In this article, Michelle Ann Abate examines the typographical features of the comics and graphic novels frequently finding their way into English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms and challenges the viewpoint that they are secondary to prose-only texts, arguing instead that many comics can be seen as requiring more advanced levels of literacy…

The author was invited as a teaching artist into a first-grade classroom in New York City to teach a 14-session poetry residency culminating in an anthology of student writing. They began by sitting together on a carpet by the interactive whiteboard and read aloud several examples of "I wish" poems from Kenneth Koch's (1970) wonderful…

During the 2016-2017 academic year, a collaborative of university faculty and high school teachers piloted an innovative approach to professional development, focusing on secondary level literacy in a diverse suburban district. The approach included innovations in both process and content compared to professional development (PD) and instructional…

This article examines a service-learning project held in conjunction with a reading of the nonfiction text "The Other Wes Moore." The assignment asked for high school students to provide a day of service focusing on literacy skills for an elementary school different from their own background. Service learning became a tool for…

This article considers how relationships in the English classroom are influenced by the types of literacy activities, the role of the teacher, the tone of oral comments, and the types of writing students share with peers.

In this article, the authors highlight their ongoing efforts to position the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as a living document that can be read again and again with an eye toward all sorts of literacy teaching and learning in classrooms. They explore how teachers can begin to think and speak of themselves as authors of the CCSS and thus…

Explicit instruction helps students gain declarative knowledge as well as literacy strategies that support them in becoming competent readers. To facilitate this shift in reading so that teacher candidates might be more explicit in their instruction, the authors created a graphic organizer they call Reading for Teaching (RfT). They designed the…

This article discusses how reading for their own purposes affected struggling teens. It shares the authors' story, which demonstrates the importance and power of focusing on students' purposes, as highlighted in Standard 12, a standard not often addressed or assessed, but one that matters to students and teachers alike. The authors describe how a…

Last year, the author and his ninth-grade students explored ways to use mobile media devices such as iPods and cell phones to help guide literacy practices in their English classroom. Their school, South Central High School (SCHS; a pseudonym), is a public high school located in urban Los Angeles. As part of their seven-week exploration, the…

Reading skills are vital to student success, and those skills could be practiced with Shakespeare "if students are taught reading skills in the classroom." The problem is that many teachers of English do not consider themselves reading specialists and do not teach reading skills to their students. Fred L. Hamel notes that teachers in a recent…

The nation's focus on the literacy skills of students--especially boys--has produced many notions of reform. School districts reorganized and changed curricula to meet the needs of struggling readers and writers. In New York City, where this author was teaching, "Balanced Literacy" (a reading and writing workshop) had been implemented in…

Historically, comics have been viewed as a "debased or simplified word-based literacy," explains Dale Jacobs, who considers comics to be complex, multimodal texts. Examining Ted Naifeh's "Polly and the Pirates," Jacobs shows how comics can engage students in multiple literacies, furthering meaning-making practices in the classroom and beyond.

How can we prepare and encourage new teachers to take on the challenge of changing traditional views of literacy education? Teacher educator William Kist shares a first-year teacher's story of incorporating new literacies within an eighth-grade alternative classroom.

Describes the computer as a hammer, a tool with unique qualities that allows people to perceive, manipulate, and express language in ways quite different from traditional media. Explores the tool of the multimedia presentation, a common use of technology in classrooms today. Describes a simple project with sixth graders that incorporates reading,…

The public is deeply concerned that students in urban settings are not achieving at high levels. Over the past twenty years, large urban districts have attempted to restructure massive school systems using educational policymaking processes that have focused on school structures, standards-driven curriculum, and test-based accountability measures.…