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…

A movement is taking place in school districts and classrooms as teachers are embracing engaged learning environments in which they are listening to the often-silenced voices of their students. This article chronicles moments from the journeys of four learners who represent a range of experiences and perspectives on re-envisioning the work done in…

This article explores the power and potential of a role-play collaborative argument project centered on a literary work that has been banned or challenged in schools. In the project, students read a banned or challenged novel as they prepared to play the role of a community stakeholder (parent, teacher, librarian, minister, etc.) at a simulated…

AP Literature students participated in a series of real-time online discussions to complement the in-class conversations they were having about "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Thus, the front channel was comprised of the students who were discussing the class text aloud, and the backchannel was the online conversation the rest of the…

Because drama is no new thing to English teachers, perhaps they could benefit from a different perspective on it. What if English teachers thought of each lesson as an unfolding drama with the students and teacher playing major roles? Each lesson becomes an improvisation, a unique opportunity for the curtain to rise on an unexpected scene. The…

The author had been assigned two sections of Contemporary Literature, a semester-long senior elective, and he wanted to do something new with poetry. He planned to teach Arthur Sze's "Quipu." Sze's poetry is nonlinear, adopting principles from science, anthropology, and history into a multilayered poetic texture--text unlike anything students…

As teachers consider ethics, they find that it may often look like a student issue. It may be discussions of plagiarism, social justice, honesty, bullying, privacy, child labor, free speech, inequity. However, even as teachers struggle with ways to model ethics or "teach" ethics, they find that their teaching practices may warrant reflection. One…

Today, teachers and administrators are continuing to recognize that learning is a social function, and that students do indeed learn better when working with others. The author agrees with this concept, but she wants to sigh deeply when she hears of one more person or company who has marketed the best approach to collaboration in the classroom. In…

One of the most important challenges a teacher faces is motivating his or her students to complete reading assignments and to complete them carefully. After all, if students bring to class a basic understanding of the text up for discussion, much deeper learning can occur than if the teacher is forced to spend time explaining the reading to…

In this article, the authors offer an approach to teaching that can help students prepare to write for the workplace and in the community: a case study of community-based writing. In this case-study project, students work in groups to study the writing needs and practices of a community-based group or organization, such as a local public library,…

Discusses potential problems with collaborative learning, noting hat it is often treated as a tool of limited application. Encourages teachers to incorporate playful student collaboration into their classrooms. Argues that by broadening collaboration beyond student response and using it to search and question, students will develop a sense of…

Offers eight short accounts from teachers of ways they are using collaborative or cooperative learning in their classrooms. (SR)

Considers ways of implementing collaborative learning techniques into the teaching of William Shakespeare in the high school English curriculum. Argues for allowing students to predict the action after viewing only one act of a play. Shows how group work enhanced students' thinking processes. (HB)

Describes a classroom collaborative activity in which students are asked to write one-act plays based on three characters, two of whom know each other, and a third who affects the other two. Presents details of carrying out the assignment, and evaluates student response. (HB)

Describes a simulation game requiring students to role play and complete extensive writing exercises to help them become interested in Willa Cather's "My Antonia" and the pioneer experience of relocation and resettlement. Contains an extensive description of the simulation rules and procedures. (TB)