Grounded in solid theory with new field-tested classroom activities, the fourth edition of "Critical Encounters in Secondary English" continues to help teachers integrate the lenses of contemporary literary theory into practices that have always defined good pedagogy. The most significant change for this edition is the addition of a full…

There is a growing body of research arguing that, alongside education in climate science literacy, our education systems need a deeper, broader, and more interdisciplinary education in climate literacy. Specifically, the push is to reframe climate literacy from a narrow competence taught in science classes to a broad socioscientific and cultural…

The centennial of the First World War has offered instructors across the humanities an exciting opportunity to enhance students' disciplinary expertise while reflecting on the significance of an event that continues to shape the world today. Drawing on established courses on the history and literature of the war, respectively, the authors designed…

Complex global challenges and declining scientific literacy demand novel approaches to engaging students with science and the natural world. While evidence supports integrating creative and scientific modes of inquiry, these approaches are often separated in undergraduate education. We designed Ecology Through the Writer's Lens (ETWL) to allow…

In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences of integrating visual arts, specifically painting, into an English language arts curriculum. Although each of them had previously used art as a response to literature with our students, neither of them had before collaborated with professional artists or been as intentional about…

How can the best of mathematical problem-based learning be applied toward literature classes? Daniel Sussman, an English teacher at Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, discusses how he uses problem solving tactics to encourage close, critical reading of fiction texts in his Jewish literature and poetry classes. He explores the challenges of…

By examining sports-related plots and motifs in the traditional study of literature, students can think deeply about the role(s) athletics should play in their education, the impact of sports on their ideas about character development, masculinity/femininity, race/ethnicity, and connections between sports and politics, economics, media, and…

This article discusses ways literature is taught at the university. It describes a gap in the way English is often taught in literature programs and the way future teachers are taught to teach English to secondary students. It argues for teaching literature in ways that might be good for majors in both fields, ways that support the work valued by…

This article presents a "telling case" of an interdisciplinary, team-teaching experience that explores how participants eschewed "ethnocentricism" of their fields of study in order to learn from each other, while providing instruction to students and analysing data collected from the class (a graduate course on literature and…

In this essay, we explore how the same theories and metaphors' used historically to describe the frontier, are useful ways of thinking about both team teaching and English studies as an interdisciplinary field. Defining the frontier as both imprecise and liminal encourages the students, as well as the instructors, to work within an open space of…

Five middle school teachers are among the few people wandering around the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, squinting at labels describing the plants that will bloom soon. The author and her colleagues are on a reconnaissance mission, trying to plan an interdisciplinary field trip for the seventh grade. They represent different departments--science, math,…

Interdisciplinary concepts and methodology are increasingly common in today's secondary schools. However, many interdisciplinary lessons combine courses in related areas (e.g., English with history or science with mathematics). This article examines the use of mathematical ideas in the teaching of literature and writing. Employing mathematical…

The authors describe findings from a research synthesis on content area instruction for students with disabilities. Seventy studies were identified from a comprehensive literature search, examined, and coded for a number of variables, including weighted standardized mean-difference effect sizes. More than 2,400 students were participants in these…

This article provides a review of research on African American children's literature by synthesizing the growing body of textual and reader response research conducted across the past several decades. The literature presented in this article cuts across the disciplines of education as well as English and library science. Using the selective…

Shakespeare's plays are the apex of western achievement in the humanities and as such afford a highly fertile mechanism for teaching gifted elementary and secondary students. Studying Shakespeare facilitates the understanding of an earlier form of the English language and illustrates the evolutionary nature of language. Aside from a sense of…