English Journal - Volume 103, Issue 2, 2013

This author argues that to prepare students to make meaningful contributions to society, teachers should adopt a more rhetorical approach toward literary study.

While exploring the devaluation of the teaching profession in her students’ eyes, this teacher and author discusses the importance of inquiry in a democratic classroom.

Frustrated with the restrictive nature of the Common Core Standards, the author calls on teachers to resist a system that denies them and their students access to what teaching and learning should be about.

The author argues that access to books and time to read play a vital role in literacy development and explains why standardized tests are detrimental to students’ literacy development.

It is important for students to understand and analyze political language so that they can be participatory members of a democratic society.

Emphasizing the importance of private deliberation and imaginative play prepares students for life outside of the democratic market.

Wolk explores how a wide range of middle grade and young adult literature can be used to teach caring and critical readers in a democratic classroom environment.

The authors compare a memoir intended for adults with another on the same subject meant for a teen readership and argue that didactic YA literature grounded in a developmental stage model of adolescence is undemocratic.

This article explores the difficulties immigrant students face in achieving civic participation and a democratic life through the stories of two ninth- grade English classes in which all students participate in an inside-out approach to community-based writing for action.

This article explores the author’s experience in creating a classroom that embodies her newfound definition of democracy.

The authors describe “the critical incident” genre and their experiences in generating dialogue across differences within the English classroom.

This article discusses how blog use, promoting choices, and presenting students with literature that changed a nation shows them how to find their voices in a democratic community.

“Disabling Assumptions” explores how teachers’ use of a Disability Studies perspective can help make our society more inclusive.

This column seeks to explore the experiences and possibilities that arise when educators speak Truth to power.

“Soft(a)ware in the English Classroom” seeks to identify the ways in which our teaching and learning lives are influenced by software.