Although most of the writing in high school English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms is about literature and although there have been incessant calls for changing the practices of teaching and learning literature, only meager amounts of research have been conducted in these interrelated domains of the field. Accordingly, this dissertation seeks to…

Research suggests that video games can foster deep engagement, critical thinking, and collaborative learning. To highlight how video games promote student achievement, we focus on a year 9 elective class in Australia. Our findings suggest that this games-based class encouraged student learning and motivated students to develop advanced literacy…

While the allure of Silicon Valley undoubtedly attracts students, the declining interest in the humanities at both the secondary and postsecondary levels is primarily a self-inflicted wound. Many educators often employ teaching methods that alienate students and make them feel as though the only reason for reading literature or studying history is…

Literature can be a powerful resource for adolescents' psychosocial development, as it provides opportunities to experience the world through the perspectives of others and juxtapose these with one's own experiences. However, gaining access to these perspectives requires going beyond literal words on the page to explore interpretive meanings. This…

This article explores student empowerment in a restructured urban Title I middle school. The study includes data from eight participants in an action research project that involved a critical inquiry unit in an eighth-grade language arts class that asked students, "How are you empowered and disempowered by school?" Findings reveal that…

Perfectionism can influence how one approaches challenges and deals with setbacks, and, consequently, can inhibit or facilitate achievement. The present study (1) explored the relationship between Frost's six dimensions of perfectionism and five types of coping strategies; (2) examined how dimensions of perfectionism predict coping in response to…

This study explored teachers' use of the Argumentation and Evaluation Intervention (AEI) and associated graphic organizer to enhance the performance of students in middle and secondary science classrooms. The results reported here are from the third year of a design study during which the procedures were developed in collaboration with…

Online education in K-12 settings has increased considerably in recent years, but there is little research supporting its use at this level. Online courses help students learn at their own pace, select different locations to do their work, and choose flexible times to complete assignments. However, some students learn best in a face-to-face…

Tired of hearing grumbling and moaning when it is time for critiques? It has been the author's experience that students do not do well in critiques because of two main things: (1) being shy about displaying their work; and (2) not knowing the right vocabulary to use to support their like (or dislike) of others' work. In this article, the author…

The relevance of the topic is due to the need of self-correction of senior preschoolers. Adequate self-esteem of preschoolers will give us an opportunity to prepare them for school more effectively, as well as to create some positive character traits. The preschool age is the initial period of development of a child's self-esteem. This is the most…

As the adoption and execution of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have steadily increased, the debate community is presented with an opportunity to be more forward thinking and sustainable through the translation to curriculum planning and next-generation assessment as a movement towards Performance-Based Assessments. This paper focuses on…

Globalisation and technological advances in the twenty-first century have caused a blurring of national lines, which in the past were the basis of a nearly indisputable model of civic identity. This process has led to a noticeable trend of the globally oriented pressures within the national curricula, on top of the existing locally oriented…

Our study examined the experiences of three middle school teachers who created their own Black History Month curriculum. Although, the relevance of Black History Month is under scrutiny by opponents who feel it marginalized the history of Black Americans, proponents of this position have failed: to account for teachers who view and use this Month…

Middle school students struggle to explain thermodynamics concepts. In this study, to help students succeed, we use a natural language processing program to analyze their essays explaining the aspects of thermodynamics and provide guidance based on the automated score. The 346 sixth-grade students were assigned to either the critique condition…

This study focused on understanding the impact of incorporating digital reader response into a middle school literature class. Through interviews and the use of artifacts, a classroom teacher documented how altering the way students wrote about their readings shaped the quality and quantity of their writing. Outcomes reveal that blogging during…