English Journal - Volume 87, Issue 2, 1998

Argues that the contemporary language arts curriculum encompasses eight areas: literature, language, composition, speech and drama, critical thinking, technology, media literacy, and interdisciplinary studies. Offers a rationale for “cosmos” as a new metaphor for the language arts. Discusses the content of each of the eight curricular areas, and provides a glimpse at some relevant texts and research.

Advocates confronting controversial subjects in classrooms. Describes bringing hatred into the curriculum of a film study class. Articulates purposes and obstacles. Addresses how to handle tough topics and ways to introduce civil rights issues. Describes the final student project. States that students make a transition from consciousness to empowerment to the solving of real problems in the real world.

Who are your students and how do they engage in your class? How do you engage with them? In “From Comfort Zone to Contact Zone,” John Gaughan gives us brief glimpses of three of his students in his classroom, of his teaching philosophy and how it’s evolved, of his worries, of his search for answers.

Describes how Anna Deveare Smith’s “Fires in the Mirror” can be adapted for the secondary level language arts classroom. Describes a storytelling exercise, and then describes the six stages of the project as students adapted personal narrative for performance: theme; obtaining the interview; the peer-editing workshop; preparing for the performance; final performance; and postperformance activity and conclusion.

Describes 12 practical activities that use video and audio cassettes to build bridges to printed texts, and thus ease students into analyzing complex ideas and into complex examinations of themes, symbols, and literary technique.

Questions the nexus of girls development, gendered practices in classrooms, and the nature of the English curriculum. Surveys participants in a summer literature discussion group and nearly 1,000 young adolescents. Discusses devaluing girls intelligence; privileging male characteristics; understanding girls silence; observing realities, opting for silence; making a difference in the world; and what teachers can do.

Offers a case study of three 11th–grade students who viewed tapes of their class discussions and commented on their own involvement. Argues that students are silent for wide–ranging reasons; that students who are quiet may be learning; and that teachers should consider multiple means to spur students thinking. Lists ways to help students speak out.

Timothy J. Clutter critiques Jim Cope’s “Beyond Voices of Readers” from the March 1997 issue of English Journal and Jim Cope responds.

Shows how teaching grammar through writing can be a successful strategy. Points out the steps one teacher used in teaching a writing and grammar process with her sixth graders and illustrates its effectiveness, both with one high–risk student and also through a school disruption caused by fire.

Presents two brief articles–the first discusses purposes for using children’s picture books in a secondary classroom, activities for children’s literature, and integrating children’s books into the classroom curriculum; and the second discusses using folktales in the classroom to engage reluctant readers and writers, suggests ideas/topics for folktale writing projects, lists writing prompts, and recommends folktales.

Describes and discusses four resources (one quarterly magazine and three books) which are compilations of writing (and sometimes artwork) of students in grades 6 through 12. Argues that these writings can help to engage students with literature, to explore new ideas, and perhaps to stretch their own wings further as they see new possibilities for themselves as both learners and writers.

Describes the author’s summer spent in Lithuania helping Lithuanian teachers tackle real problems of teachers of English in Lithuanian schools. Discusses the needs of teachers in Lithuania, and mentions three ways that readers can be of assistance to Lithuanian English instruction personally, materially, or financially.

Describes the author’s first teaching job as a reading teacher at a maximum security detention center for youthful offenders. Describes how the author shed some naivete on the way to learning that what students were primarily learning was trust–in themselves and in others.

Offers and explains three pieces of advice for using the Internet in language arts classes: become a student (have students train teachers to use the Internet and have student interns in computer rooms to assist teachers); “morph into a cybrarian” (create an on-line library of World Wide Web links related to class projects); and empower students.

Available in print version only.