Quantitative analyses using CLASS 3.0 software and qualitative discourse analyses were conducted of the instructional and institutional effects of tracking in high-and low-track American literature classes taught by the same teacher, a participant in a national study of the effects of dialogic classroom discourse patterns on student achievement.…

Drawing on data gathered during a fourteen-month study of reading practices among poor and working-class girls, this essay explores the challenges of creating a responsive and critical reading pedagogy across boundaries of class. Set largely in a summer and after-school reading program for pre-teen girls, the study addressed the question of how a…

So much has been made over the crisis in English literature as field, as corpus, and as canon in recent years, that some of it undoubtedly has spilled over into English education. This has been the case in predominantly English-speaking Anglo-American and Commonwealth nations, as well as in those postcolonial states where English remains the…

Understandings of the ways home and school languages shape classroom dynamics and influence development, identity, and subsequent school success are important for teachers of both bilingual and African American students. This article builds a link between these complementary bodies of research by analyzing interactions in a second grade mainstream…

In literacy and composition studies, efforts to develop data-driven theories of disciplinary writing expertise and of writers' developmental processes in joining specific discourse communities have so far been limited. This case study, of one writer's experiences as an undergraduate history major, parses the multiple knowledge domains comprising…

"Research in the Teaching of English" (RTE) is the flagship research journal of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in the United States. It is a broad-based, multidisciplinary journal composed of original research articles and short scholarly essays on a wide range of topics significant to those concerned with the…

Discusses considerations faced by practitioner researchers as they write for publication, particularly as they encounter the template of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). Argues that some APA conventions--such as beginning an article with theory rather than the story of the research--do not suite the purposes…

Discusses Nel Noddings's definition of caring and critiques aspects of her formulation, focusing on her discussion of reciprocity and her insistence that principled approaches to caring undermine relationship. Argues that, although Noddings's work has paved the way for more caring approaches to teaching, these aspects of her formulation must be…

Examines both the complex writing performance of three students in a 2nd-3rd grade class and the instructional strategies of their teacher, focusing on the interplay between the children's strategy use and the teacher's instruction. Contributes to theories of writing development by recasting children's writing as performance within the differing…

Describes two contrasting classroom contexts for eliciting personal narratives. Follows a second-language learner through second and third grade. Draws attention to the margins of classroom activity. Takes a step toward a discourse-based solution to what has been recognized as a discourse-based problem in schools: differential access to oral…

Analyzes literacy events co-constructed by three bilingual, mainland Puerto Rican kindergarteners and the network of adults and children in their homes who support their developing literacy. Reveals and gives value to some of the many literacies in the children's lives and communicates a respectful approach to the study of literacy in families…

Examines three English teachers' conceptions of their students' literary understandings. Explores how the three case-study teachers framed reading in generalized terms separated from the concerns of literature as a discipline, and how the teachers' own experienced ways of reading literature played a role in directing attention away from learner…

Describes a year-long process in which a group of fourth- and fifth-grade students with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds learned to participate in reading, writing, and talking about books in a literature-based instructional program. Reveals a gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to students as they developed the knowledge…

Discusses a research project exploring the thought it takes to do physical work, the cognitive processes involved in various blue collar and service occupations like waitressing, hairstyling, plumbing, welding, industrial assembly, and the like. Considers the way occupations are categorized, defines intelligence, and thinks about learning and…

Examines the concept of presentism as it relates to historical fiction written for young people. Argues that in order to understand more fully the complexities of any era, one must resist the commonsense acceptance of a hegemonic interpretation of the past and investigate the possibilities of the multiple beliefs, values, and awarenesses…