This article serves as an invitation to see the way the teaching of biography-driven writing has been increasingly pushed out of the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum in favor of highly structured, formulaic, and impersonal writing, and how this is a setback for students in their preparation for college and career writing. The…

Many students experience that the prepackaged secondary English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum used in many classrooms does not effectively engage them or further their English acquisition. This article shares the story of creating a curriculum the authors believe other teachers can emulate to successfully teach adolescents who are new to…

This article uses Daniel José Older's Shadowshaper as the core of a unit challenging students and teachers to confront and dismantle systems of oppression.

Playful teaching is a little-explored way to reinvigorate secondary classrooms with our vibrant mutual humanity. The author has come to believe not only that the ludic can be harnessed for academic engagement and growth but also that play can infuse the US secondary classroom with the humanity, equality, and democracy it lacks. It all begins with…

During the 2016-2017 academic year, a collaborative of university faculty and high school teachers piloted an innovative approach to professional development, focusing on secondary level literacy in a diverse suburban district. The approach included innovations in both process and content compared to professional development (PD) and instructional…

National Writing Project (NWP) sites work within an established framework of summer institutes, teacher-led professional development, and continuity to cultivate teacher leaders and empower them by applying these principles. Invitational Summer Institutes traditionally serve as the gateway by which teachers become involved with NWP sites and start…

According to the author, a teacher might both feed the soul and heed the voice of others. National Writing Project's (NWP) Summer Invitational Institute (SI) provides this opportunity. Since its first SI in 2007, Ozarks Writing Project (OWP), an NWP site at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, has been helping southwest Missouri…

In this article, the authors examine (second) author Elma's teaching and learning, as it has been and continues to be shaped by her experiences in education. The authors interrogate her experiences in teacher education and in the K-12 system, considering the closed doors that she has encountered. The authors discuss how these experiences have…

Whether novice or experienced, writers must come to terms with the daunting task of filling up a blank page, or screen, in an effort to produce writing. Student writers are no different. They enter teachers' classes having confronted similar difficulties with discovering what it is they want to say. In seeking to help students, they devote…