Numerous research studies prove that wide reading improves children's comprehension, background knowledge, vocabulary, fluency, and writing. The author, a sixth-grade language arts teacher, describes the classroom conditions and instructional practices that encourage wide reading and increase her students' reading motivation such as choice in…

Geography may not be particularly known as a hot topic among today's students--even some advocates suggest it suffers from an image problem--but by at least one measure, the subject is starting to come into its own. Across more than 30 topics covered in the Advanced Placement (AP) program, participation in geography is rising faster than any…

Over thirty ago, Maxine Greene published a collection of essays with the title, "Landscapes of Learning," more than thirty years earlier. In that text, she argued that the title illuminated the ways people formed perspectives that shaped their attitudes and behaviors. In her text, Greene described how people had to be grounded in their…

Dramatic language arts integration (DLA) and conventional language arts (CLA) lessons were compared for their influence on third grade students' written narrative cohesion and on-task behavior in a self-contained, nonpublic elementary classroom. Participants included students (N = 14) with comorbid language-based learning disabilities (LD) and…

A random sample of language arts, social studies, science, and math high school teachers from across the United States were surveyed about their use of writing to support student learning. Four out of every five teachers reported they used writing to support student learning, applying on average 24 different writing activities across the school…

Teacher and student academic discourse was examined in an urban arts-integrated school to better understand facilitation of students' English language learning. Participants' discourse was compared across English language arts (ELA) lessons with and without classroom drama in a third-grade classroom of English learning (EL) students (N = 18) with…

Violent writing is a real, yet rarely understood phenomenon in the secondary and post-secondary classroom. The 2007 Virginia Tech shooting tragedy sensationalized violent writing as a marker of disturbed and violent persons. However, violent writing comes in multiple forms and is composed for multiple reasons. As secondary schools wrestle with…

This article draws on scholarship in educational and linguistic anthropology to explore awareness of Spanish-English code-switching among bilingual Chicana/o and Latina/o students in a sixth-grade English Language Arts classroom. Analysis of qualitative data gathered via participant observation, video/audio recording, and semistructured interviews…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between three predictor variables (Fall R-CBM, Winter R-CBM, and Spring R-CBM) and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program third grade reading and language arts assessment. The population selected for this study included all third grade students from an East Tennessee school…

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…

The idea that secondary English language learner (ELL) students can master rigorous academic content quickly and deeply goes against much accepted wisdom in the field, but Aída Walqui--the author and Director of WestEd's Teacher Professional Development Program, which houses the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative--and her…

It is essential to support bilingual learners' language and academic development; however, teaching second language learners English has taken precedence over teaching content area knowledge and vocabulary, specifically for language arts. The focus has shifted from content area instruction to primarily second language instruction due to an…

Graphic novels (book-length fiction or nonfiction narratives told using the conventions of a comic book) bring together text and image in a way that seems to capture students' imaginations. Right now, there is little more than anecdotal research about how graphic novels can be used within specific middle school and high school disciplines. As…

The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) is an authentic tool for evaluating prospective teachers by examining their abilities to plan, teach, assess, and reflect on instruction in actual classroom practice. The PACT seeks both to measure and develop teacher effectiveness, and this study of its predictive and consequential…

The proposals for the revised National Curriculum in English suggest limiting the pre-twentieth century poetry that GCSE pupils read to "representative Romantic poetry" (Department for Education [DFE], 2013, p. 4). This paper argues that poetry of the early modern period is challenging and enriching study for adolescent pupils and that…