In this article, the author reflected on the challenges and opportunities that emerged as they introduced climate fiction, or cli-fi reading and writing into the curriculum, including the author's attempts to navigate the politics of the genre, activate the students' imagination and interest, and invite the students to become creators as well as…

Process texts are published works that pull back the curtain on composition to show the techniques, tools, technologies, procedures, and/or inspirations of the creative process. Process texts also emerge mostly from nonfiction genres including memoirs, documentary films, and podcasts. In this article, educator Jason Griffith shares ways teachers…

Authentic writing allows students to write for audiences other than the teacher for reasons that matter to them and that lead to changing how an audience thinks, feels, or acts. How can teachers prioritize authentic writing instruction and help students become successful writers? Lauren Esposito does this through improv, an art form that develops…

After ten years of public school teaching and countless student teaching observations, the author knows firsthand that English language arts (ELA) teachers are committed to teaching researched argumentative writing and, further, they often frame their assignments as questions. In this article, the author proposes that ELA teachers accelerate…

This article describes a teacher's willingness to perform an autobiographical spoken word poem in his classroom, which provided an important model for students as they composed and shared their own slam-style poems.

Teaching a senior seminar on creative nonfiction led author Sarah Gompers to consider how she might help her students understand the concept of writing with vulnerability. All stages of the writing process must be explicitly taught, and this extends to something as basic as topic selection. When students are taught about vulnerability--what it is,…

In this article, the authors share discoveries about how taking risks can expand students' and teachers' narrow experiences with academic writing. The article outlines four teaching strategies one of the authors implemented in her classroom, highlighting how these strategies fostered student and teacher flexibility, agency, and confidence in…

Many students are experiencing precarity in the current political climate. School walls are permeable, and even the best efforts of teachers to create safe environments where young people can learn about and express themselves cannot fully insulate the classroom from the vulnerabilities produced outside of it. These vulnerabilities may inspire, in…

A surprising conversation with her young daughter inspired author Brandie Bohney to incorporate mentor texts to help students make sense of convention rules. Since struggling and reluctant readers tend to also be struggling and reluctant writers, the author designed activities that would concentrate on the conventions students most needed to…

Media literacy education provides a toolbox for helping direct students' attention to the way we shape information for audience and purpose. The National Association for Media Literacy Education defines the core skills of media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate information, as well as the ability to create and act on…

Spoken word is a performative poetry that combines "words, sounds, and movements that privilege a Black aesthetic" (Winn 60). It has roots in blues, spiritual, and hip-hop music and has been popularized in particular by the slam performances exemplified in the documentary "Louder Than a Bomb." Due to its performative nature,…

Why is it important to discuss writing instruction at the global level? When a refugee student enters the English classroom, it may be helpful to know the philosophy and practice of writing instruction in other parts of the world to help better understand this new student. To better understand the views of writing instructional practices across…

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…

The personal essay remains pervasive in high school classrooms, but many curriculum leaders have shifted to stressing the importance of evidence-based, argumentative writing. Some teachers have rightfully lamented this shift, noting that the evidence-based turn in writing instruction comes at the expense of student voice and expression. Students…

This article serves as an invitation to see the way the teaching of biography-driven writing has been increasingly pushed out of the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum in favor of highly structured, formulaic, and impersonal writing, and how this is a setback for students in their preparation for college and career writing. The…