Delane Bender-Slack takes on the important subject of teaching for social justice. Her article's strength is in its uncompromising look at complex, often misinterpreted teaching challenges. This article focuses on actual teachers working for social justice in their classrooms. Working from a strong theoretical framework, she pushes us in new…

Sybil Wilson is a composite representation of an English teacher that typifies much of what most preservice English teachers have seen and experienced in U.S. classrooms. The authors' aim is to articulate textual frameworks often competing and unnamed in English curriculum (and evident in Sybil's classroom) and to argue for a particular reframing…

Evolution of the "old page", or written hardcopy texts, to the "new" (Kress, 2003), or electronic page, means that today's learners have experience with reading a variety of texts. Image, music, and electronic inscription (font, style, flash, and so on) are features of multimodal texts that many learners prefer to read and create. With the screen…

In this article, the author discusses the importance of questioning in understanding teaching practice and the possibilities of inquiry in English education. The author has come to believe that the most important thing everyone can do in the field of English education is to support teachers in establishing a questioning stance that will evolve…

Describes how the authors' collaboration has been exercised through the construction of shared language and activities based on understandings of social action. Outlines three stages of their shared professional relationship: collaborating on projects guided by shared values; role-switching in their collaborative enterprise; and collaborative…

Reflects on the study of literary themes in a reform to develop "thinking based curricula" for lower income urban youth. Mentions the need to broaden students' worlds and discusses implications for middle grades teacher education. Suggests the need for preservice teachers to have plenty of ongoing workshop practice in shaping and critiquing…

Analyzes the on-line teacher network, Write for Your Life (WFYL), that sought to facilitate transformative experiences for its K-12/university participants that would result in changed practices across the network, and in increased learning for the students of those practitioners. Analyzes the dialogic "web" the teachers spun across five years.…

Describes the process and product of a revision of the author's literacy methods course, a revision that grew from a student's comment questioning the student's "right" to evaluate another student's work. Theorizes the role of authority in the course and explains how contours of power and freedom create spaces in which prospective teachers have…

Explores how a new teacher's identity was affected when she attempted to enact a student-centered, i.e., liberal, pedagogy in a school district that was in the process of introducing a heavily scripted language arts curriculum tied to district standardized tests. Concludes that the frustration that the teacher felt was that the curriculum took…

Looks back at the author's 1972 essay and responds to it now, helping readers place it within an historical context in order to learn about the genesis of his ideas then and his reflections now. Suggests that students do have authority, through their unique and at times vast understandings from their own experiences of language, of literature, and…

Examines use of portfolios as a major assessment tool for students in the field of English Education. Discusses how professional portfolios encourage students to use their meta-cognitive skills and find their own unique themes as well as encouraging teachers to become collaborators and co-creators with students. Describes advantages and…

Articulates, through a critical analysis of Atlantic Canada's latest secondary English language arts curriculum documents, the expansion of traditionally understood conceptions of literacy to include information, media, and visual literacies. Examines the specific nature and extent to which technology and computer-mediated curricula are used to…

Collects primary pupils' views of themselves as writers and their preferences, attitudes and awareness of the source of their ideas in the context of England's National Literacy Strategy. Underlines the importance of listening to pupils' views about literacy, in order to create a more open dialogue about language and learning, and to negotiate the…

Considers the arguments for seeing work rather than response as key to the poetic experience. Explains the development of such experience in the classroom. Notes that this is worth exploring not only in terms of literacy curriculum, but with respect to curriculum as a whole, since poetry is often invoked as an important resource for the…

Tells the story of one English department's struggle over curriculum controversies and the implications of that struggle for the integrity of specific teachers' classroom curriculum and the literary education of their students. (TB)