Education Commons^™

Exploring Teachers’ Lived Literacies : Disrupting Hegemonic Conceptions Of Literacy In Schools, Katie F. Whitley

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In schools, literacy is often positioned as a fixed set of reading and writing skills. This can limit what counts as an academically acceptable literacy practice despite the complex and nuanced ways people communicate in their personal and social contexts. With this tension around conceptions of literacy in mind, I wondered how teachers thought about literacy in their lives and in what ways (if any) their personal conceptions of literacy crossed the boundary into their classrooms. Thus, this study examines three secondary English language arts teachers’ conceptions of literacy using a feminist approach to new literacies as the theoretical framework …

Revamped Socratic Seminars: Great Ideas, Morgan Taylor

New Jersey English Journal

Revamped Socratic Seminars called 'Great Ideas' encourage student ownership and active participation. Preparing with open-ended questions and online tools, the approach fosters a learner community and deepens subject understanding, assessed through a tracking system.

Creating A Productive Ela Classroom Environment, Caroline E. Schack, Hagan Wells, Gary A. Pickle

New Jersey English Journal

Two early service teachers and one pre-service teacher offer strategies for creating a more effective, inclusive ELA classroom experience. The approaches include writing as a process, unification of behavioral management through class assignments, and a restorative approach to communication. Implementing these strategies can revive productivity in the ELA classroom.

Writing Is A Process, Not A Product: Encouraging Student Engagement Through Self-Assessment, Erin Riley-Lepo, Kayla Teeling

New Jersey English Journal

Going beyond traditional writing practices by utilizing a student-centered approach can benefit both student and teacher. In this essay, two high school English teachers present theories on student-regulated learning, formative assessment, and self-assessment in writing instruction. Then, they describe and provide examples of how these theories inform their writing instruction.

A Post-Pandemic Perspective: Challenges, Choices, And Adaptations, Joseph S. Pizzo

New Jersey English Journal

This poem deals with the challenges of returning to an in-person experience after having faced the challenges associated with teaching in remote and hybrid classrooms during the pandemic.

Pursuing Happiness: Teaching Scientific-Based Strategies For Subjective Well-Being In The Ela Classroom, Adam V. Piccoli

New Jersey English Journal

Increased rates of mental health issues have hurt student engagement levels. This article offers research-based strategies designed to improve subjective well-being for students. Practical examples of how to apply these strategies in the English Language Arts classroom are provided.

Our Lives Are Worth Celebrating, Darius M. Phelps, Brian Mooney

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Rurality In The Classroom: Connecting To Curriculum Through Place, Chea Parton

New Jersey English Journal

In this essay, I reflect on place-salient moments of my education career - one as a rural learner and the other as a rural teacher - to think about how rurality and where I came from affected my teaching and learning in rural classrooms.

Reviving 90s Sitcoms To Teach Black Linguistic Justice Concepts, Teaira Mcmurtry Phd

New Jersey English Journal

In this article, the author elucidates two teaching and learning possibilities in the high school ELA classroom when leveraging Black sitcoms of the 1990s (Family Matters and Amen) to prioritize Black Linguistic Justice.

Creative Writing Must Play A Bigger Role In The English Classroom, Yekaterina Mckenney

New Jersey English Journal

English language and literature teachers must implement more creative writing -- fiction and fanfiction -- into their high-school instruction in order to increase student engagement and invigorate their teaching.

The Power Of Print: Supporting Emergent Readers Vocabulary Growth, Susan J. Chambre

New Jersey English Journal

Vocabulary instructional practices are grounded in oral language development, neglecting the role print plays enhancing student learning. This article offers suggestions for early childhood educators to reconceptualize their thinking of print exposure with supporting vocabulary development. Suggestions of ways to incorporate print exposure into daily classroom routines are provided.

Cover, Editors' Note, Front Matter, Lauren Zucker, Susan Chenelle, Katie F. Whitley

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.

[Full Issue] Reviving Engagement In Ela

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.

Nikole Uw!, Erin Catoggio, Aj Humenik, Emily Papagiannis, Alyssa Varga

Games

Practice speaking, hearing, and moving in Munsee (Lenape)! This game is modeled after Simon Says and includes instructions, a caller's card, and a sample color wheel, all of which can be adapted to players' interests and abilities.

[Full Issue] What's Working? What's Not?

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.

Call For Culturally Inclusive Texts In The English Classroom: Books As Mirrors And Windows, Annie Yon

New Jersey English Journal

The literary canon has long been revered in public education as representing the “‘depth and breadth of our national common experience,’ but the problem is that what was once defined as ‘common’—middle class, white, cisgender people—is no longer the reality in our country” (Anderson 1). The United States has a very diverse population, but there is a lack of diverse representation in books taught in the English classroom. In other words, American classics embedded in the curriculum hold merit, but they do not fully represent the stories of all ethnic and culturally diverse students with their own “American” experiences. Poor …

Supporting Growth Mindset In The Post-Covid Classroom: A Case For Skills-Tracking And Goal-Achievement Strategies, Garrett T. Van Curen

New Jersey English Journal

The following essay explores the importance of student skills-tracking and goal-setting in the secondary English language arts classroom as students continue to adapt to in-person instruction following COVID-19 lockdowns and remote/hybrid instruction. The essay explores goal-setting and skills-tracking from the standpoint of growth-mindset and SEL.

Do We Just Continue To Teach? An Examination Of Teaching Through Tragedy By Teaching Tragedy, Janine M. Quimby

New Jersey English Journal

This personal essay explores the nature of teaching through a tragedy (the COVID-19 pandemic) by allowing students to self-select works to read, even if those works contain tragic elements.

Covid-19 Isolation: Daily Lessons, Joseph S. Pizzo

New Jersey English Journal

COVID-19 continually disrupts classroom structure, design, and the lessons being taught. A return to in-person, on-site classrooms is being challenged again by new variants and people’s desire to gather during holidays. Our goal as caring educators is to “educate rather than separate” as we “continue / To humanize / Our study / Of humanities.”

English Language Arts (Ela) Strategies For Teaching Students How To Disagree Productively, Adam V. Piccoli

New Jersey English Journal

This article utilizes research from educators, psychologists, and neuroscientists to derive strategies on how to disagree more productively. Explicit examples of applying these strategies in the English Language Arts classroom are provided. The areas of focus include Rogerian rhetoric, anger management, demonstrating empathy and using open-ended questions to persuade.

Community Building Through Classroom Routine: A Language Arts Class Opener, Deborah Overstreet

New Jersey English Journal

Classroom community is a key component in building the kind of environment where students thrive. Specific academic routine can be an effective method of both creating a supportive classroom community and teaching language arts content.

An Argument For Simplicity: Have Learning Systems Become Too Complicated?, William A. Mesce

New Jersey English Journal

COVID has made higher education institutions more reliant on remote learning platforms, but there is little standardization between institutions, and some of these systems may be unnecessarily complex. This article argues for asking not what such systems could do, but what educators and students need them to do.

Identity Development To Support Disenfranchised Student Engagement, Jessica Hadid

New Jersey English Journal

A challenge for many secondary educators is fostering student engagement. This challenge is enhanced by pandemic related constraints. Although not intuitive at the onset, an effective approach to address waning engagement involves facilitating students’ identity exploration and development. This article explains how identity work connects with task engagement, and presents a model for successfully integrating an identity development program into an existing ELA curriculum.

Writing Our Climate Future: A “Cli-Fi” Writing Process For Students In The Anthropocene, Shannon Falkner

New Jersey English Journal

Like Covid, climate change causes many students to feel afraid and powerless. By studying infographics on climate change, we can help students develop their 21st century literacy skills while educating them about climate change and its solutions. As students draw on that knowledge to write their own “cli-fi” stories, they practice their narrative writing skills and learn how fiction writers address real-world issues in their work. As a result, students come to understand the power of literature to make abstract world issues feel personalized and meaningful to readers and the power they have as writers to effect change.

Professional Development, John Chorazy

New Jersey English Journal

Written from the perspective of a teacher, this poem reflects on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Social Distancing: Closing The Gap Between Digital And Social Media Literacy Practices And Literacy Instruction, Rachel Besharat-Mann

New Jersey English Journal

As adolescents increasingly navigate texts through digital and social media, educators have the crucial task of understanding text production and consumption and bridging these literacy practices into classrooms. This article will discuss the different skill components for digital and social media literacy and application in the classroom.

Cover, Editors' Note, Front Matter, Lauren Zucker, Susan Chenelle, Katie F. Whitley

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.

Teacher Activism For Emergent Bilingual Learners : A Qualitative Study, Cyrene A. Crooms

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This qualitative dissertation study explored what informed the pedagogical moves of four teacher activists of emergent bilingual learners (EBLs). Quijano’s (2000) theory of coloniality of power served as a theoretical lens to examine the historical underpinnings of current education language legislation and policies impacting EBLs. There is a growing body of literature on teacher activism, but very few studies center teacher activism for linguistic justice. Picower’s (2012) framework for teacher activism was used to create data sources, which included interviews, artifacts, field visits, and personal communication. Data were analyzed using open and axial coding strategies. Findings were presented in four …

Languaging School Into Being : A Discourse Analysis Of Online Ela Classes Within The Context Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jason Christopher Toncic

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, school buildings across the United States shut their doors and transitioned students and teachers to remote learning, most often utilizing internet-based technology to provide either asynchronous or synchronous lessons. I was a high school English Language Arts teacher in Stone Valley School District in Northeastern New Jersey when the unprecedented school closures moved my classes online for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.

As a teacher researcher who specialized in New Literacy Studies, I was particularly sensitive to how students and I used technology to continue lessons after the school building shut …

[Full Issue] Course Correction: The Adaptive Nature Of English Language Arts

New Jersey English Journal

No abstract provided.