Digital Commons Network^™

Teaching Writing To Middle School Students With Disabilities: A Merc Research Brief, David Naff, Jennifer Askue-Collins, Julie S. Dauksys

MERC Publications

This research brief by the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium explores peer reviewed literature about effective strategies for teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities. It answers the following questions: 1) Why is it important to teach writing? 2) What is the nature of the challenge in teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities? 3) What interventions help with teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities? and 4) What strategies are utilized in the MERC region for teaching writing to middle school students with disabilities?

To Read Or Not To Read: Navigating Young Adult Literature In The Classroom In The Age Of Trigger Warnings And Banned Books, Ashley Sell

Honors Projects

Most public school libraries or English classrooms celebrate Banned Books Week during the school year, featuring dozens of Young Adult novels that have been challenged or banned in public schools across the country. However, books aimed towards young readers are typically not optimized for educational use in the classroom. In this project, I will explore the benefits of using Young Adult literature in the classroom, while also investigating the obstacles that one might face in order to do so, i.e. censorship, sensitive subject matter. I also want to summarize and respond to an argument for the retainment of classic literature …

Asking The Tough Questions: Teaching Literature And Nonfiction Through Critical Literacy To Recapture Our Voices, Agency, And Mission, Elsie L. Olan, Wendy Farkas, Kia Jane Richmond

Conference Presentations

Exploding the Myth of Mental Illness

Disrupting Notions Of Stigma While Empowering Voices: Examining Language Identity, Mental Illness, And Disability Through Young Adult Literature, Elsie L. Olan, Wendy Farkas, Kia Jane Richmond

Conference Presentations

Presenter Two will share new research on young adult literature which features characters with mental illness. She will describe strategies for using texts such as Your Voice is All I Hear (2015), Thirteen Reasons Why (2007), and The Impossible Knife of Memory (2014) to analyze and critique representations of mental illness in young adult literature. Drawing on research by Koss & Teale (2009) and Richmond (2014), this presenter will help session attendees interrogate “the power of language choices” and “become empowered to confront the stigma associated with mental illness and confront bullying” (p. 24).

Disrupting The Dominant Narrative: Beginning English Teachers’ Use Of Young Adult Literature And Culturally Responsive Pedagogy., Elsie L. Olan, Kia Jane Richmond

Journal Articles

In this multiple case study that uses narrative research methodology, two beginning English teachers’ stories, their use of young adult literature, and their dialogic interactions with university mentors are examined through a lens of culturally responsive pedagogy. This study is focused on how teachers’ stories indicate the difficulties they have incorporating culturally relevant young adult literature into their secondary English classes, how they establish connections between the texts, their students’ lived experiences, and their own lived experiences, and why they struggle with the application of culturally responsive pedagogy. Findings indicate that beginning teachers’ stories (a) express uncertainty regarding the place …

Storying Our Journey: Conversations About The Literary Canon And Course Development In Secondary English Education., Elsie L. Olan, Kia Jane Richmond

Journal Articles

Olan and Richmond present preservice English teachers’ stories about having little experience with canonical texts they are asked to teach in their field experiences.

Conversations, Connections, And Culturally Responsive Teaching: Young Adult Literature In The English Methods Class, Elsie L. Olan, Kia Jane Richmond

Journal Articles

The authors' research shows that preservice teachers can develop more confidence and make more meaningful culturally responsive connections with texts and with their secondary students if they use young adult literature in methods courses

“Practicing What We Teach In Writing Methods: Crossover Strategies For Preparing Elementary And Secondary English Language Arts Teachers”, Kia Jane Richmond, Allison Wynhoff Olsen, Matthew Kilian Mccurrie, Maureen Mcdermott

Conference Presentations

Panelists shared writing methods assignments (digital documentaries, field journals, collaborative presentations, annotated bibliographies) that featured Graham and Perin’s (2007) 11 elements of effective writing instruction. Participants critiqued the assignments and discuss how pre-service teachers’ understandings of effective elementary and secondary writing instruction are transformed.

Teachers’ Experiences In And Perceptions Of Their12th-Grade British Literature Classrooms, Keisha Simone Mcintyre-Mccullough

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences and perceptions of 12th-grade literature teachers about curriculum, Post-Colonial literature, and students. Theories posed by Piaget (1995), Vygotsky (1995), and Rosenblatt (1995) formed the framework for this micro-ethnographic study. Seven teachers from public and private schools in South Florida participated in this two-phase study; three teachers in Phase I and four in Phase II. All participants completed individual semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys. In addition, four of the teachers were observed teaching.

The analysis yielded three themes and two sub-themes: (a) knowledge concerned teachers’ knowledge of British literature content and …

An English Only Fountain: A Response To Tamsin Meaney’S Critique Of English Privilege In Mathematics Education Research, David W. Stinson

Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Faculty Publications

In this brief written reaction to Tamsin Meaney’s essay “The Privileging of English in Mathematics Education Research, Just a Necessary Evil?”, the author’s explicit purpose is to provoke an emotional response to Meaney’s plenary address with the juxtaposition of two visuals: (1) Table 1 – a list of English Only mathematics education conferences; (2) Figure 1 – a picture of a Whites Only water fountain. While intentionally aiming for an emotional response, however, it is important to note that the author is not suggesting that the injustices of Jim Crow and Apartheid were (are) one in the same nor that …

The Play Is A Mirror: Looking At Human Nature In Romeo And Juliet [9th Grade], Melissa Manny

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Since reading Shakespeare for the first time often causes students to doubt themselves or quit from frustration, the purpose of this unit is to support students throughout the reading process so that they learn to appreciate drama as a means for better understanding themselves, rather than letting it defeat them from the beginning. Through an examination of character motivations, in addition to the language and dramatic conventions Shakespeare uses to bring their stories to life on stage, students will experience theatre as a mirror that reflects their own struggles and desires back to them. The relationship between the audience’s reaction …

Photographic Eye: Capturing The Moment Through Personal Narrative [8th-9th Grade], Amy Anderson

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Students will explore the connections between the writing process, art and memory. Through the lens of photography and art, they will refine and publish a “moment in time” personal narrative. This unit was created for the beginning of the school year, and serves the dual purpose of reviewing the writing process and helping students create meaningful connections with each other. Learning culminates as students produce and present a literary magazine celebrating their work.

The Nature Of Narratives [10th Grade], Devon Erlich

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In this unit students will read five narratives (both fiction and nonfiction) that have a common theme of sacrifice. The readings will provide them with the opportunity to uncover the understandings that sacrifices occur on a daily basis in our world, in our lives, and in our literature. Additionally, the students will have the opportunity to understand that authors write narratives with a message in mind, and effectively conveying this message requires a purposeful use of literary elements, organization, and diction. As the unit progresses, students will be able to answer the question, “What is a narrative?” And “How do …

A Lesson Before Dying [12th Grade], Devon Erlich

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Students will focus on the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines which outlines the emotional and intellectual journey of a wrongfully convicted black man and his teacher before the convicted’s execution in a Cajun community in the 1940’s. The themes presented in the book will raise questions for the students such as What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be educated? And Is justice always just? They will explore the idea that many issues surrounding justice, racism, and human responsibility are just as prevalent today as for the characters presented in the …

Great Gatsby [11th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit focuses on exploring The Great Gatsby and how the time period and culture in which the novel is written plays a vital part in the author s overall message in the novel. One of the key understandings to this unit is how good literature makes a statement on culture, but great literature is timeless and universal and provides a lens to view our own lives and society. Through an examination of the 1920s culture, the students will be able to understand Fitzgerald s message about the 1920s. They will further examine this through a group project where they …

Genre (And The Category Is...) [9th Grade], Kristen Dylla

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Making sense of the world and its complexities looms a difficult task for students in the ninth grade. This unit focuses on the understanding that one way to do so is to categorize information and ideas. The discipline-specific part of the unit will utilize the idea of genre as a category for organization, an essential understanding for the study of any text. The unit is done at the start of the year so that for the rest of the year, students have their ideas of genre to help them make sense of texts read. It would be preceded by an …

Reading, Writing And Voice [9th Grade], Faith Fugit

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

The Houston Academy of International Studies is a public charter school that opened in HISD in fall 2006. As the freshman English teacher for HAIS, I wrote this unit during summer 2006, before many rules, routines and procedures for the school were hammered down. This unit is planned for the fall semester and aims to help students explore the concepts of literary and social voice while using their own voices authentically to shape our new school. As an opportunity to exercise voice, students participate in a semester-long school-improvement project for HAIS. Throughout our study of literary and social voice, students …