Research in the Teaching of English - Volume 42, Issue 3, 2008

These two recipients of this year’s Alan C. Purves Award reflect on their work (reported in RTE Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 269–303) on “A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for English Language Learners in Secondary School” and the lessons they learned from their original research study as they tried to replicate the project in two additional districts outside their service area, to determine if the implications of their study would hold beyond the local context. The Alan C. Purves Award is given to the RTE article in the previous volume year judged most likely to impact educational practice

Research on persuasive writing by elementary children posits primarily a developmental perspective, claiming that elementary-age children can effectively argue through talk but not through writing. While this view is commonly held, this article presents counterevidence.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the uses of informational texts within an ethnically diverse, second grade classroom and how the teacher carefully scaffolded students’ developing understandings about these texts. A community of practice theoretical framework was employed to better understand the ways in which informational texts were embedded within the larger classroom community (Lave&Wenger, 1991).

The following is the text of Joanne Yatvin’s presidential address, delivered at the NCTE Annual Convention in New York City in November 2007.

In this At Last essay, Susan Lytle addresses issues of teacher research, work that is shaped by and that shapes the complexity of teachers’ knowledge and learning, and is based on the accumulation of robust and meaningful experiences leading to classroom expertise. Assuring her readers that teacher research is alive and well, even in the current politically charged atmosphere of scripted instruction and curriculum-driving mandated testing, Lytle presents the case for teachers’ contributions to our understandings about classrooms and teachers’ own understandings about how to make classrooms, teaching, and learning better.