Students are expected to interpret the complexities and nuances of literary texts yet might struggle with interpreting texts in ways that are academically valued in literary studies. While linguistic studies that examine students' literary interpretive writing have mainly been situated in secondary contexts, there is a noticeable absence of…

This paper reflects on the teaching of the unseen poetry element of the English Literature GCSE in 2022. It explores the author's reflections on the successes and limitations of using a less structured approach with a single Year 11 class, concluding that the pedagogies outlined were more successful than previous iterations in terms of pupil…

Scientific literacy requires students to generalise their scientific understanding to contexts beyond the classroom and engage in effective communication. An interdisciplinary approach with the curriculum areas of science and English could address the increasingly complex and multidisciplinary needs of future citizens. This scoping review targets…

Current research suggests that students who struggle with grammar, spelling, mechanics and other "problems of ability," as well as students who suffer from "problems of engagement," as well as those students who see reading and writing as a chore, can benefit from creative writing assignments and learn to enjoy reading and…

Quotations yield the greatest insight from the fewest words. In addition to the wisdom and guidance quotations provide, teachers effectively use quotations in displays, presentations, speeches, research, writing prompts, classroom lessons, and discussions. Students employ quotations for speeches, classroom assignments, as sources of inspiration…

Teaching stand-alone grammar lessons is not as beneficial as instructors think if they want their students to learn how to write. If teachers truly want their students to become better at writing grammatically correct papers they will provide practice in writing, lots of practice. It is only through the practice of writing can students improve…

This article features student perspectives on the role of personal writing in English class. Key findings and quotations are shared from two in-depth interviews with students who wrote exceptional personal essays as part of a narrative nonfiction unit in a 10th grade English class. Participants reported that writing personally generated more…

In writing classrooms, peer review has been shown to have numerous practical and cognitive benefits. However, little research has been done that examines how different types of peer feedback motivate adolescent students and the effects that different types of feedback have on writing quality. While the literature has indicated that peers give each…

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 paper documents an evaluation of children's written responses to a story telling package used in an intervention project set up by the National Association for the Teaching of English as part of the larger "Inspire Rotherham" literacy campaign. The brief was to provide a group of primary teachers with innovative and inspirational approaches…

Changing a curriculum is already stressful enough without finding new ways to create anxiety, discontent, and rancor. To provide a truly integrated liberal education, the author contends that educators must not only change their curricula--the courses they offer--but they must change what they do in the classroom, the kinds of papers and…

There has been a great deal of groundbreaking research done on motivation during the last twenty-five years, and all of it points to the importance of intrinsic motivation. This research has very significant ramifications for teachers of English. In this essay, the author engages the issue of "aversion" that Linda Brodkey raises in her essay…

As teachers, the time they get to talk with peers, their friends, is an important time because there is never enough of it. Why not allow students the opportunity to chat with friends--the same courtesy the author appreciated in meetings with peers? Through talk, students can improve their conversational skills, which in turn would help their…

Transfer, or how much knowledge from one context is used or adapted in new contexts, is a longstanding issue for researchers and teachers of writing in a variety of disciplines. Transfer is of particular concern when examining how effective first-year writing is in preparing students with a foundation for their disciplinary coursework. This…

For the last several years, composition scholarship has unfortunately neglected the paragraph. Theories about it, however, have a rich history. Eventually, it involved conflicts between prescriptivists and descriptivists, as well as between members of the latter group and the branch of descriptivism called functionalism. In this article, the…