Purpose: This paper aims to explore the characteristics of playful literacies in case study research examining digital games in secondary English classrooms. It analyzes how educators use play as a resource for meaning-making and the impacts of play on student learning. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a keyword search in relevant…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine ways in which English language arts (ELA) teachers have exercised agency in response to policy changes that have been shaped by neoliberal education agendas that seek to further advance standardization and the primacy of measurability of teaching and learning. Design/methodology/approach: The authors posed the…

Purpose: This article presents an analysis of empirical literature on classroom assessment of students' multimodal compositions to characterize the field and make recommendations for teachers and researchers. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretive synthesis of the literature related to practices and possibilities for assessing students'…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore recent research (2007-2017) on the implementation of multimodal writing instruction in secondary English courses. It seeks to highlight the varied ways in which theoretical conceptions of multimodality have been implemented in writing instruction and the impacts of these implementations on students' experiences…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this century. Design/methodology/approach: The author reviews the work of Peter Medway. Findings: The paper addresses the issue of how his work reflected -- or not…

This article examines constructions of "American" identity and place in the first influential guides for English teaching published in the United States at the cusp of the 20th Century. It recovers how English teaching was to weaken youths' ties to more immediate people and places and to reorient their sense of self, others and the…

The intention of this article is to illustrate how assessment is an "emotional practice" (Hargreaves, 1998) for teachers and how paying attention to the emotions involved can provide useful information about assessment practices to teachers, teacher-educators and policy-reformers. Through presenting a review of research literature it makes three…