It can be argued that nearly thirty years of heavily centralised intervention into English pedagogy, curriculum and assessment have had a deprofessionalising effect on teachers. The accountability stranglehold means it is safer for English teachers to implement accepted strategies that are perceived to enable pupils to negotiate assessment…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this century. Design/methodology/approach: The author reviews the work of Peter Medway. Findings: The paper addresses the issue of how his work reflected -- or not…

This paper considers the identity of the English teacher, paying particular attention to the English teacher who is also a writer, or, "teacher-writer". Applying a degree of self-study, the author examines her own pathway into becoming an English teacher, noting that entry requirements to become an English teacher in Australia show a…

English teacher educators' commitment to Deweyan progressivism has cost them in recent years. It has contributed to their being pushed to the margins when it comes to serious, top-level discussions about the direction of American education. This essay reexamines the case for progressivism and its relevance as an element of CEE's ongoing effort to…

This article reviews research on English language arts teachers' use of digital tools in the classroom to remediate print literacies. Specifically, this review focuses on the affordances of digital tools to foster uses of digital literacies of informational/accessibility, collaboration knowledge construction, multimodal communication, gaming…

Although there is a significant body of work related to overall teacher attrition and mobility, little research has been conducted that is specifically related to English teachers. Given the predominance of high-stakes reading and writing assessments for middle and high school students, studying those who teach literacy is critical for a better…

Several years ago, Ruth Vinz, other colleagues at the Teachers College and Greg Hamilton worked together on a book for English teachers "Becoming (Other)wise: Enhancing Critical Reading Perspectives" that challenged some of the more popular and mainstream conceptions of a multicultural literature education. Principles theorized by the team while…

In this essay, I examine the underlying assumptions of one secondary English teacher, Sara, who professes to teach for social justice, in an urban school. My primary concern arises from a need to clarify what it means to teach for social justice in specific locations, and to look closely at what assumptions teachers have as they teach secondary…

This paper begins by talking about six findings from a major long-term study conducted by Judith Langer, Director of the Center for the Study of English Learning and Achievement, State University at Albany, New York--the study examined English language arts programs in schools that have been working to increase student performance. The paper…

This article analyzes CEE's and NCTE's current positions related to political action and highlights the increasing need for public intellectual and political activism as an integral part of organizational policy. Using Lakoff's (2005) concept of cognitive/linguistic framing in political discourse along with Kuchapski's (2002) characterizations of…