To embrace criticality, to realize it as more than a popular buzzword in education, teachers need to invite students to engage in the justice struggles of the times. Dystopias provide rich opportunities for students to strengthen literacy skills and strategies, critically analyze social structures and institutions, and then compose texts that seek…

Today, pedagogical stakes are high for students who experience incidents connected to their safety and privacy. Unfortunately, students live in an age when Code Red drills, or the more current Active Shooter drills, are a fact of life. In this article, the author argues that dystopian texts are not only positioned to enhance the complexity of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the use of policy debate as a frame for developing critical participatory literacy skills focused on student engagement with current events. Design/methodology/approach: Using dialogism as a frame for a discussion-based course (Bakhtin, 1982; Reznitskya, 2012) and self-study as a methodological…

This article describes the author's adaptation of Gallagher's (2009) Article of the Week approach to teaching students literacy skills using current events. The use of this unique instructional routine within the context of a Catholic middle school language arts classroom has proven successful for supporting students in developing critical…

In this paper, we explore the intersection of critical literacy pedagogy, queer pedagogy, and transgender topics by turning our attention to the learning that supported the writing of an acrostic poem about Title IX and transgender students. We examine how this writing, in turn, created additional content and context that spurred others' learning.…

Purpose: The purpose of this conceptual paper is to make the case for the value of fostering collaborative sensemaking in responding to literature. Drawing on examples of classroom interactions in 6th-, 8th-, 11th- and 12th-grade classrooms, it proposes methods for teachers to foster collaborative sensemaking. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing…

This paper is the synthesis of Elizabeth Henke's four years of work from 2009-2013: three years at the high school and one year at the University for Peace. She summarizes, "A Montessori high school education should reveal to the adolescent a pathway to peace that is built on positive human relations and should provide opportunities for…

Mary Ledbetter's fifth grade students at the University of Texas Elementary School know immigration well. Some of them are recent immigrants from Mexico, or they have family members who are. Several of Mary's students are first or second generation Americans. For Mary, immigration is one of the most important units she teaches, one that integrates…

Functional literacy is important in both English/language arts and geography. Using the "found poetry" strategy, students will summarize a piece of text, identify main ideas and find geographic connections. While using young adult literature is a great way to incorporate geography into English/language arts classroom, understanding of geography…

This document presents the proceedings of the 23nd Annual Research Forum held June 28, 2018, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following 12 action research papers: (1) Standards-Based Grading in a Secondary Mathematics Classroom (Michelle Anderson); (2) How the Use of Graphic Novels in Shakespeare…

Instead of piling on one new reform fad after another, here at last is a book that boils down solutions for improved schools to the most powerful, simple actions and structures that ensure you prepare all students for college, careers, and citizenship. Best-selling ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) author and renowned…

This guide is designed for a seminar in which ideas arising from major social, economic, and political problems are examined. Performance objectives for the course include discussing ideas in order to arrive at solutions, conducting research on specific issues of concern chosen by each student, presenting opinions and research to the class,…

Describes how a teacher new to social studies created a social studies curriculum that was real, authentic, and interesting by teaching social studies through language arts with current events as the framework. (SR)

This teaching kit is a reusable classroom resource for K-12 teachers in social studies, mathematics, science, and language arts. It contains 10 instructional activities with professionally prepared worksheets, procedural notes, background information, glossary, and samples of census data from the past and present. K-2 students learn about the…

Cooperative lesson plans are presented for the following: current events for middle and high school; lessons on group process for elementary school; cooperative collage making to summarize a unit; group thank-you letters after an excursion; a team-building/language development lesson; and a values lesson on "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." (JD)