The authors imagine approaches to lesson planning and classroom teaching that embrace and encourage complexity, interconnectedness, and nonlinear learning--a fractal approach to lesson planning and learning.

As an educator, according to the author, the most important objective is to know what they want students to take away with them after the unit ends, the enduring understandings that will stay with them long after they leave the classroom. The author states they wanted their students to understand that writing is a journey, one that starts with the…

Throughout a unit of study about survival, students and their teacher engaged in individualized learning. Discussions of teacher-dictated curriculum versus student-driven learning, design of the unit, and students' and teacher's experiences and takeaways from the unit are included.

In 2006, the author entered the crucible of trying to use graphic novels in her classroom to promote her students' artistic sensibilities. In this article, she discusses benefits and some problems--including access, content, and expense--of teaching graphic novels.

In an effort to introduce students to a relatively new genre and allow them to evaluate it in the context of how they had been taught in the past, the author created an assignment about graphic novels and literacy that guided students through four short papers, forming a longer research paper for a final project. The students would begin with a…

Considers one future high school English teacher's dilemma of how not to lose her beliefs and sense of integrity in the curriculum that is already established by her administrators. Presents a response with suggestions of how to work with the curriculum including the use of supplemental literature to go along with the required reading. (SG)

Considers how in many school districts and states, English teachers are being influenced to more directly address the teaching of workplace literacy within the English curriculum. Suggests some functional ways that educators might weave workplace literacy into the existing fabric of the classroom without displacing the important things currently…

Discusses how Francine Prose accuses English teachers of assigning simplistic, badly written books that breed incompetent writers and readers who loathe literature. Notes that Prose focuses her contempt upon "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Suggests that students show teachers how to help them love…

Sequence must be decided by (1) identifying clearly a goal toward which students should progress" and (2) determining the experiences and the subject matter that will cause a student to move toward it." (Author/RD)

Presents the idea of "contemplative reading" and suggests that certain nonfiction works evoke an experience of contemplative response that is familiar to innumerable teachers and other readers. Notes that by looking at the big picture, good contemplative writing can balance the tendency toward overemphasis on negative, problem-based…

The curriculum gets lost when schools adopt electives in English, a technique the author regards as merely reshuffling quantities"; change should be perceived in the terms of medium, not content." (Author/SP)

A report from the Educational Resources Information Center at the National Council of Teachers of English; abstracts of ERIC documents pertinent to this topic are included. (RD)

Shares the thoughts of two teachers on what they consider to be losses to the English curriculum in recent years: phase-elective English and the thematic unit. (MG)

Describes a high school world literature course. Outlines four "destinations" for topics including: searching for meaning; injustice; romantic love; and border crossing. Discusses teaching techniques and literature the author uses to teach the class. (SG)

Suggests teachers pair works by American writers with works from other cultures that share a common thematic link or central issue. Puts this into practice by pairing texts that illustrate some of the potential for a blended curriculum of both American and non-Western writers. (SG)