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This pilot study investigates content-area preservice teacher perceptions of literacy practices as humanizing pedagogy. Findings from open-ended survey questions and a focal interview suggest preservice teachers see the connection between literacy learning and the teaching of their content area. They also have a budding understanding of how literacy practices and humanizing pedagogy can be linked. The research suggests preservice teachers and new teachers will need additional tools, training, and support to enact literacy practices and humanizing pedagogy. Educator preparation programs can be part of that work and support system for new teachers.

The Science of Teaching Reading (STR) has received increasing attention as states continue to pass educational policy initiatives grounded in STR research. One major change resulting from STR policies is the heavy focus on the systematic instruction of phonics. Texas in particular has seen sweeping changes to their preservice teacher (PST) certification requirements, resulting in teacher education programs (TEPs) having to adjust their literacy preparation coursework in response to these changes. This shift leaves questions surrounding the potential displacement of other literacy practices in TEPs, such as the use of children's literature. Standalone children's literature courses have been a staple in TEPs historically; however, these courses have been slowly eliminated in other states as STR policies are adopted. Therefore, the present study uses content analysis methodology to understand how children's literature is positioned alongside the newly adopted STR policies in Texas. Through the examination of course descriptions and syllabi of literacy coursework, this content analysis seeks to determine the number of TEPs maintaining a standalone children's literature course and the primary focus of these courses. Additionally, the current study investigates how children's literature is being positioned in other literacy coursework to teach STR principles. The implications can provide TEPs as well as teacher educators insight on the repositioning of children's literature within coursework, as children's literature can serve a valuable role in the teaching of reading.

Professional learning should be designed in a way that is responsive to the needs of teachers and intentionally planned with adult learning principles in mind. This article outlines one practitioner's professional journey to redefine how professional learning is designed with best practices in adult learning in mind. Strategies utilized during this professional journey are shared within the article, along with reflections and observations. The article underscores the importance of continuously refining and adapting current professional learning practices to meet the dynamic needs of adult learners in order to forge the future of professional learning.

Exploring the realm of literacy involves understanding how graphic novels shape students' reading and writing journeys. Through scholarly research, the authors delve into the significant impact of graphic novels on education while highlighting their appeal to students through visual features and engaging storytelling. Included is a discussion of lesson planning using eighth-grade English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) focused on exploring the role setting has on a character's motivations, values, and beliefs through the graphic novel "When Stars Are Scattered" by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. This approach empowers students to become proficient readers and writers in today's visual society.

The 2017 TEKS revision, the 2023 STAAR redesign, and the 2024 TCTELA conference theme call on literacy professionals to "forge the future of literacy" in Texas. Specifically, the future demands that we more fully integrate reading and writing instruction and that we help students develop a deeper understanding of author's purpose and craft. In this paper, we argue that one way to meet the literacy demands of the future is to return to rhetoric, the dominant approach to literacy instruction for some 2000 years. First, we describe how rhetoric came to define language arts instruction in the Western world and why it was largely abandoned in the late 19th century. Next, we explain why a rhetorical approach to literacy is particularly well-suited to TEKS standards and new STAAR question types. Finally, we relate how one Texas school district adopted a literacy strategy drawn from the rhetorical tradition and applied it across elementary and secondary grade levels. We hope to equip curriculum coordinators, literacy specialists, and classroom teachers with a scalable, transferable literacy tool that can work as both an individual classroom lesson and a district-wide initiative.

This article explores how TCTELA's 2024 Teachers of the Year forged the future through their literacy teaching at the elementary, middle school, high school, and college levels. Each essay captures how they understand their work as literacy educators and intentionally educate their students toward a brighter future amid trying local contexts. The first essay details how an elementary teacher threads the needle of maintaining high expectations that surpass academic success in the classroom to include holistic development as people and citizens in their future communities. The second essay describes how a middle-school reading community is crafted around a focus on representation and diverse texts. The third essay examines the use of the workshop model and the incorporation of choice and how those practices foster autonomous, innovative, and emboldened citizens. The final essay explores the power and hope of cariño for preservice and in-service teachers. Often translated as "care," the Spanish word "cariño" refers to a rich wisdom and practices of Latina teachers to care for and teach their students who live in between cultures, languages, and identities. Each essay aims not only to outline steps each teacher takes to pursue excellence in their teaching but also to offer a humanizing look into the heart it takes to teach day in and day out.

This article focuses on the development of the Texas comprehension standards as found in the comprehension strand of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The standards are described in relation to effective comprehension strategies.

In 2003, the Texas State Legislature enacted the Texas Success Initiative (TSI). Upon entering a postsecondary institution, non-exempt students are tested using the TSI Assessment. A student's scores are used to assist Texas public institutions of higher education in determining if students are prepared for introductory college coursework in the areas of English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) and mathematics. At many Texas universities, including Texas State University (TXST), students are placed in either a stand-alone for-credit college mathematics class or in a college corequisite sequence based on their Texas Success Initiative Assessment (TSIA) to be deemed college-ready. Since 2017, an increasing influx of students has led to both new lecturers and additional graduate students being assigned to teach these classes. This "Promising Practice" article describes the implementation of a Japanese lesson study model by three doctoral teaching assistants at TXST with the dual goals of improving their own teaching practices and creating more engaging and relevant lessons for a non-STEM mathematics corequisite class.

The graphic novel "Invisible" (2022) by Christina Diaz Gonzalez and Gabriela Epstein demonstrates that adolescents can create a positive difference in the world and build friendships with people different from themselves. The novel's themes, nonlinear chronology, and innovative bilingual format make "Invisible" significant and linguistically inclusive. In this "Breakfast Club" (Hughes, 1985) remix, five eighth-grade students with Latina/o heritage grow to know one another and themselves through service hours. English Language Arts teachers can cover ELAR TEKS with "Invisible." Suggested strategies include author study, process drama, cultural x-rays, writing prompts, videos about language, and family interviews. Gonzalez and Epstein's empowering and engaging narrative, told in English and Spanish, merits academic study and a place in required or independent reading.

The Inquiry and Research strand of the 2017 ELAR TEKS for sixth through twelfth grade includes vertically aligned standards for teaching students critical media skills by questioning the reliability and credibility of sources, evaluating bias, and recognizing logical fallacies. This article describes how increased media saturation has led to citizenry being misled. Loaded language and fallacies are explained. Teachers are encouraged to support students' critical media literacy by teaching these skills and letting students practice recognizing the patterns of logical fallacies. Two strategies for teaching logical fallacies are provided, including a classroom Fallacy Board and a Slippery Slopes game, modified to specifically align with the TEKS and engage students in practice with patterns of faulty reasoning.

Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, teachers and administrators have had the challenge of using generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) effectively while minimizing the negative consequences of its presence in schools. Today, AI-enabled lesson plan generators such as Diffit and MagicSchool AI are widely available to teachers, but no research has explored the quality of the lesson plans these tools produce. This leaves administrators with few guidelines to support teachers' effective use of these products. This study addresses this need by using qualitative content analysis methods to compare the outputs from these AI lesson plan generators. We analyzed the extent to which these outputs matched an evidence-based lesson planning framework: Universal Design for Learning/Universal Design for Transition (UDL/UDT). Results show that AI-generated lesson plans have minimal alignment with UDL/UDT and require teacher-initiated modifications to successfully support learners with diverse needs. These findings suggest that the products of AI lesson plan generators may lack the specificity needed to provide novel ideas for experienced teachers, although they may be useful for teachers in their inductive years, or occasionally for experienced teachers. We conclude with suggestions to align AI-produced lesson plans with the UDL/UDT tenets of engagement, representation, and expression.

This article provides an in-depth examination of differentiation, instructional strategies that cater to all learners. Differentiation is beneficial when teachers can select content, process, and products that meet student's needs. While teachers incorporate differentiation to modify instruction with struggling students, gifted and talented students, English Language Learners, and culturally diverse learners, this article specifically focuses on African American learners in K-6th grades. Elementary-level African American students can benefit from differentiation that include culturally relevant processes. Teachers of elementary grades must be prepared to teach all curricular areas including English language arts, reading, math, science, social studies, and history. English language arts, history, math, science, and social studies strategies are explored in this article. Recommendations have been made to make them culturally relevant pedagogy. Six strategies are introduced that provide examples of the recommended processes for various curricular areas that can be used with African American students.

This article proposes ways to authentically amplify writer's workshop for emergent bilinguals. Through the study of one bilingual teacher's mediation in teaching, we examined the affordances that translanguaging and transmodal practices have for emergent bilingual students' writing processes. In this case study, we focused on a writing sequence associated with the well-known Latin American holiday of the Day of the Dead, in which 3rd grade emergent bilinguals wrote "calaveras," or literary poems, as part of an interdisciplinary language arts and social studies lesson. Our work is framed by sociocultural theories of mediation, literacy, and language. Under a multiliteracies pedagogy, we observed how a bilingual teacher and emergent bilinguals negotiate meaning through a variety of linguistic and multimodal resources. In our interactional analysis of talk, we found how the teacher mediated background knowledge and vocabulary as a part of the writing process; we also identified ways in which her mediation included extensive scaffolding as she provided linguistic and disciplinary knowledge needed to write calaveras. Through integrating the tenets of mediation with biliteracy, multiliteracies, and translanguaging pedagogies, this study offers a promising example of how teachers can build a culturally-sustaining writers' workshop to support emergent bilingual learners' language development and writing practices.

The 2017 English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) standards from Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) reflect best-practice literacy instruction. The seven strands of Foundational language skills, Comprehension skills, Response skills, Multiple genres, Author's purpose and craft, Composition, and Inquiry and research form an integrated approach to literacy instruction. The student expectations contained in these strands are vertically aligned to support students' development of knowledge and skills. The 2017 ELAR TEKS address critical components of instruction including a balanced approach to literacy, student choice of texts, independent reading volume, diverse literary texts, comprehension skills, purposeful talk, the reading and writing connection, inquiry, and research. Because these standards are research-based, implementation can support positive student outcomes. The Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts supports the implementation of the 2017 ELAR TEKS. Responses to this position statement from Texas-based educators reflecting on the 2017 ELAR TEKS are included. [Educator responses by Shona Rose and Malene Golding.]

Shifts in generations from Millennials to Generation Z have brought changes to today's classroom. In turn, these changes indicate the need for reform and innovation in education. If the goal for education remains to put contributing members into society, then educators must search for the most effective ways to prepare students to enter society today, rather than in the past. The purpose of this article is to introduce creative ways to share the lives and work of outstanding ecologists to enhance students' knowledge in both English language arts and science, while also addressing state and national standards. Integrating the lives and work of well-known ecologists or environmentalists into middle school science has the potential to enhance the understanding our students have of what it means to be a scientist. Taking these small steps to broaden students' understanding of science and scientists may inspire a young person to consider a science career for themselves someday. The nation and the state have done their parts in giving teachers the outline for student learning and success in science. Now, it is up to teachers to utilize the standards within their classrooms to make science come to life.

Increasing numbers of children in Texas communities and across the U.S. are immigrants. One way to support students in exploring the history and contemporary topic of immigration through literacy is with inquiry, a teaching method that centers around students' questions, incorporates informational and narrative texts, and creates opportunities for discussion, writing, and advocacy. In this classroom innovations article, a teacher's enactment of inquiry-based units on immigration in her first-grade classrooms is described. This article outlines planning strategies for inquiry and highlights ways to address curricular goals and objectives while still centering on students' perspectives. Tips are provided for connecting inquiry units to social and emotional learning goals as well as state standards and learning targets. This article shows how, through innovative teaching, even the youngest students can be engaged in meaningful literacy learning and the discussion of important social issues, such as immigration.

Background/Context: Instructional policy aims to shift the nature of teaching and learning. Decades of policy studies have highlighted the challenges inherent in these aims and the conditions necessary to support such change, including a robust infrastructure to support teacher learning. Further, teachers themselves must perceive and experience their policy environment to be supportive of calls to shift instruction. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we examine the connection between teachers' perceptions of their policy environments and their instructional practices over time, in the context of college-and-career-readiness (CCR) standards implementation. While conducted in the context of standards implementation, our findings apply to supporting instructional change through policy more broadly. Setting: We examine implementation of CCR standards in two unique state contexts: Texas and Ohio. These states represent important differences in demographics and in their approaches to CCR standards implementation over time. Research Design: We use a convergent mixed-methods design that draws on state-representative teacher survey data at two points in time (allowing for a trend analysis to understand how teachers' perceptions and experiences evolve), longitudinal interview data with state education leaders, and interview data with educators in one case study district in each state. Data Collection and Analysis: Surveys measured teachers' perceptions of their policy environments, as well as their self-reported instructional practices. Interviews focused on understanding state- and district-level policies, guidance, and resources, and educators' enactment of standards. Survey analysis included descriptive analysis of patterns over time and hierarchical linear modeling. To unpack broad-based survey patterns, we coded qualitative data and developed assertions based on emergent patterns. Findings/Results: We found that Texas teachers agreed more strongly than Ohio teachers that their policy environment had aligned, specific, and stable resources, as well as accountability mechanisms in place. Specificity of guidance and resources for standards implementation predicted teachers' use of standards-emphasized instruction in 2019. These patterns reflected each state's approach to policy implementation: a robust state-level infrastructure for guidance and support in Texas, compared with fewer state-developed resources in Ohio in favor of local control. Still, aspects of teachers' local context--in particular, lack of infrastructure for ongoing, embedded professional learning--limited teachers' ability to engage in state-developed guidance. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our study offers enduring lessons about how to establish the policy conditions necessary to support teachers to change instruction. Findings suggest a need for states to develop resources that clarify instructional shifts for teachers, and districts must balance these top-down resources with ongoing opportunities for educators to adapt resources to suit their students' needs.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the high school curriculum and instruction per pupil allocation and the effect on the Algebra I and English I State Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) End of Course (EOC) scores. A mixed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to find if the high school curriculum and instruction per pupil allocation makes a difference on Algebra I and English I STAAR EOC scores. The Accountability Rating Index report was used to select 40 secondary campuses based on 2014-2015 STAAR EOC scores. The mixed ANOVA considered Algebra I and English I STAAR EOC scores for the 2013-2014 school year, 2014-2015 school year, and 2015-2016 school year, and the per pupil allocation by high schools for curriculum and instruction budget. The results from this research study showed that there was not a significant difference among low, medium, and high levels of curriculum and instruction per pupil allocation over three years (2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-2016) on Algebra I and English I STAAR EOC scores at low SES high schools in Texas. In addition, research results indicated that it appears that not enough money is provided to low SES high school campuses in the state of Texas to guarantee student success in Algebra I and English I STAAR EOC scores.

This article examines how elementary public school teachers in South Texas are implementing a balanced literacy approach in light of the expectations of accountability for student performance. For more than three decades, Texas schools have felt, and continue to feel, the pressure of accountability. Therefore, it becomes essential to investigate the ways in which teachers have responded to this expectation while implementing a balanced literacy approach in English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) classes. This research study reveals the results of more than 500 teacher responses to a survey concerning the implementation of this approach and the instructional practices that the teachers use to address accountability. The findings show that most teachers did read-aloud and independent reading components every day, and that shared and interactive writing components were implemented the least. On a related note, teachers expressed the need for more training in writing instruction. This paper also examines the test-taking instructional practices implemented in the classroom.

Since the emergence of middle schools as distinct educational settings in the 1960s, proponents of the model have advocated for structures and approaches that best meet the particular developmental needs of young adolescents. Middle school researchers have developed frameworks of best practices for schools that have been widely, if not uniformly, adopted. However, there is a paucity of large-scale quantitative research on the efficacy of such best practices. In this study we used state-level administrative data from Texas to estimate the school-level contribution to standardized test scores in math and language arts, along with absenteeism. We then regressed these value-added quantities on indicators of middle school structures, along with research-supported predictors of school efficacy. Results showed that schools with fewer classes in the school day and higher quality teachers performed better, among other indicators. Findings from models using the campus contribution to absenteeism were similar. These results indicate that while elements of the middle school model may help transform individual schools, the equitable distribution of resources and the undoing of de facto segregation are vital to the success of all young adolescents.

This paper explored the nature of alternative education in Texas public schools. Within these learning environments addressing both academic and social literacy is of utmost importance and can be achieved through individualized instruction and attention to goal-setting. The recommendations of this paper were specific to the experiences of an English language arts and reading teacher who served 11th and 12th grade at-risk students within an alternative high school in the Texas Panhandle. The purpose of this paper was to indicate how attending to these aspects of alternative education helps encourage student success that leads to graduation.

This column is a review of three areas of interest to Texas ELAR educators: the ELAR/SLAR TEKS revision, recent news from the Texas Education Agency, and the status of several bills relating to assessment. Included is a summary of the past two years of the ELAR/SLAR TEKS revision process and information about next steps in that process.