Purpose: This paper aims to explore teachers' shifts in pedagogy and practice as they implemented a project-based learning (PBL) approach to teaching English Language Arts (ELA) for the first time. Design/methodology/approach: The authors interviewed 10 ninth-grade ELA teachers in three schools after their first year enacting PBL. Initial codes…

Feedback from teachers is critical for student academic success, but is all feedback created equal? Within this critical participatory action research study, a teacher and her students in ninth-grade English language arts (ELA) classes in a suburban high school endeavored to transform their mindsets and practices related to giving, receiving, and…

Students in the local school district have continued to score below the state average on the standardized American Literature end-of-course (EOC) assessment. It was unclear what 9th-, 10th-, and 11th-grade teachers in the district were doing to prepare students for success on the American Literature EOC. The purpose of this basic qualitative study…

This manuscript explores teacher beliefs about technology in three 9th grade English classrooms. Examining these teachers' pedagogical uses of technology and their discussion of technology with their students, this study highlights how teacher beliefs can render technology invisible. Teachers demonstrated consistent assumptions that technology…

Project-based learning (PBL) grounds instruction in authentic learning experiences where students engage in real-world explorations that culminate in a final product or performance. We report on a mixed methods study with 43 ninth-grade English language arts (ELA) teachers (22 PBL and 21 comparison) and 1,671 students exploring the feasibility of…

Reading comprehension in high school involves students developing knowledge, skills, and experiences to understand, retain, and apply concepts of English as a written language. For ninth grade students to gain mastery in reading comprehension, ninth grade teachers implemented scaffolding teaching techniques to support their students. This study…

Although plagiarism is not new, the rate and frequency of plagiarism has steadily (and somewhat alarmingly) risen in the past twenty years, coinciding with the ease of access to the Internet. The current generation of students - Gen Z, they've been labeled - is growing up in a world of sharing, a world where, with a quick tap of a button,…

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…

The study explores how literacy sponsorship (Brandt, 2001) is constructed in a United States rural region by focusing on the discourse of rural teachers and students. Data included interviews with teachers and students, classroom observations, an environmental print literacy scan, and analysis of community and classroom-based texts. A multi-cycle…

Teaching writing well poses several challenges in today's diverse classrooms. Despite a growing research base on teaching writing, outcomes for students with disabilities in secondary schools continue to be disappointing. Research in the naturalistic tradition that would help educators understand the knowledge and beliefs that influence teachers'…

Adolescents' motivation to read continues to decline. The purpose of this embedded single case study was to explore adolescent reading motivation to determine some ways in which adolescents are motivated to read. Through purposeful sampling, the participants included seven twelfth grade students and three English Language Arts teachers in grades…

Project based learning (PBL) provides opportunities for teachers and students to create learning spaces that are authentic and relevant. Much of this work is taking place in STEM contexts, with few studies exploring PBL integration in English language arts (ELA) classrooms. In this co-design project, we collaborated with 13 9th grade ELA teachers…

The purpose of this study was to document the process one district used to design, develop, and implement a one-to-one pilot at its high school as part of its broader commitment to contemporary learning. Specifically, this qualitative case study (a) outlines the process of the laptop pilot, (b) describes the pilot implementation experience for…

This report includes findings regarding demographic characteristics and academic outcomes of DELTA students; highlights emerging topics from the student, teacher, and staff surveys; and provides recommendations for future program implementation. [For the 2018-2019 report, see ED626017.]

Violent writing is a real, yet rarely understood phenomenon in the secondary and post-secondary classroom. The 2007 Virginia Tech shooting tragedy sensationalized violent writing as a marker of disturbed and violent persons. However, violent writing comes in multiple forms and is composed for multiple reasons. As secondary schools wrestle with…