Research in the Teaching of English - Volume 42, Issue 2, 2007

This article examines the role of intergenerational relationships in the lives of experienced poets and writers (“soldiers”) and emerging poets and writers in what the author terms Participatory Literacy Communities (PLCs). Drawing from Wenger’s (1998) concept of communities of practice, the author uses data from two examples of PLCs—Black bookstore author events and spoken-word poetry “open mics”—to complicate notions of reciprocity and mentoring in the out-ofschool literacy practices of people of African descent. Three soldiering traditions are discussed: soldiers as literacy activists and advocates, soldiers as practitioners of the craft, and soldiers as historians of the word.

This article examines seven online grammar guides for instances of linguistic sexism. The grammar sentences from .edu Websites were analyzed based on NCTE’s “Guidelines for Gender-Fair Use of Language” (2002) using the criteria of generic he and man; titles, labels, and names; gender stereotypes; order of mention (firstness); and ratio of male to female. Of the 3,220 sentences analyzed, 3,020 occurrences of gendered language were found and were analyzed based on gender-fair language criteria.

The committee reviews important research works in the teaching of English that have been published in the last year. Committee members include Richard Beach, Martha Bigelow, Deborah Dillon, Lee Galda, Lori Helman, Julie Kalnin, Cynthia Lewis, David O’Brien and Mistilina Sato, Karen Jorgensen, Lauren Liang, Gert Rijlaarsdam, and Tanja Janssen.