Weber issues a challenge to teachers grappling with the demands (and failures) of NCLB, and asks them to make certain that advanced and gifted readers are not left behind. To that end, she shares characteristics of gifted readers, ways to support them, and tips for teaching that will result in doing "a much better job of providing appropriate…

Our lead article explores the impact the authors witnessed when they helped South African teachers create culturally relevant books written in their students' languages. Through participation in the Ithuba Writing Project, these teachers were able to relate transformative stories about their lives through books that they subsequently shared in the…

This article explores collaboration between a rural school in upstate New York and an international school in Amman, Jordan. The authors describe how they provided their students with real audiences for their writing, and, over time, built an international community of writers. Classroom walls were blurred as the authors "team-taught" one…

The United States involvement in the Middle East has been prominent in our recent national history, sometimes clouded by myths and misrepresentations of the people of that region of the world. This article details the experiences of teacher-researchers working with teachers and students in Amman, Jordan, to develop powerful English writing…

This article provides practical ideas for integrating technologies into the classroom in ways that honor students' out-of-school technology funds of knowledge. The challenges and unintended consequences of integrating technology into the classroom and the role that video gaming can play in helping students find agency and the ability to think…

This article describes the author's experience co-facilitating a project for which seventh-grade students designed and created original video games based on Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time". The author provides an overview of recent literature on video game implementation in the classroom and explains how the project was designed and…

There is a need to integrate into classroom learning the out-of-school technologies that students interact with every day. We know that reader response approaches to the study of literature engage learners, and we also know that both students and teachers have mixed attitudes about the study of poetry. In this article, a response activity with…

This article presents the inquiry and literacy processes of two fifth-grade students as they created a digital video about African American history for a school project. During this process, the students gained experience in researching (both on the Web and in books) and writing, with the overall goal of creating a digital documentary video about…

Wilhelm is a vocal advocate for the substantive integration of technology into language arts classes in ways that support the "critical" use of technologies and the learning of new concepts and procedures for reading and composing. He makes the case that no one can be considered fully literate without a familiarity with and appreciation for our…

Shanklin knows it can be hard for new teachers to incorporate all they know about technology with the realities of a classroom. She suggests setting incremental, monthly technology goals; investing in equipment; assessing students' grasp of the technology at their disposal and their use of it in classroom projects; searching purposefully for…

A brief history of NCLB and the resultant scripted reading programs shows how hollow these fixes are when you eliminate teacher responsibility, professional judgment, and flexibility. The authors caution, "In some cases, we do think that these programs can be successful, but only if the teacher has the power as an educator to adjust the curriculum…

This article serves as a condensed history of the evolution of "critical literacy" and offers a context--social, cultural, and economic--that allows readers to understand its purpose and impact on teaching practices. This "family of approaches...share[s] a commitment to the use of literacy for purposes of equity and social justice. They aim for…

This study focuses on ways that sixth graders reacted to the question of book awards and awards in general, positioning themselves as reflective inquirers as they engaged in the regular sixth-grade beginning-of-the-year curriculum--reading books that have been nominated for the state book award. The authors focus on four dispositions of critical…

The authors unpack a unit in which students were asked to consider the question, "Who and what is an American?" The activity originated with a discussion of 6 fictional profiles; students were asked to place these people along a continuum from "least American" to "most American." The resulting discussions broadened perspectives, changed thinking,…

While developing critical literacy in our students is a priority for all of us, Wilhelm believes that we must develop a critical literacy of teaching, as well. He asserts that this can best be achieved by 1) teaching through an inquiry context, and 2) taking on a teacher-researcher stance to think both reflectively and reflexively about our…