Undergraduate English majors should have opportunities to conduct meaningful, authentic research. This essay outlines a research methods course that introduces students to empirical research with qualitative and quantitative tools. Over the course of the term, students complete a whole-class project that models the process and then also complete…

In this article, the author discusses composition studies by examining how incorporating "songwriting" into a first-year writing course enables students to begin expressing their own ideas/perspectives, while also developing the ability to create the concise, detailed texts associated with academic writing. The discussion offers a…

This article outlines four different views of ELA's economic mission. It also presents a classroom activity in which students (a) evaluate the four views and (b) advocate for their own ideas about ELA and economics.

Novice teachers often walk into a classroom with very little knowledge of how to conduct lessons and keep students engaged. In this article, student teacher Ashley and veteran teacher Sara share their experiences as Ashley learned how to use drama pedagogy in a secondary English classroom. Using the ideas and activities originally taught in…

The purpose of this article is to persuade teachers of English at all levels to allow for more student movement, even if just a little. Kevin McCaughey calls this approach to a dynamic classroom space a Movable Class. The first part of this article looks at how lack of movement, especially prolonged sitting, has serious health consequences. The…

The authors identify the necessity of focusing on and pluralizing understandings of transgender youth experiences and trans-specific topics. This is especially important for preservice teachers, who will be the ones to have similar discussions with their own students in the future. The authors describe a series of classroom activities and…

Current education standards in the U.S. require school students to read and understand complex texts from different subject areas (e.g., social studies). However, such texts usually contain figurative language, complex phrases and sentences, as well as unfamiliar discourse relations. This may present an obstacle to students whose native language…

In this essay, veteran high school teacher Cherish R. Skinker recounts how she connected with hard-to-reach, struggling students in her 9th grade English classes. In a supportive classroom environment, Skinker's students explored the year-long theme of "a hero's journey" through texts like "The Odyssey" and "Romeo and…

In this article, the authors offer an alternative to traditional methods of teaching English that often included translating structures from the target language to the mother tongue. Although this method seems antiquated, it is still commonly practiced, as original dictogloss procedures were intended to provide an alternative to traditional…

This essay explores what the development of writing might look like and how it might take shape in a secondary English classroom. The study problematises current definitions of progress. In direct opposition to standards-driven models, I propose an alternative way of thinking about the development of writers through a series of narrative accounts…

Today, English is truly regarded as an international language. It is the most widely-learned and spoken second or foreign language in many countries. In recent years, the number of second and foreign language speakers has far exceeded the number of first language speakers of English. This dramatic change, many have argued, should be taken into…

How do English teachers, with their amazing gift, empower students to see and experience literature not as a burden that must be endured and memorized for the test and then mercifully forgotten, but as a vehicle for self-discovery and reflection? One effective way to help students experience and discover literature is through the characters. For…

The texts and classroom activities in this paper are a sample of those used within a unit on "The Battle for Survival". The unit brings classic Australian literary texts together with reportage on contemporary news events, and demonstrates an integrated approaches to the Literacy, Language and Literature strands of the AC:E. The unit…

In the English language arts classroom, social justice is a way to increase students' abilities to articulate their experiences, critique their world, and address those identified issues with subsequent action. Teachers who practice social justice education cultivate student voice through class activities, readings, assignments, and assessments…

Films portraying characters with disabilities are often shown in the English classroom. Films such as "Of Mice and Men," "Simon Birch," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "The Glass Menagerie," "Moby Dick," "Gattaca," and "A Beautiful Mind" often show simplistic and stereotypical representations of characters and their…