This article reports results from a study of teacher beliefs among a panel of English and language arts teachers at three universities as the pre-service teachers entered methodological coursework and internships. Using a new assessment tool, the Developmental Instruction Assessment Battery (DIAB), along with a discrete choice task and one-on-one…

This article looks across two teacher education programs to review the tensions and benefits of critical, project-based (CPB) clinical experiences. The first study examines a project embedded within a methods course focused on secondary English language arts (ELA) preservice teachers (PSTs) engaging with youth around a shared writing activity. In…

Learn how to incorporate rigorous activities in your English language arts or social studies classroom and help students reach higher levels of learning. Expert educators and consultants Barbara R. Blackburn and Melissa Miles offer a practical framework for understanding rigor and provide specialized examples for middle and high school ELA and…

English Language Arts has historically been tied to the civic purposes of schools, and this qualitative study of a social design-based project (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010) examines the intersection of language and literacy learning and youth civic engagement, a problem space I call "Civics English." In this dissertation, I describe…

Transition curricula are courses, learning modules, or online tutorials typically developed jointly by secondary and postsecondary faculty and offered no later than 12th grade to students at risk of being placed into remedial math or English programs in college. Based on interviews and other data, this brief describes key elements of English…

The population of English language learners (ELLs) in United States schools continues to increase year after year. These students enrolled in schools in the United States face many challenges as they are learning a new language and culture. This case study was designed to investigate the research question: What are the instructional approaches…

The overall purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the School Improvement Grant on student achievement in a rural elementary school in Mississippi. In an attempt to decrease the achievement gap that existed among socioeconomically disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers, the United States Department of Education created…

"College readiness" has become a national buzzword in light of efforts to improve high school students' ability to successfully transition into postsecondary settings. One component of this transition that has long been an area of concern is students' readiness for college writing. Numerous stakeholders have weighed in on the question of…

Remediating student learning deficits in the area of reading is of the utmost importance, as the ability to read has a lifelong impact on learning. Schools and school districts are ranked on their ability to demonstrate growth in core areas of education, including reading. Although many programs, strategies, and remedies are extant for identifying…

When Okema Owens Simpson, the sixth-grade Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL) for English language arts (ELA) at Ranson IB Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina, plans her schedule for the coming week, she provides what her teachers need most: daily, on-the-job coaching; lesson planning; practice in delivering lessons; co-teaching or modeling a…

This article describes a unit of work framed by a rationale for activating English language learning through arts-based practices that are suitable for preservice teachers who are nonnative speakers of English (seeking certification for teaching English as a second language). Because teachers of English are expected to use language arts to promote…

In response to the growing number of linguistically diverse students in elementary classrooms, this Teaching Tip centers stories of students exploring language identity and use in one fourth-grade classroom in the Midwestern United States. Specifically, the author situates this Teaching Tip by first telling how students engaged in a discussion…

Teachers with proper training in knowledge transfer to different students, in the creation of suitable learning conditions, the motivation of students for active cooperation and peer learning, in the formation of classroom community, as well as independent and responsible personalities, can provide quality education. Teacher's classroom management…

Graphic novels, which tell real and fictional stories using a combination of words and images, are often sophisticated, and involve intriguing topics. There has been an increasing interest in teaching with graphic novels to promote literacy as one alternative to traditional literacy pedagogy (e.g., Gorman, 2003; Schwarz, 2002). A pedagogy of…

Given the current marginalization of the social studies within elementary classrooms it is vital that elementary educators seek integrative techniques that promote the social studies. This article explores one such example of integration taught by the authors within an elementary classroom. The three-day lesson taught to fifth-grade students aimed…