This article presents popular misconceptions on teaching culturally relevant books and provides strategies that can inform the search, selection, and teaching of books in culturally responsive ways. Informed by relevant research and insights gained from collaboratively teaching a children's literature course at college level, I discuss how the…

This article describes a new and unique context for integrating STEM and literacy instruction--Novel Engineering. Oftentimes, STEM design challenges are focused on developing solutions to the big problems that humans face such as cleaning up oil spills or contrived situations in which children are tasked with building solutions to hypothetical…

Charter schools have become a significant part of the education sector in New York City since enabling legislation was passed in 1999. They now educate 123,000 students, or 10% of all public school students in the city, in 236 schools. The state law that allows the creation and funding of charter schools limits the number of charters that can be…

A common, long-held belief of teachers and parents is that "the more you read, the better you read." Because many students either did not choose to read at home or did not have books at home, schools began to provide independent reading time in the classroom. As the years progressed, more and more requirements were added into English…

A surprising conversation with her young daughter inspired author Brandie Bohney to incorporate mentor texts to help students make sense of convention rules. Since struggling and reluctant readers tend to also be struggling and reluctant writers, the author designed activities that would concentrate on the conventions students most needed to…

English language arts teacher Zachary Wright describes how he uses "Mad-Lib"-like templates to help his unconfident writers (which is most of his students) see precisely how to do things like write a thesis statement, extract examples from the text, and structure a coherent essay.

In 2009, The Common Core Standards shifted the English language arts focus from narrative to expository text, arguing that most texts read in college and workforce training programs are informational. By the time students are in twelfth grade, they are expected to read informational text 70% of the time. This can be challenging for English…

Increasing numbers of children in Texas communities and across the U.S. are immigrants. One way to support students in exploring the history and contemporary topic of immigration through literacy is with inquiry, a teaching method that centers around students' questions, incorporates informational and narrative texts, and creates opportunities for…

An inservice training session triggered a crisis of confidence for the author, a veteran teacher, but it also inspired the author to rethink their approach to teaching reading and writing. While the author attended a conference, the state presenter explained that the new curriculum represents "shifts" in philosophy about teaching…

The science of artificial intelligence, or AI, is leaping ahead as more resources are focused on its promise. In this article, the authors discuss the ways in which we have explored significant, critical questions about AI in a college literature course through reading young adult (YA) novels. Although it's improving, AI or machine intelligence is…

Over a three-year collaborative partnership involving university researchers, government curriculum specialists, and school division teams and educators, this post-qualitative study has engaged a diffractive methodology to research pedagogical change in relationship to a renewed provincial curriculum framework in English Language Arts (ELA). In…

All Florida schools teach the Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics and the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) in Science and Social Studies. Student performance provides important information to parents/guardians, teachers, policy makers, and the general public regarding how well students…

This "Guide" is an update to the State Guide to Universally Designed Assessments produced by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) in 2006 (Johnstone et al.). It provides a brief overview of what a universally designed assessment is, followed by a set of steps for states to consider when designing and developing, or…

This report provides an overview of the Austin Independent School District's college readiness outcomes for seniors in the 2018 and 2019 graduation cohorts.

The Louisiana English language arts student standards were created by over one hundred Louisiana educators with input by thousands of parents and teachers from across the state. Educators envisioned what proficient students should know and be able to do to compete in our society and focused their efforts on creating standards that would allow them…