During the fall of 2019, the chaotic American political landscape was charged with scandal, debate, and accusations. As a result, students would often bring local and national politics into the authors' high school English language arts (ELA) classes. Instead of ignoring the students' heated debates in the classroom, the authors decided to embrace…

In this article the author first defines high- quality text- based discussions. Then, he demonstrates how talk in the language of comfort meets the definition of high- quality discussion. Next, he illustrates how teachers can encourage and support students to discuss texts using their language of comfort. The examples of discussions come from two…

The author pushes two desks together in the front of the class and pile supplies on them: markers, drawing paper, rulers, and pencils. As the students enter a combined English language arts (ELA) and English as a New Language (ENL) tenth-grade classroom, they select what they need and settle in to their work. As an ELA educator who is also a…

This article explores how choral reading can be used as a drama tool in a classroom setting to engage students with nonfiction rhetoric while adhering to the Common Core State Standards.

During English class on January 18, 2007, Santo and his tenth-grade classmates were invited to evaluate a set of published, youth-authored texts. Inside one of these texts was a sex advice column. In this article, the author is concerned with the ways conceptions of adolescence and sexuality take hold in and beyond the English curriculum. Through…

This article examines the power of composing images as students construct identities and shape their own worlds. It illustrates student empowerment through agency, intellectual engagement, and community investment and suggests that composing with images forms a bridge back to alphabetic-centric composing.

Throughout this article, we explore how multiple arts-based learning strategies (ABLS) helped subvert traditional literacy methods. We ask two large questions: (1) How, as critically conscious educators, might we break down inherent institutionalized oppressive structures and have an education of liberation and freedom? (2) What can we say about…

The authors challenged a group of mixed-ability tenth-grade students to use complex, evocative images and class discussion to "see" how readers make meaning with literary texts.

The authors used vocabulary activities, photographs, group work, and writing with tenth-grade students to unpack a commission report on violence associated with housing desegregation in 1950s Chicago to deepen students' engagement with Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun."

This article offers playwriting and other arts-based literacies as dynamic and multifaceted alternatives to the traditional high school research paper. The authors present an analysis of what happened when a teacher asked students to conduct research on a human rights issue and represent their research in a five-scene play. They contend that…

Interest in study skills, one of the older realms of educational research, is enjoying a resurgence. Several forces in the field have fueled renewed interest in how learners can best use academic, organizational, and time-management skills to master content. As teacher leaders at a high school, the authors remain in contact with many of their…

This article describes how adolescent students learn to question their lives and contexts through the "Crossing Boundaries" podcast assignment. In the assignment, the students pick a topic, design a project, interview at least one other individual, and analyze their data. The students do not realize they are engaging in original…

According to the authors, teachers often read about inspiring lessons in which historically marginalized students find their voices through assignments and projects that centralize issues of importance to the student. This article describes the authors' revision of a persuasive writing unit to scaffold not only writing skills but also students'…

This article details the authors' success in using youth as a construct to facilitate literary analysis skills among high school students who claimed not to like reading--and who demonstrated difficulty with reading comprehension. The authors provide descriptions of the analysis activities in which the students participated.

Like many 21st-century youth, students attending urban schools operate in a cultural milieu where social networking sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram have become the lived environments where young people display information and ideas, establish camaraderie or feuds, and share conversations and perspectives from the imaginative to the…