As teacher quality becomes a central issue in discussions of children's literacy, both researchers and policy makers alike express increasing concern with how teachers structure and allocate their lesson time for literacy-related activities as well as with what they know about reading development, processes, and pedagogy. The authors examined the…

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in the development and dissemination of instructional tools to support teachers' incorporation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) into their classroom instruction. Literacy experts have developed a framework and a set of templates that teachers and other educators can use to develop content…

This article describes an English language arts teacher preparation perspective that considers middle school students as part of the teacher educator team. Based on a recognized gap in the literature about students as powerful partners, the authors undertook a 3-year study to explore the question, "What do preservice middle school teachers…

This comparative case study investigated the teaching practices of secondary English language arts teachers who are reading endorsed versus secondary English language arts teachers who are not reading endorsed. Florida Department of Education mandated that all reading teachers, and strongly encouraged all English language arts teachers be reading…

Presents a conversation with Dorothy Watson, the 2002 Outstanding Educator in the Language Arts recipient. Hopes that this profile will provide insight into Dorothy Watson and her intellectual foundations, her humaneness, and her passion for teaching and learning. (SG)

This study examined the extent to which ethnic-based differences exist in teacher ratings of African American students and White students on the language and literacy domain of a curriculum-embedded performance assessment for students in grade 1. It extended previous research on performance assessments to focus on issues related to equity in…

In this article, the authors explore the ways in which a selection of student teachers from two universities in Canada expressed their feelings of preparedness to teach literacy in elementary classrooms. The student teachers had experienced various approaches to literacy teaching as they progressed through their teacher education program. These…

Offers a peek inside the journals kept by a well-known language-arts educator, which he uses as a repository for his thoughts, drawings, articles of interest, notes from conversations with others on his own work, the work of others, and education in general. Shows how the journal is an "audit trail" of its owner's learning. (SR)

The purpose of this study was to learn whether there have been any changes in writing instruction across K-12 education in the past three years. A three-year time frame was chosen to structure the study as it included the time period subsequent to the College Board's first announcement of the SAT writing section (the 2002-03 academic year). The…

This study examines the relationships among third and fourth grade teacher practices in cognitive development: understanding, application, synthesis, and judgment; emotional/social development; their students' self-reported opportunities for emotional/social development; and academic self-concept. In addition, this study investigates the…

Argues that research is not only a product and a process but an attitude and suggests that the attitude of ethnography stresses that good teachers should act like good researchers and good researchers should act like good teachers. (JL)

In 2010-11, the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) framework was piloted in six districts, a teacher network, and a network of schools. In most cases, school districts applied for and received grants to implement LDC; in others, regional intermediaries served as the grantee and as primary organizer of the work; and, in still others, national…

This paper reports on Year 1 of a two-year study of implementing new literacies strategies into social studies and English/language arts content areas in two low-performing middle schools (grades 6-8). Situated within a New Literacies Studies framework, the study addressed three overarching questions: (1) What are teachers' and students'…

A study investigated whether whole language principles had "seeped" into secondary language arts teaching in Cass County, Michigan by surveying teachers' attitudes. A total of 14 of the 15 language arts teachers in the four secondary schools in the county returned completed surveys. Results indicated that the language arts teachers (1)…