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Secondary Education Commons

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Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Secondary Education

Engaging Students And Teaching Life Skills Through Community Collaboration, Kim Stein Jan 2023

Engaging Students And Teaching Life Skills Through Community Collaboration, Kim Stein

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Collaboration with the Youth First Program of Saginaw increased students' engagement in eleventh-grade English. Students bonded with community partners, their teacher, and their peers in new ways which produced an environment of mutual respect and deeper learning. Students engaged in a debate project which garnered recognition from school administrators and community members, who were influenced to enact positive changes for the school community.


A Restorative Justice Book Club For Secondary Classrooms, Mary M. Mcconnaha Jan 2023

A Restorative Justice Book Club For Secondary Classrooms, Mary M. Mcconnaha

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Schools face several challenges in creating meaningful community relationships, and the breakdown of these relationships causes harm to students, teachers, and administrators. Many schools have turned to restorative justice practices as a way to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, reduce discipline referrals, increase graduation rate, and strengthen the school community (Evans & Lester, 2013; Winn et al., 2019; Weaver and Swank, 2020). However, Winn (2013, 2018) and others have proposed that the principles of restorative justice can be embedded into the English Language Arts curriculum. In this paper, I describe a restorative justice book club unit for early adolescents that is …


Wakanda: Opening The High School Classroom To Afrofuturism, Carrie M. Mattern Jan 2023

Wakanda: Opening The High School Classroom To Afrofuturism, Carrie M. Mattern

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Afrofuturism has a solid place in high school classrooms thanks to the current work of Ryan Coogler, but also to those who have been in this work for decades including the Mother of Afrofuturism herself, Octavia Butler, adrienne maree brown, dream hampton, and a litany of Black poets and artists. This article leaps inside an Afrofuturistic unit curated for high school seniors with feedback and insight from their teachers and also the students who buckled up for a journey through time, space, and place.


Enacting Disciplinary Literacy Instruction: Essential Practices In Action, Darin B. Stockdill, Stacie B. Woodward Jun 2022

Enacting Disciplinary Literacy Instruction: Essential Practices In Action, Darin B. Stockdill, Stacie B. Woodward

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

In this paper, we will explore elements of the Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy: Grades 6-12 , a statewide initiative in Michigan designed to support exactly this kind of teaching. In particular, we will discuss key instructional implications of the Essential Practices for both social studies and ELA instruction and highlight important commonalities and distinctions across these two content areas. We provide concrete examples of these practices in action as we share activities and reflections from a curricular project we undertook with US History and ELA teachers called Equitable Futures. In this initiative, teachers engaged their students in inquiry-driven …


Culturally Responsive Language Arts Teaching: Refiguring Curriculum With Counternarratives, Claire A. Breiholz, Rebecca Smith Jul 2021

Culturally Responsive Language Arts Teaching: Refiguring Curriculum With Counternarratives, Claire A. Breiholz, Rebecca Smith

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

This paper offers culturally responsive teaching methods for secondary English Language Arts educators to reform curriculum to honor and integrate counternarratives. We provide a sample Herstory unit plan framework for teachers to use as a model for revisioning curriculum to better meet the needs of all students. We offer examples of both traditional canonical and contemporary texts teachers can use to teach counternarratives.


Book Clubs In A Pandemic: Student Choice And Flexible Pedagogies As We Learned More About Ourselves And The World, Naitnaphit Limlamai Jan 2021

Book Clubs In A Pandemic: Student Choice And Flexible Pedagogies As We Learned More About Ourselves And The World, Naitnaphit Limlamai

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Abstract: In this narrative, the author relays the experience of meeting virtually with two small book clubs, one sixth grade and one eighth grade, during the 2020-2021 school year. Meeting over Zoom, choosing books to read, and creating their own community, the members of the book club explore three major themes in their time together talking about books: connecting reading and writing, learning more about themselves, and building understandings about the world. Weaving the book club members’ voices with her own pedagogical decision-making, the author illustrates new ways to think about teaching as she centers student choice and flexible pedagogies.


Where's My Happy Ending? Fostering Empathy Through Conversations About Anxiety And Depression In Young Adult Literature, Kathleen Deakin, Gloria Eastman Nov 2019

Where's My Happy Ending? Fostering Empathy Through Conversations About Anxiety And Depression In Young Adult Literature, Kathleen Deakin, Gloria Eastman

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

The authors advocate for the use of text sets to initiate conversations about anxiety and depression in the Secondary classroom.


Exploring Privilege With Young Adult Literature, Stefani Boutelier Nov 2019

Exploring Privilege With Young Adult Literature, Stefani Boutelier

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

It is imperative to utilize Young Adult (YA) literature themes to transfer deeper ideologies. This article layers I am Alfonso Jones, a YA graphic novel, by Tony Medina to frame the exploration of privilege during a literature unit in a secondary ELA classroom. Teachers can facilitate understanding of such an often overused, yet misunderstood phrase, through multiple means (e.g., conversation protocols, performance assessment). The topics examined in this article supports a praxis model of moving critical pedagogy and equity literacy theories to the forefront of one’s teaching by including student voice, incorporating relationship building, and building important conversation skills to …


Yellow Pads And The Return Of The Writer, Gregory Shafer Nov 2019

Yellow Pads And The Return Of The Writer, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.


Coming To Terms With College Writing, Tyler Judd Apr 2019

Coming To Terms With College Writing, Tyler Judd

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

The task of defining college writing is one that will more than likely never find a definitive end. As writing teachers it is important to understand what the future for our students holds, but for those college-bound students it can often be hard to predict. With new resources such as Joseph Harris’ Rewriting: How to do Things With Texts, and National Writing Project’s College, Career, and Community Writers Program teachers can be sure they are guiding that population of students toward a successful academic future. This piece explores some of the specific resources and tools that I have found most …


Of Lizards And Language, Bernadette Gongora May 2017

Of Lizards And Language, Bernadette Gongora

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.


The International Baccalaureate Learner Profile: A Social Justice Framework In The English Language Arts Classroom, Kristin Sovis, Sarah Pancost May 2017

The International Baccalaureate Learner Profile: A Social Justice Framework In The English Language Arts Classroom, Kristin Sovis, Sarah Pancost

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

“The International Baccalaureate Learner Profile: A Social Justice Framework in the English Language Arts Classroom," highlights the story of an expert secondary ELA teacher as she navigates the political climate in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. Through narrative, classroom anecdote, and pedagogical reflection, this story offers readers an authentic portrait of the complex decisions that face teachers as we navigate tenuous political terrain in our classrooms. Central to this story is the International Baccalaureate (IB) Learner Profile (LP), which is the framework from which this teacher operates: the IB LP serves as both the anchor and guide for …