In a "post-truth" era in which misinformation permeates digital environments, it is critical for teachers to help students develop media literacy skills by analyzing and evaluating media messages. Through these processes, English language arts teachers can also help students develop digital citizenship skills, in which they can analyze…

Grounded in solid theory with new field-tested classroom activities, the fourth edition of "Critical Encounters in Secondary English" continues to help teachers integrate the lenses of contemporary literary theory into practices that have always defined good pedagogy. The most significant change for this edition is the addition of a full…

The focus of this article is on the development of expertise in interpreting literature within English Language Arts (ELA). Experts and novices differ significantly in how they approach problems and acquire information, with experts demonstrating more sophisticated pattern recognition, nuances, and conceptual understandings and approaches than…

Featuring tools, activities, and insightful stories from a CIA analyst and instructor with 30+ years' of experience, this practical and engaging book supports busy educators to teach the lifelong skills of news and media literacy to their students. Based on existing curriculum and teaching standards, this guidebook shows how social studies and…

Becoming critical thinkers and collaborative learners is important for today's students as they develop the skills needed for success in the 21st century (National Research Council, 2012; Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2019). One instructional strategy used to develop critical-thinking skills through collaboration is Socratic seminar. A…

The problem addressed in this qualitative narrative inquiry study was that middle school students in Grades 6-8 may lack preparation for the required soft skills to enter college or the workforce. The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry study was to closely explore the individual participants' stories through thick, rich descriptions and…

The university curriculum has been urged to incorporate 21st-century digital competence and skills, particularly information literacy, in accordance with recommendations made by numerous organizations, including the Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Instructors are then…

This study delved into the critical examination of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and its integration into the English/language arts (ELA) curriculum. CRP, rooted in acknowledging and accommodating the diverse literacy levels, languages, and cultural practices of students, holds significant promise in enhancing educational equity and…

The Vermont Agency of Education (AOE) has invested in a multifaceted effort to improve and sustain literacy outcomes for all students to address the declining literacy rates in Vermont. This project summary describes how the Region 1 Comprehensive Center partnered with the AOE to develop an early literacy playbook to operationalize the Blueprint…

This study examines 12 lessons undertaken with a Year 5 English Language Arts elementary class where students are explicitly introduced to a grammar for critical visual literacy. The goal is to apprentice students into political participation by developing their skills for critically reviewing and redesigning visual texts on the school website.…

This paper explores new methods for tracking learning growth using curriculum-embedded assessments. The key objective of the study was to examine new ways to capture students' performance data to help make ecologically-valid inferences about what learners know and can do long before benchmark or end-of-year assessments. Student learning outcomes…

The purpose of this semester-long project was to redesign the ninth grade English language arts curriculum to include a literacy-based multicomponent intervention to meet the needs of developing readers, while simultaneously maintaining a rigorous curriculum challenging proficient readers in a general education classroom. I examined peer-reviewed…

Program exposure is a key element of implementation fidelity and refers to the amount of an intervention received by participants. For students using IXL, setting a target program exposure (i.e., an IXL usage goal) both allows monitoring of implementation fidelity and enhances students' motivational and learning outcomes. IXL's proposed optimal…

Few interventions reduce inequality in reading achievement, let alone higher-order thinking skills, among adolescents. We study policy debate--an extracurricular activity focused on improving middle and high schoolers' critical thinking, argumentation, and policy analysis skills--in Boston schools serving large concentrations of economically…

Aim/Purpose: This study aimed to develop a model for using social media content to promote 3D thinking of sustainability among students in integrated Mathematics, Language, Arts, and Technology (MLAT) classrooms. Background: Social media is one of the most relevant platforms among students of the 21st century to the extent that connecting it to…