English Leadership Quarterly, Volume 36, Number 2, October 2013

Focusing specifically on Leadership in this new age of the Common Core State Standards, editor Susan Groenke brings us two interesting perspectives on this brave new classroom. She sets the stage with the reminder that students won’t read increasingly rigorous texts if they aren’t engaged in what they’re reading. And we as teachers won’t know what will engage them without knowing them, because that knowledge, born of relationships with our students, will guide our instructional decisions. Kayla Gass writes of her experiences teaching in a school where gang culture was a substantial influence and where knowing her students was vital to protecting and educating them. Angela Hoffman explores the pros and cons of teaching in a 1:1 technology classroom—including the students’ perspectives. From any perspective, she says, “our students need us, and we need each other.”