High school academic departments remain under-examined yet powerful entities in American high schools. High status department leaders create and sustain narratives around teaching and learning, disciplinary-specific best practices, and the overall efficacy and effectiveness of any number of school improvement policies and initiatives promoted by…

Educators have known for generations the significance of teaching youngsters to read, but have turned their collective attention in only the past decade or so to the state of inadequate reading in high schools. The view is alarming by many accounts and has led national organizations to urge high school principals to add yet another responsibility…

This study examines the core literature in high school book rooms. Has the core literature changed over time with changing demographics? The review of the literature established the existence of a core literature, and that most high school students read from a fairly small list of books. The literature review reveals that students are not happy…

Evidence indicates that the quality of a high school English department directly depends upon the effectiveness of the departmental organization. Despite the dangers of fragmenting and departmentalizing knowledge, some organization must be established for departmental work to be carried out. Among the variables which influence the organization and…

Junior and senior high school English department heads in Massachusetts were surveyed as part of a project to provide a clearer picture of the extent and diversity of the department head's role and responsibilities, to offer recommendations to make the job more manageable and satisfying, and to provoke discussion and positive action. Separate…

These four issues of the CSSEDC Quarterly (Conference for Secondary School English Department Chairpersons) represent the quarterly for 1990. Articles in number 1 deal with student teachers and include: "Student Teaching: Smoothing Out the Rough Spots" (Susan B. Argyle and Fred C. Feitler); "A Partnership for Urban Student…

A high school English department chairman, who is highly skilled in language, literature, and teaching methods, becomes invaluable in supervising and supplementing the work of his teachers when he is given considerably lightened teaching loads and the authority to implement policies. In a time when department staffs are made unstable by mobile…

A survey of science and English teachers in 10 Scottish secondary schools indicated a complex relationship between a teacher's identity as a subject expert, subject department boundaries, and authority relationships. Teachers felt they had little influence on general school policies. (f=fiche numbers). (CP)

Describes a high school English department's successful efforts to define and shape their own peer assistance program. The program succeeded because it is voluntary, has received administrative support, and has evolved slowly and naturally. The program has communication, rehearsal, and awareness benefits and calls for a new kind of professional…

The role of high school English department heads as active leaders and departmental advocates, as well as their role in improving their departments' composition programs, is examined in this paper. The first section provides an overview of department heads' basic responsibilities, noting the need for them to have an active role in setting…

Examines the formal and informal (noninstitutionalized) leadership roles of teachers, new and veteran, in a successful high school English department. Provides sketches of teachers in the department and then discusses some leadership issues. (TB)

Two education professors conducting research on the curriculum planning at a high school near Boise (Idaho) found that their status as observer and/or participant in discussions among teachers, administrators and parents made things more difficult. Usually in ethnography it is assumed that the hard part is to achieve insider status--to be accepted…

This paper deals with a peer supervision program developed by the members of the English department of Brattleboro Union High School (Vermont) which has resulted in a sense of collegiality, shared purpose, and a renewed feeling of professionalism among the teachers. The paper describes the ways in which these teachers developed a program to…

This article discusses the NCTE's Twenty-three Recommendations for High School Departments of English, suggesting reordering of some and establishment of priorities. Teachers are advised to disseminate these recommendations, and to take the initiative in having them implemented. (Author/JB)

Suggestions for teacher-oriented supervision of classroom practices, development of new courses, and grading and assignment policies are discussed. (HTH)