The language of leadership includes the ability to communicate effectively, a teacher's curricular goals and innovative practices, to a school district's administration, personnel, colleagues, students, parents, school board members, and other community constituents. This article focuses on explicitly teaching the language of leadership to novice…

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…

A series of studies in a mature multimodal composing project demonstrates that through digital video (DV) composing about literature, diverse students, including many who struggled in school, learned new ways of engaging literature, performing meaning, and thinking symbolically through multimodal translations of the text. Students' focus in these…

In 2006, the author entered the crucible of trying to use graphic novels in her classroom to promote her students' artistic sensibilities. In this article, she discusses benefits and some problems--including access, content, and expense--of teaching graphic novels.

In this article the authors illustrate an instructional unit based on a Common Core grades 9-10 illustrative text--Amy Tan's "Two Kinds" from "The Joy Luck Club." They demonstrate how teachers can meet the new standards "and" respond to students' 21st-century needs by using this modern classic along with other traditional and new media resources.…

After teaching in rural North Carolina for about six years, the author was on the verge of giving up on teaching Shakespeare to her students. Although they seemed to enjoy the action and the drama of Shakespeare's plays, the lack of connection between the students and the language and culture of the plays interfered with her ability to generate a…

This article describes an instructional lesson the author developed to help students use parody to read and write original poetry. The author begins this article with an introduction to parody and a rationale for using it as an instructional strategy. Then, he describes materials and procedures he used and he shares samples of student writing. He…

For David E. Kirkland, the New English Education locates English language arts in the realities of youth, where texts emerge from students' lives, and the notions of reading and writing in English classrooms are open to revision. Kirkland reflects on how "postmodern Black experience, especially as seen in hip-hop, gives English teachers one way of…

The public is deeply concerned that students in urban settings are not achieving at high levels. Over the past twenty years, large urban districts have attempted to restructure massive school systems using educational policymaking processes that have focused on school structures, standards-driven curriculum, and test-based accountability measures.…