Schools nationwide are transitioning to the Common Core--our advice to you: Don't go it alone! Our new book, "Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, K-5," shows you that teaching the Common Core State Standards in the elementary grades doesn't have to be intimidating! This easy-to-use guide provides model lesson plans for…

Schools nationwide are transitioning to the Common Core--our advice to you: Don't go it alone! Our new book, "Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources, 6-8," shows you that teaching the Common Core State Standards in the middle grades doesn't have to be intimidating! This easy-to-use guide meets the particular needs of middle…

The rural elementary principal has the ultimate responsibility for bringing all stakeholders together to focus and improve student achievement. In doing so, they must be able to provide knowledge of national, state, and local policies that influence achievement. Response to Intervention is a tiered framework for school's to provide…

Every educator's quest is to help students learn in the environment that will allow them to obtain and retain the information presented to them. In the new age of technology, more students are able to choose the environment in which they learn. This study is a quantitative comparative study of the academic performance between online and…

This project examined the words selected for instruction from fourth-grade English/Language Arts (ELA) and science programs with the goal of describing the unique words in these two text types. Seven features of the words were established: (a) length, (b) frequency, (c) frequency of a word's morphological family, (d) familiarity, (e) dispersion…

Christensen discusses why teachers need to teach students "voice" in its social and political context, to show the intersection of voice and power, to encourage students to ask, "Whose voices get heard? Whose are marginalized?" As Christensen writes, "Once students begin to understand that Standard English is one language among many, we can help…

This article introduces The RULER Approach ("RULER") to social and emotional learning, with a particular focus on its Feeling Words Curriculum. Through this curriculum, RULER contributes to the ultimate goals of an English language arts education--preparing students to achieve personal, social, and academic goals and to be engaged and contributing…

James Moffett is revered by many for his contributions to English education, but his interest in discourse and rhetoric led him beyond reform in the language arts curriculum to a vision of a radically reconceived approach to education, one in which disciplinary knowledge is subordinate to the processes of symbolic representation that creates that…

Interdisciplinary concepts and methodology are increasingly common in today's secondary schools. However, many interdisciplinary lessons combine courses in related areas (e.g., English with history or science with mathematics). This article examines the use of mathematical ideas in the teaching of literature and writing. Employing mathematical…

Learn how to increase rigor so that all students can reach higher levels of learning! With this new edition of a teacher-tested best seller, you get practical ideas for increasing text complexity, providing scaffolding during reading instruction, creating open-ended projects, and much more. The enhanced second edition provides important…

This research examines differential participation in three specific classroom literacy activities over an academic school and their relationship to progress on school-based measures of literacy progress in one urban kindergarten linguistically diverse classroom. Exploring the experiences of three kindergarten beginning English language learners…

Imaginative and attractive, cutting edge in its conception, this text explicates a model for the integration of language arts and literacy education based on the notion of framing. The act of framing--not frames in themselves--provides a creative and critical approach to English as a subject. "Re-framing Literacy" breaks new ground in the language…

Of all the material in the English language arts curricula, poetry seems to cause the most consternation among teachers. For a number of teachers, and many students, poetry continues to be a difficult topic to teach and learn. In this article, the author focuses on the ways that young adult literature can help teachers expose their students to…

For the first time in the nation's history 46 States and the District of Columbia have agreed that all K-12 students will be educated along a common continuum of high academic expectations known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Having clear, consistent standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics will help ensure that all…

"Louisiana Believes" embraces the principle that all children can achieve at high levels, as evidenced in Louisiana's recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). "Louisiana Believes" also promotes the idea that Louisiana's educators should be empowered to make decisions to support the success of their students.…