English Updates: English Journal. March 2007.

Why this Blog?

English Updates is for English teachers who can read brief summaries of ideas from professional literature and can then adapt these ideas to their own teaching situations. If readers need more information than the idea, then they will need to purchase the publication. English Journal is published by the National Council of Teachers of English and can be found on the Internet at ncte.org.

Curriculum..... Professional..... If teachers object to mandates with which they disagree, they are told that they do so because of their own selfish interests. L Reid. EJ (Mar. 07), 12.

Curriculum..... Professional.... Develop an action-research teacher publication in which local teachers' studies are published. L Reid. EJ (Mar. 07), 12.

Literature..... Response..... Student was not interested in why Huck and Jim went down the river, but she was interested in why the book was so often banned. [Students can approach a reading assignment for different purposes. RayS.] L Reid. EJ (Mar. 07), 12.

Writing..... Process..... "As much as Don[ald Murray] tried to describe his process of writing, it was its elusiveness, its unexpectedness, that truly fascinated him." T Newwkirk. EJ (Mar. 07), 14.

Literature..... Blogs..... Teacher sets up blogs on issue in classroom and students comment on it. No last names to protect the identity of the students from outsiders. [Method of encouraging discussion. RayS.] E Kahn. EJ (Mar. 07), 17.

Literature..... Response..... In encouraging students to respond to literature, teacher encourages them to write as they really speak. [Could make them conscious of how they really speak and how that language contrasts with formal writing. RayS.] T Gardner EJ (Mar. 07), 19-21.

Literature..... Criticism..... Black students criticize the curriculum for their having to read only white writers. SP Carter. EJ (Mar. 07), 23.

Literature..... Culture..... Encourage African-American Read-in: read excerpts from black literature, ssr, storytellers, book reading aloud. SP Carter. EJ (Mar. 07), 23.

Language..... Dialects..... Students collect words from the dialect they speak. M Crotteau. EJ (Mar. 07), 27-32.

Curriculum..... Electives..... Unit in which teachers are allowed to teach minicourses on their favorite topics. H Moorman, et al. EJ (Mar. 07), 33-38. [Why not? RayS.]

Writing..... Research..... Students write a "You are there" book. L Roessing. EJ (Mar. 07), 50-55.

Writing..... Evaluation..... Rubrics are factory-style assessment. M Wilson. EJ (Mar. 07), 62-66.

Literature..... Film..... Student read scenes from a novel or play and then watch the scenes in the film. PJ Coencas. EJ (Mar. 07), p. 70.

Literature..... Response..... Have students annotate as they read. Use sticky notes. Helps students connect to the book. MD Brown. EJ (Mar. 07), 73-78.

Writing..... Interest..... Judges the interest level of each student in writing from 1 to 4. Then adapts to the interest level of the individual students. RL Lipstein and KA Renninger. EJ (Mar. 07), p. 79-85.

Writing..... Writing across the curriculum..... Develop a writing policy school wide. R VanDeWeghe. EJ (Mar. 07), 94.

Curriculum..... Teaching..... "...teaching is all about stealing good ideas from other people. However, I can't just steal an idea and expect that it will work smoothly in my classroom." P Pennock. EJ (Mar. 07), 101.

Writing..... Audience..... Reminder that defining audience can have positive effects on writing instruction. TP Bigelow. EJ (Mar. 07), 108-109.