Purpose: Non-dominant voices have been further marginalised in the most recent national curriculum in England (DfE, 2014), and those working across the English teaching profession often find the subject framed according to narrow, assessment-driven models and prescribed skill sets. This paper aims to bring together two perspectives on the…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were adopted by most states by 2010. Yet, many teachers still lack confidence in their ability to integrate these standards into their classroom instruction and this uncertainty undermines their effectiveness. This article presents findings from a study of a fourth grade literacy curriculum informed by the…

Grammar is "a system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence" (Brown 1994) which can facilitate the acquisition of a foreign language and is conducive for cultivating comprehensive language competence. Most teachers regard grammar as a frame of English learning. The grammar teaching beliefs…

This paper offers insights into how the teaching of queer topics in English language arts classes can be reframed by bridging the goals, practices and conceptual tools of queer theory to literacy teaching. Drawing on an ethnographic classroom study, which explored a 13-week high school Gay and Lesbian Literature course, this paper discusses how…

There are innumerable subcultures within American society, all of which come to interact within the walls of a school and all of which should be recognized and valued by the classroom teacher. This article shares secondary students' beliefs and attitudes about reading and studying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or questioning (LGBTQ)…

In this essay, veteran high school teacher Cherish R. Skinker recounts how she connected with hard-to-reach, struggling students in her 9th grade English classes. In a supportive classroom environment, Skinker's students explored the year-long theme of "a hero's journey" through texts like "The Odyssey" and "Romeo and…

A convergent mixed methods research design addressed the extent of benefit obtained from reading culturally inclusive prompts (i.e., four brief essays written by Latino authors) to improve essay writing in a developmental (pre-college) English course. Participants were 45 Latino students who provided quantitative data. Chi square analysis showed…

In fall 2013, Career and Technical Education (CTE)-focused composition classes were piloted to accommodate Leeward Community College's requirement for college-level composition for students in the CTE majors. The first CTE-focused class was an accelerated developmental education reading and writing course for students placing two steps below…

A recent community wide reading program offers a valuable opportunity for students and teachers to respond to literature by attending community wide events, creating art, and developing relationships with community members.

This article investigates the lexical and discourse features of English text and discourse with automated computer technologies. Specifically, this article examines the cohesion of English text and discourse with automated computer tools, Coh-Metrix and TEES. Coh-Metrix is a text analysis computer tool that can analyze English text and discourse…

Casey Cuny was frustrated with the lack of depth in his high school English students' writing. He'd heard about Socratic seminars but was reluctant to try them until he saw them in action. He decided to conduct Socratic seminars with his students centered on the question, What is the value of life? In past years, student papers on this…

While numerous studies focus on dialect in educational settings, this research focuses on teacher perception of the Appalachian dialect in one rural elementary school. Data collected, mainly through interviews with educators, indicate that teachers sometimes view the Appalachian dialect as impeding their teaching of Standard English. Implications…

Creative writing courses are growing in universities and outside them. Publishers and agents even turn to them now as sources of promise and talent. This article describes a particularly successful MA in creative writing at Goldsmiths College in London and makes a case for the popularity and the usefulness to universities, to aspiring writers and…

Larissa Pahomov teaches students English and Journalism at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The school opened its doors to students just seven years ago and was designed to encourage both inquiry and critical pedagogy. To those ends, there is a thematic curriculum for each grade level--for sophomores, it's…

In this dissertation, I describe a narrative study in which five pre-service and in-service teachers read and re-read three young adult memoirs and discussed their responses in a series of book group meetings. The purpose was to examine how teachers discuss young adult memoirs, what they might learn about themselves in the process of reading and…