By examining the ways in which high school students in two different English classes take up virtual self-representation tactics in school-based social networking sites, this article explores how young people carefully juggle the digital identities they adopt for the eyes of both peers and teachers. The data reveals that the students'…

Violent writing is a real, yet rarely understood phenomenon in the secondary and post-secondary classroom. The 2007 Virginia Tech shooting tragedy sensationalized violent writing as a marker of disturbed and violent persons. However, violent writing comes in multiple forms and is composed for multiple reasons. As secondary schools wrestle with…

Tour Across America is an interdisciplinary, project-based, multimodal (IPM) activity where students get the opportunity to apply what they learn to a real-life situation while illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of literacy. It provides students with a high-interest, creative platform to review, reinforce, and integrate learned literacy…

Contemporary views of literacy, and of English and Language Arts curriculum recognise the importance of digital culture and communication forms in many young people's lives and the multiple forms of literacy students engage with as they work, interact and play. Amongst these, videogames, whether played on PCs, laptops, wiis, or on mobile…

This article argues that exploration of media coverage of a story like the Boston Marathon bombings, including online comments posted by readers, can support youth in reflecting on and thinking critically about a tragedy while offering opportunities for literacy pedagogy consistent with the goals of the Common Core State Standards for English…

Preparing students for college and careers in the 21st century has shed light on text complexity as an important variable for consideration in English Language Arts. Authors of The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) define text complexity as broad, highlighting qualitative, rather than quantitative evaluations of narrative fiction as appropriate…

Linked text sets (LTS) offer a promising approach to bring together adolescent students and complex texts, such as those required by the Common Core State Standards, using strategic scaffolding. LTS include a variety of print and media texts that address a guiding question that is meaningful to students such as, "Why is growing up so…

This article argues that every teacher is not a teacher of literacy, but instead posits that teachers in content areas must adapt literacy strategies to the content being taught and to the context in which that teaching occurs. Examples of adaptations of a literacy strategy for use in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies…

This article shares the process and outcomes from a three-day revision workshop designed and implemented in a diverse high school language arts classroom. The revision workshop included: direct instruction, self-reflection, and peer feedback to provide struggling writers with opportunities to take part in substantive revision. The authors examine…

The Common Core State Standards emphasize the integration of technology skills into English Language Arts (ELA) instruction, recognizing the demand for technology-based literacy skills to be college- and career- ready. This study aims to examine how collaborative cloud-based writing is used in in a Colorado school district, where one-to-one…

Secondary teacher preparation in reading in the U.S. has received minimal attention from the research community despite the almost universal implementation of the Common Core State Standards. In response, numerous publications have demanded that secondary teachers be fully prepared to support the needs of struggling readers, especially ELA…

We examined middle years adolescents' (ages 12-13) responses to reading and viewing advertisements as part of integrated language arts and health education lessons. We report here on the qualitative results from student and teacher focus groups, and from student journals. Three regular classroom teachers co-developed (with university…

This article shares findings from case studies of two eighteen-year-old songwriters, Bradley and James. The study investigated songwriter motivation, writing methods, and school experiences. Data was collected over the course of one year through two in-depth interviews per songwriter, two teacher interviews, and 101 songwriting artifacts. Grounded…

Although the term "chronotope" may be unfamiliar, the meaning and significance of the construct resonate with many ELA teachers. Chronotope (Bakhtin,) captures how people come to make sense of stories and the characters that inhabit those stories. In this longitudinal case study, chronotope is used to explore what school literacy experiences…

Implementation of Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts across most of the United States has yielded the rapid creation of new, interconnected literacy assessments, curriculum guidelines, instructional materials, teacher preparation programs, teacher evaluation systems, and professional development. This essay explores two…