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Purpose: This study aims to understand the supports and challenges to using disciplinary and antiracism lenses when teaching with informational texts in middle grades English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes teacher talk in four virtual sessions with four middle grades ELA teachers in one school district. Teachers had recently completed a voluntary, school-based antiracism professional development. Researchers used thematic analysis of session transcripts and semi-structured interviews. Findings: Teachers' informational text use was nested in and directed by curriculum and contexts that limited disciplinary and antiracist teaching. The context and texts constrained instruction to basic reading skills. Equity was conceptualized as supporting students' persistence. Discussions of race were avoided. Research limitations/implications: This study has implications for ELA teacher preparation, and district and state resources to support merging disciplinarity and antiracism in informational text instruction in ELA. The study is limited by the small sample from one district and access to only teacher self-reports. Originality/value: Secondary ELA disciplinary literacy has privileged literature, yet there is an increase of informational text use in middle grades ELA. Teachers need support teaching informational texts through disciplinary and antiracism lenses.

The purpose of this study was to understand the nature of writing instruction across time and grade bands. We used quantitative and qualitative analyses of teacher interviews and video records of classroom instruction of English language arts writing instruction in 97 fourth- through eighth-grade classrooms in 2010 and 2018. Video records showed a decline in writing instruction across time and grade bands. Teacher lessons focused on the first five Common Core Writing Standards with little attention to the latter five. The lessons included aspects of a writing process approach that used instructional scaffolding, models, student practice, and teacher feedback. Lessons were less likely to include the use of authentic texts, text analysis, and student discussion. Teacher interviews pointed to curricular constraints, a view of writing as peripheral, and comfort with teaching writing as hindrances to quality writing instruction. These findings demonstrate a need for curricular and instructional resources to support teachers in offering consistently quality writing instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This column explores the question: 'Is antiracist teaching a downer?' Though not easy, antiracist teaching can be joyful as it allows students to achieve their full potential. Antiracist teaching recognizes [...]

Facilitating discussions in English Language Arts can develop students' skills as speakers and listeners and their ability to engage with diverse perspectives. However, classroom observations often demonstrate a lack of student talk, raising questions about the complexity of facilitating discussion and teachers' opportunities to learn and hone the practice. In this article, we discuss how teacher educators leveraged a collaboratively designed specification of the practice of facilitating discussions to attempt some alignment across three programs. The teacher educators reached what we call alignment amid variation. There was consistency in the stances regarding the role of children in classrooms and understanding of the purposes for and key aspects of the practice that allowed for alignment amid variation in their work with novice teachers across programs. Our findings have implications for considering the work of cross-institutional collaborations to improve teacher preparation and K-12 student learning.

Higher education is working to diversify the undergraduate curriculum to support critical thinking and promote racial justice--pressing work, particularly at predominantly white colleges and universities. To support students' critical thinking, we need to better understand their awareness of systemic inequities as they enter and exit undergraduate diversity courses. To inform the development of undergraduate curricula, we use iterative comparative analysis of students' written work to investigate patterns in their thinking regarding issues of systemic inequalities in U.S. public schools before and after an undergraduate diversity course. We examine patterns in student language as they make sense of systemic inequities using course data that centers historic and systemic inequities in U.S schools. We find that students consider these data within their already-held narratives of meritocracy and individuality, resulting in troubled text regarding the role of race and class privilege, and the responsibility/culpability of systems versus individuals in educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facilitating discussions in English Language Arts can develop students' skills as speakers and listeners and their ability to engage with diverse perspectives. However, classroom observations often demonstrate a lack of student talk, raising questions about the complexity of facilitating discussion and teachers' opportunities to learn and hone the practice. In this article, we discuss how teacher educators leveraged a collaboratively designed specification of the practice of facilitating discussions to attempt some alignment across three programs. The teacher educators reached what we call alignment amid variation. There was consistency in the stances regarding the role of children in classrooms and understanding of the purposes for and key aspects of the practice that allowed for alignment amid variation in their work with novice teachers across programs. Our findings have implications for considering the work of cross-institutional collaborations to improve teacher preparation and K-12 student learning. Keywords literacy/reading teacher education, practice-based teacher education, elementary teacher education, secondary teacher education, Introduction Facilitating discussion is a critical skill teachers need to gain access to children's literacy skills and content knowledge. Empirical research and the Common Core State Standards urge teachers to [...]

The debate surrounding how best to support African American student writers continues today as the gap between achievement scores persists. This qualitative analysis documents the classroom structures and instructional practices of two English Language Arts teachers working in a predominately African American public middle school, whose students demonstrated growth on the state's standardized assessment of English Language Arts. Teachers were chosen based on value-added measures of student achievement using test score gain and observational data of their writing instruction. Both teachers explicitly and repeatedly targeted writing skills and strategies during instruction and offered aligned instructional supports. Tasks assigned were intellectually challenging and aligned with the targeted skills and strategies. The data suggest ways to balance both skill and strategy instruction and a process approach to writing instruction, which many argue is supportive of African American students' writing development. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, and 1 note.)

Modeling, by demonstrating and explaining the cognitive processes involved in writing, has been shown to support writing development. Less often have specific disciplinary aspects of teaching with models been investigated. We draw on research in English Language Arts and apply it in social studies inquiry contexts to propose a framework for teaching models of thinking and writing that offers teachers and researchers new perspectives on the discipline-specific work of modeling. This framework accounts for three modes of instruction - use of models (a tool or a text), demonstrating and explaining, and co-constructing model texts with students - and describes eleven instructional practices that support instruction across these modes. We analyze data from three years of social studies instruction to show how two teachers enact these practices across the three modes to highlight the disciplinary thinking and processes that support writing social studies arguments with sources, highlighting the ways students can actively participate in teaching writing with models. In addition, we consider the role of the curriculum in this work. We show how writing instruction can address disciplinary ways of thinking in social studies and illustrate the potential of the framework for guiding researchers' and practitioners' work on writing instruction across disciplinary contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]