Education | Open Access Articles | Digital Commons Network™

Winter 2021 Call For Manuscripts, Jenny M. Martin Aug 2020

Winter 2021 Call For Manuscripts, Jenny M. Martin

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

Writing Conferences For Effective Instruction, Sarah Myroup Aug 2020

Writing Conferences For Effective Instruction, Sarah Myroup

Virginia English Journal

This article presents an argument on behalf of writing conferences to provide individualized and personal instruction to foster the growth of students as writers. Writing conferences are an approach that centers around the students’ thoughts and goals for their written pieces and allows the teacher to more deeply understand and assist each writer. To host writing conferences in the most effective way possible, it is recommended that teachers make feedback to each student personal and specific to the piece, that they ask questions to guide conversation, but also that they allow the conference to be structured around and driven by …

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Autism Speaks: Extending Grammar In The Classroom To Students With Autism, Bailey Nixon, Ashley Schweizer Aug 2020

Autism Speaks: Extending Grammar In The Classroom To Students With Autism, Bailey Nixon, Ashley Schweizer

Virginia English Journal

Developing sentence variety and elaboration are important skills for all students, so we wanted to create grammar lessons to help children with autism with these critical skills. After assessing a group of lesson plans found in Amy Benjamin and Joan Berger’s (2014) book, Teaching Grammar: What Really Works, we adapted lesson plans to cater to the needs of students with autism. We used strategies such as modeling, think-alouds, Applied Behavior Analysis, and the Discrete Trial Teaching Method. We created our lesson plan revisions in order to provide teachers with the best resources to create an inclusive environment within their …

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Defining "Teacher", Kyle D. Trott Aug 2020

Defining "Teacher", Kyle D. Trott

Virginia English Journal

The author takes an etymological look at the term “teacher” to humanize the current post-modern teacher’s quarries as to what their purpose is as a teacher. The author explicates the two terms, didaskalōs and pedagogue, to address the competing ideas of the role of a teacher before asserting that success, or virtue, comes in the form of continued development, paideia, of both the teacher and their students. Concluding that the current teacher doesn’t need to be any kind of teacher other than the one who continues to improve.

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Making Reading So “Useful” It Sticks, Sarah Tanner-Anderson Aug 2020

Making Reading So “Useful” It Sticks, Sarah Tanner-Anderson

Virginia English Journal

In the English language arts classroom, students must not only understand and appreciate the value of reading, writing, and speaking, but they must also learn, employ, and hone these skills for use as contributing members of their current and future societies. Our task, then, is to make learning so “useful” that it sticks-- to build a strong foundation of literacy that may continue to expand as students’ life experiences provide more depth and relevance to their work. For reading, specifically, we must both encourage and support interest, stamina, and understanding of the texts we explore, which is no small feat …

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Let’S Get Graphic: The Integration Of Visual Representations To Demonstrate Learning, Courtneay Kelly Aug 2020

Let’S Get Graphic: The Integration Of Visual Representations To Demonstrate Learning, Courtneay Kelly

Virginia English Journal

Students derive meaning from knowledge that is presented to them in various ways. An instructor may present information through different modalities, though direct verbal instruction is the mode most often employed (Beesley & Apthorp, 2010). Research indicates that, when information is constructed through the use of visual representations, students gain deeper and more enduring understanding of the content (Jewitt, 2008; Kress, 1997). This article provides an explanation and definition of nonlinguistic and linguistic visual representations, a review of what research indicates in the integration of them, and examples of the inclusion of concept-based visual representations in a college course that …

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Helping Freshmen Revise:Collaborative Peer Review Through The Eyes Of Students, Jean S. Filetti Aug 2020