This article contends that if English language arts (ELA) teachers support students' ability to notice and name what influences their reading response, students can then return to texts in ways that allow them to understand the content differently as they are more mindful of how experiences shape meaning making. Slowing down, then, may lead to new…

A teacher educator explores the way students' metaphors for literacy reveal depth and complicated emotions. Metaphor has played a major role in Jen McConnel's scholarship and teaching, both as a reflexive activity and, as her research methodology. In her most recent work, she developed a metaphor elicitation process that is, primarily, a creative…

Nearly every teacher will experience loss and grief during their years in the classroom. And yet, too often the profession assumes that English language arts (ELA) teachers must hide the emotions that accompany loss. In this article the authors share strategies for supporting English teachers in making sense of their grieving experiences and…

In this article, the authors share what they learned from their study of writing communities, which they refer to as writing groups, during the 2017-18 school year. The authors propose a conceptual framework for writing groups that engages students in the process of designing and participating as writers with their peers. The framework emphasizes…

For the past ten years, the author has been teaching a dual credit college first-year writing course to seniors in high school. In this article, the author presents a framework for writing instruction and evaluation that centers on students responding to current topics and issues through digital writing for an authentic audience.

Keri Franklin has proposed that creating the appropriate social-emotional environment for peer response (or peer conferencing, as she calls it) is a necessary first step. Within the context of her peer response process, though, are there strategies that can be adopted that would further scaffold students' ability to take each other's work…

In this article, the author discusses how teachers can develop empathy in students through reading and writing about literature, which contributes to their development as citizens in a global community. By choosing texts that trigger empathic reactions, English teachers can help students better understand others' experiences with oppression and…

When schools in Arkansas and most of the country shut their physical doors and moved to remote instruction in March 2020, Rachel Evans, Christian Goering, and Seth French planned to engage in a multifaceted experience that bridged personal narrative writing, songwriting, and podcasting. Undaunted by the shutdown, they offered Evans' ninth-grade…

This article shares what the author has learned as a high school English teacher and researcher from speaking with teachers and high school and college students over the past five years about what sort of feedback has been most helpful in students' development as writers. When examining the data and looking for overlapping themes in responses, six…

This article describes the implementation of blogging in ninth-grade pre-advanced placement language arts classes to support strong writing practices. In particular, the writing workshop's elements of student choice, continuing revision, discussion of craft, publication, and process orientation meshed well with digital composition. Blogging in the…

In professional writing, usability testing investigates how well users can find, understand, and use a document (Lannon). Usability testing involves gathering feedback from users, analyzing how successfully they used the document, and drawing on the test results to change or refine the design. From the authors' experiences as writers and teachers,…

As teachers consider ethics, they find that it may often look like a student issue. It may be discussions of plagiarism, social justice, honesty, bullying, privacy, child labor, free speech, inequity. However, even as teachers struggle with ways to model ethics or "teach" ethics, they find that their teaching practices may warrant reflection. One…

The need to teach students strategies for handling the various nonfiction texts they encounter has never been more pressing than in this digital age. Growing up in this digital age, students have a tenuous grasp on the differences between fiction and nonfiction, which can result in a lack of critical thinking about important political and cultural…

When given the opportunity to work with mentor programs in schools, this author has recommended a global prescription for mentors to help new teachers make the transition into the world of teaching: encourage them to follow the practices that are most like those of good, experienced teachers. Experienced teachers are different from new teachers;…

After teaching in rural North Carolina for about six years, the author was on the verge of giving up on teaching Shakespeare to her students. Although they seemed to enjoy the action and the drama of Shakespeare's plays, the lack of connection between the students and the language and culture of the plays interfered with her ability to generate a…