I have been an English teacher for 38 (gulp!) years. For over 20 of those I have taught "English methods" courses in initial teacher education programs. As the retirement light glows increasingly brighter at the end of my career pathway, I reflect on three aspects of teaching English that have been--and remain--the cornerstones of my professional…

While perceptions that the roles of teacher and teacher educator as an oppositional binary are being challenged, sustaining and incorporating both professional identities has presented challenges. This paper presents a narrative account of my professional identity journey, including a description of a partnership that enabled boundaries to be…

Mandated literacy assessment is now a ubiquitous practice in many western educational systems. While educational researchers, principals, teachers and education unions continue to offer vociferous resistance in some nations, in others it is now commonplace in the educational landscape and built into the rhythms of the school year. This paper is…

"World of Warcraft" is an online computer game with over nine million players, many of them technically-minded young males. A proportion of these young males engage in spontaneous creative writing about their game adventures. They enjoy highly formulaic genres, such as the epic poem, with its complex technical requirements. This has implications…

For some time now, English teachers have used electronic discussion in their classrooms. There is also a considerable literature suggesting benefits to student learning in doing so. However this research often downplays the context in which the discussion group is used--so that the particularities in use, including teacher decision-making as they…

Explains how a five- to seven-minute daily reading of popular children's books fostered aural comprehension and literary appreciation in students. (HOD)

Relates the implementation of a literature program for students in grade six based on reader response theory. (HOD)