Generation 1.5 students, foreign-born children of first-generation immigrants, complete some or most of their K-12 education in the United States. Their oral communicative competence may be advanced, but their academic language proficiency may still be underdeveloped when they enter college. In 2013, SB1720 made placement testing optional for most…

This pedagogical study explored the usage of graphic novels among three, college English instructors at various institutions in the state of Pennsylvania. All three participants were faculty members of their respective institutions and were interviewed, had their classes observed by the researcher, and had content analysis conducted on all…

This study focuses on the classroom experiences of students who identify themselves as learning best as reflective-observers (Assimilators) in contrast to those who learn best as active- experimenters (Accommodators), with additional consideration for their self-identified personality type (introvert vs. extrovert) as well as one of the VARK…

The purpose of this study was to research whether or not the intervention of the Reed & Kellogg System of sentence diagramming would make a significant difference in the acquisition, retention, and comprehension of the basic grammatical skills, including parts of speech, complements, phrases, clauses, and sentence structures, on the higher…

The focus of this research was on students' low graduation rate in a New York State high school, investigating a possible correlation between students' longitudinal English Language Arts (ELA) exams and their graduation status. In the 2010-11 school year, 25% of the students at the high school of study failed to graduate, a rate which was 5% lower…

The ability to "critically" consume entertainment media is a necessary skill for an educated and functional society--a polis; however, contemporary college students are experienced consumers of pop culture but not necessarily critical ones. Since categories of identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, dis/ability, culture) are…

This dissertation is a qualitative practitioner research study in which I explore how my students and I engage in critical literacy using sociopolitical Articles of the Week (AoWs). Critical literacy is the ability to read, write, and speak about texts in a reflective manner to better understand power, inequality, and injustice that prevails in…

The three structural possibilities marking a noun with an English article are "a," "the," and "Ø" (the absence of an article). Although these structural possibilities are simple, they encode a multitude of semantic and pragmatic functions, and it is these complex form-function interactions that this study explores and…

The achievement gains of California students with disabilities (SWDs) on the California Standards Test (CST)-English Language Arts have surpassed the achievement gains of students with no reported disabilities in recent years, and so the special education achievement gap seemed to be closing. However, the reported achievement for SWDs has not…

This dissertation presents the findings of an on-line survey completed by 222 FYC (First Year Composition) instructors at universities and community colleges across the United States along with supplemental information derived from multiple open-ended interviews with seven FYC instructors in Arizona. Both survey and interview questions were…

This qualitative case study used focus groups to investigate the experiences of 11 high school English teachers in their implementation of the effective practices of adolescent literacy instruction while using the "SpringBoard" curriculum by College Board. Focus groups were held in three comparable suburban high schools that utilized…

The debate on the role of grammar training in the language curriculum has shown that, at least in the last five decades, a part of the disagreement between the supporters of the opposite camps is based on conflicting assumptions about the meaning and sense of some of the terms of the discussion. Three of them will be considered in this…

This study uses practitioner research to examine secondary mathematics teachers' learning of literacy integration practices in the context of a district-wide literacy professional development series. The author, a secondary mathematics curriculum and instruction facilitator in a large, Midwestern suburban district, engaged in a two-year…

The number of academically underprepared Hispanic college students is increasing, and there is a need to adopt effective teaching tools to increase their academic achievement. Research has indicated the efficacy of web-enhanced instruction (WEI) in the classroom on student academic achievement, but a lack of research remains in regard to the…

In 2007, Arizona voters passed House Bill (HB) 2064, a law that fundamentally restructured the Structured English Immersion (SEI) program, putting into place a 4-hour English language development (ELD) block for educating English language learners (ELLs). Under this new language policy, ELL students are segregated from their English-speaking peers…