The personal literacy experiences English Language Arts (ELA) teachers have are an important factor in shaping their pedagogical thinking about literacy. More research is needed, however, on the relationship between literacy experiences and pedagogical thinking for preservice teachers implementing new literacies such as transmedia stories.…

The objective of this study is to better understand the process by which K-12 school districts select curricula materials in four critical subject areas: Mathematics, English Language Arts, Science, and History and Social Studies. This research has two primary goals: (1) to understand the process by which K-12 school districts select and adopt…

School grades provide an easily understandable metric to measure the performance of a school. Parents and the general public can use the school grade and its associated components to understand how well each school is serving its students. The school grades calculation was revised substantially for the 2014-15 school year to implement statutory…

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) examines how college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards are implemented, whether they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. Established in July 2015 and funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S.…

Expanded learning time (ELT) is a practice that entails increasing the length of the school day for all students, with the goal of improving student outcomes, especially in low-performing schools. Boston Public Schools (BPS) has been implementing ELT as an improvement strategy in low-performing schools since 2006. In 2015 the district drastically…

Implementation of Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts across most of the United States has yielded the rapid creation of new, interconnected literacy assessments, curriculum guidelines, instructional materials, teacher preparation programs, teacher evaluation systems, and professional development. This essay explores two…

This article is about a year-long teaching and research project conducted with 696 4th graders (mostly 10-year olds) and their 36 teachers in Wyoming/USA. The researchers employed an action research approach. They planned and taught a two-day, Wyoming-themed, interdisciplinary unit, "We Are Wyoming", which integrated Social Studies,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides federal funds to improve elementary and secondary education in the nation's schools. ESSA requires states and Local Educational Agencies (i.e., school districts and charter schools) to take a variety of actions to ensure that all children, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender, disability…

Research shows that there is a shortage of effective teachers in many rural and urban K-12 public schools serving the highest proportions of high-poverty students across the United States. In the past 10 years, alternative route teacher preparation programs aiming to address this shortage proliferated across the United States. These programs seek…

This snapshot describes and reflects upon two case studies of community writing projects between Emerson College and Boston Public Schools. Emerson College students were asked to tutor 10th grade BPS students for the English Language Arts portion of the state standardized assessment. Through both quantitative results and qualitative reflection,…

Positively influence comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, and oral language development with read-aloud strategies. The author shares tips for making read-alouds successful.

Reading aloud is apparently an indispensible part of teaching. Nevertheless, little is known about reading aloud across the curriculum by students and teachers in high schools. Nor do we understand teachers' attitudes towards issues such as error correction, rehearsal time, and selecting students to read. A survey of 360 teachers in England shows…

Students are growing up in a digital world where technology is constantly changing and evolving. However, their use of these technologies is often more social rather than academically as a way to advance their understanding of key concepts or skills as it relates to instructional content. Teachers know how to teach, and our students are definitely…

Finding materials to help students make connections is difficult for many teachers across all grade levels. Traditionally, the textbook is the primary resource for instruction. Textbooks, however, do not naturally support students in making connections across texts. To do this, teachers must find other resources. Finding other resources is…

(Purpose) The purpose of this paper is to describe visual literacy and an adapted version of Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS) and its value to enhance students' inferential thinking. (Methodology) An example of a middle school VTS, art-integrated lesson is described as well as reflections of a middle school language arts teacher about what she…