At a time when some high school English classrooms erase and distort experiences and identities, it is vital for educators to explore pedagogies that provide radically reimagined forms of liberatory thought. This article explores ways the work of Coates can serve as "blueprint liberation" in the English classroom. The line of broken,…

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets--an excellent moment to focus on them, as well as on those written by others before and after 1609. Because these authors share an enthusiasm for poetry in general and the sonnet in particular, they want to encourage teachers to include…

When approaches to critical inquiry and critical literacy are used by students to interrogate the dynamic between both fiction and nonfiction texts simultaneously, they shape a classroom culture of questioning that empowers students to take an informed and more activist stance about larger issues in the world. This article explores how nonfiction…

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…

In this article, the author recounts her teaching experience with new high school students at Northwest Yeshiva High School, an Orthodox Jewish high school on Mercer Island. In teaching the students about writing, the author describes how she was moved by the narratives written by her students, and that after reading their stories she decided to…

This article relates the experience of Mrs. Vernon, who teaches two sections of an English course at her high school, and has evaluated her high- and low-track students based on cultural and social groups. She uses these evaluations to shape her expectations for the students' academic performance, their future life goals, and her daily method of…