Adoption of new curriculum programs is a regular part of education. The problem was teachers lack adequate professional development (PD) and time to acclimate to the implementation of a new English language arts (ELA) curriculum in a school district in the Western United States. The identified gap in the research literature was determining the…

Middle school students' ability to think critically and comprehend complex text is often challenging. Students often need additional academic support in this area. Close reading text is an instructional strategy that involves analyzing and looking at a text critically. The purpose of the qualitative phenomenological study is to examine English…

Student learning is substantially impacted by the choice of curriculum, and a significant predictor of achievement gain is the level of implementation. The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study was to explore implementation experiences of primary and middle school teachers of English Language Arts (ELAR) curriculum at a rural school…

Focusing on a large study of the implementation of secondary English Language Arts curriculum in California and Washington, we assess how teachers use learning goals to support students developing expert learning practices. Highlighting the value of goal setting to support students' agency in learning to write, we describe teachers' reasons for…

The aims of this qualitative study were (1) to understand the experiences of two middle school English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) teachers as they planned and implemented critical literacy into a unit in their existing curriculum and (2) to understand the experiences of students as they engaged in a curriculum embedded with critical…

This study examines the challenges faced by Maya, an English language arts teacher, as she implements a social justice-focused curricular reform. Specifically, it explores how Maya strategically embedded social justice themes within a mandatory poetry unit, using the ambiguous language of her school's mission statement to advocate for LGBTQ+…

Previous research (Johnson, Veletsianos, & Seaman, 2020) has highlighted that the abrupt shift from traditional in-person to online delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic caught many educators off guard, distinguishing it from the well-planned approach to online education before the pandemic. The disparities between well-planned pre-COVID…

This quantitative research study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of quarterly assessments administered quarterly to students in a large school district in the northeastern United States and their impact on students' subject-specific corresponding Regents Examination Scores. The study aims to determine if a correlational relationship exists…

Literacy is an essential component of any elementary-school classroom. To address shifting understandings of literacy and how to teach it, Alberta has developed a new language-arts curriculum. This curriculum, however, was developed in a context where schools have a long history of not serving Indigenous children well, including not meeting their…

There is a need for intervention programs that support teenagers' social and emotional development in American public schools. Education stakeholders have observed a disproportionate decline in social-emotional skills among minority and at-risk adolescents in low performing schools, increasing dropout rates and early exposure to the criminal…

This process and outcome evaluation investigated the extent to which the middle school English Language Arts (ELA) core curriculum, StudySync, was implemented with fidelity since year one of implementation in the 2019-2020 school year and how well it has addressed the needs of diverse learners in MCPS. Additionally, it examined students' literacy…

We often hear that a key purpose of schooling is to prepare students for informed and active citizenship. But what does this look like in practice? How do teachers pursue this goal amid other pressing priorities, including student mastery of both academic content and social-emotional competencies? "Students Taking Action Together," based…

This study delved into the critical examination of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and its integration into the English/language arts (ELA) curriculum. CRP, rooted in acknowledging and accommodating the diverse literacy levels, languages, and cultural practices of students, holds significant promise in enhancing educational equity and…

Successful implementation of the current English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum invites a new approach to teacher professional learning (PL). A focus on establishing and renewing relationships must play a role in developing the collaboration necessary for curriculum implementation. This article presents a research-based argument that effective and…

The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to examine a published language arts curriculum, determine how Anna Craft's possibility thinking framework could be integrated into the curriculum, and then observe how students responded to the implementation of lessons integrating the elements of possibility thinking. The findings…