Education Commons^™

Why Size Matters: Flash Fiction In High School English, Wayne R. Ashby

Theses & Honors Papers

This action research project explores the value of flash fiction in the secondary classroom. Flash fiction draws heavily on oral traditions such as the joke, and the fable, to present complete stories in fewer than 1500 words. The form has flourished in recent years, particularly on the internet, where literary journals such as The Vestal Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Toasted Cheese, publish engaging, and provocative stories. By examining how students react to the unique characteristics of flash fiction, teachers can make the most this valuable and abundant resource.

This article describes how students at a public secondary charter school responded …

Transitioning The Struggling Reader: Evaluating The Effects Of Middle-School Direct Instruction On Traditional High-School Learning In The English Classroom, Sarah Tanner Anderson

Theses & Honors Papers

In this qualitative study, I investigate the academic performance of three current ninth-grade students who were tracked throughout middle school by the 1999 McGraw-Hill SRA Corrective Reading Direct Instruction program. To study their respective transitions from middle to high school, I investigate their test performance on the fifth- and eighth-grade reading and writing Virginia Standards of Learning assessments, analyze the quality of student work from sixth through ninth grades by evaluating student products and test documents, and conduct intensive interviews with students and their former and current teachers. By constructing a case-study of each student and conducting a cross-case analysis …