English Journal - Advances in Teaching English, May 2011

Members of the Secondary Section Steering Committee comment on topics of importance to English language arts educators.

“Speaking My Mind” invites readers to speak out about controversial issues relevant to the teaching of English language arts.

Do your students accept your invitations to read, or do they decide to not read instead?

An assignment inspired by fanfiction encourages students to create collaboratively designed fantasy worlds.

Engaging students in contemporary reality-show parodies based on Great Expectations, Bucolo helps students explore the intricacies of Dickens’s novel.

Students use online role-play to collaborate and change real school policy.

Gatti’s students analyze differences between their own reading tastes and those of 19th-century readers, and in the process they breathe new life into several canonical texts.

Using snippets of engaging classroom dialogue, the authors highlight the value of teaching complex literary works by reading several texts at increasing levels of difficulty.

Technology-infused assignments “such as public service announcements, creating fictitious holidays, and writing music hall-of-fame induction speeches” can engagestudents’ creativity and critical thinking.

Do we spend enough time developing students’ listening skills?

Dunford offers a primer on using Microsoft Word’s reviewing software to respond to student writing.

A well-known teacher and writer narrates his lifelong relationship with a major American poet.

In a unique format, the authors reference more than 30 well-known writers to raise issues about composition and teaching writing.

Challenging Texts explores various ways of teaching literary theory to high school and middle school students.

Innovative Writing Instruction publishes new approaches to the teaching of writing in high school and middle school.

Mentoring Matters focuses on effective ways to support new English teachers and student teachers.

Research for the Classroom publishes mini-studies of ELA classroom practices and suggests ways in which high school and middle school English teachers may study the effectiveness of their pedagogy.