bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“English May Be My Second Language, but I’m Not ‘ESL’”
Authors: Ortmeier-Hooper Christina
Published: March 2024

In this essay, I present three case studies of immigrant, first-year students, as they negotiate their identities as second language writers in mainstream composition classrooms. I argue that such terms as “ESL” and “Generation 1.5” are often problematic for students and mask a wide range of student experiences and expectations.
Arguing with Adversaries: Aikido, Rhetoric, and the Art of Peace
Authors: Kroll Barry M.
Published: March 2024

The Japanese martial art of aikido affords a framework for understanding argument as harmonization rather than confrontation. Two movements, circling away (tenkan) and entering in (irimi), suggest tactics for arguing with adversaries. The ethical imperative of aikido involves protecting one’s adversary from harm, using the least force necessary, and, when possible, transforming aggression into cooperation.
“Seemingly Uncouth Forms”: Letters at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
Authors: Spring Suzanne B.
Published: March 2024

Dispelling historical narratives in composition and rhetoric that largely depict nineteenth-century student compositions as “vacuous” themes, this archival study examines women’s compositions at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary as complex generic hybrids, in which the composition is fused with common social and dialogic forms.
“Mistakes Are a Fact of Life”: A National Comparative Study
Authors: Lunsford Andrea A. , Lunsford Karen J.
Published: March 2024

This essay reports on a study of first-year student writing. Based on a stratified national sample, the study attempts to replicate research conducted twenty-two years ago and to chart the changes that have taken place in student writing since then. The findings suggest that papers are longer, employ different genres, and contain new error patterns.
The Emotioned Power of Racism: An Ethnographic Portrait of an All-White High School
Authors: Trainor Jennifer Seibel
Published: March 2024

This article explores the emotioned dimensions of racist discourses at an all-white public high school. I argue that students’ racist assertions do not always or even often originate in students’ racist attitudes or belief. Instead, racist language functions metaphorically, connecting common racist ideas to nonracist feelings, values, beliefs, and associations that are learned in the routine practices and culture of school.
Rhetoric’s Mechanics: Retooling the Equipment of Writing Production
Authors: Rice Jenny Edbauer
Published: March 2024

Teaching rhetorical production in a digital age calls for us to rethink our discipline’s current distaste for writing mechanics. Yet, the digital mechanics of writing are much broader than grammatical concerns. They include production tools that allow for the invention and circulation of audio, visual, and Multigenre writing.
The Importance of Harmony: An Ecological Metaphor for Writing Research
Authors: Fleckenstein Kristie S. , Spinuzzi Clay , Rickly Rebecca J. , Papper Carole Clark
Published: March 2024

This essay argues for the value of an ecological metaphor in conceptualizing, designing, and enacting research in writing studies. Such a metaphor conceives of activities, actors, situations, and phenomena as interdependent, diverse, and fused through feedback.
Retention and Writing Instruction: Implications for Access and Pedagogy
Authors: Powell Pegeen Reichert
Published: March 2024

As faculty are increasingly recruited to participate in retention efforts on their campuses, I argue that composition studies professionals should pay attention to the scholarship on retention, one of the fastest growing areas of research in higher education. Moreover, the questions surrounding which of our students persist until graduation and why should qualify our arguments about access and reframe our conversations about pedagogy.
Voice of Authority: Theorizing Creative Writing Pedagogy
Authors: Kearns Rosalie Morales
Published: March 2024

Creative writing workshops typically feature a gag rule and emphasize purported flaws. This structure limits students’ meaningful engagement with each other’s work; positions the author as inherently flawed; and positions other participants as authority figures, passing judgment without articulating their aesthetic standards. I propose an alternative structure in which authors lead discussion; the work is treated not as inherently flawed but as “in process”; and discussants articulate their expectations about “good” writing rather than allowing them to function as unspoken norms.
Perspectives: From Introspection to Action: Connecting Spirituality and Civic Engagement
Authors: Kirsch Gesa E.
Published: March 2024

Kirsch explores “the connection between spirituality and civic engagement,” suggesting that “spirituality—broadly defined to include mindfulness, introspection, and reflection—can play an important role in enabling rhetorical agency.”
Gaming, Student Literacies, and the Composition Classroom: Some Possibilities for Transformation
Authors: Alexander Jonathan
Published: March 2024

This article explores the literacy narratives of two “gamers” to demonstrate the kinds of literacy skills that many students actively involved in computer and video gaming are developing during their play. This analysis becomes part of a larger claim about the necessity of re-visioning the place of gaming in composition curricula. Ultimately, the author argues that we should use complex computer games as primary “texts” in composition courses as a way to explore with our students transformations in what literacy means.
Not Going It Alone: Public Writing, Independent Media, and the Circulation of Homeless Advocacy
Authors: Mathieu Paula , George Diana
Published: March 2024

This article argues that the teaching of public writing should not neglect issues of circulation and local need. In a series of case studies involving small press papers and homeless advocacy, the authors seek to extend recent work begun by Susan Wells, John Trimbur, and Nancy Welch, which raises crucial questions about public rhetoric in the writing classroom.
The Queer Turn in Composition Studies: Reviewing and Assessing an Emerging Scholarship
Authors: Alexander Jonathan , Wallace David
Published: March 2024

This article surveys and analyzes nearly fifteen years of scholarship, situating itself at the intersection of LGBT/queer studies and composition/rhetoric studies. The authors argue that paying attention to queerness provides unique opportunities to engage with students in challenging discussions about how the most seemingly personal parts of our lives are densely and intimately wrapped up in larger sociocultural and political narratives that organize desire and condition how we think of ourselves. Three moves in queer composition scholarship are identified “confronting homophobia, becoming inclusive, and queering the homo/hetero binary” and implications of these moves for composition are discussed.
Feminist Rhetorical Practices: In Search of Excellence
Authors: Kirsch Gesa E. , Royster Jacqueline J.
Published: March 2024

In this article, we undertake three critical tasks: First, we delineate major shifts in feminist rhetorical inquiry, thus describing a new and changed landscape of the field. Second, we argue that as feminist rhetorical practices have shifted, so have standards of excellence. To articulate excellence in feminist rhetorical studies, we draw attention to interconnections among three critical terms of engagement: critical imagination, strategic contemplation, and social circulation. Third, we propose an enhanced inquiry model for understanding, interpreting, and evaluating feminist rhetorical work in rhetoric and writing studies.
The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies
Authors: Hesse Douglas
Published: March 2024

For different reasons, composition studies and creative writing have resisted one another. Despite a historically thin discourse about creative writing within College Compositionand Communication, the relationship now merits attention. The two fields’ common interest should link them in a richer, more coherent view of writing for each other, forstudents, and for policymakers. As digital tools and media expand the nature and circulation of texts, composition studies should pay more attention to craft and to composingtexts not created in response to rhetorical situations or for scholars.
Seeking New Worlds: The Study of Writing beyond Our Classrooms
Authors: Williams Bronwyn T.
Published: March 2024

As new ways of creating and interpreting texts complicate ideas of how and why writing happens, the field of rhetoric and composition needs to be more conscious of how ourinstitutional responsibilities and scholarly attention to college writing have limited its vision of writing and literacy. It is time to move beyond consolidating our identity asa field focused on college writing, reach out to other literacy-related fields, and form a broader, more comprehensive, and more flexible identity as part of a larger field ofliteracy and rhetorical studies.
Making the Case for Disciplinarity in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies: The Visibility Project
Authors: Phelps Louise Wetherbee , Ackerman John M.
Published: March 2024

In the Visibility Project, professional organizations have worked to gain recognition for the disciplinarity of writing and rhetoric studies through representation of the fieldin the information codes and databases of higher education. We report success in two important cases: recognition as an “emerging field” in the National Research Council’staxonomy of research disciplines; and the assignment of a code series to rhetoric and composition/writing studies in the federal Classification of Instructional Programs(CIP). We analyze the rhetorical strategies and implications of each case and call for continuing efforts to develop and implement a “digital strategy” for handling data aboutthe field and its representation in information networks.
Review Essay: A Field at Sixty Something
Authors: Anson Chris M.
Published: March 2024

Review of four books: Handbook of Research on Writing: History, Society, School, Individual, Text, Charles Bazerman, editor. Handbook of Writing Research Charles A. MacArthur, Steve Graham, and Jill Fitzgerald, editors.The Norton Book of Composition Studies Susan Miller, editor. Research on Composition: Multiple Perspectives on Two Decades of Change, Peter Smagorinsky, editor.
Negotiating Cultural Identities through Language: Academic English in Jordan
Authors: Pedersen Anne Marie
Published: March 2024

This article discusses how a group of multilingual scholars in Jordan negotiate multiple linguistic and cultural affiliations. These writers’ experiences demonstrate the varied ways English’s global dominance affects individuals’ lives. The scholars find both empowerment and disempowerment in English, viewing English as linked to Western hegemony in some situations and as de-nationalized and de-territorialized in others.
The Ruse of Clarity
Authors: Barnard Ian
Published: March 2024

This essay interrogates the concept of “clarity” that has become an imperative of effective student writing. I show that clarity is neither axiomatic nor transparent, and that the clear/unclear binary that informs the identification of clarity as a goal of effective student writing is itself unstable precisely because of the ideological baggage that undergirds its construction. I make this argument by finding the traces of composition’s insistence on student writers’ clarity in the attacks on the writing of critical theorists.
Interchanges: Response to Cynthia L. Selfe’s “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing”
Authors: Hesse Doug
Published: March 2024

Doug Hesse has written a commentary on “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing” by Cynthia L. Selfe, which appeared in College Composition and Communication 60.4 (June 2009): 616–63. The full text of the original article is available at the CCC website: www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc.
Review: Growing Resources in Asian American Literary Studies
Authors: Young Morris
Published: March 2024

Reviewed are A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature, edited by Sau-ling Cynthia Wong and Stephen H. Sumida, Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers, edited by King-Kok Cheung, and Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images, edited by M. Evelina Galang.
Should College English Be Close Reading?
Authors: Bialostosky Don
Published: March 2024

Although “close reading” remains a worthwhile goal for undergraduate English courses, the term has actually been defined in numerous ways, which need to be compared and assessed. Unfortunately, the version of it spread by the New Critics has intimidated students, making them feel unable to decipher a literary text’s real meaning. They need to see how literature relates to discourses with which they are already familiar.
Networks and New Media
Authors: Rice Jeff
Published: March 2024

College English departments must turn their attention to the extensive role that, for good or ill, electronic networks are playing in the circulation and very definition of writing. In part, this development involves constant fluctuation and growth of data, so that texts hardly remain fixed.
Feminist Social Projects: Building Bridges between Communities and Universities
Authors: Webb Patricia , Cole Kirsti , Skeen Thomas
Published: March 2024

The authors call for tying service learning to feminist agendas. In particular, they emphasize civic activism involving true collaboration with communities. They report on a graduate seminar at their own university that worked toward this goal by having students self-reflectively participate in local organizations.
“Habit of Heat”: Emerson, Belletristic Rhetoric, and the Role of the Imagination
Authors: Thompson Roger
Published: March 2024

Within nineteenth-century American rhetorical culture, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s contribution was distinct. Envisioning a rhetoric that linked imagination with social action, he challenged the more mechanistic, reason-centered tendencies of rhetorical doctrines influenced by Hugh Blair.
Symposium: The Civil Rights Movement According to Crash: Complicating the Pedagogy of Integration
Authors: Holmes David G.
Published: March 2024

“Crash” is a means for classes to explore the complicated interpersonal, social, and political legacies of the civil rights movement. Nevertheless, it is important for students to examine how, on the subject of racism, the movie blurs the distinction between individual moral choices and larger institutional practices.
Fraught Literacy: Competing Desires for Connection and Separation in the Writings of American Missionary Women in Nineteenth-Century Hawai’i
Authors: Desser Daphne
Published: March 2024

Letters and journals of American missionary women in early 19th century Hawai’i express conflicting desires. In some ways, the writers seek connection with the rest of the missionary community and with Native Hawaiians. In other ways, they try to separate themselves from these two groups.
Whatever Happened to the Paragraph?
Authors: Duncan Mike
Published: March 2024

For the last several years, composition scholarship has unfortunately neglected the paragraph. Theories about it, however, have a rich history. Eventually, it involved conflicts between prescriptivists and descriptivists, as well as between members of the latter group and the branch of descriptivism called functionalism. Composition researchers should study the paragraph once again, this time forging connections with similar work in other disciplines.
Opinion: Consistently Inconsistent: Business and the Spellings Commission Report on Higher Education
Authors: Huot Brian
Published: March 2024

The author critiques the much-publicized and potentially influential 2006 report of the Spellings Commission Report. He emphasizes the report’s inconsistencies, seeing these as reflecting a business model of education that neglects not only the decline in government financial support of colleges, but also the presence in them of new student populations
Living inside the Bible (Belt)
Authors: Carter Shannon
Published: March 2024

When evangelical Christian students enter the academy, they often find that its tenets and values conflict with their reliance on the Bible as a source of truth and evidence. A pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity, however, can help construct productive relationships between their religious community of practice and the academy’s.
The Stakes of Not Staking Our Claim: Academic Freedom and the Subject of Composition
Authors: Boland Mary
Published: March 2024

Various writing programs have struggled to preserve their academic freedom amidst pressures from college administrators and members of the public. To discourage interference from outside parties, such a program needs to identify itself as focused on a substantial academic subject: the scholarly understanding of language and meaning.
Texts of Our Institutional Lives: Accessibility Scans and Institutional Activity: An Activity Theory Analysis
Authors: Spinuzzi Clay
Published: March 2024

Drawing on activity theory, the author describes and analyzes how he uses software to determine whether websites administered by his university are accessible to disabled people. He argues that, ultimately, accessibility is a rhetorical construct, in the sense that it is defined by communities rather than by sheer technical measurements.
Reconsiderations: Donald Murray and the Pedagogy of Surprise
Authors: Ballenger Bruce
Published: March 2024

Toward the end of his life, Donald Murray felt that his approach to writing instruction was no longer appreciated by journals in his field. Nevertheless, his emphasis on encouraging students to surprise themselves through informal writing still has considerable value.
Object Lessons: Teaching Multiliteracies through the Museum
Authors: Schwartz John Pedro
Published: March 2024

The author calls for incorporating into English classes what he calls museum-based pedagogy, arguing that it enables the teaching of multiple literacies: verbal, visual, technological, social, and critical. In part, this pedagogy consists of classroom instruction that enables students to understand the persuasive nature of museum displays—the ways in which digital technology mediates, powerful interests influence, social agents negotiate, and multimodal texts communicate meaning.
Writing with Light: Jacob Riis’s Ambivalent Exposures
Authors: Carter Christopher
Published: March 2024

The current interest in multimodal rhetoric was anticipated by Jacob Riis’s social documentary texts and presentations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In contrast with the socialist urban critiques presented by Friedrich Engels, Riis’s work demonstrated profound ambivalence toward the city’s poor. While calling for reform of their living conditions, Riis subjected them to surveillance and depicted them as potential revolutionaries whom the upper classes should fear.
Reconsiderations: After “The Idea of a Writing Center”
Authors: Boquet Elizabeth H. , Lerner Neal
Published: March 2024

Originally published in a 1984 issue of College English, Stephen North’s article “The Idea of a Writing Center” has over the years been much cited in writing center scholarship. Even so, this scholarship as a whole did not proceed to gain much presence in CE and other broadly-oriented composition journals. Reconsidering North’s piece, the authors argue for greater attention now to writing centers as sites for potentially valuable scholarly inquiry.
One Simple Word: From Creative Writing to Creative Writing Studies
Authors: Mayers Tim
Published: March 2024

Creative writing programs should transform into creative writing studies, a field of scholarly inquiry and research that would have three main strands: pedagogical, historical, and advocacy-oriented. This move would help bridge the gap between literary studies and composition.
Reconsiderations: Writers Wanted: A Reconsideration of Wendy Bishop
Authors: Bizzaro Patrick
Published: March 2024

Reconsideration of the late Wendy Bishop’s work should involve taking seriously her proposal that composition studies turn to the self-reports of writers, including creative writers.
Floating Foundations: Kairos, Community, and a Composition Program in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Authors: Johnson T. R. , Letter Joe , Livingston Judith Kemerait
Published: March 2024

The authors describe their individual and collective experiences reconstructing their New Orleans-based university composition program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They emphasize how the concept of floating foundations helps account for changes in their students’ interests, and they suggest that this idea is applicable to the work of writing instructors in general.
Serpents in the Garden: English Professors in Contemporary Film and Television
Authors: Carens Timothy L.
Published: March 2024

Recent movies and television programs frequently depict the English professor as a dangerously seductive man associated with sexual transgression and other illicit temptations. This stereotype reveals a widespread ambivalence, a fascination intermingled with distrust, generated specifically by figures who preside over the study of literature in the academy.
The Virtue of Misreadings: Interpreting “The Man in the Well”
Authors: Weissman Gary
Published: March 2024

Through an account of how his own students analyzed Ira Sher’s short story “The Man in the Well,” the author calls for teachers of literature to value and attend to their classes’ misreadings rather than replace them with corrective interpretations. He argues that probing these misreadings enables one to see the limits imposed by any single correct understanding and to glimpse the richness of the potential text.
“American by Paper”: Assimilation and Documentation in a Biliterate Bi-Ethnic Immigrant Community
Authors: Vieira Kate Elizabeth
Published: March 2024

Through an ethnographic investigation of how two different groups form biliterate relationships in the quest for legal immigration papers, the author examines how literacy and assimilation function in light of the changing writing demands of contemporary immigrant life.
Reconsiderations: English Professor as Public Figure: My Days in Court
Authors: White Edward M.
Published: March 2024

Recalling moments when he appeared in court or participated in similar proceedings, the author argues that English professors must be ready to defend the values they represent.
Reconsiderations: We Got the Wrong Gal: Rethinking the “Bad” Academic Writing of Judith Butler
Authors: Birkenstein Cathy
Published: March 2024

Both critics and defenders of Judith Butler’s theoretical writing have failed to acknowledge that she employs classic argumentative moves.
Introduction: Searching for the Way: Between the Whats and Wheres of Chinese Rhetoric
Authors: Mao LuMing
Published: March 2024

The guest editor introduces this special issue on Chinese rhetoric by emphasizing that we should (1) focus on how the Chinese engaged their domestic and foreign Other; (2) be prepared to acknowledge and validate voices that call for or search for other paradigms; and (3) resist the temptation to codify any definitions of rhetoric even as we seek non-Western alternatives.
Writing an Empire: Cross-Talk on Authority, Act, and Relationships with the Other in the Analects, Daodejing, and HanFeizi
Authors: Lyon Arabella
Published: March 2024

The author calls for scholars of rhetoric and composition to become familiar with the cosmology, language, educational attitudes, speech genres, and intellectual debates of a specific culture other than their own. For a case study, she turns to Chinese history and focuses on exchanges between three models of rhetoric: Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist.
Extending the Conversation: New Technologies, New Literacies, and English Education
Authors: Swenson Janet , Young Carl A. , McGrail Ewa , Rozema Robert , Whitin Phyllis
Published: March 2024

The authors contend that new technologies have developed new literacies and new ways of thinking that are reshaping our lives. In the rapidly changing world, they argue, these new literacies and their practices must become central to effective English education programs. To frame their argument, they introduce the notion of technological pedagogical content knowledge to bridge the perceived binary of technology and English education. Throughout, they analyze how reflection on new technologies and integration of them into coursework for specific purposes is an educational, political, and even a moral imperative.
On Being Unreasonable: NCTE, CEE, and Political Action
Authors: Burns Leslie David
Published: March 2024

This article analyzes current positions related to political action and highlights the increasing need for public intellectual and political activism as an integral part of organizational policy.
Writing Out of the Unexpectedx
Authors: Gordon Erick , Mckibbin Kerry , Vasudevan Lalitha , Vinz Ruth
Published: March 2024

In this tale of a single event told from the perspectives of multiple narrators, Erick Gordon, Kerry McKibbin, Lalitha Vasudevan, and Ruth Vinz write about their work together on a Student Press Initiative (SPI) writing project at Horizon Academy, the Department of Correction/Department of Education high school at Rikers Island Jail in New York City. They focus on an incident that troubles them and makes them rethink the very foundations of their project.
The Moral of the Story: Agency in Preservice Teachers’ Literacy Stories
Authors: Johnson Amy
Published: March 2024

This life history study focuses on a group of European-American, female preservice teachers and how they have learned literacy across contexts within their lives. Specifically, I examined these teachers’literacy stories’ or stories they told about their own learning to read, write, and interpret texts, looking closely at how they used narrative to convey their agency as learners.
Beyond Strategies: Teacher Practice, Writing Process, and the Influence of Inquiry
Authors: Whitney Anne , Blau Sheridan , Bright Alison , Cabe Rosemary , Dewar Tim , Levin Jason , Jason Jason , Rogers Paul
Published: March 2024

Though it is now difficult to imagine any language arts teacher at any grade level not knowing about “the writing process,” many of the teaching practices employed in classrooms in the name of said writing process suggest that teachers may have different understandings about what the writing process entails as a model of writing and learning to write, conceptually or epistemologically.
The Trouble Is English: Reframing English Studies in Secondary Schools
Authors: Brauer Lydia , Clark Caroline T.
Published: March 2024

Examining the sociocultural hierarchies implicit in the ways in which texts are positioned in and out of classrooms may significantly broaden our ability to ask questions about texts and power—the heart of the English education mission “to envision a more democratic and just society” (Alsup, Emig, Pradl, Tremmel, & Yagelski, 2006, p. 281). To ignore these positions risks a significant silence regarding the ways in which texts live in and shape the world.
The Other Tradition: Populist Perspectives on Teaching Poetry, as Published in English Journal, 1912â€“2005
Authors: Faust Mark , Dressman Mark
Published: March 2024

In 2005 we began a comprehensive review of every article published in English Journal on the topics of poetry and its teaching since its first issue in 1912. Did high school English teachers and college professors in 1914 or 1945 or 1963 see the teaching of poetry as we see it today? Did they have similar problems and concerns? Is the sense of history that directs our own practice today accurate, or is a revision of that historical sense in order?
Literacy, Community, and Youth Acts of Place-Making
Authors: Kinloch Valerie
Published: March 2024

Valerie Kinloch describes how the literacy narratives around place-making by Phillip, an African American teenager who resides in this historic community, demonstrate complexities of confronting power, struggle, and identity within an out-of-school community that is rapidly becoming gentrified.
“There is one story worth telling”: An Essay for James Britton and Nancy Martin
Authors: Lofty John S.
Published: March 2024

John Lofty’s presentation of found taped interviews from 1992 with James Britton and Nancy Martin add deepened perspective to Britton’s and Martin’s contributions to NCTE. These contributions reflect the enduring concepts and legacies of two world-renowned educators.
(Re)visioning U.S. Latino Literatures in High School English Classrooms
Authors: Alexandra Rojas Mary
Published: March 2024

In focusing on what is taught in English language arts, Rojas examines stereotypical notions of U. S. Latino cultures and identities and finds that there is considerable diversity within the group that is worthy of acknowledgment.
Critical Conversations: Tensions and Opportunities of the Dialogical Classroom
Authors: Fecho Bob , Collier Nicole D. , Friese Elizabeth E.G. , Alexandra Wilson Amy
Published: March 2024

English teachers and educators of English teachers should work within rather than against the tensions present in their classrooms. For us, nothing could be more key. Until university teacher educators construct and enact classrooms that embrace the dialogical tensions and possibilities within those settings, new and veteran teachers in the profession will have few if any sustained experiences upon which to base their own dialogical classrooms. Moreover, to either deny that tensions exist or to struggle to eradicate them is to misunderstand the purpose and possibility of tension. Learners caught between stabilizing and destabilizing tensions enter a state of wobble, one that asks them to pay attention to the issues at hand and to author a response. The goal is not to remove oneself from that tension but instead to enter into a dialogue that, like the cables on a suspension bridge, uses tension for support and equilibrium.
Deconstructing ’Aesthetic Response’ in Small-Group Discussions about Literature: A Possible Solution to the “Aesthetic Response” Dilemma
Authors: Soter Anna O. , Wilkinson Ian A.G , Connors Sean P. , Karen Murphy P. , Fu-Yuan Shen Vincent
Published: March 2024

Anna Soter and colleagues push the response to literature limits by first exploring; expressive response to account for readers’ personal connection to literature and offering a “third space” that; any reader might make at different times and for different reasons.’ This third space causes us to reconsider the work that aesthetic response has been doing all along in responses readers make to literature.
Zooming In and Zooming Out: Putting Grammar in Context into Context
Authors: Anderson Jeff
Published: March 2024

Jeff Anderson’s lessons involve shifting focus between writing or reading and specific grammar problems inner-city middle school students encounter. Lessons or discussions on a topic are then applied to a larger context so that students see “the story of grammar’s power to communicate meaning and beauty.”
Speaking My Mind: In Defense of Rubrics
Authors: Spandel Vicki
Published: March 2024

“Speaking My Mind” invites readers to speak out about controversial issues relevant to the teaching of English language arts.
New Voices: Writing Poetry to Connect to Literature
Authors: Hunt Tiffany J. , Hunt Bud
Published: March 2024

“New Voices” raises questions, offers insights, and provides a forum for novice teachers to engage in the professional conversation surrounding the teaching of English.
Teaching for Critical Literacy: An Ongoing Necessity to Look Deeper and Beyond
Authors: Michell Michael J.
Published: March 2024

A teacher of secondary students in Istanbul, Turkey, Michael J. Michell believes English curricula should teach critical literacy in the context of important social events, such as those surrounding 9/11. He demonstrates how he has used mainstream media and alternate press texts about the Middle East to encourage students to develop more sophisticated reading, writing, and debating skills.
Acting Out: Using Drama with English Learners
Authors: Bernal Penny
Published: March 2024

High school teacher Penny Bernal reflects on the success of using drama in her English Language Development classroom over the past ten years. She shares various steps for preparing a play as a means of promoting language learning and literacy, such as familiarizing students with language intonations through toning activities, practicing stage directions to prompt multicultural discussions, and accessing drama games to decrease inhibitions and increase concentration.
Words, Words, Words: Helping Students Discover the Power of Language
Authors: Perrin Robert
Published: March 2024

Robert Perrin emphasizes the active and playful power that can be discovered from specificity of language. Students observe the impact carefully chosen words have in their daily lives by examining names of products and colors used for particular contexts and audiences, as well as names given to inventions, highlighting the vibrancy of language—“the ways words develop and meanings change.”
Play is Not Just for PE
Authors: Brown Stacey
Published: March 2024

Stacey Brown energizes high school students with “brain-twisting” writing prompts, word games to hone vocabulary and spelling skills, and art to show complex ideas. Additionally, reading aloud to her class models fluent reading, expands students’ vocabularies, builds community, and stimulates student-led discussions about the novel.
Raising the Bar for Classroom Publication: Building a Student Press Initiative
Authors: Gordon Erick
Published: March 2024

Erick Gordon, founding director of the Student Press Initiative, illustrates collaborations with teachers and students that have motivated students to invest themselves in the process and product of writing, including research, oral history, revision, and an immersion in and commitment to community.
Mississippi Trial, 1955: Tangling with Text through Reading, Discussion, and Writing
Authors: Grierson Sirpa , Thursby Jacqueline S. , Dean Deborah , Crowe Chris
Published: March 2024

The authors proffer practical critical-reading strategies for teaching Mississippi Trial, 1955 to increase students’ vocabulary, comprehension, and background knowledge of historical eras. They use nonfiction, a PBS documentary, the Web, folklore, and picture books among other tools for inciting thoughtful discussion and writing.
Research Matters: What Kinds of Classroom Discussion Promote Reading Comprehension?
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.
New Voices: When Play Gets Serious
Authors: Hunt Tiffany J. , Hunt Bud
Published: March 2024

“New Voices” raises questions, offers insights, and provides a forum for novice teachers to engage in the professional conversation surrounding the teaching of English.
Taking Time: Developing Students’ Stamina in the English Classroom
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.
Tools for Teaching: Resources for a Feast of Fun
Authors: Ruggieri Colleen A.
Published: March 2024

“Tools for Teaching” helps you find the best print and electronic resources for teaching English language arts.
The Zine Project: Innovation or Oxymoron?
Authors: Jacobi Tobi
Published: March 2024

The Zine Project helps students and teachers consider the assumptions and expectations we have about how literacy functions in school and community contexts. In this article, Tobi Jacobi examines the relationships among composition theory, community literacy practices, and service learning, taking into account the complex possibilities and implications that arise when zines are incorporated into the classroom.
From the Secondary Section: Leadership for Literacy: Teachers Raising Expectations and Opportunities
Authors: Chilla Nicole A. , Waff Diane , Cook Heleny
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Culturally Responsive Teaching: The Harlem Renaissance in an Urban English Class
Authors: Stairs Andrea J.
Published: March 2024

Andrea J. Stairs advocates culturally responsive teaching, a practice that explicitly highlights “issues of race, ethnicity, and culture as central to teaching, learning, and schooling,” and emphasizes the necessity of interrogating the themes of race, power, and privilege in the urban classroom. Stairs observes two student teachers as they actively integrate rap lyrics, jazz and blues music, the poetry of Langston Hughes, discussion of figurative language, and analysis and imitation activities to examine elements of racism and prejudice during the Harlem Renaissance.
Are You Willing to Have Your Students Join Ralph, Jack, and Piggy?
Authors: Arver Cara M.
Published: March 2024

High school teacher Cara M. Arver walks teachers through her experience of setting up a virtual world to augment students’ reading of Lord of the Flies. Students interact as additional characters, discuss and solve problems based on the circumstances of the story, and complete classroom assignments within a virtual environment.
Developing Critical Consciousness: Resistance Literature in a Chicano Literature Class
Authors: Acosta Curtis
Published: March 2024

Starting from a framework that emphasizes indigenous heritage, high school teacher Curtis Acosta and students in the Chicano/Raza Studies classes engage with literature that reflects the students’ lives, families, and histories. Doing so encourages students to visualize and affirm academic identities while they confront current issues of oppression, develop critical consciousness, and become familiar with movements of resistance and action.
From the Secondary Section: The Case for Conflict in Our Classrooms
Authors: Dakin Mary Ellen
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Speaking My Mind: Don’t Blame the Boys: We’re Giving Them Girly Books
Authors: Jarre Kevin R. St.
Published: March 2024

“Speaking My Mind” invites readers to speak out about controversial issues relevant to the teaching of English language arts.
EJ Extra: In Praise of English Teachers
Authors: Conroy Pat
Published: March 2024

Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides, vigorously defends his novel against censorship and praisesthe work that English teachers do every day.
Are Your Students Critically Reading an Opinion Piece? Have Them RATTKISS It!
Authors: Snair Scott
Published: March 2024

Scott Snair proposes a mnemonic for students to use when critically examining written opinion. The acronym, RATTKISS, represents a “step-by-step method for understanding and evaluating written opinion.”
Facing the Issues: Challenges, Censorship, and Reflection through Dialogue
Authors: Lent ReLeah Cossett
Published: March 2024

ReLeah Cossett Lent provides practical advice for ensuring that books are kept on shelves and in classrooms for students to read. She outlines steps for creating professional learning communities that engage with censorship issues and prepare schools to deal with book challenges in thoughtful, supportive ways.
The Story as Alternative Universe
Authors: Peck Richard
Published: March 2024

This article comes from a speech that Richard Peck gave at the Colorado Language Arts Society Regional Spring Conference in 2007. At our request, he prepared this excerpt for English Journal readers.
Uniting the Spheres: Modern Feminist Theory and Classic Texts in AP English
Authors: Drew Simao J. A
Published: March 2024

High school teachers Simao J. A. Drew and Brenda G. Bosnic help familiarize students with gender role analysis and feminist theory. Students examine classic literature and contemporary texts, considering characters’ historical, literary, and social contexts while expanding their understanding of how patterns of identity and gender norms exist and are perpetuated in current contexts.
Taking Time
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.
Tools for Teaching
Authors: Ruggieri Colleen A.
Published: March 2024

“Tools for Teaching” helps you find the best print and electronic resources for teaching English language arts.
Bold Books for Teenagers
Authors: Gallo Don
Published: March 2024

“Bold Books for Teenagers” provides dynamic, informative viewpoints on important issues in publishing and teaching contemporary literature, especially literature for adolescents. Reviews of young adult literature also appear in this column.
Chatting with Letters: Developing Empathy and Critical Literacy through Writing Communities
Authors: Nicolini Mary B.
Published: March 2024

High school teacher Mary B. Nicolini designed an assignment that allows sophomore and senior students to examine an issue through an exchange of anonymous letters. Letter writing provides an opportunity for dialogue between peers, helping students critically explore questions about their assigned texts through a safe, informal medium.
From the Secondary Section: Doing What’s Right by Our Students
Authors: Haas Kay Parks
Published: March 2024

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.
Walking the Talk: Examining Privilege and Race in a Ninth-Grade Classroom
Authors: Sassi Kelly , Thomas Ebony Elizabeth
Published: March 2024

Kelly Sassi and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas describe their struggles and eventual success with students in constructing a “counternarrative to colormuteness and colorblindness”—the self-imposed student segregation and silencing of voice. Because of discussions during a Native American unit and student participation in a classroom intervention activity, interpersonal dynamics openly shifted for the better.
A Consideration of the Ethics of Teaching English
Authors: Christenbury Leila
Published: March 2024

Leila Christenbury, contending that English teachers are expected to live ethically, extends the exploration of ethics into the classroom where virtually all acts of writing, language, and literature involve choices of right and wrong. Christenbury examines the centrality of ethics to the act of teaching, reflecting on examples of teachers breaking and bending school rules for what they believe to be ethical reasons.
Placing Asterisks: An Approach to American Studies
Authors: Lawler Daniel O.
Published: March 2024

High school English teacher Daniel O. Lawler co-teaches an interdisciplinary American Studies class that fosters inquiry and reflection on the complexity of an authentic telling of US history. Students study competing narratives that incorporate cultural experiences outside the dominant narrative.
You Want Me to Teach Reading? Confessions of a Secondary Literature Teacher
Authors: Monahan Pat
Published: March 2024

Dissatisfied with leading question-answer discussions and curious about how students best engage with and understand texts, Pat Monahan undertook a teacher-research investigation. He reveals how he became a reading teacher who promotes student independence and control through a variety of rereading strategies.
In Memoriam: Margaret J. Early: NCTE President, 1974
Authors: Nelms Ben F.
Published: March 2024

A Former English Journal editor remembers Margaret J. Early, who was president of NCTE in 1974.
Incorporating Student Choice: Reflective Practice and the Courage to Change
Authors: Dredger Katie
Published: March 2024

Katie Dredger was a successful AP English Literature and Composition teacher when she began questioning the exclusivity her course represented. Here she shares how she was able to open her course to all students willing to attempt the challenge, while maintaining and even raising her intellectual standards.
Playing the Classroom-as-Game: Building a Community of Learners at the Start of a New Year
Authors: Carlson David Lee
Published: March 2024

Teacher educator David Lee Carlson likens taking an English class to playing a game, and by taking the metaphor seriously, he develops an innovative and engaging way to start off the school year.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Teachers Describe Their NEH Seminar and NWP Experiences
Authors: Richard Broan A. , Pezanowski Kate , VanHimbergen Jill
Published: March 2024

Summer is a time for teachers to recharge their pedagogical batteries. Here, three veteran English teachers write about professional development programs that energized them and their teaching.
Innovative Writing Instruction
Authors: Kinloch Valerie
Published: March 2024

“Innovative Writing Instruction” publishes new approaches to the teaching of writing in high school and middle school.
Twenty in a Year! Discovering a Prince in a Library of Frogs
Authors: Stovall Amanda
Published: March 2024

This first-year English teacher made a deal with her students: No other homework this year, if you read 20 books on your own. Did it work?
Connecting to Conscience: Shakespeare and Woody Allen
Authors: Jolley Susan Arpajian
Published: March 2024

Jolley uses two Woody Allen films to breathe new life into the themes of one of Shakespeare’s classics.
EJ in Focus: Sexual Identity and Gender Variance: Meeting the Educational Challenges
Authors: Ressler Paula , Chase Becca
Published: March 2024

This issue’s guest editors discuss the place of LGBTQ people, curriculum, and concerns in schools and introduce the contents of this special issue of English Journal.
Reading LGBT-Themed Literature with Young People: What’s Possible?
Authors: Clark Caroline T. , Blackburn Mollie V.
Published: March 2024

The authors encourage teachers to help students learn to read LGBT texts for pleasure.
Alex Sanchez’s Fiction: A Resource for All
Authors: Douglas Meyers G.
Published: March 2024

Sanchez’s LGBT-themed novels can be taught to meet a wide range of ELA curriculum standards.
Mentoring Matters: Where Are the Good Mentors?
Authors: McCann Thomas M. , Johannessen Larry
Published: March 2024

“Mentoring Matters” focuses on effective ways to support new English teachers and student teachers.
EJ Extra: What Is Happening in the Teaching of Writing?
Authors: Applebee Arthur N. , Langer Judith A.
Published: March 2024

The renowned English education scholars examine how assessment technology and other factors have influenced contemporary writing instruction.
Beyond Checklists and Rubrics: Engaging Students in Authentic Conversations about Their Writing
Authors: Dawson Christine M.
Published: March 2024

Using Quaker Shares, an inquiry stance, and other techniques, Dawson has helped students engage in useful, in-depth conversation about their writing.
Fantasy Island Meets the Real World: Using Online Discussion Forums in Collaborative Learning
Authors: Martens-Baker Susan
Published: March 2024

Find out how teachers in different schools used the Internet to help their students work together to create utopian communities as an alternative to the society that develops in Lord of the Flies.
The University Needs You
Authors: Webb Allen
Published: March 2024

Have you ever thought of becoming a college professor? Here’s why you should.
From the Editor
Authors: Lindblom Ken
Published: March 2024

Pp. 10-12.
EJ Extra: Is It Time to Abandon the Idea of “Best Practices” in the Teaching of English?
Authors: Smagorinsky Peter
Published: March 2024

Author and researcher Smagorinsky argues that because different teachers have different training, experience, and approaches to teaching, a practice that one regards as effective may be insufficient to others. Pp. 15-21.
A Response to Peter Smagorinsky
Authors: Hillocks George
Published: March 2024

The well-known researcher responds to Peter Smagorinsky arguments. Pp. 23-29.
Poem: Cat and Mouse
Authors: Shervais Jean
Published: March 2024

P. 87