This article responds to the need for more student voices in digital literacies research by discussing the results of interviews with two college students concerning the roles that their non-academic digital literacy practices can play in first-year college writing courses. The author reviews recent literature that has indicated that value of…

The wide adoption of the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the U.S. has increased expectations for all teachers to prepare all learners to read and write in academic ways. More knowledge is needed about instructional approaches that may lead adolescent English learners (ELs) to meet this goal. Developing academic literacy practices…

This article shares two National Writing Project Teacher Consultants' interest in examining student engagement in writing flash fiction using mentor texts. Our two-week unit centered on two high school freshmen classes (one class identified as "at-risk" and another class identified as "college prep"), and we found the use…

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…

This article begins with a review of the forms of writing promoted in the Common Core State Standards. Across content areas, Common Core encourages teachers to attune students' writing to rhetorical concerns of audience, purpose, task, and disciplinary thinking. To address these concerns, teachers might take a rhetorical approach to the study…

As states continue to implement CCSS, science teachers will be asked to incorporate more discipline-specific reading and writing in their classes. Yet, according to national studies, few science teachers have previous experience to draw upon and most have little to no training in writing pedagogy. This article reports on one science teacher's…

This column explores the idea of using 21st-century mentor texts to guide students in the development of critical literacy. The column focuses on one example from the U.S. presidential election of 2012 to illustrate how teachers might engage students to unpack the socially constructed nature of literacy. The author argues that the changing reading…

Despite the emphasis on increasing the frequency with which students engage in analytic writing, we know very little about the "writing diet" of adolescents. Student notebooks, used as a daily record of in-class work, provide one source of evidence about the diversity of writing expectations that students face. Through careful…

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…

This study examines the literacy practices of pre-service English teachers engaged in multimodal and digital composing in a writing methods course designed to support both print-based and digital and/or multimodal composition practices. By examining the struggles and resistances of pre-service English teachers as they adapted print-based writing…

In this column, Kenji Hakuta and Mario Santos described the challenges and opportunities the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards present for language development in the context of English language arts/literacy, mathematics, and science. They heightened educators' awareness of the critical role language plays…

Identifying English Education courses focused on young adult literature as apposite sites for exploring teacher conceptions of youth and the texts aimed for youths' consumptions, this article addresses the multiple sources of tension--and pedagogical potential--of teaching a young adult literature course centrally framed around controversial…

In order to understand the culture of the physical, virtual, and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we build on Gee's concept of affinity spaces. Drawing on our ethnographic research of adolescent literacies related to The Hunger Games novels, the Neopets online game, and The Sims videogames, this article explores the nature of…

In light of emerging technologies prompting new avenues for teaching and learning, students are positioned to "create" to learn, with video production being an important process for literacy development. There is a growing need for innovative instructional practices in reading and writing that are aligned with student interests and the activities…

The field of content area literacy instruction is shifting from a general understanding of literacy towards disciplinary literacy. Much of the work in the field of disciplinary literacy has focused on reading, while writing has often been overlooked. This article summarizes the findings of a qualitative case study of two preservice teachers as…