One of the most challenging aspects of the teaching profession, at all levels, is to identify and illuminate assumptions--one's students' and one's own. This article describes how three members of the Hudson Valley Writing Project (HVWP) at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz worked closely with the National Writing Project's…

Several issues make standardized assessment of ELLs a challenge and the information provided by these assessments unreliable. However, as educators, they do need to know how students are doing, what gains they are making, where gaps in their understanding exist, and what types of instructional strategies and topics need to be introduced to…

A series of studies in a mature multimodal composing project demonstrates that through digital video (DV) composing about literature, diverse students, including many who struggled in school, learned new ways of engaging literature, performing meaning, and thinking symbolically through multimodal translations of the text. Students' focus in these…

At 12:30 p.m. on December 8, 1941, in front of a joint session of Congress, one day after Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor and killed 2,402 Americans, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared December 7 a date that would live in infamy. He spoke of rage and betrayal, hardships and determination. Thirty-three minutes after he finished…

Many English teachers feel underprepared to teach students with disabilities. While teachers may want to do whatever they can to make all their students successful, some may feel that they don't have as much time as they would like to prepare high-quality differentiated instruction, to fully accommodate every student, or even to know what…

The rationale behind most standard English tests is openly political and economic--to perpetuate and protect the advantages of the white middle class. (JH)

Grades the Educational Testing Service in taking over the National Assessment of Educational Progress literacy project with a "C-", claiming Part One earned a "D" for abandoning some of the most cogent and winning strategies of previous NAEP studies and Part Two earned a "C" for providing confusing unexplained data.…

Uses Florida as an example of statewide testing in the United States and presents an unfavorable comparison with the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), to be used in the United Kingdom. Major points of concern are (1) the multiple choice format, and (2) lack of teacher input. (NH)

While resisting the trends toward overuse and misuse of standardized tests, English teachers still must recognize that many aspects of English programs can and should be evaluated. (JH)

This checklist is designed to assist English teachers and departments in analyzing and evaluating their current programs. It is divided into four parts: (1) the basic organization and procedures of the English program (25 criteria), (2) the physical provisions for English instruction, both facilities and equipment (11 criteria) and materials (2…