Teachers' perspectives on language arts in junior secondary English classrooms

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceara Grey McManus
1944 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McIntosh

Writing reader response journals during the act of reading provides ideal opportunities for secondary English students to deepen and expand their understanding of literature. Based on data from three case studies conducted by a former high school English teacher, currently an English educator, this article examines the effectiveness of students recording response entries as they read a novel. Excerpts from student journals illustrate the positive results of combining the acts of reading and writing. Student engagement with text leads to better comprehension and through writing reflective responses, students become more effective readers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Serena J. Salloum ◽  
Emily M. Hodge ◽  
Susanna L. Benko

Rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, and backlash around these policies created widespread uncertainty among state educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs may have not had a clear direction about how to support standards implementation in a new context, and therefore, may have looked to their professional networks, their geographic neighbors or other highly regarded SEAs, or other sources for information and resources to guide their decisions about where to send teachers for information about standards. Drawing on institutional theory (Meyer Rowan, 1977) and isomorphism specifically (DiMaggio Powell, 1983), we posit that coercive forces (primarily due to RTTT application and CCSS status) as compared to mimetic and normative forces influenced the organizations to which SEAs turn for curriculum materials. Using Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure and a data set of over 2,000 state-provided resources for secondary English Language Arts teachers from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., we indeed found that coercive forces had a relationship with shared organizational ties, demonstrating that RTTT application and CCSS adoption influenced resource provision.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Henry ◽  
Cecilia Thorsen

Demotivation (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011) and non-participation (Norton, 2001) characterize negative responses to classroom practice of a generally chronic nature. In this article, focus is directed to negativity that emerges within the context of a particular language developing activity, and which can be understood as a situated response to the activity’s demands. In conceptualizing negative responses at the activity level, disaffection – the negative face of engagement – is a construct of central importance. Drawing on data from a large-scale ethnographic project in secondary English classrooms in Sweden, in this exploratory case study disaffection (Skinner, 2016) is examined in the context of two language developing activities. Analyses reveal that disaffection can transform into active engagement, and that when called upon to perform an inauthentic identity, students can ‘redesign’ activities in ways that enable them to act authentically.


Author(s):  
Luke Rodesiler ◽  
Lauren Tripp

Given the potential of informal online learning via social networks for supporting the career-long professional growth of in-service teachers, research must be conducted to better understand the ways in which today’s future teachers are being prepared for and experiencing such practice. This chapter presents the authors’ efforts to move in that direction, a qualitative study describing six pre-service secondary English language arts teachers’ perceptions of self-directed networked learning during a teaching internship. Findings suggest that participants perceived networked learning as a viable and valuable approach to supplementing professional growth despite also perceiving challenges in the form of context, identity, and time.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ryan Lavery ◽  
Joyce Nutta ◽  
Alison Youngblood

Researchers compared pre/post classroom assessment scores of n = 8,326 K-12 students taught by n = 288 teacher candidates to determine if a differentiated teacher education program prepared them to support English learners’ (ELs) achievement in classrooms including native and nonnative speakers of English. Candidates in Group 1 comprised academic subject (secondary mathematics, science, and social studies) teacher candidates, who completed six teacher preparation courses with 15 key assignments that included a focus on ELs. Certification areas for Group 2 candidates include language arts instruction (elementary, early childhood, and secondary English language arts). Group 2 candidates completed from 12 to 15 courses with 41 to 50 key assignments that included a focus on ELs. Results indicate that teacher candidates in both groups helped narrow the gap between ELs and non-ELs from pretests to posttests. ELs performed no differently when taught by candidates from either group. Implications for teacher preparation are discussed.


2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Cushman

Preservice kindergarten through university teachers will benefit from these books' overview of the field and their carefully weighed claims about what counts as literacy practices in language arts and English classrooms. Though geared more toward a general audience of literacy teachers, the books do have sections and chapters that would appeal to preservice second language teachers. The straightforward writing in both books will be easily accessible to students for whom this may be the first encounter with literacy and classroom research. Taking different tacks on literacy research, the books complement each other well: Where Kucer's survey stops, the Comber and Simpson collection picks up.


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