Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

On Reforms And The New State Core, Jon Ostenson

The Utah English Journal

For a long time now, the professionalism of teachers has been under attack—from light-hearted jabs like the neighbor or friend who teases us about our “cushy” job that only requires us to work nine months out of the year to unflattering media portrayals to more serious attacks from politicians and business leaders who point fingers at teachers, blaming us for a multitude of problems in the schools and with students’ performance. Many of the reform efforts underway right now are aimed at us and have the ostensible goal of improving teaching. This is not in and of itself a bad …

Increasing Student Engagement, Decreasing Teacher Workload: Student Self-Assessment As A Writing Approach, David B. Lee

The Utah English Journal

I was recently introduced to a first-year English teacher and was asked what advice I would give this teacher about to embark on the journey of teaching. I half-jokingly said, “Be careful: Grading papers can take over your life.” We all kind of chuckled, but I knew that this new teacher was soon to find out that this statement is very real; every time I thumb through a mound of ungraded essays sitting on my desk, I am reminded of this reality.

The Common Core Standards (2010) suggest that students participate in several short and long-term writing projects. I agree, …

Assigner Or Inspirer? My Journey Away From The Book Project, Christine Cluff Thompson

The Utah English Journal

Pleased with both students’ presentations described above, their teacher awards them high marks for following the rubric: eye contact was made, props provided interest and evidence of the book’s plot and character development, opinions were shared and supported, the audience was engaged, and aside from Britney forgetting to show the book cover, both students did the required work to score an A grade. The only problem with the two projects? Neither student read the book they presented.

Close Encounters Of The Best Kind, Shannon Butler

The Utah English Journal

Usually I slip into a student teacher’s class and pull my forms of checklist behaviors from my bag unnoticed. If I am introduced, students give an indifferent glance, then turn their attention back where it belongs. But this morning was different.

The Power Of Using Standards-Based Grading To Assess Student Writing, Whitney Weaver, Angela Hartley

The Utah English Journal

Each year, like many language arts teachers across the state of Utah, we set out to effectively teach our students how to be good writers. Each time we discover exciting and engaging ways to teach writing in our classrooms. However, we have also found that even the best writing practices fall short in the absence of effective writing assessment. Standards-based grading has been, for us, the most successful tool for such assessments.

Standards-based grading is when a teacher creates specific and measurable learning goals to guide the curriculum, conducts frequent formative assessments of the students’ proficiency on these goals, and …

Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Temple Grandin: How The Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism And Changed The World, Rose Cherie Reissman

The Utah English Journal

Suitable for grades 5 and beyond, this groundbreaking multi-modal science, humane education, and autism focused biography uses direct quotes from Temple, equipment designs, photos, and animal/ autism fact-driven data sheets to offer readers an up-close and personal experience. Given its incorporation of specific chapters on animal thinking, bullying, autism spectrum data, Grandin’s advice for dealing with being different, humane treatment of animal issues, and actual diagrams for squeeze shuttle/cruelty-free facilities, this book can support teachers in addressing the Common Core standards of information/literary texts, text-based answers, academic vocabulary, and building content knowledge. It’s an excellent tool for ELA, Science, and …

Teaching In, Out, And Through Creative Nonfiction, Thomas Henry

The Utah English Journal

Paraphrasing the “Most Interesting Man in the World,” a marketing icon portrayed as a genius, adventurer, and connoisseur of the “finer things” in life who advertises those silly but comical beer commercials: I don’t always teach creative nonfiction, but when I do…. I tend to consider many different facets of the art, the genre, and the practice of “nonfiction.” Creative nonfiction (CNF), is more or less the pinnacle of what “good writing” is and should be in an even broader creative and rhetorical sense. This genre engages, teaches, and shares bits of knowledge in an accessible and distinctive way; furthermore, …

Book Review: Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media And Genres, Joseph Wiederhold

The Utah English Journal

We tend to teach the way we were taught, and many practicing teachers—myself included—were taught to write through analog tools. After reading this book, I realized my practice was still largely rooted in analog thinking. Even though I would consider my classroom plugged in to the digital world, reading Hicks’ book helped me realize that I often integrate technology by using it merely as a tool to publish or create a product. If that digital inclusion helps improve or bring efficacy to the writing process, we often consider the effort as a step toward digital literacy. This thinking is flawed, …

There Can Be No End Save Learning: Using Seminal U.S. Documents To Teach Fundamental Reading Skills, Michael Handy

The Utah English Journal

The skill-based Common Core, as well as its Utah adaptation, raises the level of rigor required of students. The core focuses on skills that apply to literature and nonfiction of all kinds. A few standards name specific authors (Shakespeare’s name appears several times, for example), but the standards in general impose no prescribed list of works on teachers.

Yet Standard 9 of the Reading Standards for Informational Text curiously lists not only authors worthy of study, but specific works: “Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s …

Essay Writing Instructional Lexicon And Semantic Confusion, Amir Kalan

English Faculty Publications

“Introduction,” “body,” and “conclusion” are the most accessible words in the instructional lexicon for ESL writing teachers when they want to describe the structure of a typical five-paragraph persuasive or argumentative essay or its shorter variations for standardized tests such as TOEFL and IELTS. They are frequently employed to refer to the three tiers of the hamburger essay in textbooks, on classroom boards, and in YouTube tutorials.

Not surprisingly, English learners also might give you the same words if asked what the main components of an essay are. Like ESL teachers, students usually use the same terms or their equivalents …

Tracking The Basic Writer, Timothy Donohue

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Since the 1970s, composition teachers and theorists have been advocating the term “basic writer” to give a space and voice to underprepared students entering college by providing them with basic skills remediation. Despite the various pedagogical approaches to these classes that have been established and put into practice over the years, there is still large disagreement among educators on how to best prepare these students for entrance into the mainstream college environment.

This study begins by examining the history of the basic writing movement, acknowledging key figures and the salient ideas of their works. A broad overview is given to …

Seven Strategies For Teaching The Novel, James Young

The Utah English Journal

Most elementary and secondary teachers have independent reading programs that allow students to choose novels based on their interest and reading levels. After reading the novel on their own at home, students are either given short comprehension tests or asked to write reports to give them credit for the work they have completed. Sometimes, however, teachers want all of the students in a class to experience the same novel together. He or she might want to teach the class a reading technique associated with a novel, like how to locate the conflict in a story or how to examine the …

Today's Kids Need The Classics Too, Lorraine Wallace

The Utah English Journal

It is no secret that 21st Century adolescents are reading less than their parents and grandparents did. Because modern technology has tapped into teens’ craving for color, action, and sound, books have a hard time competing with the X-box and the Wii. The “gotta have it quick and easy” attitude of today’s teens and young adults seems to make reading anything of substance, involving depth of thought or processing time, a pastime gone the way of wringer washers and push mowers.

So how do secondary English teachers who want their students to read tap into the insatiable appetite teens have …

Experiencing The Cuwp Summer Institute, Liz Knight

The Utah English Journal

The Central Utah Writing Project is part of the network of over 200 National Writing Project sites. It was established in 2008 and serves the school districts of central Utah; every summer the CUWP sponsors a 3-4 week institute that brings together teachers from a variety of disciplines to study the art of teaching writing. This past summer I spent three weeks at the Central Utah Writing Project’s Summer Institute. I was there as the graduate assistant to the administrators, part-participant and part-observer. I was mid-way through the MFA program in Creative Writing at Brigham Young University, and had been …

Living Through Literature: The Benefits Of Small Learning Communities And Cross-Content Collaboration, Dawan Coombs, Brian Preece

The Utah English Journal

"Coombs, what are you doing here?” Matt asked as he walked into the room, geared up for history class with Mr. Preece. “I’m here for your class,” I replied with a smile. I knew where this was going; we’d had conversations similar to this before. “But this is history,” he retorted. “We don’t have your English class ‘til next period. You and Mr. Preece don’t even seem like you’d be friends.” Mr. Preece and I raised our eyebrows at Matt’s comment, but the sentiments he expressed were similar to those we had heard before. As this and other exchanges like …

Using Picture Books In The Secondary Classroom, Kaye Brockbank

The Utah English Journal

One of my favorite picture books is Stand Tall Molly Lou Mellon by Patty Lovell. It is a fantastic picture book about, among other things, following the advice of those we admire. The story also deals with topics such as being who you are despite what others think of you and standing up to bullies. Molly Lou’s story is perfect for introducing or supporting classroom discussions on these topics. The story is quick and to the point, and, despite what teen students might say, they really do enjoy having a story read to them. Picture books are a fun, quick …

Book Review: Learning To Write For Readers: Using Brain-Based Strategies, Joseph Wiederhold

The Utah English Journal

Steak and potatoes packaged as a light dinner salad. Learning to Write for Readers succeeds where other brain-based learning books fail, remaining accessible without sacrificing substance. When other brain-based education books become muddled with scientific jargon mired in convoluted explanations that do not have direct transfer to the classroom, Crow’s work remains pragmatic, rooted in what will benefit student learning today, and after they leave our classrooms.

Why I Teach, Jennifer Dunn

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

"It's Such A Cool Word!" Reflections On In-Dept Vocabulary Instruction In A Middle School Language Arts Classroom, Naomi Watkins

The Utah English Journal

After several years of teaching vocabulary in a very traditional manner—list of words, copy the definitions, memorize them, take a test—I had grown weary of spending my time on instruction that I knew (even from my own personal experience as a student) did not work. I wanted instruction that resulted in my students really using the words in their own speech and writing, rather than just having superficial knowledge or merely being able to recognize words. I knew that my students were capable of a deeper processing level and of acquiring more sophisticated “everyday” words and academic language. I really …

Bullies, Bystanders, And A Birthday, Janae Shepherd

The Utah English Journal

Kelly Jo… Kelly Jo Fransden, the bully of Forbes Elementary School. She was in my classroom and my neighborhood, and I had to see her at church. She wasn’t particularly pretty, although for some reason she seemed to think she was. She strutted around the classroom and anywhere else with an air about her that she was somehow better than everyone else. As some kids today would say, she thought she was “all that and a bag of chips.” I’m still not sure why she acted that way. Perhaps it was her own lack of self-confidence, her projection of what …

Word Ways: Revisiting Ancient Greco-Latin Myths To Build Vocabulary, Jacqueline S. Thursby

The Utah English Journal

I recently assigned an old children’s tale to my senior undergraduate students called “!e Story of the Cruel Giant Barbarico, the Good Giant Benefico, and the Little Pretty Dwarf, Mignon,” written by Sarah Fielding, who lived from 1710 to1768. It was an unfamiliar story to them and written in the archaic style of 18th century English. The primary characters in the story were the giants, Barbarico and Benefico, and the sweethearts, Fidus and Amata. The names clearly reflect characteristics of the players in the story. By using root Latinate forms, Sarah Fielding foreshadowed the characters’ primary personality attributes: Barbarico (barbarous: …

The Pitfalls Of Publishing: Unforseen Challenges When Students Write To Publish, Jill Muir

The Utah English Journal

Sitting at my desk, I read an email regarding grants for teachers. As I pondered the needs of my students that might be met with a grant, I thought about my English Language Learners. Over the course of the school year, I gradually learned their stories of why and how they came to the United States. Some students had stories I had predicted: Their families wanted them to come to school in the United States, so the students were living with relatives and planned to return to their native countries. Other students, however, had dramatic stories: stories of kidnapping, escape, …

All Work And No Play Makes Jack (Or Jill) A Dull Writer, Joseph Anson

The Utah English Journal

Yes, I am one of those geeky idealistic English teachers, who occasionally fantasize about being Robin Williams’ character Mr. Keating from the classic film Dead Poets Society. After twelve years of unsuccessfully convincing my students to call me “O Captain, My Captain,” I still hold to the belief that I can get my students to “savor words and language” (Haft, Henderson, Witt, Thomas, & Weir, 1989). Regardless of an individual’s ability or inherent wordsmithiness, I encourage all students to play with words on many different levels. On Fridays, we set aside time to play with words. Just play. But why? …

Book Review: Writing Across The Curriculum: A Critical Sourcebook, Thomas Henry

The Utah English Journal

The Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) movement provides some of the most substantial strategies for keeping our discipline relevant for students and for ourselves. More-over, the WAC movement allows us to put focus into our work by informing us of outside writing practices. In a sense, WAC reminds us that our work as teachers does not exist in isolation, but exists to support a much larger economic and pedagogical structure (at all levels). This edited collection, complied by Zawacki and Rogers, provides a wonderful insight into the WAC movement and its literature.

Teaching Textual Recycling, Thomas Henry, Jim Pettersson

The Utah English Journal

Linguist, Michael Lewis suggests that a “recycling” strategy should be at the heart of an approach to teaching English (especially to speakers of second languages). He calls this specific approach the “Lexical Approach.” This approach focuses on ways in which students can use pre-fabricated linguistic units and/or formulaic expressions to form new language. In addition to the Lexical Approach, a “Template Approach” endorsed by Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein, also advocates the “recycling” of chunks of language to form new discourse. Their text, They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, contains formulaic language used to promote …

Critical Pop Culture Consumers: Using Tupac And Music In The Classroom To Teach Critical Literary Analysis Of Pop Culture, Marilyn Miller

The Utah English Journal

Teaching critical analysis is a unit that I designed to get students to understand the elements in an increasingly complex world where language provides the vehicle to refine thought. Because students are imbued in the element, they are often persuaded, cajoled, and tricked into embracing messages and images that may negatively influence their lives. Teaching them to look at the music and the videos that influence them and critically analyze the persuasive techniques and the impact of these messages on their developing values empowers them to choose more carefully the music they embrace or at least understand the influence of …

Book Review: Out Of My Mind, Jenna Fitch

The Utah English Journal

Melody is one of the brightest students in her class, but no one knows. All of the words she wishes she could express are stuck inside—Melody has cerebral palsy and can’t talk. Only through the help of a new, special computer does Melody find her voice and correct many of her classmates’ misconceptions about people with disabilities. Unfortunately, neither Melody nor her family anticipates the additional stigmas and judgment that will arrive along with Melody’s new voice.

This 300+ page quick read says what many of the physically and mentally disabled students in our schools can’t: include me. Through Out …

Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Pregnant Pause, Tanei Henry

The Utah English Journal

Before Pregnant Pause, I’d never read a book by Han Nolan; and after Pregnant Pause, I can’t wait to read another. While many other YA novels deal with teen pregnancy and parent/teen communication issues, none of the others have Eleanor Crowe dealing with them. Eleanor Crowe is a strong female protagonist, not the kind who deals with bows or elves or vampires, but the kind who deals with real issues that real teenagers are dealing with right now. Though fictional, Han Nolan has created completely believable characters that have to make decisions that many teenagers might also have to make …