This article examines what English teachers can learn from returning more-than-human narratives to secondary English language arts classrooms. The author argues for the urgency of this return given the present climate crisis, sharing insights developed during their time teaching creative writing as an elective at a performing arts middle school in…

Although research indicates that individual students benefit when they enroll in early algebra classes, evaluations of broad-based algebra acceleration often report negative effects. Using a regression discontinuity design, we replicate the positive effects of eighth-grade algebra placement on student achievement found in prior studies. We then…

We fine-tuned and compared several encoder-based Transformer large language models (LLM) to predict differential item functioning (DIF) from the item text. We then applied explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods to identify specific words associated with the DIF prediction. The data included 42,180 items designed for English language…

This paper revisits the well-known and often-taught novel "The Chrysalids" toward a reconsideration of the novel's place within curriculum and the pedagogies it may offer. Framed as a mourning ceremony, a way of revisioning what the novel could mean in the present by saying goodbye to what it has meant in the past, the paper progresses…

Given the importance of teaching and learning argumentation, across disciplines for participation in academic and civil discourse, this article examines how dialogic space is created and sustained in classrooms where argument is taught and learned and, when it is created, what affordances it brings to learning argumentation. Dialogic space is a…

The surge of support for the science of reading is cause for great cheer. According to the Albert Shanker Institute, 45 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws since 2019 to shift reading instruction based on what research says works. These laws often explicitly call for teaching phonics, phonemic awareness, and other skills that…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of secondary English language arts teachers implementing personalized learning in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Teachers who personalize learning must currently determine their own method of doing so without adequate research about the process to inform…

Districts and schools are under pressure to increase student academic outcomes while meeting their various social-behavioral needs. This pressure is compounded by the responsibility of creating climates that are safe and equitable for all students where teachers can teach, and all students can learn. However, far too often, negative, and…

Argumentation is a fundamental communicative ability that children develop over time through formal schooling and daily practice with peers and family members. Literature on children's argumentation appears to have focused on their social interactions out of school, clinical environment, or informal pedagogic contexts. Even though there are…

This article considers high school students' relationship to poetry through a small-scale qualitative study guided by the question: what happens to student perceptions of poetry when class begins each day with a poem? As a former teacher and current teacher educator, I conducted a series of interviews with a small group of my former students…

This study explored and analyzed the phonological and phonemic awareness components of a teacher edition of a school district's kindergarten language arts curriculum material. Criteria for this pragmatic content analysis were derived from the research on phonological awareness and the sequence of instruction and intervention (Schuele and Boudreau,…

Video games' popularity has continued to increase from their origins within a niche community to something engaged in by the general public. This field of literacy-making has a plethora of benefits to bridging skills both within and outside of the ELAR classroom for students of various backgrounds and skill sets, including language learners and…

Personally and professionally, the author shares experiences with school safety and how the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom may utilize middle grade novels to address gun violence with adolescents. Highlighting five middle grade novels that address school shootings--Katherine Erskine's (2011) "Mockingbird," Emily Barth Isler's…

A high school teacher advocates for the use of the CARE method in the selection and teaching of fiction about disability in the English language arts classroom, considering the centrality, agency, and respect afforded disabled characters, as well as the expertise of the author.

Since approximately 1988, the literacy achievement gap has remained stagnant in the United States. Despite data that suggest desegregation efforts have been most impactful on closing this gap, contemporary intervention efforts have often taken the form of homogeneous ability grouping and tracking, practices that lead to segregation along racial,…