This article describes literacy practices and outdoor activities in high school English classrooms--framed as critical rambling, a pedagogy seeking to raise awareness of issues like climate justice--with illustrations from a dissertation of teacher research and additional student work.

A high school teacher advocates for the use of the CARE method in the selection and teaching of fiction about disability in the English language arts classroom, considering the centrality, agency, and respect afforded disabled characters, as well as the expertise of the author.

"Transcendentalism" refers to philosophical, religious, and literary beliefs held by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, and other writers in New England during the 1830s and 1840s. Emerson believed in the significance of one's intuition and individuality. He expresses these beliefs in his…

Reclaiming healthcare stories can be a uniquely empowering way to teach English language arts (ELA)--especially for students of color, who are disproportionately likely to have personal or family stories of medical trauma. This article presents a way to use culturally and historically responsive literacy to empower high school students to use…

In this article Deidre Faughey shares an experimental classroom project that she developed with a diverse group of students in three ninth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) classes. Podcasts provide a unique opportunity for students to embrace experimentation and to take risks with their own voices, explore the school building and community, and…

In this article the author first defines high- quality text- based discussions. Then, he demonstrates how talk in the language of comfort meets the definition of high- quality discussion. Next, he illustrates how teachers can encourage and support students to discuss texts using their language of comfort. The examples of discussions come from two…

Words are more than a string of sounds and letters that denote a particular meaning. Linguistic anthropologist Judith T. Irvine contends that speaking is a social activity where the relationship of language, culture, and society is enacted (249). Linguist Deborah Cameron defines language ideology in "Verbal Hygiene" as the notions,…

It's clear that the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) programs such as ChatGPT (generative pre-trained transformer) will significantly impact education, and it is natural for teachers to feel apprehensive about this change. This article explores the role of ChatGPT in a high school English classroom and discusses how it can…

During the fall of 2019, the chaotic American political landscape was charged with scandal, debate, and accusations. As a result, students would often bring local and national politics into the authors' high school English language arts (ELA) classes. Instead of ignoring the students' heated debates in the classroom, the authors decided to embrace…

Two teacher educators offer several activities for youth to examine representations of adolescence by writing poetry, studying social media, and analyzing young adult literature through a youth lens.

The author pushes two desks together in the front of the class and pile supplies on them: markers, drawing paper, rulers, and pencils. As the students enter a combined English language arts (ELA) and English as a New Language (ENL) tenth-grade classroom, they select what they need and settle in to their work. As an ELA educator who is also a…

After watching his fifth-grade son perform in "The Taming of the Shrew," Ben Lathrop realized that having learned the play through performance, his son found the experience enjoyable. Moreover, his acting decisions (movements, gestures, vocal inflections) demonstrated that he had at least some understanding of his lines, suggesting that…

In this article, classroom researcher Harrison Campbell recounts his research into the literacy experiences of eight junior high (grades 8 and 9) students over the course of a school semester in Western Canada. Using phenomenological inquiry, Campbell invited students into a process of making meaning through experience. These experiences, brought…

This article describes a community action student- led project that features authentic writing and engagement to increase motivation. The article highlights important instructional strategies for implementing community action projects and the resulting student learning. The article concludes with the authors' reflections and observations.

This article serves as an invitation to see the way the teaching of biography-driven writing has been increasingly pushed out of the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum in favor of highly structured, formulaic, and impersonal writing, and how this is a setback for students in their preparation for college and career writing. The…