Located in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, Trail Middle School serves a predominantly middle-class population. The data the authors feature in this article include group discussions and interviews with students, as well as recordings of in-class lessons, student work, and fieldnotes. The authors focus on the theme of gender as it emerged…

The authors examine photovoice projects created by students and teacher candidates who explored issues of gender in response to a young adult novel and co-researched that process. In this article, the photovoice projects the authors feature emerged from an ongoing initiative between the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University…

In this article, the authors argue that the format and content of graphic novels that depict LGBTQ experiences are a unique and effective pedagogical tool to engage students in critical discussions about gender and sexuality. Through analysis of two exemplar texts, teachers are offered a vocabulary and method for engaging in these conversations by…

Gender and sexuality norms, conscribed under heteropatriarchy--a history we never made--have colonized and established unstable social and educational climates for the "millennial" generation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, intersex, agender/ asexual, gender creative, and questioning youth (LGBT*IAGCQ[superscript M])(Miller). While…

The Bechdel test, the author's student Marley explained, is named for the US graphic novelist and cartoonist Alison Bechdel. To pass the test, a work of fiction must contain at least one scene in which two or more women (preferably named characters) discuss something other than a male. Students who read from the canon of works regularly encounter…

This piece describes an extended workshop in which reading, writing, listening, and speaking were used to build and sustain a feminist ecology intended to open up access to future lives in science for ethnically and linguistically diverse girls in an urban secondary school. The girls in the description above participated in a project called Girls…

In 2010, a number of suicides resulted in part because of bullying and cyberbullying. They include Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Eric Mohat, Meredith Rezak, Raymond Chase, and Billy Lucas. These students were gay and lesbian and felt that they had no other option than to take their own lives. Research shows that because…

Reading through her files, the author takes a journey back in time to 1991 when a few lesbians and gay men met in a conference room at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention in Seattle to discuss issues relating to their lives and their teaching. It was at this meeting that NCTE first discussed forming a new group…

Teachers who include intersex issues in their curricula can provide their intersex students with a sense of community. Intersex people, whether children, teenagers, or adults, often feel that they are going through their experiences absolutely alone. For them, realizing that there are others out there with similar experiences, facing similar…

"Missing Chapters: Ten Pioneering Women in NCTE and English Education" is the first historical text to explore the impact women have had on English education. It is true that women have been a vital part of National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) since the Council's founding in 1911 when 13 of the 34 founding members were women. As part of…

In this article, the author describes how he uses performance pedagogy to open students' minds to sexuality and gender issues. The author uses Tony Kushner's "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes"--an epic play about the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the gay community in the 1980s. Through the possibilities of drama available in…

Drawing on published scholarship and her own high school teaching, the author describes how works by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman can be used to integrate GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) issues into English classes. The author can't imagine a single high school that doesn't include Whitman and Dickinson at some point in its…

In an effort to ensure that students feel "safe" and "comfortable" in the classrooms, English teachers often avoid controversial topics, particularly issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality. The insidious hidden curriculum or the unintended consequences of what they choose to say or not say--teach or not teach--can have as much or more impact…

The idea for a professional development book group emerged from the authors ongoing conversations with colleagues about how teachers can gain the understanding necessary not only to foster and support gender variant and transgender students, but also incorporate these experiences into their curriculum in a meaningful way. In this article, the…

Four teachers share their lessons for drawing students into a critical examination of race, class, gender, and sexual identity. They strive to heighten students' awareness of ways literature "and gendered patterns in the world foreground or silence groups of people or issues," and they offer students and teachers tools for change. (Contains 1…