Standardized literacy assessments that place emphasis on testing and attainment of results have caused many students, particularly in middle years schooling to be disenfranchised by literacy teaching and learning practices. This study employed an action research methodology to investigate whether an outdoor learning experience in a Year 7/8…

This article argues that in order to encourage English graduates to expand their horizons, educators should diversify the range of assessments and offer greater opportunities for public engagement. Through a detailed analysis of the final-year elective, "Literature & Medicine," the authors explore the ways in which the design and…

This phenomenological case study explores the persistence of high school readers labeled as struggling as they described their responses to recurring, consistent, externally originating challenges to positive reading identities growing from their experiences in a Young Adult Literature (YAL) course. Through application of Weinreich's identity…

A high school education should ensure students are eligible for their chosen pathway of what comes next: college and careers, as well as civic life. To understand the extent to which diploma requirements denote eligibility for a student's chosen postsecondary pathway of choice, this report analyzes state high school graduation requirements for a…

In this article, I consider the literacy practices that emerged in an in-school elective course centered in the literacy tradition of African American women. Drawing from spatial perspectives (Leander& Sheehy, 2004), I explore what it means to consider this course an "Other space" (Foucault,1986), as a space created without the constraints of a…

Reports the findings of a survey of 131 college English departments regarding their offerings in literature and writing. (AEA)

A group of 97 college English departments was surveyed regarding the most popular elective literature courses. Most popular were courses in Shakespeare, fiction, American literature, genre literature, modern and contemporary literature, and the novel. (AEA)

Traces the development of the English elective curriculum from 1962 to the present. Discusses the reasons for its early popularity and for its current decline. (FL)

Academic anxiety, person/group relations, and subject satisfaction were investigated in three secondary schools in various stages of curriculum reform: a traditional school, a school in which a short-course elective program was being implemented, and a school in which such a program was fully implemented. Attitude measures were completed by 482…

By comparing high school students' total English scores on the California Achievement Test (CAT) and observing differences in performance based on grade level and gender, a recent study investigated whether significant differences exist between the achievement of students taught in an English phase-elective mini-course system and the achievement…