Discourses of achievement often overlook the interdependence of classroom contexts, students' identities, and academic performance. This narrative analysis explores how high-achieving students of color construct identities-in-practice in a diverse urban middle school. By documenting explicit moments in which students construct…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to identify and describe effective instructional strategies for English language arts and mathematics perceived by expert fourth and fifth grade elementary teachers in southern California to reduce the achievement gap in high poverty and high English language learner (ELL)…

This updated third edition of "Curriculum Planning and Instructional Design for Gifted Learners": (1) Is a guide to designing curriculum for the gifted at any level of learning and in any subject area; (2) Addresses the need to differentiate at all levels in the design process; (3) Shows how to customize curriculum for advanced learners;…

Authentic field experiences are an important aspect of most teacher education programs, yet collaboration often is difficult because of distance and limited resources. This collective case study aimed to explore the experiences of 30 ninth-grade English language arts (ELA) students and 17 preservice English education teachers as they collaborated…

The authors present research findings from a collective case study (n=5) conducted in a multimodal composition course for pre-service English teachers. Researchers studied how a course focused on how multimodal composition influenced pre-service teachers' identities as writers and their stances on literacy instruction. Data consisted of students'…

To what extent do Spanish-speaking English learner students develop English proficiency and grade-level readiness in English language arts and math from early elementary school to upper elementary school? Is there a relationship between proficiency in a student's primary home language, Spanish, and the amount of time needed to attain fluency in…

Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (hereafter CCSS) contains a review of the research stressing the importance of being able to read complex text for success in college and career. The research shows that while the complexity of reading demands for college, career, and citizenship have held steady or risen over the past half century,…

This dissertation explores the experiences of middle childhood pre-service teachers (PST) across two academic years as they learn to teach English language arts to diverse students from conflicting sociocultural contexts. To help PSTs navigate the tensions across contexts, this study introduced culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995; 2014) and…

This article identifies the arguments for and against the common core state standards in English language arts and mathematics. Although the standards need to be differentiated for gifted students, the author suggests that these standards may offer a way to transform education in the classroom, so that all students are able to fulfill their…

Educational policies in the United States often adhere to society's ideal scenario for the perfect college and career ready student, but the realities of and differences in classroom instruction are often not considered. Whether or not policies will effectively improve student performance is unknown until implementation. The Common Core State…

Numeracy is a fundamental component of the Australian Curriculum as a General Capability in each subject. Here, we report on an aspect of a larger project that aims to provide insight into how teachers can assist their students to develop a critical orientation to life-related situations through a cross-curricular approach to numeracy.…

In this testimony, the author first describes her qualifications, as well as the lack of relevant qualifications in Common Core's standards writers and in most of the members of Common Core's Validation Committee, on which she served in 2009-2010. The author then details some of the many problems in the 2011 Massachusetts ELA standards, written by…

This article addresses the importance of foregrounding social justice in teaching and assessing dispositions for preservice teachers in secondary English language arts. We provide a historical overview of dispositions and their politicization, and we address NCATE's removal of social justice and its impending return. We conclude with possibilities…

The English Language Arts (ELA) standards are compositionally flawed and further distorted by a high-stakes environment that discourages balanced, meaningful pedagogy; to subvert this reality, teachers must practice subterfuge by foregrounding Personal Standards as the primary drivers of instruction. This author discusses how ELA instructors must…

Stance refers to a display of a socially recognized epistemic or affective attitude toward a referent or proposition (Ochs, 1993). Although this display of attitude can be performed linguistically, paralinguistically, and non-verbally (Du Bois, 2007), it has primarily been explored in terms of linguistic strategies (use of reference terms,…