This article describes how adolescent students learn to question their lives and contexts through the "Crossing Boundaries" podcast assignment. In the assignment, the students pick a topic, design a project, interview at least one other individual, and analyze their data. The students do not realize they are engaging in original…

The author helps some kids make personal connections to what can seem irrelevant within the confines of classroom and curriculum. Interestingly, though, the most meaningful connections she has made with students have come not through quirky English teaching, but through her extracurricular interloping into the realm of social studies. The most…

Describes having students conduct micro-ethnographic research projects, in which students study how participants construct the meanings of social practices in the worlds of school, home, peer group, or various virtual worlds. Discusses research procedures, adopting a cultural perspective, selecting research topics, becoming a participant observer,…

Describes a research paper in the author's high school English classroom which connected to the lives and interests of students, who delved into community problems with as much rigor (and using many types of research as traditional essays exploring arcane philosophical questions). Describes creating a context for exploration, and students' final…

Advocates the use of research projects in the English curriculum. Describes an urban study project used by the author to develop students' research skills. The article concludes that social studies and other subjects of relevance not traditionally taught in English classes do indeed have value in English instruction. (JB)

Discusses 13 resources available to teachers of American literature on the World Wide Web including general resources, Internet sites related to electronic literature, and websites whose focus is American literature and culture. Discusses using and troubleshooting the World Wide Web in the classroom. Offers tips on how to evaluate web sources and…

Describes a year-long I-search project in a high school senior English class that culminated in a graduation exhibition, in which students presented their research to a panel of adults from the school community whom they did not know. Describes the process of working on these topics throughout the year and describes 5 student presentations. (SR)

Describes a year-long community research project used for the last seven years with the author's senior English class, part of the web-based student research collaboration project called "The Kansas Collaborative Research Network" (KanCRN). Describes teaching students how to research their community; four on-line research tutorials; structure of…

Describes how a pair of middle school English teachers (who had no experience using the technology) successfully revised a traditional research project for their 8th graders by using HyperStudio (a multimedia computer program). Describes the original project; HyperStudio; the rationale for the change; the new project; assessing the project; and…

Describes how students in an 8th-grade rural English classroom were focused and engaged over a 9-week period as they investigated and researched a poem of their own choice by a Native American poet, and wrote a hypertext web of their research journey. Notes that students experienced text in a new way, as a network of links. (SR)

Describes the Multiple Intelligence search (used by the author with 6th and 9th graders) based on Ken Macrorie's "I-Search" and Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Describes the process as students conducted a search using library resources and technology; became experts on topics they are passionate about; created a professional…

Describes a class activity in which students gathered pictures and wrote and recorded narration relating to the first successful flight by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Notes that, in the process of gathering pictures, the students were motivated to read the information accompanying the pictures. (RS)

Describes a successful approach to teaching a research unit in a "problem" class. Uses word processing, group work, physical movement and manipulative activities, plenty of individual choices, and respect for each individual. (SR)