When works of teacher scholars were recognized with major National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) research awards, and the sections and conferences instituted research initiatives of their own, many were filled with the soaring hope that a new synergy was in the making. The "Research in the Teaching of English" (RTE) Alan C. Purves Award,…

A recent book that appeared a few years ago, "How Early America Sounded" by historian Richard Cullen Rath, connects well with much of the new, exciting, interdisciplinary and rhetorical research that the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) have supported, promoted, and…

Hispanics in an overwhelmingly white organization will gather together, women of whatever "race" in male-dominated situations, poor people among the middle class. They find those with whom they believe they have a cultural or economic kinship and act accordingly. The author shares how he found a personal community in his professional organization.

As the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) marks its first century of existence, the Council and its members are rightfully looking back across the years in appreciation of what its members, and its collective members over time, have accomplished. In this article, the author shares his reflections on the role of NCTE in his life. The…

What does committee work entail? The author outlines the effort and the satisfactions. This essay is a sound byte of what needs to be said about the professional benefits one can experience when becoming a full-fledged, participating NCTE member through committee or task force work.

Robert Young became the Director of Education at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, in October of 2007. In this article, the author discusses some of the workshops and other materials available for teachers and students at the Folger. Beginning with an idea that Peggy O'Brien had 23 years ago, Folger Education has developed into a…

The idea for a professional development book group emerged from the authors ongoing conversations with colleagues about how teachers can gain the understanding necessary not only to foster and support gender variant and transgender students, but also incorporate these experiences into their curriculum in a meaningful way. In this article, the…

Preservice teacher Jayme K. Barkdoll interviews John Green, author of the Michael L. Printz Award-winning young adult novel "Looking for Alaska". Green recalls his experience as a young adult and shares his ideas about reading and writing young adult literature.

The consideration of questions of morality and ethics, of right and wrong is not confined to churches and mosques and synagogues; it also exists outside religious frameworks, notably in the schools and in teaching. In this article, the author extends the exploration of ethics into the classroom where virtually all acts of writing, language, and…

Change is hard. Teachers and students live with this reality everyday. Even harder than change is transformation, the kind of change that alters who a person is forever. Yet transformation is exactly what happens in the presence of powerful teaching and learning, especially in English classrooms where everyone uses language to negotiate new…

Stressing the importance of Lev S. Vygostky's ideas about teaching and learning, Peter Smagorinsky challenges readers to form their own interpretations of the Russian psychologist's work. He highlights three points with implications for secondary school English teachers working to "cultivate a literate citizenry."

Don Zancanella challenges us to step away from the everyday tasks of teaching English to reimagine the larger idea, asking, "What should high school English be?" Eight teachers, researchers, and writers briefly answer this question, offering their versions of what high school English could be.

Leslie David Burns calls teachers to the political forefront, believing that we need to educate our communities about our work by dispelling inaccurate public assumptions about literacy, "best" teaching practices, and accountability standards. He provides teachers with a list of practical steps for "intentional political action" at the grassroots…

Finding few resources on how to teach a yearbook class, high school teacher Christina M. Vettraino set out to create her own. She offers a detailed, classroom-tested approach to producing an award-winning yearbook. Students on the staff and in the yearbook class learn the purpose and the concept of a unifying theme, graphic design, writing, and…

To teach reading to a transient population of incarcerated young men on Rikers Island, Dave Iasevoli utilized the students' desire for knowledge and their talent for storytelling, humor, and acting to engage them. Students embodied the characters by reading aloud from the novel "The Planet of Junior Brown," from which discussions about obesity,…