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…

How can teachers build students' interest and engagement in reading texts in the high school English curriculum while still providing access to challenging texts from the canon? Teachers typically expect their secondary students to read texts from the English canon because these texts offer opportunities for meaningful reflections on essential…

In this article I use the occasion of farewelling my Year 12 students at the end of their schooling, some intertextual references to "Hamlet", and some conceptual frames of Derrida, to reflect dialogically on the role of critical literacy in Australian English curricula in the past, the present and into the future. (Contains 11 notes.)

The author helps some kids make personal connections to what can seem irrelevant within the confines of classroom and curriculum. Interestingly, though, the most meaningful connections she has made with students have come not through quirky English teaching, but through her extracurricular interloping into the realm of social studies. The most…

Schools are finding effective ways to engage students totally in learning by addressing students' minds, personalities and behaviors. They are designing curricula and instructional strategies to generate interest and challenge students to stay in school and do their best. The goal is to graduate a "complete student" who will be ready for…

There is a national movement to universalize the high school curriculum so that all students graduate prepared for college. The present work evaluates a policy in Chicago that ended remedial classes and mandated college preparatory course work for all students. Based on an interrupted time-series cohort design with multiple comparisons, this study…

Chanelle Brown has not found much she can relate to in the classic texts assigned in her English classes at Evanston Township High School. A top student, the junior has toiled through "The Odyssey," "All the King's Men," "The Scarlet Letter," and other standards, she said, while many of her classmates at the suburban Chicago school have given up…

The Common Core State (or other rigorous) Standards (CCSS) being implemented by states across the nation are prompting school leaders and teachers to seek ways to move the standards into classroom instruction, assignments and assessments. Schools wanting to ensure that student work meets grade-level standards are using differentiated instructional…

The context for this teacher narrative is a multicultural South Australian secondary school with over 50 nationalities represented, where many of the older students are disengaged from English. A transformative moment for the writer occurred following research for here doctoral thesis, which unexpectedly challenged her thinking about the English…

This article presents the results of a research project centered on challenged books, which was used with a twelfth-grade class of mixed ability levels. The study of banned books provided the students an opportunity to engage with literature on a number of levels, generating text-to-self connections by involving students in a discussion centered…

High school English teachers need to respond to the diversity of cultures that our schools possess, and be open-minded in our construction of the curriculum that English classes should encompass. There is a disconnect between the "core" books that drive curriculum and what really interests students. I am invested in the process of altering the…

The California State University (CSU) requires entering freshmen to be proficient in English reading and writing, as demonstrated on proficiency measures. Currently, approximately 46 percent of incoming college freshmen need remediation in English reading and writing. To assist these students, CSU instituted an Early Assessment Program (EAP),…

This case study investigates the decision making of Joni, a high school English teacher, during her student teaching in an Applied Communications II teaching assignment, comprised of students in the lowest tier of a four-track senior English curriculum. This course served as a "contact zone" for a set of competing interests: Joni's stated beliefs…

This pioneering book, by one of the founders of the media literacy field, provides evidence of the impact of media literacy on the academic achievement of adolescents. Read about the practice of high school teachers who prepared their students to critically analyze all aspects of contemporary media culture. These teachers incorporated popular and…

For the first time in the history of American education, educators and policymakers are setting their sights on reaching the goal of preparing all students graduating from high school to meet the requirements of postsecondary education, professional careers and effective citizenship. The 2004 report, "Ready or Not: Creating a High School…