Teachers use a variety of strategies to capture students' attention, which is a necessary step for any lesson. Expert-level teachers take this one step farther, making sure that their attention-gathering techniques engage students cognitively, sparking productive curiosity and connecting to key concepts and skills to be learned in a unit or…

Infusing five processes into assignments can help students hone the skills they'll need to address complex problems. The world students will enter is full of complex, unpredictable problems--and students will need sophisticated thinking skills to cope. The authors unpack five thinking processes students need to internalize through opportunities in…

Graphic novels are a form of authentic text that have started to gain widespread acceptance in the English language arts field and have been shown to increase students' motivation to read and engage deeply with texts. By integrating text with pictures, graphic novels have the advantage of requiring a lighter cognitive load than traditional…

This paper explores the value of writing journals for both students and teachers beyond English lessons and without insistence on evidencing writing progress. Keeping a journal or undertaking regular reflective writing is an unfamiliar experience for some students, and schools may offer limited privacy for writing. Used in a comprehensive school…