This qualitative classroom-based study investigates the writing practices, choices and reflections of Latinx high school students during an instructional unit on writing testimonio. The study is grounded in a sociocultural theory of writing and draws from LatCrit and Testimonio to understand how writing about self as testimonio shapes the writing…

This action research explores the use of Readers'-Writers' Workshop (RWW) in the secondary English classroom. RWW often requires a paradigm shift on the part of the teacher to allow for more student autonomy and limiting direct instruction time. The researcher sought to discover whether or not this model would impact the engagement level and the…

The purpose of this study was to consider the issue of "authentic engagement" with texts in the context of KS3 and KS4 classroom English teaching. This article describes an exemplar session on the poem "A Fine Romance" by Roger McGough designed to elicit authentic engagement and provoke personal responses, and reports on the…

Few interventions reduce inequality in reading achievement, let alone higher-order thinking skills, among adolescents. We study policy debate--an extracurricular activity focused on improving middle and high schoolers' critical thinking, argumentation, and policy analysis skills--in Boston schools serving large concentrations of economically…

This is an extract from "Politics, Reading and Knowledge about Language", the author's address to the 1991 annual conference of the National Association for the Teaching of English. It describes the moment in 1988 when Kenneth Baker, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, received the report of the Committee of Inquiry into…

Rurality is an identified point of disadvantage in measures such as the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) and school resourcing models. However, socioeconomic disadvantage is commonly used as an explanation for lower average student achievement in rural locations. Thus, policies are often directed towards reducing disadvantage…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to re-center playfulness as a humanizing approach in teacher education. As teachers navigate the current moment of heightened control, surveillance, and systemic inequity, these proposed moves in teacher education can be transgressive. Rather than play as relegated to childhood or infancy, what does it look…

Audiobooks have been growing in popularity over the last decade. Although researchers have increasingly recognised the value of audiobooks as rich multimodal texts that support literacy engagement in classrooms, there have been few detailed pictures of classroom practice related to audiobooks. In this practitioner narrative, a secondary English…

Current research suggests that students who struggle with grammar, spelling, mechanics and other "problems of ability," as well as students who suffer from "problems of engagement," as well as those students who see reading and writing as a chore, can benefit from creative writing assignments and learn to enjoy reading and…

Although disabled people encounter discrimination in almost every facet of life -- such as employment, housing, education, healthcare, and transportation -- disability is often missing from conversations regarding social justice. Disability-related discussion (DRD) in English Language Arts (ELA) offers an inroad to having students view disability…

In 2003, the Texas State Legislature enacted the Texas Success Initiative (TSI). Upon entering a postsecondary institution, non-exempt students are tested using the TSI Assessment. A student's scores are used to assist Texas public institutions of higher education in determining if students are prepared for introductory college coursework in the…

The aim of this study was to investigate and empirically derive parameters commonly used for statistical power and sample size calculations to better inform future trial design. Towards achieving this aim, the research project leveraged the richness of the National Pupil Database (NPD) and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Archive to: (1)…

Curriculum-based measurements (CBM) are used in schools to screen students for academic difficulties. Oral reading fluency curriculum-based measures (CBM-R) are the most popular, yet several studies have identified predictive bias in CBM-Rs in relation to key variables (e.g., race, sex). Despite a massive increase in the use of these measures as…

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This second interim report,…

Large-scale assessments have become a basic national policy for educational improvement encouraging standards, decentralisation and school accountability. The current study focuses on the pedagogical dimension of large-scale assessments, examining its uses as a policy instrument for effecting pedagogical change. The paper presents and discusses…