This article employs the use of black textualities to reimagine an English classroom designed to cultivate critically conscious students. The author argues that a critically conscious classroom engages students in self-determination, citizenship formation, and strategic activism, and further argues that black textualities are perfect for…

Since "English Journal's" (EJ's) founding in 1912, contributors have asked how literature shapes students' ethics, or morals. Ethics, on this account, is about people's ways of imagining and leading good lives. EJ authors explore how reading literature can help students see themselves and the wider world in light of visions of the good…

In this article, the authors describe how integrating music with reading and writing practices stimulated transmediation to (1) honor musical students' identities, (2) deepen readers' meaning making with literature, and (3) invite writers' memories to generate emotional grist for composing poetry. The authors share examples to inspire teachers to…

Research in English education needs further exploration on the purposeful implementation of death and grief within English curriculum. In this article Lori D. Ungemah examines how, as a high school English teacher, she integrated death and grief into a unit of study with her eleventh- grade English class. She discusses how her curriculum…

According to the author, prior to a move, their classroom was overflowing with stuff on the walls, on the shelves, under the tables, in the file cabinets, and in the folders upon folders in their computer drive. It wasn't just the author's physical and virtual spaces that were full; their curriculum units were packed with lessons and activities,…

The author was invited as a teaching artist into a first-grade classroom in New York City to teach a 14-session poetry residency culminating in an anthology of student writing. They began by sitting together on a carpet by the interactive whiteboard and read aloud several examples of "I wish" poems from Kenneth Koch's (1970) wonderful…

This article shares what the author has learned as a high school English teacher and researcher from speaking with teachers and high school and college students over the past five years about what sort of feedback has been most helpful in students' development as writers. When examining the data and looking for overlapping themes in responses, six…

In this article, the author encourages educators and researchers to foreground the voices and experiences of youth and youth culture in discussions about power and privilege in canonical and contemporary texts. The article lists components that are critical as the discussion ensues about whether secondary teachers should or should not be allowed…

This article explores three ways a teacher incorporated text sets into her seventh-grade classroom to foster authentic inquiry. Student reflections suggest this approach helped them cultivate questioning, researching, and cooperative learning skills that became lasting habits of inquiry and helped them succeed on core tests.

This article details how English classrooms might be reconceptualized as content creation sites where digital video (DV) composing enhances workshop approaches to English instruction. The author draws from a year-long study of a technology-rich twelfth-grade English classroom designed as a DV workshop at a diverse first-ring suburban school…

Referencing Freire, Ladson-Billings's approach to "culturally relevant pedagogies," and Moje et al.'s "third space," this memoir details an American English educator's transformation from inexperienced instructor to lifelong student.

In this article, a team of university-based researchers and ESL teachers describes how English learners in a high school responded to Poetry Inside Out -- a poetry -- and translation-based literacy curriculum.

The authors argue that to help beginning teachers improve their practice, they (as teacher educators) must acknowledge their ongoing development toward becoming professional educators in the school communities they inhabit and with the students they serve. This piece cites numerous examples of teachers reflecting over a two-year period on their…

In this article Deidre Faughey shares an experimental classroom project that she developed with a diverse group of students in three ninth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) classes. Podcasts provide a unique opportunity for students to embrace experimentation and to take risks with their own voices, explore the school building and community, and…

According to the author, as our abilities to combine image and text become more sophisticated and ubiquitous, digital storytelling is a powerful means for sharing those stories. Digital storytelling is a perfect way to remix stories. To present American literature as relevant to students' lives, the author rewrote their curriculum using backwards…