In this article, Jorge Arredondo begins by describing an experience he had in his Houston, Texas high school where his teacher and a librarian via a collaborative unit made literature come alive for him. His experience later influenced his English language arts (ELA) career in public education and inspired him to do the same for his students. Now…

Today, pedagogical stakes are high for students who experience incidents connected to their safety and privacy. Unfortunately, students live in an age when Code Red drills, or the more current Active Shooter drills, are a fact of life. In this article, the author argues that dystopian texts are not only positioned to enhance the complexity of…

This article raises the reality of English as a naturally variant and fluid language inseparable from culture. The author addresses the tensions teachers face in the classroom when they make decisions about how African American students should use their language.

The author argues that English teachers are in a unique position to respond to death through writing, reading, and speaking. She describes four experiences and offers specific, language-based responses guided by experience and literature.

American adolescents are experiencing an epidemic of anxiety and depression. In this article, Eric Piotrowski explores how regular writing practice and conscious conversations help students struggling with loss, grief, trauma, and myriad associated difficulties including anxiety and self-harm. Students in his classroom use fictionalized…

This article considers how relationships in the English classroom are influenced by the types of literacy activities, the role of the teacher, the tone of oral comments, and the types of writing students share with peers.

In this series of candid reflective writings, a former high school teacher interrogates her teaching practice, students' identity development, the giftedness label, and differentiated instruction.

This article recounts significant moments from online interviews these authors conducted with Young Adult (YA) authors concerning the teachers who left a lasting impression on them and assisted them in finding their voice and unique writing abilities. S. E. Hinton, Walter Dean Myers, Erin Gruwell, Chris Crutcher, and other popular YA authors…

The Bechdel test, the author's student Marley explained, is named for the US graphic novelist and cartoonist Alison Bechdel. To pass the test, a work of fiction must contain at least one scene in which two or more women (preferably named characters) discuss something other than a male. Students who read from the canon of works regularly encounter…

This article reports on the challenges teachers face when working with juveniles who are incarcerated. For example, they must devise an English curriculum that can help students develop reading and writing skills while also becoming literate about the prison industrial complex and the ways that it governs their lives. Teachers struggle to find…

Deborah Appleman's recent research has focused on teaching college-level language and literature courses for incarcerated men. In this article, she discusses using creative writing as a way to unlock creative potential, to foster students' love of language, and to offer a powerful outlet for self-expression in a class she teaches with…

This article provides readers with five lessons the author has learned over the years as a mentor teacher to several preservice teachers: (1) Build confidence; (2) Be patient, flexible, and honest; (3) Listen and learn; (4) Be ready for extra work; and (5) Embrace the experience. Included in her reflective thoughts are comments from two of her…

Locker rooms, hallways, and other school locales not populated by teachers are often places where bullies emerge, places where the pecking order is established by targeting any difference or idiosyncrasy. Given that bullying happens mostly in the presence of other youth and often stops when objections are raised, there is growing evidence that…

The mythology of the "norm" has direct repercussions for schools, and its ideological reinforcement is the primary cause of bullying today. Though it is difficult to pinpoint an origin for "the norm," the medical model and its systemic structural power is one powerful institution that perpetuates this mythology. The medical model has a biological…

If members of the Two-Year College English Association (TYCA) had not set a place for the author at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) table, she may not have participated on the national level to improve the teaching and learning of writing. Like others in TYCA, the author had taken a circuitous route to the two-year college,…