Innovative Writing Instruction and Mentoring Matters
Signs of writing are all around us, from writings that decorate school bulletin boards, student essays, and teacher journals to units that guide our classroom work. How do you address such signs of writing, among others, in your work with students? What approaches to writing instruction have you used to stimulate student engagement with words and actions? “Innovative Writing Instruction” provides a forum for productively contentious, yet critical discussions on approaches to writing instruction.
Editor: Valerie Kinloch
Signs of writing are all around us, from writings that decorate school bulletin boards, student essays, and teacher journals to units that guide our classroom work. How do you address such signs of writing, among others, in your work with students? What approaches to writing instruction have you used to stimulate student MBT Shoes On Sale engagement with words and actions? “Innovative Writing Instruction” provides a forum for productively contentious, yet critical discussions on approaches to writing instruction. In addition to discussing the writings authored by students, we will examine the various ways we engage students in work that helps to strengthen their voice, authority, and interest in writing. In these examinations, we will question our challenges with teaching writing in the spaces we call classrooms, schools, and communities of learning. What we do with students around writing and our approaches to writing instruction affect how they use words to participate in the world.
Column contributions of 1,800–2,800 words are encouraged. Send email submissions to Valerie Kinloch at kinloch.2 @osu.edu.
Mentoring Matters
Editors: Thomas M. McCann and Larry Johann Essen
Some critics use the disturbing phrase “eating their young” to refer to the way some school leaders and veteran teachers treat new teachers. The image refers to the regrettable practice of allowing the newcomer to endure the least desirable conditions in a school or department. In contrast, caring veteran teachers will be sensitive to the need to foster growth and to promote a sense of self-efficacy in new colleagues. The development of any teacher is not complete after departure from a teacher preparation program. Professional growth continues for years, and supportive colleagues can play a significant role in influencing the development, satisfaction, and retention of teachers in the early stages of their careers. This column invites contributors to offer practicing teachers, schools, and teacher preparation MBT Shoes Best Prices programs their insights about how to mentor and support early-career English teachers, including reports from early-career teachers about their positive mentoring experiences. We especially encourage specific suggestions for practices that will help veteran teachers to support newer colleagues in developing positive relationships with students, contending with pressures to conform to test-driven curricula, handling an enormous workload, and forming collaborative relationships with supervisors, colleagues, and parents.
We invite column contributions of 500–1,500 words addressing themes about mentoring and supporting early-career teachers. Send inquiries, ideas, and submissions to Thomas M. McCann
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