Andrew is among the forgotten, the written-off, the hopeless...at least to many of the adults in his life--police, teachers, even family. But when you see that glimmer, that potential, you can't turn your back. Andrew stands as a person, but also a metaphor for believing that each student has a chance to succeed.

Shanklin knows that as school populations become more culturally and linguistically diverse, perspectives such as critical literacy become of interest to students themselves and act as keys to their engagement. Critical literacy marks an exciting shift in thinking toward English/language arts, global education, English language learners, and ways…

The Change Writers project was born in the Title I schools of Elk Grove, California, when Gail Desler, a technology integration specialist, became motivated to open up the district's mandated "Open Court" curriculum to better serve intermediate-grade students. Through writing, technology, and imagination, a larger conversation was possible among…

White acknowledges that critical literacy is central to literacy instruction today, but warns that asking those untrained in critical literacy to "teach" critical literacy could have undesirable consequences. He suggests three potentially undesirable outcomes and offers advice for preventing them.

Educators are seeing a ray of hope as policymakers across political lines acknowledge that prescriptive education is not working and as educators find success in involving students actively in real work and meaningful goals within their communities. Glickman and Thompson define service-learning, offer successful examples from real classrooms, and…

This paper explores the ways one school continues to enhance both literacy and service-learning through the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. Over the course of their middle-school years, young adolescents at Canterbury School visit a range of sites in the community. They also explore service-learning at home and around the world by…

Service-learning is an instructional methodology teachers can use to foster student engagement in rigorous curricula. Through service-learning, middle level students see that what they are learning in school is real and important, and that they can be valued, contributing members of society. In this article, the Titans team at Remington Middle…

"Now seems an opportune time to turn our attention back to the question of how our education system is going to contribute to helping our children become thoughtful, ethical, caring, and contributing democratic citizens." Wilhelm documents the fact that students "crave the doing of significant work," and posits that this is what we are teaching…

As teachers, our most important mission is to turn our students into readers. It sounds so simple, but it's hard work, and we're all on a deadline. Kittle describes a class in which her own expectations that students would become readers combined with a few impassioned strategies succeeded ... at least with a young man named Alan.

The benefits of service-learning are numerous, and some are hard to come by any other way. Service-learning projects help teachers and students come together in new ways, demonstrate how language skills can help accomplish real-life tasks, and engage students in a way that spurs them to learn more thoroughly and quickly. The lessons can last a…

When the National Gallery of Writing opens to the public on October 20, Hayes is hoping to hear from every profession, every socioeconomic group, every race, and ... your students. Hayes offers ideas for the many forms that writing might take, as well as a list of resources to help make writing for the gallery a unique experience for each writer.

The role of content-area teachers in reading instruction has long been a subject of debate. Chant, a social studies teacher educator, reasons through the argument that content-area teachers should also be reading teachers while balancing that with the demands on content-area teachers and the complex training required to be a skilled reading…

Georgia Heard spent a week with students in New Mexico, encouraging their search for "self-portrait poetry"--poetry in which they saw themselves. She witnessed courage, pain, tragedy, and hope in the choices and writing of those struggling students, and came to learn that at least one among them had found a life-changing outlet. (Contains 7…

The authors share the story of a performance-based poetry project undertaken by a class of grade 6 and 7 students. The use of new digital media for reading, writing, and representing poetry encouraged an exploration of the relationship between text and image and how images and sound might be used to mediate meaning making. New media have an…

Two educators and a classroom of fifth grade students integrated poetry writing into social studies curriculum focusing on World War II. Several strategies and approaches to writing poetry are highlighted including list poems, writing from photographs and artifacts, and two voice poems. The study culminated in a poetry reading and the creation of…