Within the past 2 decades, comics and graphic novels have garnered attention for their educative possibilities. However, scholars recognize that comics and graphic novels have yet to reach their fullest potential within educational settings, highlighting the need to explore further pedagogical strategies for integrating and critically engaging…

Critical approaches to literature in secondary English require greater attention to narrative discourse. In this conceptual article, I provide interpretative tools from contemporary narratology and demonstrate their critical potential for high school English. In particular, I outline critical literacy's vital but overattentive focus on the…

Independent reading is more than just "drop everything and read" -- it is a gateway to writing, critical thinking, discussion, and deeper learning. Author Jarred Amato, an accomplished middle and high school English teacher and founder of Project LIT Community, believes in the power of independent reading not only to turn around the…

This study aims to understand how prospective first-generation college students develop their perceptions of college engagement before college attendance through secondary sources. A group of high school students were assigned to read a college-themed mystery novel and rank a series of statements relating to college engagement before and after the…

This case study utilized poetic inquiry, a qualitative research methodology, to explore the reading experiences of 13 postgraduate high school students from various North Texas high schools. After selecting and reading young adult novels featuring protagonists who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex,…

Contributing to a growing body of research on acknowledging U.S. imperialism within teacher education, this article explores how knowledge production on Iran--and U.S.-Iran relations more broadly--in secondary education represents a site of what Britzman has called difficult knowledge. Here, the difficulty of classroom engagements with the theme…

This classroom-based qualitative study examines a multiliteracies approach to teaching Young Adult Literature graphic novels and memoirs within a five-week book club study unit that took place within a twelfth-grade secondary English language arts classroom in an urban school in the Southwest. It explores the teaching and take up of several…

The purpose of this study was to gauge the effects of offering LGBTQIA+ novels to students in an English Language Arts and Reading high school setting. Most novel options for students come from old books available in the school's book closet consisting of antiquated stories offering little in the way of diversity. Students are more likely to be…

This article explores the pedagogical potential of closely reading and writing hardboiled detective fiction in a Canadian secondary English Language Arts classroom. Grounded in narrative theory and co-taught with a local high-school teacher, the unit focused on the cynical narration and stylistic elements of authors like Raymond Chandler and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is an exploration of stories told by multilingual students participating in a literacy project in a secondary English course as part of a larger three year practitioner inquiry study, in which the author analyzed students' literacy project to create a culturally responsive English curriculum. In this paper, the…

This paper extends research that looks at the intersection of multimodal composing and maker education. We present findings from a fourth iteration of a multidisciplinary classroom design study in which high school youth made digital comics based on literary novels in an 11th grade language arts classroom in a predominantly Hispanic, low-SES,…

Technological developments in various fields are the key to progress in the digital era. The utilization of technology-based learning media in education makes learning more interactive and supports independent learning. This study aims to develop and test the practicality and effectiveness of storyline-based nervous system e-comics media to…

The authors examined secondary English teachers' values and beliefs about text selection (canonical versus modern and young adults) when working with emergent bilinguals. Findings showed that the tensions teachers identified were focused on whose literacy actions the teachers wanted to prioritize in the classroom: those of the students or those of…

This study aims to describe the use of reference grammatical cohesion markers in the novel "Khotbah di Atas Bukit" (Sermon on the Hill) by Kuntowijoyo. The data used are sentences that have reference grammatical cohesion. The data collecting technique used involved conversation observation technique. A distributional method is used to…

In this manuscript, the authors examine three young adult novels using critical literacy as a lens for addressing issues of power and justice around sexual violence and the actions taken by characters to make social change in their fictional schooling contexts. This piece uses scholarship around youth activism in young adult literature to engage…