In envisioning the future of literacy, students' voices are paramount. Students' engagement in classroom talk increases their learning and communication skills, but without intentional implementation, classroom talk can perpetuate hegemony in contemporary classrooms. To better explore this phenomenon, we developed a study in a southeast Texas high…

Connecting the constructs of meaning and experience in the fields of English education, teacher education, literacy and narrative inquiry, "Making Meaning with Readers and Texts" materializes new insights for advancing teacher education research, broadening understandings of teachers' use of literacy practices for making meaning from…

In "Formative Assessment in the Disciplines," Margaret Heritage and E. Caroline Wylie explore the interconnection of ambitious teaching, formative assessment, and disciplinary knowledge. The authors outline a framework to help teachers develop and extend their proficiency in enacting discipline-based formative assessment practices across…

Teaching stand-alone grammar lessons is not as beneficial as instructors think if they want their students to learn how to write. If teachers truly want their students to become better at writing grammatically correct papers they will provide practice in writing, lots of practice. It is only through the practice of writing can students improve…

"Drawing Conclusions" explores the use of juxtaposed visual representations (JVRs) to help preservice teachers grapple with abstract concepts, theories, or complex controversies in education. Acting as both a learning tool and an intellectual spark, JVRs are two simple contrasted sketches that students produce on a divided sheet of…

Novice teachers often walk into a classroom with very little knowledge of how to conduct lessons and keep students engaged. In this article, student teacher Ashley and veteran teacher Sara share their experiences as Ashley learned how to use drama pedagogy in a secondary English classroom. Using the ideas and activities originally taught in…

This updated third edition of "Curriculum Planning and Instructional Design for Gifted Learners": (1) Is a guide to designing curriculum for the gifted at any level of learning and in any subject area; (2) Addresses the need to differentiate at all levels in the design process; (3) Shows how to customize curriculum for advanced learners;…

Critical thinking is an essential skill for learners and teachers alike. Therefore, it is essential that educators be given practical strategies for improving their critical thinking skills as well as methods to effectively provide critical thinking skills to their students. The "Handbook of Research on Critical Thinking and Teacher Education…

In the past decade, traditional classroom teaching models have been transformed in order to better promote active learning and learner engagement. "Implementation and Critical Assessment of the Flipped Classroom Experience" seeks to capture the momentum of non-traditional teaching methods and provide a necessary resource for individuals…

I have been an English teacher for 38 (gulp!) years. For over 20 of those I have taught "English methods" courses in initial teacher education programs. As the retirement light glows increasingly brighter at the end of my career pathway, I reflect on three aspects of teaching English that have been--and remain--the cornerstones of my…

Educating About Social Issues in the 20th and 21st Centuries: A Critical Annotated Bibliography, is comprised of critical essays accompanied by annotated bibliographies on a host of programs, models, strategies and concerns vis-a-vis teaching and learning about social issues facing society. The primary goal of the book is to provide undergraduate…

Teachers and students often express an aversion to poetry based on their experiences with printbased poetry texts that typically dominate school curricula. Given this challenge and the potential affordances of new and multimodal technologies, we investigate how preservice and inservice teachers enrolled in a new literacies master's course began to…

Journal writing is a kind of reflective writing that requires prospective teachers to construct knowledge through questioning their own assumptions about teaching and learning, and hence in line with the general direction of education reform in Hong Kong. This article describes a study that uses response journals as a tool for fostering reflection…

Leila Christenbury is well known as a writer and researcher in English Education: her classic book "Making the Journey," [ED437654] now in its third edition, has been a guide to countless middle and high school language arts teachers. In her new book, this veteran teacher and teacher educator reveals what did and---more surprisingly---did not…

"The teacher who works for or allows status quo is the traitor. Purposeful change is the new norm in teaching" [Fullan, M., 1993. Change Forces: Probing the Depths of Educational Reform. Falmer, London.]. The University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan (USJP) is the main provider of tertiary education in English in the province of Sindh.…