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…

This piece explores how moving from grammar instruction to language study empowers students and their writing. To shift perspective and re-envision how language discussion can begin in the classroom, suggestions are offered with power dynamics and contextual needs of real communication situations. The authors detail activities that draw on…

Words are more than a string of sounds and letters that denote a particular meaning. Linguistic anthropologist Judith T. Irvine contends that speaking is a social activity where the relationship of language, culture, and society is enacted (249). Linguist Deborah Cameron defines language ideology in "Verbal Hygiene" as the notions,…

Recounting a successful means of introducing other Englishes, the author encourages understanding and acceptance of devalued Englishes among mainstream-English-speaking students.

This article raises the reality of English as a naturally variant and fluid language inseparable from culture. The author addresses the tensions teachers face in the classroom when they make decisions about how African American students should use their language.

The author argues that English teachers are in a unique position to respond to death through writing, reading, and speaking. She describes four experiences and offers specific, language-based responses guided by experience and literature.

The authors identify the necessity of focusing on and pluralizing understandings of transgender youth experiences and trans-specific topics. This is especially important for preservice teachers, who will be the ones to have similar discussions with their own students in the future. The authors describe a series of classroom activities and…

In this article, a team of university-based researchers and ESL teachers describes how English learners in a high school responded to Poetry Inside Out -- a poetry -- and translation-based literacy curriculum.

Picture a group of classroom teachers gathered around a table late one afternoon discussing the results of the statewide writing assessment, the returned scored papers scattered across the table top. This article details research exploring which rhetorical elements are associated with statewide assessment scores and considers the role and…

This piece looks at how banned books can offer an illuminating glimpse into social constructions of "healthy" and "normal" adolescent development. Unease with certain materials and topics in the secondary classroom can provide productive points of inquiry for both teachers and students.

The authors of this article discuss how they used a culturally relevant pedagogical framework, digital media, and an emphasis on collaboration to push their students to consider how they might positively transform themselves and their neighborhoods.

This article interrogates some metaphors that Common Core State Standards (CCSS) proponents have used as arguments to characterize CCSS, and then checks the facts that others have amassed around the issue. The authors offer up considerations of metaphor as a rhetorical resistance strategy: Name, Frame, Fact (Check), and then Speak Up. Teachers…

The American edition of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" has significant changes from the original British version, and every word of a Harry Potter book in translation derives from a translator's decision-making process. Focusing students on British-to-American cultural translation problems in the Harry Potter series encourages…

In Chapter 3 of Moby Dick, Ishmael, in a "towering rage," questions his landlord concerning Queequeg, the savage "purple rascal" harpooner, he has yet to meet. "What sort of bamboozling story are you telling me?" he nervously asks after learning that Queequeg is peddling shrunken heads-- and on the Sabbath, no less…

It is important for students to understand and analyze political language so that they can be participatory members of a democratic society. This article stresses the importance of understanding and analyzing political language. The author claims that the mastery of such skills is what allows students to be participatory members of a democratic…