This article describes a community action student- led project that features authentic writing and engagement to increase motivation. The article highlights important instructional strategies for implementing community action projects and the resulting student learning. The article concludes with the authors' reflections and observations.

The language of leadership includes the ability to communicate effectively, a teacher's curricular goals and innovative practices, to a school district's administration, personnel, colleagues, students, parents, school board members, and other community constituents. This article focuses on explicitly teaching the language of leadership to novice…

Storytelling can help youth, families, and communities make sense of their experiences, allowing them to process the past and plan their futures (Bruner; Flores; Jones). The authors argue that the practice of storytelling in biographical learning can be especially powerful when working with youth of color and Indigenous youth--children whose…

This article, based on a study in a sixth-grade middle school classroom in the rural southern United States, details a writing project that questions the nature of text and how text might positively affect students' perceptions as they become change agents for their communities.

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.

Project "Green Footprint" is a local community environment project created by fifth-grade students to remind the citizens of their school (and Earth) to tread lightly on Mother Nature's creations. The students chose to focus on the air quality outside the school, specifically the carbon emissions produced by idling cars. Students complete Internet…

The author describes what happened when he and his students spent a day with Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." By reentering the novel and moving along with it, the students pushed at or pushed away some academic boundaries, and re-discovered the fun and power of reading.

While the overall school-age population grew by only 2.6 percent between 1995 and 2005, the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) grew by 56 percent--a number that can only be expected to grow considerably in the near future. Mainstream literacy professionals across the country, typically monolingual European American women, struggle to…

In this article, the authors address a high school's need for an updated technology policy that would allow educators to move from confiscating technology to teaching students how and when to use it. By replacing their technology policy with a courtesy policy, the authors describe how they made a huge step toward teaching students to do the right…

Recommends writing about education for local newspapers in order to gain experience in finding a voice, meeting deadlines, and becoming aware of the community as an audience. (EL)

Describes the procedure used by the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Public Schools to deal with censorship problems. (JL)

Offers five tips to the English teacher for improving public relations: (1) understand the community, (2) be informed, (3) educate administrators, (4) involve the public, and (5) use plain English. (RL)

Suggests four steps schools can take to defuse censorship controversies. (DD)

Presents a list of suggestions for using the telephone that intend to make the most of opportunities to strengthen the bond between the school and the community. (EL)

Chris Davis and Jennifer Davis embrace the teaching environment of their science and technology magnet school. Using their students? skills in Web development, PowerPoint, Photoshop, and other technologies, the authors create lessons that help students ?make connections with one another and with the community.?