The personal essay remains pervasive in high school classrooms, but many curriculum leaders have shifted to stressing the importance of evidence-based, argumentative writing. Some teachers have rightfully lamented this shift, noting that the evidence-based turn in writing instruction comes at the expense of student voice and expression. Students…

This article describes the implementation of blogging in ninth-grade pre-advanced placement language arts classes to support strong writing practices. In particular, the writing workshop's elements of student choice, continuing revision, discussion of craft, publication, and process orientation meshed well with digital composition. Blogging in the…

In a nation and political climate where models of communication and respect for another's ideas are difficult to find, the authors take seriously their charge to support educational practices that prepare students to critically engage in a free and democratic society. As part of a summer high school outreach program, they sought to develop a…

Description of the techniques used to create relaxed environment in a high school acting class. (SP)

Claims students should be allowed to rank, rerank, and reshuffle thinking and then share their views with class members regarding poetry and poets before formal criticism is thrust upon them, and suggests teachers should be careful not to over-analyze and tell students about a poem's significance. (NH)

Describes how having students draw both their own and a literary character's reality not only introduces students, quite painlessly and concretely, to a large number of literary terms, but also suggests that literature appreciation demands an imaginative extension into the life of another. (MM)

Describes a program of creative writing and describes student objectives and teacher objectives that allow the experience to aid students in producing critical essays. (CRH)

Describes an elective English course in which modern rock music and contemporary poetry are used to motivate students to learn how to listen, to appreciate the sharp impact of poetry," and to write about their own feelings and responses. (Author/SW)

Suggests that perception is most vigorous and thus most amenable to organization when guided by teaching that places creativity before communication. (MM)