An inservice training session triggered a crisis of confidence for the author, a veteran teacher, but it also inspired the author to rethink their approach to teaching reading and writing. While the author attended a conference, the state presenter explained that the new curriculum represents "shifts" in philosophy about teaching…

Learning occurs when students engage in discursive processes that include actively considering the comments and perspectives of others, allowing for interpretation and explanation of the topics being discussed (Gillies). Teachers should "resist the urge to turn close reading into an independent activity. The point of close reading is to…

Inspired by Leslie David Burns and Stergios G. Botzakis's efforts to demonstrate how texts recognized as exemplars by the Common Core State Standards could be used to address national standards and meet the needs of contemporary students, the author aims to illustrate how alternative nonfiction, nonprint texts--sports-based documentary…

One World Education (OWEd) is a college-ready writing instruction program with the goal to ultimately have students participate in their own discourse communities. This qualitative analysis of One World Education reports on student and teacher impressions of the program by analyzing the results of surveys, informal interviews, and focus groups the…

When teachers engage student confidence in discerning visual metaphor and when they make students aware of their skills, they can teach them how to transfer the reading of the visual to the reading of text. This article details some activities for facilitating that transfer. Engaging and challenging visual activities can lead to an enhanced…

Explicit instruction helps students gain declarative knowledge as well as literacy strategies that support them in becoming competent readers. To facilitate this shift in reading so that teacher candidates might be more explicit in their instruction, the authors created a graphic organizer they call Reading for Teaching (RfT). They designed the…

In this article, the author presents two snapshots that document how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) influenced her writing instruction. She uses Dewey's concept of inquiry to frame the disastrous effects that high-stakes testing can have on the students with the greatest needs. Finally, she looks ahead to consider how the Common Core text exemplars…

The implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) across the country necessitates revising the English curriculum, asking teachers to incorporate and analyze more perspectives in the classroom as society becomes more diverse. The authors wondered if this reform might provide an opportunity to examine social equity by studying an anchor…