A movement is taking place in school districts and classrooms as teachers are embracing engaged learning environments in which they are listening to the often-silenced voices of their students. This article chronicles moments from the journeys of four learners who represent a range of experiences and perspectives on re-envisioning the work done in…

The most common forms of teacher professional development are ineffective and lead to low teacher satisfaction. A critique protocol offers an alternative that intellectually engages teachers and fosters meaningful collaboration at different career stages. This paper discusses the work that should be done before beginning any critique session, as…

Using Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow, the authors trace the history and development of their co-teaching relationship and describe how the co-teachers and students experienced flow. In co-opting theoretical views of flow, used in other fields such as organizational science/psychology, the school setting can be viewed as an…

According to the authors, Horizon Writing Project (HWP), is a collaborative research project that emerged from a mentorship program implemented for language arts teachers in southern Alberta, Canada. Seven English teachers participated in the project: Rita, Sean, Jaimie, Taylor, and Kacie, who teach senior high, and Keith and Lindsey, who teach…

In this article, the authors challenge myths about honors classes in an effort to deliver "effective instruction" to all students, notably students in need of special education services, in a co-taught English class.

This article argues for the importance of teaching research as a creative practice. The authors recommend geography and conversation as generative metaphors for teaching and learning creative research methods, offering examples from their undergraduate composition courses. Creating knowledge as a researcher requires posing the question to be…

A mentoring relationship that began as part of teacher preparation can evolve into a professional community that stays connected through several means of communication. While there are examples of mentoring relationships within schools and among former university cohorts, these authors took a slightly different approach. Rather than forming a…

Rachel Malchow Lloyd describes the wonderful and quite natural potential for a team of teachers, through their professional conversations and routine planning, to model for less experienced teachers how to prepare for instruction, how to assess its effect, and how to assume a professional stance consistently in the daily execution of…

When new scholars join an organization as large as the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the size of its Conventions can be daunting. This author was fortunate because NCTE members embraced her and helped her find her way in the field after a first presentation in 2001. After the presentation, she was invited to meet with a few of…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) urge English language arts teachers to assume responsibility for teaching technical reading, along with literature, poetry, and composition. Ideally, each teacher assumes a share in developing reading proficiency within his or her content area, but state assessments may implicitly compel school districts to…

As districts continue to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), English language arts (ELA) teachers and content-area teachers may find themselves collaborating in surprising and welcome new ways. The CCSS's emphasis on reading and writing across all content areas provides an opportunity for ELA teachers to emerge as literacy experts in…

If new teachers are going to do more than endure a rocky start, they need to develop a deep understanding about learners and about teaching their own discipline effectively. These authors were interested in what new teachers perceived and reported about the mentoring they had received in a comprehensive induction program. What did they find…

A university's seminar model suggests the design of a collaborative structure that promotes team sharing and problem solving. The mentoring that occurs in the seminar comes mainly from the student teachers sharing their experiences with each other and working together to make sense of their classrooms in the context of the theories they have…

This article discusses how reading for their own purposes affected struggling teens. It shares the authors' story, which demonstrates the importance and power of focusing on students' purposes, as highlighted in Standard 12, a standard not often addressed or assessed, but one that matters to students and teachers alike. The authors describe how a…

Imagine two classfuls of American high school students, separated by 1,500 miles and profound differences in local cultures (East Coast urban and Midwestern rural) as they correspond and collaborate in writing between their geometry classes. Reading the students' observations, one sees authentic voice, specific detail, precise language, what…