Those who are involved in the current Common Core Standards should buckle up for a rocky ride. Some of the same issues that churned within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) during the standards movement of the 1990s (1989-1997) are here once again. The author's buckle is pulled tight, having already had his standards report…

Traditional literacy instruction is perhaps still necessary but is certainly no longer sufficient to prepare learners for participation in the range of literacy practices that characterize an increasingly participatory culture. This article identifies discrepancies between traditional instructional practices that emphasize individual mastery of…

The central focus of this research has been to document immigrant and non-immigrant students' storytelling practices and cultural knowledge and identify how these might be adapted as "cultural data sets" for academic literary study in ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous, middle-grade classrooms. Such data sets, however, have limited use…

This study examined the role of learners' perceptions in a learner-controlled computer-based learning environment. Computer-based learning environments that offer learner control (LC) to the learners are assumed to enhance motivation and learning outcomes. Recently, the focus of LC research has shifted from measuring the direct effect of LC on…

What exactly has changed in the production of secondary school English over the last decade? To provide one part of an answer to that question, this paper takes the practice of annotation--a defining activity of the subject English in the UK seldom researched--and uses it as a device for uncovering aspects of changes in the subject. The…

Harnessing insights from Brophy's (1999, 2008, 2010) notion of scaffolding students' appreciation of learning, this article tackles challenges to student engagement, especially among reluctant students, by exploring two classroom settings in which students' valuing of school content and activities supported their engagement and achievement. The…

Globally, science curricula have been described as outdated, and students perceive school science as lacking in relevance. Declines in senior secondary and tertiary student participation in science indicate an urgent need for change if we are to sustain future scientific research and development, and perhaps more importantly, to equip students…

This paper investigates difficulties that teachers encounter in teaching oral English in higher education in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Open-ended question surveys and semi-structured interviews were used to elicit data. There were 331 EFL teachers from 44 universities in 22 cities across China that responded to the survey…

Can music help students become better thinkers and writers? Over the past three years, the author has incorporated some basic music training techniques in her classrooms to help her teach the writing process to students who would otherwise click her off. The students have developed clearer thinking and organizational skills, and have increased…

During the years following the Second World War, members of the English teaching community in London, often within the London Association for the Teaching of English, conducted work which led to a "new" English for the emerging comprehensive school system. Such work was rooted in the belief that English teaching should be responsive to…

Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" can be a useful text in an undergraduate English class, helping students think through issues of individualism. Rand's own concept of the self, however, ignores its social dimensions. (Contains 7 notes.)

This article discusses the changing role of literature in the contemporary media landscape. Literary scholarship may well maintain its importance in the digitalizing world, but this requires it to engage in an open dialogue with cultural and media studies. It is important that more attention is paid to contemporary literature as well as to new…

The "Condition of College & Career Readiness 2015" is the ACT annual report on the progress of US high school graduates relative to college readiness. This report provides a national snapshot of academic performance among African American students in the 2015 high school graduating class who took the ACT® test and addresses questions…

This article discusses the outcomes of a partnership between four high schools and one university to reduce the need for remediation in reading and writing. The purpose of the partnership was to build relationships between secondary and postsecondary faculty and to create a senior year English Transition course for students who did not meet ACT…

This dissertation examines the student academic achievement through various mechanisms, put in place by the public school district, classroom student behavior, and negative external shocks to the students' living environment. I examine the impacts of various treatments on student short and long run academic outcomes such as math and English test…