In this study of microteaching in a secondary English methods course, we intentionally stray from normative assessment practice, instead asking pre-service teachers to provide feedback on their peers' microteaching using assessment practices designed to orient them "figuratively." The term 'figurative' refers to 'figurative language':…

In the spirit of reformulating notions of critique, this response builds on the creative research experimentation that the authors enacted to consider air differently. The authors continue to be lured by generosity, curiosity, surprise, and wonder and suggest two feminist responses that relate to and generate knowledge in alternative ways. Two…

This article examines seventeen children poems by Sylvia Plath written in the years 1960-63, in relation to the poetics of romantic love. Drawing on motherhood studies (Klein, 1975; O'Reilly, 2010; Rich, 1976; Winnicott, 1956, 1965, 1967), the maternal shift in psychoanalysis (see Bueskens, 2014: 3-6), and attachment theory (Bowlby, 1950, 1969,…

Constructivism is somewhat opposite of a mandated curriculum. It does not emphasize testing to ascertain pupil achievement. Nor is it a teacher determined reading curriculum. A formal reading curriculum with measurably stated objectives would not harmonize with constructivist thinking. Flexibility is a key concept in describing, in part, its basic…

The aim of this article is to discuss how a multimodal approach to meaning-making can contribute to language education and how multimodal meaning-making is supported in the Swedish curricula. Considering the rapid digitalization of contemporary communication, the aim and content of language education has been challenged. The article describes…

This article considers alternatives to the established constructivist approaches to children's literature, exploring instead the potential of two relatively recent areas of inquiry, cognitive poetics and evolutionary literary criticism. The article questions the assumption, implied if not directly expressed by Peter Hollindale in "Signs of…

In these Anthropocene times humans are vulnerable through the effects of socio-ecological crises and are responsible for attending to past, present and future socio-ecological injustices and challenges. The purpose of this article is to challenge discursive structures that infuence knowledge acquisition "about/of" the world through…

The aim of this study was to investigate, in a descriptive , argumentative and chronological methodology, about the positive relationship between teaching or using English poetry as an instructional source and the teaching-learning of different language skills such as reading, listening, speaking, and writing as well as other language sub skills…

This research aims to support the "teaching of concepts" in the 3rd grade Life Science Course with activities. A quasi-experimental design (selective) with a pre-test and post-test control group, one of the quantitative research designs, was used in the research. Using songs, poems, rhymes, acrostics, stories, fairy tales,…

This case study explores how literature, in particular poetry, can be used as an educational platform within the secondary classroom to explore gender identity. A six-week unit of poetry was created as part of a broader project to enable pupils to reflect on their personal and familial experiences of gender, whilst also utilising creative writing…

Compared with other age groups, the literacy practices and creative outputs of older adults (50+ years) have been seldom researched. Generally, research about older adults has tended to focus on decline and agential passivity, rather than potentiality. In this article, we report on a small ethnographic study of older Australians who were part of a…

Background: Although there is empirical evidence to support the inclusion of poetry in the EFL classroom, the medium is rarely encountered in language learning environments. Aims: This study aimed to determine the influence of haiku composition tasks on developing academic writing skills of a group of TEFL majors at an Ecuadorian university.…

This post-qualitative study explores work-life balance as a sustaining fantasy produced by neoliberal, patriarchal, productivity-driven systems and how this fantasy manifests affectively for mothers who work in community colleges. The study began by contextualizing the work-life balance fantasy within higher education as a gendered workscape.…

This paper provides an analysis of the effects anti-Black violence have had on the return of Black colleagues (administrators, faculty, and staff) to higher education after the the 2020 murder of African American citizen George Floyd at the hands of now former Minneapolis police officers. Riffing off of R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter's song…

This paper is a re-examination of Louise Rosenblatt's seminal work of reader-response theory, The Reader, The Text, The Poem. I argue that poems are essentially social in nature and that they open up a space in which conversation and interpretation can take place. With Rosenblatt I argue that until a reader engages with a poem, bringing to it a…