To engage in critical praxis, teachers of literary response writing need concepts and methods for understanding the efficacy of teaching practices in helping students develop particular dispositions towards texts and the social issues they represent. In this article, the author uses concepts from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and Systemic…

This qualitative, multi-case study investigates veteran, dual-language teachers in urban elementary schools in the Southwest United States and how these teachers manage to continue teaching despite education "reforms" that have contributed to increased attrition among their peers. Each participant contributed qualitative data through a…

Is there a way of reading literature that is specialized for teaching? Research into the teaching of mathematics has identified a specialized form of content knowledge (SCK, Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008) that is significantly linked to student learning (Hill, Ball, & Rowan, 2005). Despite the centrality of literature to the teaching of…

"Drawing Conclusions" explores the use of juxtaposed visual representations (JVRs) to help preservice teachers grapple with abstract concepts, theories, or complex controversies in education. Acting as both a learning tool and an intellectual spark, JVRs are two simple contrasted sketches that students produce on a divided sheet of…

The writing achievement of English learners (ELs) is often lower than that of other subgroups (Fry, 2007, 2008). To address this gap, a partnership was formed between university faculty and doctoral students and educators at an urban PK-8 school with a majority EL population. Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a guide, the team…

Many K-12 teachers struggle to meet the needs of diverse learners as school reforms promote new disciplinary literacy requirements. In response, language education scholars have argued that teachers must develop "disciplinary linguistic knowledge" (DLK), or an understanding of language in their content area and an ability to design…

This article draws its data from a collaborative intervention project "Expanding Textual Repertoires," which sought to help English teachers develop their students' higher-order work with language and texts in Singapore secondary schools. The focus is on the strategy of weaving, a form of connection-making which involves the deliberate…

This paper is a review of literature presenting instructional strategies--based on normative as well as empirical arguments--which have proven to be effective in envisioning what "all" teachers need to know and be able to do to teach English language arts (ELA) to English language learners (ELLs). The studies selected for review address…

In drama-oriented English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms, teachers often ask questions to shape the story, unveil the details, sequence the scenes, create a beneficial linguistic environment to elicit student output and promote meaning negotiation in the target language. This study investigates how instructional goals were achieved in an…

Christensen discusses why teachers need to teach students "voice" in its social and political context, to show the intersection of voice and power, to encourage students to ask, "Whose voices get heard? Whose are marginalized?" As Christensen writes, "Once students begin to understand that Standard English is one language among many, we can help…

As classrooms across the U.S. are becoming increasingly more multilingual and multicultural, there is a need for research that provides insight into literacy instruction that builds on students' linguistic knowledge. The qualitative study of a fourth-grade dual-language classroom examined the ways that peer mediation in Spanish and English…

In this article, the author shares his notes toward a shared future for National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). He discusses how activism has been at the heart of both organizations, how language activism in particular has separated NCTE and CCCC--and brought them together, and…

A number of arguments appeared in the late-nineteenth-century United States about "correctness" in language, arguments for and against enforcing a standard of correctness and arguments about what should count as correct in language. Insofar as knowledge about and facility with "correct" linguistic usage could affect one's standing in the social…

Bilingual education has been a focus in Taiwan especially alter the educational reform in 2002 (Ministry of Education, 2003). With the educational reform, many teaching methods and approaches had been explored and implemented recently to enhance English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education. The traditional teaching approaches focused on the…

This dissertation addresses the need for effective teaching approaches in a society with increasing numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. The focus of this study is on teachers' linguistic and cultural competency (LCC), which I define as teachers' critical thinking and sensitivity concerning issues of language and…