Describes the author's experiences teaching a contextualized (content-driven) English curriculum in a vocational school, surmising that if students write about things that truly interest them (their trade areas), then writing instruction will be contextual and therefore meaningful and effective. Discusses difficulties and rewards, the variety of…

Describes a two-day interdisciplinary field trip for a group of 63 ninth graders that was followed up in the classroom with related units in history, art, biology, English, and drama. Describes how the students were challenged to use nature to discover who they were, observing closely and then letting go in order to think and connect. (SR)

Describes how a new English teacher invited students to negotiate with him their course of study. Discusses setting the stage for negotiated learning, establishing ownership and building ensemble, clarifying expectations and rehearsing together, planning ahead and assessing the performance, helping students take on additional roles, and allowing…

Presents the rationale and basic concepts for teaching about World Englishes. Describes a sample instructional unit based on the pilot project the authors conducted in a public high school in North Carolina, in which they provided instruction in linguistic diversity once a week for seven weeks. Includes activities and resources for these seven…

Describes what the author (a former high school English teacher) learned about teaching spelling to secondary students through a collaborative research project with a group of elementary school teachers. Analyzes four kinds of classroom-based data from that instruction, resulting in eight recommended teaching practices. Argues that well-targeted…

Argues that literature provides a vehicle for inquiry-based teaching that can encourage reflective thinking and help students to learn to make informed decisions by carefully thinking through ill-structured, realistic dilemmas that have no right or wrong answer. Describes strategies that promote carefully structured investigation of such dilemmas,…

Offers a close look at how three eighth-grade students used their writer's notebooks, examining what they thought of their writer's notebooks, what purposes they used them for, and how their responses changed over the course of the school year. Notes that the authors learned that their involvement in the writer's notebook was vital. Includes…

Examines issues and topics of interest to teachers of English around the world. Discusses what English teachers' associations can do to help each other in the new millennium. Argues that the Web can assist them in thinking through fundamental issues of curriculum, evaluation, and teacher development, and that greater influence in negotiations with…

Offers observations and comments on what makes a good mentor at the middle school level from several experienced and novice English language arts teachers. (SR)

Offers short descriptions from 5 English teachers, each describing a book on the teaching of writing that they recommend to other English teachers. (SR)

Argues that teachers routinely stifle their students' voices, creativity, and passion by teaching writing using the behaviorist view that writing must be taught from part to whole. Argues that this pedagogy should be replaced by a truly democratic, collaborative environment, in which students are given something to do, not something to learn. (SR)

Describes a veteran high school English teacher's revised vision of what it means to teach writing to high school students. Describes his reflection and experimentation in the classroom to find a balance between freedom and structure, creativity and organization, appropriate for the realities of the high school classroom. Discusses the process…

Asks what English teachers must do to improve their quest for fostering vivid, dynamic, original, and thoughtful writers. Argues that conceptual shifts must occur, more people must be educated about writing and learning to write, research from the past must fuel future research, a unified conceptual writing curriculum must be implemented, and…

Focuses on Nancie Atwell's "In the Middle," a seminal description of a middle school reading/writing workshop. Discusses how changes in the recently-published second edition show a revised conception of the teacher's role, of writing workshop pedagogy. Discusses implications for writing teachers and for the training of teachers of the English…

Argues that, after students are familiar with the characteristics of the five paragraph essay and the expectations of that genre, they can learn to play with those expectations to create lively writing that reveals more individual voice by mixing in other genres. Argues that such a strategy can teach students to engage in academic writing more…