Drawing on the experiences of teaching Beloved in an elite, college preparatory context, the following research paper works towards alternative approaches to teaching trauma and difficult histories. After exploring some of the limitations and applications of the education as séance approach, this paper constructs a framework for teaching difficult…

This article describes literacy practices and outdoor activities in high school English classrooms--framed as critical rambling, a pedagogy seeking to raise awareness of issues like climate justice--with illustrations from a dissertation of teacher research and additional student work.

In language arts classrooms, dialogic teaching encourages diverse text interpretations, fostering discussions that enhance students' literacy skills like reasoning. However, adopting a dialogic stance poses challenges for both teachers and students. The study investigated the impact of a tailor-made dialogic intervention on a Chinese rural teacher…

This conceptual article makes the argument that the fields of English language arts and composition studies require a more robustly elaborated theoretical perspective on the identity development of preservice teachers as teachers of writing due to the rapid proliferation of AI-assisted technologies in learning spaces. Thus, the authors utilized…

Given the importance of teaching and learning argumentation, across disciplines for participation in academic and civil discourse, this article examines how dialogic space is created and sustained in classrooms where argument is taught and learned and, when it is created, what affordances it brings to learning argumentation. Dialogic space is a…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of secondary English language arts teachers implementing personalized learning in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Teachers who personalize learning must currently determine their own method of doing so without adequate research about the process to inform…

Personally and professionally, the author shares experiences with school safety and how the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom may utilize middle grade novels to address gun violence with adolescents. Highlighting five middle grade novels that address school shootings--Katherine Erskine's (2011) "Mockingbird," Emily Barth Isler's…

Communities have their own set of cultural values that make their way into their classrooms and serve as criteria for the labeling of "insider" or "outsider." This article describes how critical empathy can allow the barriers between these constructs to be broken down as students are given the chance not only to listen but to…

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…

In this article, I discuss how I pair the close reading of choice, high-interest, young adult literature (YAL) with the creative writing of young adult stories in a preservice English teacher preparation programme. This paired reading and writing is used to have preservice teachers (PSTs) engage with identities, communities, and stories of their…

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Education is one of the approaches that teachers adopt as they shift from content delivery focused teaching to skills development teaching. Also, effective STEAMING requires connection to issues outside the classroom (outdoor STEAM) and hence the coinage of the term Transdisciplinary…

This paper presents research that examined teacher talk about moderation of English, mathematics and science assessment across Years 4, 6 and 8 as part of a broader inquiry into the use of scaled exemplars to support consistency of teacher judgement. The paper draws on Dorothy E Smith's sociological work, including the process of mapping textual…

Knowledge development, application, and refinement are essential parts of students' reading. One way to observe how students use their knowledge as they read is through talk. Studies routinely indicate that though reading is a social endeavor, teachers spend most of the allotted instructional time talking or using discourse patterns that do not…

This study explores how English Language Arts (ELA) teachers' experiences with grief shape their approach to teaching tragic texts that explore themes of loss and tragedy. By analyzing teachers' narratives, we examine how their emotional responses to personal losses influence their pedagogical practices when dealing with tragic literature.…

Augmented reality (AR) technology has opened up new possibilities for interactive and immersive learning experiences, where students can visualize abstract concepts and engage with digital objects in real-time. In this study, a real-time AR-based system is developed and, unlike other studies, incorporates sound effects that will play when the…