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…

Like many 21st-century youth, students attending urban schools operate in a cultural milieu where social networking sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram have become the lived environments where young people display information and ideas, establish camaraderie or feuds, and share conversations and perspectives from the imaginative to the…

With online programs growing across the nation, virtual teachers are continually working to reengage students. Online learning has the potential to reach a diverse group of students and offer them equal access to learning. In this article, the author describes her online English class for high school students, and states that she has been…

In this article, the author shares challenges of teaching writing in a virtual classroom. One of the challenges of online education--the often-asynchronous nature--also holds one of the strengths: the opportunity for a lesson to continue long after the classroom closes. The author's experiences online offer ways to rethink meanings of youth…