Parker Bruce , Bach Jacqueline
Published: March 2024

The authors describe a model for exploring YA life-based literacy narratives.
Off the Shelves: Celebrating Love in All Shades: YA Books with LGBTQ Themes
Authors: Letcher Mark
Published: March 2024

“Off the Shelves” discusses new young adult literature and explores ways of teaching YA texts in middle and high school English classes.
Success with ELLs: Creating Space for Collaboration
Authors: DelliCarpini Margo , Gulla Amanda N.
Published: March 2024

“Success with ELLs” suggests effective approaches to teaching English language learners in ways that can be of benefit to all students in mainstream middle and high school English classes.
Skeptics on the Internet: Teaching Students to Read Critically
Authors: Ostenson Jonathan
Published: March 2024

Even though it has its own detailed and scientific-looking website, the Tree Octopus isn’t anything to worry about. Helping students learn to read websites critically is.
EJ in Focus: Defining Fun and Seeking Flow in English Language Arts
Authors: Romano Tom
Published: March 2024

A well-known writer and teacher educator describes the kinds of fun that teachers and students should experience in English classes. Pp. 30-37.
Comic Relief: Engaging Students through Humor Writing
Authors: Goebel Bruce A.
Published: March 2024

Embedded in his top ten reasons for using humor in the classroom, Goebel describes engrossing and enriching humor-writing activities for students. Pp. 38-43.
Naming Tropes and Schemes in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Books
Authors: Nilsen Don L. F. , Nilsen Pace Alleen
Published: March 2024

The Nilsens show you and your students the linguistic artistry in Rowling’s popular works. Pp. 60-68.
No Reason without Rhyme: Rhetorical Negotiation in Shakespeare
Authors: Smith Cheryl Hogue
Published: March 2024

Slant rhyme and perfect rhyme are more than literary ornamentation.
Mentoring Matters: Working with Student Teachers
Authors: Ritter Jennifer
Published: March 2024

Mentoring Matters focuses on effective ways to support new English teachers and student teachers.
Imagine Creating Rubrics That Develop Creativity
Authors: Young Linda Payne
Published: March 2024

Can we really assess creativity? Can we really not?
The Story of Stuff: Reading Advertisements through Critical Eyes
Authors: Cuff Shannon , Statz Heather
Published: March 2024

The authors share documentaries and print ads that can encourage students to read ads carefully.
Mentoring Matters: The First Two Years of Teaching
Authors: Barnes-Ryan Sarah G.
Published: March 2024

Mentoring Matters focuses on effective ways to support new English teachers and student teachers.
Research for the Classroom: From Reluctance to Results: A Veteran Teacher Embraces Research
Authors: Greene Katie
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
Our Visions of Possibility for Literacy: The Making of a Bilingual Educator
Authors: López-Robertson Julia
Published: March 2024

Tim O’Keefe, Rise Reinier and Kevin Gallagher, Bruce Morgan, Julia López-Robertson, Donna Santman, JoAnn Wong-Kam, Sharon Hill, and Linda Christensen provide short essays describing their personal visions of possibility about literacy and how they maintain that passion and vision. Across a range of contexts, they reflect on the ways in which their work with children and teachers connect to larger issues of literacy, language, inquiry, voice, and social justice.
Our Visions of Possibility for Literacy: Keeping the Passion: What Really Matters
Authors: Hill Sharon
Published: March 2024

Tim O’Keefe, Rise Reinier and Kevin Gallagher, Bruce Morgan, Julia López-Robertson, Donna Santman, JoAnn Wong-Kam, Sharon Hill, and Linda Christensen provide short essays describing their personal visions of possibility about literacy and how they maintain that passion and vision. Across a range of contexts, they reflect on the ways in which their work with children and teachers connect to larger issues of literacy, language, inquiry, voice, and social justice.
Listening for Students’ Voices through Positional Writing Practices
Authors: Lassonde Cynthia A.
Published: March 2024

Mark was a fifth-grade student who resisted writing in certain contexts. This article explores how he used positional writing practices to construct academic and social positions within classroom writing practices and how these positions constrained and enabled his literacy learning. In addition, the methods used by the teacher in response to his positioning are presented.
Recognizing and Resisting Change: A Teacher’s Professional Journey
Authors: Pierce Kathryn Mitchell
Published: March 2024

Teachers rely on their vision of literacy and literacy education to guide their teaching and influence the ways they view their students’ literacy learning. This article describes what happens when a career teacher senses that her vision is limiting her teaching and her students’ opportunities for learning. Kid watching and careful study of critical incidents are among the strategies she uses to work through belief-level changes about teaching literacy in ways that help students construct more democratic ways of living.
Artists/Writers Workshop: Focusing in on the ART of Writing
Authors: Olshansky Beth
Published: March 2024

This photo essay includes children’s reflections on the opportunities offered by Artists/Writers Workshop for meaning-making in two languages—the language of pictures and the language of words. As students move back and forth between pictures and words, they experience transmediation. They create new meanings, find new and stronger voices, and gain insight into their creative process.
Research Directions: A Unique Visual and Literary Art Form: Recent Research on Picturebooks
Authors: Wolfenbarger Carol Driggs , Sipe Lawrence R.
Published: March 2024

The authors consider recent research that examines characteristics of the unique visual and literary art form of picturebooks and the ways in which readers respond to these books before exploring the means by which this research informs best classroom practice.
Test Development, Test Taking, and the Right to Learn
Authors: Fukuda Kay
Published: March 2024

This article documents the experiences of a single working mother as she advocates for her daughter and attempts to negotiate a shifting educational landscape that she knows has dire consequences for her child. It also documents institutional responses to this mother’s attempts at advocacy while they also adapt to the shifting landscape that imposes a central position for high-stakes testing.
Analyzing the Writing of English Learners: A Functional Approach
Authors: Schleppegrell Mary J. , Go Ann L.
Published: March 2024

Teachers can respond to the writing of students who are learning English by asking three questions about meaning. These questions identify grammatical features that are functional for writing particular kinds of texts. We draw on functional linguistics and illustrate with texts written by four fifth and sixth grade immigrant students.
Bullshit in Academic Writing: A Protocol Analysis of a High School Senior’s Process of Interpreting Much Ado about Nothing
Authors: Smagorinsky Peter , Daigle Elizabeth Anne , Allen Cindy O’Donnell , Bynum Susan
Published: March 2024

This article reports a study of one high school senior’s process of academic bullshitting as she wrote an analytic essay interpreting Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. The construct of bullshit has received little scholarly attention; although it is known as a common phenomenon in academic speech and writing, it has rarely been the subject of empirical research. This study is comprised of a protocol analysis of one writer as she attempted to produce an academic essay on a topic in which her understanding of the play’s content was insufficient for the task of producing the essay. The coding system identified subcodes within the major categories of content, genre, and process that enabled the researchers to infer what is involved in academic bullshitting. The analysis found that, in the absence of sufficient content knowledge, a writer familiar in discourse conventions may employ knowledge of the genre of academic writing and processes for producing generic features to create the impression that her content knowledge is adequate. The study concludes with a discussion of the phenomenon of academic bullshitting and its implications for teaching and learning academic writing.
“Who Will Be the Inventors? Why Not Us?” Multimodal Compositions in the Two-Year College Classroom
Authors: Bickmore Lisa , Christiansen Ron
Published: March 2024

This essay illustrates why compositionists should conceive of multimodal writing assignments as having wide-ranging and forward-thinking parameters, in order to invite the greatest possible range of student responses; it also suggests the directions we should take when evaluating such work.
From Photographs to Elegies: Engaging the Holocaust in a Writing Course
Authors: Gamber Cayo
Published: March 2024

Teaching the Holocaust in a first-year writing course using photographs of the Shoah as a primary resource authorizes students to engage in research and writing that provides a place of empathetic, dignified witnessing for those who were denied the possibility of realizing the lives they were meant to live.
Instructional Note: Using Google Documents for Composing Projects That Use Primary Research in First-Year Writing Courses
Authors: Strasma Kip
Published: March 2024

For faculty seeking to engage students in inquiry-based, emergent, and primary research in first-year composition courses, Google Documents provides both an efficient and effective means.
Instructional Note: Point by Point: Adding Up Motivation
Authors: Marchionda (New Voice) Denise
Published: March 2024

Using the extended metaphor of a part-time job, students easily keep track of their progress, attend class regularly, and come to understand that each assignment is a valuablelearning opportunity.
The Location of Error: Reflections on a Research Project
Authors: Cook (New Voice) Devan
Published: March 2024

A research project into the grammar and usage error patterns among students at our university showed that error can be located on a rhetorical map within texts, writers, readers, and their social contexts; this perspective helps students and teachers deal productively with error.
From Teacher to Reflective Practitioner and Researcher: An Interview with Jane Hansen
Authors: Kissel Brian T. , Lawrence Jody K.
Published: March 2024

Brian Kissel and Jody Lawrence interview widely respected educator Jane Hansen about her transition from beginning elementary teacher to reflective practitioner and researcher.
Taking Down Walls: An International Wiki Creates a Community of Thinkers
Authors: Maltese Denise , Naughter Kate
Published: March 2024

This article explores collaboration between a rural school in upstate New York and an international school in Amman, Jordan. The authors describe how they provided their students with real audiences for their writing, and, over time, built an international community of writers. Classroom walls were blurred as the authors “team-taught” one another’s students, planned writing lessons, and provided support to each other for this project. By tracing students’ writing throughout the school year, the authors show how students’ interest in each other developed and therefore led to international understanding. Key points include: providing real audiences for student writing; collaborating using a Wikispace; sharing points of view internationally; and developing a community of writers.
Student to Student: Shrinking the World, Expanding the Mind
Authors: Ford Kim
Published: March 2024

Even as our students’ awareness of the larger world expands, access to information and people from other cultures shrinks that world, too, making it possible to identify with those whose lives differ greatly from our own. As these students know, however, a good book is a good book, and even the students who contributed to this column from overseas have a great feel for which books will appeal to readers across the globe.
Fresh Perspectives on New Literacies and Technology Integration
Authors: Labbo Linda D. , Place Karen
Published: March 2024

This article provides practical ideas for integrating technologies into the classroom in ways that honor students’ out-of-school technology funds of knowledge. The challenges and unintended consequences of integrating technology into the classroom and the role that video gaming can play in helping students find agency and the ability to think critically about print-based narratives are also included.