With the adoption of the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, writing has become an increasingly important area of instruction. Moreover, there has been an increased sophistication in the types of writing required of young children and the use of textual evidence expected in student writing. Historically, children have not been…

Purpose: In September 2014, 1,200 unaccompanied immigrant youth, from a region of Central America known for high rates of violence and homicide, enrolled in a suburban school district of New York State. This paper aims to highlight the stories of the newly arrived Central American high school youth, as told through Bilingual (Spanish/English)…

This article describes how four English language arts teachers formed an inquiry group to design approaches to writing assessment that would support and foster student writers' agency, empowerment, and freedom. They hoped that by focusing assessment on students' articulation of their writing processes rather than on rubrics or final products, they…

Responsible instruction teaches students to navigate digital news and social media spaces that barrage and overwhelm many of them. In truth, it overwhelms many adults. This article examines how English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms are uniquely positioned to curtail this trend by teaching students the value of informed citizenship and compelling…

Purpose: Little research has been done exploring the nature of multilingual students who are not categorized as English language learners (ELLs) in English language arts (ELA) classes. This study about a group of multilingual girls in an ELA class led by a monolingual white teacher aims to show how, when a teacher makes space for translanguaging…

This article explores the use of "representativeness" as a guide to examining at English A-level through an analysis of two training days on two different modules. "Representativeness" is a cognitive heuristic which guides decision-making essentially by asking 'how much does this example look as if it belongs to this class of…

Having students read news articles or novels, watch television snippets, engage in class discussions, essay-writing, emailing, and drafting letters are excellent ways to broach any number of society's systemic and oppressive social maladies. Engaging in these activities in the English language arts classroom can serve as a catalyst to encourage…

The authors describe and analyze the strengths and challenges of a 10-year summer writing program that provides out-of-school academic support for adolescent writers who are not yet college and career ready. The two-week program takes place at the university where faculty and school district English language arts teachers work with approximately…

Thomas Nunnally equates five-paragraph format essays with square cucumbers found at farmer's markets: they have an established structure but no argument. The real square cucumbers are students who need a formula to write competently. By providing students with a real audience, a teacher can show that he or she takes students' desires -- and…

As part of an ethnographic study of a secondary English Language Arts classroom, one teacher took a critical translingual approach to curriculum and instruction, encouraging students to engage in translanguaging and to explore the intersections of language with power and identity. The larger study's central question was, what does participation in…

This study investigated the approximations of disciplinary literacy in high school English Language Arts students' writing. To study the development of these disciplinary conventions, the portfolios of written literary analyses were examined from fourteen twelfth-grade students over their last two years in high school. The conceptual framework for…

The present study investigated the effects on student test scores of providing Tier 1 and Tier 2 professional development (PD) about language arts instruction to teachers at a Title I elementary school. All general education teachers received ongoing feedback and assistance in hands-on learning of effective instructional techniques for reading,…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) is a cutting-edge technology-based intervention designed to help teachers meet their challenges in writing classrooms and improve students' writing proficiency. The fast development of AWE systems, along with the encouragement of technology use in the U.S. K-12 education system by the Common Core State Standards…

To engage in critical praxis, teachers of literary response writing need concepts and methods for understanding the efficacy of teaching practices in helping students develop particular dispositions towards texts and the social issues they represent. In this article, the author uses concepts from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and Systemic…

When schools in Arkansas and most of the country shut their physical doors and moved to remote instruction in March 2020, Rachel Evans, Christian Goering, and Seth French planned to engage in a multifaceted experience that bridged personal narrative writing, songwriting, and podcasting. Undaunted by the shutdown, they offered Evans' ninth-grade…