Not every teacher should serve as a mentor teacher (MT), and there are certainly those who are considered excellent teachers who did not find success in that role, often struggling to turn over aspects of classroom instruction to their mentees. With the current testing and accountability regime, some teachers are reluctant to leave their test…

Sometimes an enthusiast might confuse enthusiasm for competence. Related experiences and a sense of commitment can suggest that mentors are positioned to do something well, even when they have had no genuine preparation for the task. In this article, the author warns them that their experience as teachers by itself may be insufficient preparation…

This article provides readers with five lessons the author has learned over the years as a mentor teacher to several preservice teachers: (1) Build confidence; (2) Be patient, flexible, and honest; (3) Listen and learn; (4) Be ready for extra work; and (5) Embrace the experience. Included in her reflective thoughts are comments from two of her…

Trust is a central component of caring, reciprocal relationships among teachers and students. It goes beyond teachers caring solely about students' academic achievement and includes caring about what matters deeply to students, their families, and their communities. To examine the importance of teachers creating trusting relations with their…

The cooperating teachers who make the greatest positive impact on interns allow student teachers to make mistakes and learn from them, offer constructive feedback, invest in their student teachers' success, practice current pedagogy in their own classrooms, and remain positive throughout the experience. In this article, the author suggests that…

How might team teaching, young adult novels, and zines work together to engage students in thinking about, writing about, and building community? Four researchers worked with three eighth-grade English teachers and one student teacher to find out. The four eighth-grade English teachers teach as a team, meeting formally at least once a week to plan…

Teachers of writing strive for authenticity. When they ask students to write, they want it to be for authentic purposes. When they engage students in writing processes, they want those to be authentic processes. When they ask students to compose a particular kind of text, thye want those texts to be authentic genres reflecting authentic writing…

As student teachers and new teachers enter the rich, historied culture of their English departments, they are listening and looking intently for cues about how they fit in. Sadly, recent scholarship indicates that many teachers never actually find a satisfactory fit. According to Richard Ingersoll, almost 50% of new teachers quit before they reach…

Nearly every teacher will experience loss and grief during their years in the classroom. And yet, too often the profession assumes that English language arts (ELA) teachers must hide the emotions that accompany loss. In this article the authors share strategies for supporting English teachers in making sense of their grieving experiences and…

There are no easy formulas or set rules for how to best teach writing. While the teacher should teach the rules of writing within whole-class lectures, aspects of diversity such as culture, race, class, ability, and gender require teachers to approach students as individuals. This article explores the impact of three key approaches when working…

The tension between teachers' desires to instill independence in students, and students' desires for teachers to provide answers, is a complex one. This article explores a lesson that, with virtually no guidance from the teacher, enhances student independence, engagement, and insight.

During the last several years as a teacher educator mentoring new teachers, the author has worked on two programs of research that included ways of focusing early-career teachers on students and their learning. These research programs shed light on needs of new teachers and ways mentor questioning and processes of classroom inquiry can have an…

According to a 2009 AP-MTV survey of 1,247 people ages 14-24, 50% of those surveyed have experienced cyberbullying (Gatti 1). Victims were twice as likely to need help from a mental health professional and were three times more likely to drop out of school than those surveyed who did not report being cyberbullied (5). Given this alarming social…

This article describes how four English language arts teachers formed an inquiry group to design approaches to writing assessment that would support and foster student writers' agency, empowerment, and freedom. They hoped that by focusing assessment on students' articulation of their writing processes rather than on rubrics or final products, they…

Teaching in multilingual classrooms is the new normal. This article provides a sense of the multilingual nature of public schools and offers suggestions for interactions in multilingual classrooms that are both caring and effective.