This study was a yearlong investigation over writing instruction with one class of ninth grade students in an urban, "underperforming" high school. Using qualitative methods with embedded quantitative features, findings revealed students benefited little from the writing instruction they received. In fact, most students showed virtually…

This article describes the use of poetry as a pedagogical tool intended to intensify the reflective process of a service-learning project. In addition to keeping electronic journal entries, and summarizing and reflecting on service activities, preservice teachers wrote (or selected) poems to reconstruct their experiences and recreate some of the…

Students in an eighth-grade, urban, low-achieving reading class were introduced to critical literacy through engagement in Image Theatre. Developed by liberatory dramatist Augusto Boal, Image Theatre gives participants the opportunity to examine texts in the triple role of interpreter, artist, and sculptor (i.e., image creator). The researchers…