The author details the pedagogy that empowered his high school students to use poetry as a part of a theatrical inquiry into race and whiteness. Using elements of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) in concert with playbuilding, The Whiteness Project was the author's attempt as a high school English and Drama teacher to build a…

This article discusses one teacher's efforts to give their students a mentor text for a persuasive, research-based writing project. The author's shift from assigning predominantly fiction to focusing more on nonfiction came as a result of their efforts to help their students move from students' current writing style -- that of a five-paragraph…

This article describes how adolescent students learn to question their lives and contexts through the "Crossing Boundaries" podcast assignment. In the assignment, the students pick a topic, design a project, interview at least one other individual, and analyze their data. The students do not realize they are engaging in original…

The author helps some kids make personal connections to what can seem irrelevant within the confines of classroom and curriculum. Interestingly, though, the most meaningful connections she has made with students have come not through quirky English teaching, but through her extracurricular interloping into the realm of social studies. The most…

Reexamines what it means to conduct research. Emphasizes the importance of collaborative research, and recommends ways to encourage collaboration in students' research projects. (MM)

Describes three alternatives to the student research report: (1) collaborative research; (2) Ken Macrorie's "I-Search"; and (3) the saturation report. Notes that all three activities are concerned with integrating inquiry, learning, and writing. (MM)

Describes having students conduct micro-ethnographic research projects, in which students study how participants construct the meanings of social practices in the worlds of school, home, peer group, or various virtual worlds. Discusses research procedures, adopting a cultural perspective, selecting research topics, becoming a participant observer,…

Describes a four- to six-week project for high school sophomores in which students create pamphlets and in the process learn basic research skills and practice several elements of the research paper. (SR)

Asserts that the most important part of the research process occurs before formal research writing begins, when students engage in expressive, genuine communication. Describes several activities that promote meaningful responses to literature as a prelude to researching an American literary work. (MM)

Describes a biography-writing project that links research to literary discourse. Notes that the power of literary discourse supported the research project and tapped students' energy to write. (MM)

Describes a research paper in the author's high school English classroom which connected to the lives and interests of students, who delved into community problems with as much rigor (and using many types of research as traditional essays exploring arcane philosophical questions). Describes creating a context for exploration, and students' final…

Describes a research project in which students write on the same topic--fast food chains. (MM)

Describes a research project in which students investigate a personal "bad" habit. (MM)

Describes a three-part career research project for high school seniors: a library-research chapter describing the career; an interview chapter about a person working in the career field; and a personal-experience chapter about spending a full day observing and working with a professional from that career field. (MM)

Describes how students in the author's eleventh-grade American literature classes, in groups of three, brought a book, short story, literary character, or historical epoch to life by capturing its essence on video. Suggests these student-produced literary documentaries crossed many disciplines and engaged students thoroughly, while engendering a…