Secondary English Language Arts teachers face classrooms with increasing linguistic and cultural diversity, yet privilege an approach to literacy associated with monolingual forms of English. Adherence to this ideological approach to teaching English reinforces conditions of White Supremacy. Simultaneously, the increasing presence of digital…

According to the author, English classrooms across the country have the potential to be the incubators we need to repair public discourse. Through traditional and innovative strategies, the author states, we can begin to rebuild our national conversation from the ground up, letting students take the lead while guiding them along their journey…

Composition researchers have become increasingly concerned with the issue of knowledge transfer: the use of knowledge and skills learned in one setting to complete tasks in a different setting. In terms of writing-related knowledge transfer, research suggests that rigid rules and formulas for writing do not transfer as successfully as flexible…

In this article, the authors discuss how teachers can help students to grieve through the power of writing. Six years ago, a student named Miranda, experienced a great loss. To make sense of the tragedy, Miranda did what came naturally to her; she picked up her pen to write in her journal. Now a college sophomore, Miranda has grown through the…

Young people have the potential to transform public perspectives about pressing social issues--if their audiences listen deeply to what they have to say. This article examines the ways that high school student participants in a community-university writing partnership employ self-disclosure, or emotion sharing, to encourage audiences to listen…

In response to character education stated in Indonesian Curriculum 2013, to build characters for students of early ages is significant. This can be built through establishing reading habits and building character education to young learners living in urban and suburban areas simultaneously. However, there is lack attention paid to those living in…

Now in its fourth edition, the "Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts" -- sponsored by the International Literacy Association and the National Council of Teachers of English -- remains at the forefront in bringing together prominent scholars, researchers, and professional leaders to offer an integrated perspective on…

Every teacher knows the challenge of trying to engage reluctant readers and struggling writers--students whose typical response to a writing prompt is a few sentence fragments scribbled on a sheet of paper followed by an elaborate shrug of the shoulders. The best way to engage less confident readers and writers is to give them something powerful…

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…

This study examined the revising processes used by 8 middle school students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing as they composed essays for their English classes. Using grounded theory, interviews with students and teachers in one middle school, observations of the students engaging in essay creation, and writing samples were collected for analysis.…

Through a Foucauldian lens, this article examines the affordances and constraints of an online peer-review program in four special education English language arts classes in two New York City middle schools. Data from classroom observations, teacher interviews, and online student spaces and artifacts provide insight into the technologies of power…

Online professional development (OPD) has potential to improve teacher quality by improving teachers' knowledge and instructional practices. These changes, in turn, have potential to improve student achievement. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of scientific research on the effects of OPD on teachers and, more importantly, on students. This…

This study was conducted in two case-study teachers' public middle school classrooms in south Louisiana and a survey in three public school districts. A qualitative research focus with the research design taken from work of Michael Patton's (2002) "Qualitative Research Evaluation Methods" and James Spradley and David McCurdy's (1975)…

This paper describes how adolescent students responded to a poetry workshop in an English classroom where the content was derived from their knowledge from their various life experiences and understanding of world events. Informed by theories of New Literacy Studies, ethnographic methods of participant-observation were used to document an eighth…

How do teachers in diverse classrooms enact a transactional mode of literary response in their orchestration of classroom conversations about literature? This paper proposes that a theory of expressive language is central to answering this question and that the discourse genre of oral narratives may hold critical importance in accomplishing this…