Mental health challenges are on the rise among today's youth. Recent reports have noted an acute and significant need for school-based mental health education and supportive interventions for children and adolescents. Among these approaches, a growing focus has centered on improving students' mental health literacy (MHL) as a foundational…

The surge of support for the science of reading is cause for great cheer. According to the Albert Shanker Institute, 45 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws since 2019 to shift reading instruction based on what research says works. These laws often explicitly call for teaching phonics, phonemic awareness, and other skills that…

The authors argue that with the continued marginalization of social studies in the elementary classroom, integration has become a popular and effective method for the inclusion of social studies content in the daily curriculum. Using controversial issues, they highlight a model for this integration with a focus on children's literature.

Focusing on a large study of the implementation of secondary English Language Arts curriculum in California and Washington, we assess how teachers use learning goals to support students developing expert learning practices. Highlighting the value of goal setting to support students' agency in learning to write, we describe teachers' reasons for…

This study examines the impact of teachers' professional development on Canadian allophone students' learning and reading performance levels. We used the data from the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program 2016 involving Grade 8/Secondary II Canadian allophone students (N = 2,244) and teachers in French and English Language Arts (N = 598). Our…

The need to integrate digital literacy into curricula as a fundamental skill set for navigating the complexities of the digital age has increased. This study aims to explore how knowledge and skills of digital literacy present in language arts standards and what elements of digital literacy are emphasized. To achieve this, we used text mining…

This paper explores the possible negative implications of teacher selected whole-class reads rooted within the traditional canon of English Language Arts instruction and possible solutions for re-engaging the disengaged adolescent reader through choice reading and the implementation of more culturally relevant texts. Historically, English Language…

This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional…

Culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012) has emerged as an essential way to value the evolution of culture among diverse learners. Discussions around teaching in a culturally sustaining manner in the English language arts classroom, specifically when teaching literary analysis, often address the need to incorporate multicultural literature so…

In this article, we focus on two components of the Online Curriculum Consortium for Accelerating Middle School (OCCAMS) project: the curriculum frameworks and the curriculum development process. The frameworks include the Integrated Curriculum Model (advanced content, unit themes, and process/product), culturally responsive curriculum, and talent…

In this practitioner article, we detail how American English language arts and social studies teachers can select and teach young adult literature using LaGarrett King's Black historical consciousness framework. We provide supplemental, related research along with teaching suggestions and titles for each of the Black historical consciousness…

In this article, I describe the challenges students faced in interpreting literary--or fictional--texts in the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement in the English learning area. I explain why it is important for students to learn how to interpret literary texts at school and consider why they might struggle with this important skill. I…

In this discussion, we argue for those who are literacy educators to reframe gossip as a dialogic, feminist act in their teaching and interpretation of gossip as framed in the literature they teach in secondary English language arts (ELA) classrooms. Reframing gossip as a feminist act invites meaning-makers to view those conversations and…

As Catholic schools serve an increasingly racially diverse population of students, they must grapple with the critical requirement to address these students' unique needs while heeding the call from modern Catholic Church leaders to engage in explicit antiracist action. Using the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework (HRL), this article…

Purpose: The pandemic has presented many new challenges tasking teachers with meeting the various social-emotional, academic and logistical needs of students in the midst of an ever-changing landscape. The onset of COVID-19 has drastically impacted schools and inevitably raised questions about nearly all aspects of teaching including but not…