This article explores the learning experiences of two students in the same college-level English course at Urban Serving Community College (USCC) (pseudonym). The objective was to understand how one student met with success and the other failure despite both successfully completing their developmental English course the semester prior. I observed…

A comparative analysis of English in the primary curricula of England and Australia reveals markedly different policy perspectives of the functions and purposes of language, literacy and literature in these two Anglophone countries. Whilst the Australian curriculum incorporates 'the basics' with broader socio-linguistic views of language in an…

This quantitative study examined the relationships between instructional leadership practices of elementary school principals in high-poverty schools and changes in teachers' ELA instructional practices. This research sought to identify principals' perceptions about their use of instructional leadership practices and the teaching practices used in…

This article explores the potential of using multimodal texts--particularly comics--as a way of engaging teacher education students in critical inquiry around literacy and ELA assessments. We describe a qualitative study into the use of a multimodal comics-form article within an ELA/literacy assessment course in an MEd program. Our findings…

This teaching tip shares a research-based instructional model that uses translation to improve the English reading comprehension of English Learners. Within this instruction, English learners work collaboratively in small groups and use translation to facilitate understandings of their required English language arts curriculum. Students are taught…

The Dartmouth Seminar is rightly understood as a key event in English curriculum history--indeed, "a pivotal moment," as one commentator put it. Nonetheless questions can still be asked about the nature of its significance, both "discursively," with regard to the discourse (and rhetoric) of post-Dartmouth English teaching, and…

This article explores one teacher-researcher's consideration of how the 50-year anniversary of the Dartmouth Seminar continues to influence and hold relevance for the teaching of English in Australian secondary schools. Particular attention is paid to the influence of John Dixon and the Personal Growth model of English. The author, an early career…

Developmental education is the most common approach used by community colleges to assist underprepared students for college-level course work. Yet there is limited evidence regarding this strategy on students assigned to the lowest level of the developmental sequence. This paper extends current knowledge on this critical question by examining the…

This article considers how relationships in the English classroom are influenced by the types of literacy activities, the role of the teacher, the tone of oral comments, and the types of writing students share with peers.

This article demonstrates a step-by-step teaching method using a poem, a play, and a short essay to help students support each other and take responsibility for learning.

In the present transcendental phenomenological study, we describe the experiences of introverted undergraduate students in an active learning English classroom environment at a community college in Florida. We selected 10 participants whose Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) scores indicated clear to very clear on the introversion measure and who…

When the author began teaching in Paraguay, he ran into a series of classroom challenges familiar to English teachers around the world: a classroom overflowing with students, a large range of English abilities, and insufficient textbooks and traditional teaching resources. The activity described in this article is a one-size-fits-all activity that…

Successive UK government policies have strengthened the phonics element of the National Curriculum for English in England. The policies have included inviting publishers to submit completed self-assessments of their systematic phonics programmes. The self-assessment criteria focus on what is deemed to be 'high-quality provision', as defined in the…

California's AB 705 required community colleges to implement changes that would maximize students' likelihood of starting and completing transfer-level (or degree-appropriate) coursework in English and math/quantitative reasoning within one year. Under the law, colleges must use high school information (e.g., GPA, coursework, and/or grades in…

Background: College- and career-ready standards cite the "special place of argument writing" in preparing students to be college students, professionals, and engaged citizens in an information-rich society (NGA, 2010). To support these critical skills, the National Writing Project (NWP) developed the College, Career, and Community…