This study is the result of my work as a teacher educator in an English methods course and a member of an inquiry community I formed with eight of my students, all middle and secondary student English teachers at the University of Pennsylvania. I investigate what was at stake for them in learning to teach English in Philadelphia urban schools in…

This unique time-saving book is packed with tested techniques and materials to assist new and experienced English teachers with virtually every phase of their job from lesson planning to effective discipline techniques. The book includes 175 easy-to-understand strategies, lessons, checklists, and forms for effective classroom management and over…

This study examines the participation of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with labels of Learning Disability (LD) in their English, Math, and Social Studies classes. The conceptualization of LD as a biological pathology in the dominant special education discourse has contributed to normative perceptions and reductionistic…

Recognizing the profound relationship between thinking and language, the authors have developed the traditional Paideia seminar into a literacy cycle of instruction that involves students in reading, speaking, listening, writing, and thinking. As staff members of the National Paideia Center, they have observed that learning to think requires…

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in the development and dissemination of high-quality instructional and formative assessment tools to support teachers' incorporation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) into their classroom instruction. Lessons from the first generation of standards-based reforms suggest that intense…

This report summarizes analyses of whether results from Austin Independent School District's students' Spring 2008 state-mandated academic assessments are related to their results on a fitness assessment.

This article extends recent work on the consequences of literacy-learning reforms by complicating the notion of "policy." Through a qualitative study in one high school, I explored how policy in its many forms, including the ways it was perceived and misperceived, shaped the literacy learning experiences of marginalized adolescent readers.…

For middle and high school teachers of social studies and English, this book is filled with examples of instructional strategies that address students' readiness levels, interests, and learning preferences. It shows teachers how to formatively assess their students by addressing differentiated learning targets. Included are detailed examples of…

How do teachers in diverse classrooms enact a transactional mode of literary response in their orchestration of classroom conversations about literature? This paper proposes that a theory of expressive language is central to answering this question and that the discourse genre of oral narratives may hold critical importance in accomplishing this…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Educating Teenage Immigrants: High Schools Experiment with Ways to Group New English-Language Learners (Lucy Hood); (2) Hot Topics and Key Words: Pilot Project Brings Teachers…

The authors address the need to teach students to become more word aware by focusing on metasemantic awareness, alongside morphological and syntactic awareness, as a basis for developing metacognition about words. They extend the concept of a definition map to other forms of vocabulary learning and provide several helpful graphic organizers.…

This analysis of data from the Partnership for Literacy Study investigates the relationship among achievement, effort, and grades. Certainly, grades reward achievement, the mastery of material by students. Research has also suggested that grades are used to reward students for exerting effort to learn material, even if students fall short of…

In every content area, standardized tests are strongly focused on reading. Today, not only are reading and writing expected to take place in the English/language arts classroom but also in math, science, and social studies. To prepare students for standardized tests in the middle grades and beyond, the U. S. Department of Education recommends…

This teachers' manual is to be used with the textbook "Better English: Grade Seven" by Jeschke, Potter, and Gillet. It includes notes that explain briefly the first principles of language study and teaching, and suggestions for the conduct of the individual lessons. [For "Better English: Grade Seven," see ED623253.]

This teachers' manual is to be used with the textbook "Better English: Grade Six" by Jeschke, Potter, and Gillet. It includes notes that explain briefly the first principles of language study and teaching, and suggestions for the conduct of the individual lessons. [For "Better English: Grade Six," see ED623251.]