Many teachers find it difficult to encourage their students to write in class, yet writing is becoming increasingly important in academic and workplace settings. Students are already writing through cell phone texting, gaming systems, and social networking sites every day, but these resources go largely untapped in many English language arts…

In an effort to expose students to a wide array of 21st century literacies, it is easy for teachers to forget the equally important role of leading students in critical inquiry regarding "when" and "why" particular media ought to be used. This results in students who possess knowledge of how to use a medium but lack the wisdom to truly understand…

This article describes lessons learned about grouping by teachers and teacher educators who worked collaboratively to design and deliver a summer writing institute for a heterogeneous population of students about to begin ninth grade at an urban high school. Institute staff used co-teaching (Cook & Friend, 1995) extensively to provide support for…

Attempting discussions about social justice issues in a junior high classroom can be a daunting but critical task. Uncertainty about how to get conversations started, along with fear about where such talk might lead, can make the task easy to dismiss. In this paper, one teacher tells her story of inviting rich discussion about a variety of…

Using children's picture books, Deborah Dean provided frameworks for student research papers that avoided the pitfalls leading to voiceless an encyclopedic writing. Research guide sheets; class analysis of text organization, sentence variety, stylistic choices; and peer review all contribute to interesting final papers. (Contains 2 figures.)