The barriers to school attendance that affect young Aboriginal people in Australia are diverse, immense and well documented; however, except for a handful of studies, Aboriginal students' voices receive no platform for policy makers to hear them. In this paper, we present results from yarning circles about barriers to school attendance conducted…

The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the extended use of student-designed games. 207 students (grades: eight, nine, eleven) from one school participated. They were randomly divided in Experimental (student-designed games) and Equivalent group (traditional instruction). Both experienced the same learning units (two, 12 sessions) over the…

The purpose of this study was to explore, using the voices of diverse high school students, the classroom factors that are important for promoting classroom belonging and engagement. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with tenth grade students about classroom belonging and behavioral engagement in their favorite and least…

The authors examined the dimensions of reading engagement for rural ninth-grade students who participated in a supplemental literacy intervention for students who struggled with school-based reading. Using a comparative case study approach, researchers investigated the ways in which engagement was characterized and undermined within the context of…

This article examines the power of composing images as students construct identities and shape their own worlds. It illustrates student empowerment through agency, intellectual engagement, and community investment and suggests that composing with images forms a bridge back to alphabetic-centric composing.

In this article, the authors describe how self-directed learning allows students to design their own research projects and rubrics, differentiated for their cognitive readiness, learning preferences, interests, and affect. The authors found that students viewed their self-directed learning as challenging but fun because it is relevant and doable,…

Community asset mapping is an approach that school counselors can use to locate resources to meet the needs of families, schools, and communities. This article provides step-by-step instructions on how school counselors might use community asset mapping to address the needs of their population(s), illustrated with an example of implementation in a…

This article describes the implementation of blogging in ninth-grade pre-advanced placement language arts classes to support strong writing practices. In particular, the writing workshop's elements of student choice, continuing revision, discussion of craft, publication, and process orientation meshed well with digital composition. Blogging in the…

In this paper authoethnography was used as a process and product to explore one leader's journey from the classroom, as a student and a teacher, to opening a new school as the school's principal. These experiences create the backdrop of a larger narrative about public schooling and leadership. Traditional notions of learning, teaching, schooling…

Social Studies can be understood, or theorized, in a number of different ways as a consequence of its history (Evans, 2004). This paper presents the findings of a research study of high school students' and teachers' conceptions of Social Studies in relation to four philosophical orientations, labeled the Classicist/Traditionalist, Essentialist,…

Across the country, high schools have found that their ninth-grade students have the highest rates of truancy, discipline referrals, failures, and retentions. A school's worst data points are usually found among freshmen. For this reason, proactive schools seek strategies for transitioning freshmen into high school. An effective freshman…

In this paper, we argue for the importance of creating a context that allows students to explore their sense of "self" and their embodied identities, specifically within a physical education context. We specifically explore how students' mediated and embodied identities are "translated," particularly as they engaged in activist…

Using a participatory and collaborative approach, we developed, implemented, and evaluated a culturally responsive school counseling group, "Boys II Men," for 11 low-income diverse male students of color at an urban public school. The content of the group focused on five areas: social connections and support, exploring gender roles,…

In previous columns in this department, scholars have taken to task the decontextualized and dehumanizing policies of recent and current federal education policies in the United States. While deconstruction of these policies is crucial, these moves must be followed by reconstruction. In this edition of the Adolescent Literacy Policy column,…

In the fall of 2009, Van Meter Community School in Iowa adopted a one-to-one laptop initiative in grades 6-12 and a strong technology focus throughout the district. Since that time, an atmosphere of respect, creativity, collaboration, and connection as well as independent thinking and learning has prevailed at the school. Today, Van Meter has…