Many teachers tirelessly grapple with topics of text selection, evaluation, and comprehension--examining elements of diversity, quality, and kid appeal to empower teachers to select titles for classrooms through a critical lens--under a mandated scripted curriculum. The purpose of this column is to explore and draw upon teachers' knowledge around…

'Suturing Language' argues that cut-up poetry enacts a simultaneous practice of close-reading and close-writing. As an embodied and ecological practice of creative writing, cut-up poetry draws together contexts from social, cultural, and academic writing. In turn, the writing process offers a way to open the classroom to the contexts that creative…

Teachers in any discipline where reading matters should practice a robust scaffolding pedagogy to teach critical reading, in contrast to the more common but less direct approaches that often leave students to learn or not learn these skills themselves. In this essay, I describe how to adapt established methods for teaching writing (including…

In this article, I discuss how I pair the close reading of choice, high-interest, young adult literature (YAL) with the creative writing of young adult stories in a preservice English teacher preparation programme. This paired reading and writing is used to have preservice teachers (PSTs) engage with identities, communities, and stories of their…

This research explores how picturebooks can enhance ecocritical awareness and sustainable attitudes among 97 primary school children aged 8-9 in a Spanish school. The study includes 24 reading sessions in three formats: individual, small group, and adult-mediated. The selection of the corpus for children's readings aligns with theoretical studies…

In the 21st century, the term "critical" has attached itself to numerous aspects of literacy research. However, what critical means remains commonly anchored to Freire and a primary critical reading practice--suspicious critique. Expanding critical literacy research (CLR), this article advances "reading orientations" as a…

Author Gwen J. Pauloski introduces four flexible adolescent literacy practices that help secondary students make deeper sense of the complex informational texts they encounter in school and beyond. Adolescent readers learn age-appropriate comprehension strategies and practice applying them as they discuss, analyze, and write about their reading.…

Inspired by common read projects, wherein first-year students read a shared text as a means of acclimating to the university community, our writing program adopted a project introducing students to bell hooks' 'Teaching With Love' through an empathy-based pedagogy. The researchers, with faculty participants, used a heuristic method of indwelling…

This paper introduces readers to the field of narrative medicine to build a bridge to the field of English teacher education. After seeking an urgent change in the ways medical students were being taught to engage with their own practice and patients, a Columbia University physician and scholar developed a practice that trained future doctors in…

In South African secondary schools, critical reading is encouraged by the CAPS policy document, but still some learners, even at university level, find it difficult to utilise critical reading, a skill that is believed by scholars to promote critical thinking skills. This alternative, valuable kind of text study called critical reading escalates…

The new multimodal reading ecosystem currently contributes to the proposal of forms of mediation that take into account the hybridization of digital and analog paradigms. In this context, illustrated books intended for children can constitute an area of interest, since their discursive and aesthetic codes contribute to the development of…

In the era of remote learning courses, the humanities instructor struggled more than most to translate the many familiar techniques of close reading to the unfamiliar realm of technology. Oftentimes instructors have depended on facsimiles of traditional methods: a shared passage annotated by the class digitally, or small groups sent to individual…

This narrative inquiry explores the author's attempt to teach Henry James's novella "The Turn of the Screw" in a high school English class, making the celebration of confusion -- in the tradition of John Dewey -- the cornerstone of the experience. The students' interpretive discourse is analysed, prompting reflection on promising…

In the English classroom, narrative writing is often separated from the work of reading literature or used merely to coax reluctant students into discussing textually relevant topics. This article discusses a close writing activity, Image Explosion, that engages students in narrative writing that brings attention to the smallest details of…

Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Communication Theory, Communication Research Methods, Introduction to Communication Studies. Objectives: This is an introductory exercise that acquaints students with rhetorical criticism as a means of communication inquiry. By the end of the exercise, students will be able to: understand symbols as connected and…