Students need support to learn Next Generation Science practices that include use of such texts as investigative records and datasets, analyses and arguments, and works of other scientists. This article describes secondary school science teachers' curation and support of students' multimodal text use during their development of a library of…

While culturally responsive texts have become more common in teacher education, too often, preservice teachers (PTs) are not asked to examine how to use these books pedagogically. To address this issue, in a young adult (YA) literature course, the Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) (Muhammad, 2000)…

This research study explores the role of social annotation in supporting dialogic teaching in secondary English language arts. Grounded in Bakhtin's dialogism and building upon research into online discussion, this study describes how a high school English teacher and her students used a digital annotation tool to read and talk about texts.…

The authors share design principles from a middle school social studies unit that explored questions of local history and engaged students in extended work with complex texts. The unit involved constructing a problem space for students to explore multiple historical texts. Within that problem space, students had opportunities to develop focal…

This case study explores the understandings that seventh graders constructed with Gothic texts in a reading unit designed by the researcher. Gothic is a fictional genre defined by horror and mystery. The stories' protagonists are often marginalized individuals. The genre was selected due to its popularity with adolescents. Qualitative data were…

Introduction of the Common Core State Standards and assessments like the synthesis performance task pose new challenges for secondary English teachers. As students of all ability levels engage with complex text and in tasks that target higher level cognitive skills, teachers need strategies to support their understanding. This article describes…

This article describes a qualitative case study, conducted at a high school in the Southwestern United States, that follows a veteran teacher as he develops and implements a two-week unit on "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald using flipped classroom methods. The researcher collected data while the teacher used this method for the…

The field of content area literacy instruction is shifting from a general understanding of literacy towards disciplinary literacy. Much of the work in the field of disciplinary literacy has focused on reading, while writing has often been overlooked. This article summarizes the findings of a qualitative case study of two preservice teachers as…

We show how coauthor, Delainia Haug, and her students use Web 2.0 technologies in educational and empowering ways. We offer an account of Delainia's purposes for her curriculum, along with units of study and students' responses to this curriculum. We argue that the curriculum, which focused on media analysis and production, engaged students--many…

Critical literacy is usually described as a theory with implications for practice, rather than as a distinctive instructional methodology. Critical literacy proponents warn against a too narrowly conceived curricular approach and advocate innovative local solutions. In order to provide exemplars for local adaptation, the author examines 35…

Describes one middle school's two-week end-of-school-year unit called Community Studies, in which students select several activities (from more than 40, many of them outdoors), which are assessed through portfolios. (SR)

Describes a unit in four steps that meets the challenge of teaching history in a meaningful way by incorporating role-playing with historical investigation. Hopes for each student to breathe life into a person from the past. Discusses the benefits of role-playing biographies. (SG)

Describes an integrated thematic unit designed for readers in grades 8 to 10. Contains a four- to six-week plan that encompasses reading strategies, inquiry projects, and assessment tools and includes an activity map (based on Jennifer Armstrong's "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the…

Presents an observational study of two middle-grade social studies classrooms to explore how teachers and students used nonfiction trade books during thematic unit instruction. Finds that, treated like textbooks and encyclopedias, the books were not used to their full potential. Makes recommendations that will help teachers use nonfiction. (SR)

Shares the highlights of a teaching unit on bullying along with the effects it had on students and on the current teaching environment. Presents three sections representing prereading, during-reading, and postreading activities that teachers can implement in their own classrooms. Discovers that students were capable of taking a story to a higher…