For the last several years, teacher-researchers Jessica Jasper, Laura Dvorak, Steven Athanases, and Sergio Sanchez have partnered with a program called Globe Education, Shakespeare's Globe London. Practitioners in the program use teaching practices that engage learners with Shakespeare's works and other complex texts through drama practices. Jess…

After several years of tweaking the protocols for a student- led poetry project, the call for this issue prompted the author to share what she and her students have learned and are still learning about reading poetry. This includes a now- eighth- grade student, Grace. Grace considers herself a "good" student, eager to learn, but she also…

The goal of this article is to share how the authors implemented a summer learning experience designed for the benefit of teachers and students simultaneously at Clear Creek Independent School District in Texas. They facilitated what John Hattie's research recommends: "a community of teachers [that] work together to ask the questions,…

Located in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, Trail Middle School serves a predominantly middle-class population. The data the authors feature in this article include group discussions and interviews with students, as well as recordings of in-class lessons, student work, and fieldnotes. The authors focus on the theme of gender as it emerged…

The authors examine photovoice projects created by students and teacher candidates who explored issues of gender in response to a young adult novel and co-researched that process. In this article, the photovoice projects the authors feature emerged from an ongoing initiative between the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University…

According to the authors, Horizon Writing Project (HWP), is a collaborative research project that emerged from a mentorship program implemented for language arts teachers in southern Alberta, Canada. Seven English teachers participated in the project: Rita, Sean, Jaimie, Taylor, and Kacie, who teach senior high, and Keith and Lindsey, who teach…

Spoken word is a performative poetry that combines "words, sounds, and movements that privilege a Black aesthetic" (Winn 60). It has roots in blues, spiritual, and hip-hop music and has been popularized in particular by the slam performances exemplified in the documentary "Louder Than a Bomb." Due to its performative nature,…

Nearly every teacher will experience loss and grief during their years in the classroom. And yet, too often the profession assumes that English language arts (ELA) teachers must hide the emotions that accompany loss. In this article the authors share strategies for supporting English teachers in making sense of their grieving experiences and…

Storytelling can help youth, families, and communities make sense of their experiences, allowing them to process the past and plan their futures (Bruner; Flores; Jones). The authors argue that the practice of storytelling in biographical learning can be especially powerful when working with youth of color and Indigenous youth--children whose…

In this article, the authors begin this inquiry by describing their research with a class of middle school writers who played "Quandary," a free online educational game designed to teach argumentation, as part of a unit on writing arguments for environmental action. Regarding the subject area of English language arts (ELA), research has…

In an era of "colorblind racism," in which race and racism are often suppressed as topics of discussion in classrooms, this article explores how students used comics to invent workarounds for "colormuteness" in their school. Knowing comics are not generally taken seriously, students employed the medium to subversive ends.

In this article, the authors describe how an embodied arts-based approach to teaching the story of Anne Frank enhanced eighth graders' experiences in three middle school classrooms. The article begins by framing the theories that guide the authors' perspectives on embodiment and drama-infused instruction to promote literacy learning. This is…

Providing students with the opportunity to generate new content and share it with a wide audience invites students to compose texts with the care and conviction that cannot be duplicated when writing solely for the teacher. This piece documents one teacher's effort to engage 99 eighth graders with an authentic writing opportunity: the…

This article, based on a study in a sixth-grade middle school classroom in the rural southern United States, details a writing project that questions the nature of text and how text might positively affect students' perceptions as they become change agents for their communities.

Picture books are often seen as a valuable tool for younger readers. In this article, the author suggests that the multiple literacies required to read a picture book can provide scaffolding and transmission of additional concepts for older readers.