This reflective piece--written primarily to provoke discussion--raises some questions about and for the recent "creativity agenda" in educational policy in England, suggesting that something fundamental is missing. The author argues that "creativity" has characteristically been defined in recent policy discourse as a set of…

Since 1996, science education has been guided by the National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996). But now there's a "new sheriff in town" as the "Common Core State Standards" and "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" together become the 21st century's torch bearer for curricula reform in science and…

Here, the author looks at four diaries, more specifically three conventional diaries and a blog: "The Diary of a Young Girl," by Anne Frank; "Zlata's Diary," by Zlata Filipovic; and "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace" by Dang Thuy Tram. "Baghdad Burning" is the transcript of a web log, a blog, by a young Iraqi woman who went by the pseudonym…

K-12 teachers are often encouraged to develop their own writing projects and practices, in order to enrich their writing pedagogy and share knowledge with other educators. Yet, in pursuing their own writing, teachers face a number of constraints, not the least of which is limited time. These constraints may be particularly salient for beginning…

This paper presents a normative pragmatics analysis of students' use of science content in eight socioscientific group discussions about human gene therapy. The specific focus of the paper is on the argumentative role that invocations of science had in the dialectics of the discussions. The analysis suggests that science content occasionally…

In this article, the author discusses a four-part exercise called "To the Moon!" The exercise encourages students to develop and orally defend their choice of four volunteers who will be part of a team to colonize Earth's moon. This oral exercise prepares them for subsequent written work. As Bean (1996, 7) states, "Good writing...grows out of good…

Fanfiction is a world wherein fans create stories using characters, settings, and events from their favorite books, movies, or television shows. In fanfiction, all offstage events are possible, whether they take place before, during, or after the established action. There's no denying that fanfiction has a bad rep in some schools. For starters,…

This article presents the rationale for and implementation of the family message journal as a writing tool. The family message journal provides multiple opportunities for students to develop as writers while strengthening the school-home connection. This article provides examples of rhetorical moves that indicate young writers are aware of their…

There are those who agree with Tom Pettitt that we are entering into a period where text based literacy is no longer the only measure of intelligence, nor is it the only form of valuable communications and knowledge acquisition for today's media-centric children. As Prensky states, today's youth speak "digital" as their primary language. While his…

The influence of the Other on utterance is foundational to language study. This analysis contrasts this influence within two modes of communication: reflective writing and interview. The data source is derived from the reflective writings and interview transcripts of a twelfth-grade physics student. In this student's case, reflective writing…

The author elaborates a vision of classroom discourse that actively involves students and that uses students' explanations to develop mathematical ideas. The skills students develop reflect disciplinary learning in their ability to interact with ideas, offering evidence for their propositions, and reacting thoughtfully and constructively to…