This study investigated data from 5 high schools in West Tennessee. The study examined whether a ninth-grade transition program (i.e., the Ninth-grade Academy) had an effect on student achievement and engagement, which was measured by English I End-of-Course Test Scores, attendance rates, and dropout rates. All of the schools were treatment…

The action research project report was created to remedy a lack of multicultural literature within the regular level sophomore English class and to assist regular level sophomore students' connection to their reading. The teacher-researcher also examined her students' own ethnic backgrounds, cultures, religions, economic status, gender, and/or…

English is best advanced by being relocated within the central aims of education, which in turn need to be drawn from Enlightenment values. Central among the latter is knowledge. The article argues that the least obviously "factual" side of English--novels and poetry--contributes to knowledge in direct and indirect ways. These include…

In this essay I explore the constraints and opportunities confronting me as a newly qualified teacher and how these affect my pedagogy. I have reflected on my own development from beginning to newly qualified teacher and considered how such forces have shaped my identity as a teacher, my values and my approach to the job. As part of my exploration…

The treatment of a research paper as an isolated utterance within a composition classroom is problematic in that such papers may fail to encourage transfer of writing knowledge. In this essay, I argue that a research paper's failure to work as a utterance situated within a conversation--as critiqued through a framework constructed by Mikhail…

Few studies identify those factors that might account for the development of social capital. Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a social tie among actors in schools is important because absent social ties, individuals do not have access to social resources. We investigate social tie formation in schools focusing on advice…

The second part of this account of struggles over literacy begins in the later seventeenth century. From the 1670s, the new dissenting academies, backed by rising business classes, made teaching in English for a wider curriculum their goal. Thus was Defoe's mastery of a new spoken style developed, while in Scotland, the eighteenth century…

Evolving technologies and globalisation presents educators with the challenge of creating learning experiences to help students develop competencies to enable them to function successfully in a dynamic society. Today's learner is expected to be multiliterate--able to analyse and construct multi-modal texts. A qualitative embedded multi-case study…

This article explores the changing place of poetry studies in the broader English curriculum of Victoria, Australia. Its focus is on how students learning to become English teachers engage with poetry studies. Setting this problem within the context of pedagogical theory and evidence about the evolving Victorian curriculum, we have interviewed six…

Many of the rules in The Elements of Style, the classic text on English usage for writers, are also useful rules for teaching. While these rules are not all that is needed for good teaching, they are helpful for enhancing classroom instructions.

The present study investigated how fifteen Iranian EFL learners developed the ability to self-assess their writings through having access to the rater's scores. The participants were supervised for four weeks as they went through their first experience in self-assessment. They were provided with a detailed evaluation sheet for assessing their…

Theorists of multiliteracies, social semiotics, and the New Literacy Studies have drawn attention to the potential changing nature of writing and literacy in the context of networked communications. This article reports findings from a design-based research project in Year 4 classrooms (students aged 8.5-10 years) in a low socioeconomic status…

This paper describes an innovative collaboration between instructors of non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses and scientists who teach STEM courses in the GATE (Green Action Through Education) learning community. The scientists in this project presented engaging science--in such diverse locations as a sewage…

This article examines the role English now plays in international communication and examines a number of implications of this development for the teachers of English to non-English speaking students. In particular, it critiques the teaching of English in the context of our increasingly globalised world. For many scholars, globalisation is the…

Contemporary curriculum guidelines, such as those provided in the incoming Australian curriculum, call for English to attend to multimodal forms of text and literacy as well as more traditional forms. Students are expected to become capable and critical readers, users and creators of texts and forms of literacy that span everything from newspapers…