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This article discusses the different types and the effectiveness of Credit Based Transition Programs or CBTPs. CBTPs are programs that allow high school students to take college level courses and earn college credit. Some of the programs even help the students apply and transition into college life. CBTPs are very widespread and common because in the "2002-2003 school year, 71% of public high schools reported students took courses for dual credit". The debate now, which the article focuses on, is whether or not to make CBTPs more accessible to middle and low achieving high schools. Since these programs have proved to be very beneficial and highly used, policy makers are currently discussing how to implement them in the majority of public high schools. Implementing CBTPs programs in middle and low achieving high schools would give more students the opportunity to go to and succeed in college.

This online-community-sourced interview with Sir Ken Robinson (British education adviser, author, and speaker) followed his TED talk about creativity in education. He makes some good points about the need to cultivate creativity in students in all areas of education (not just those traditionally associated with creativity, like music or painting). This is closely tied to the struggle to create motivation in the classroom and addresses an attitude more than a specific set of strategies.  He tends to talk more about math and science than language, but most of what he says can be applied to our field as well. He connects the idea of "teaching creativity" to "teaching literacy", but I would argue to achieve true literacy, you need those creative elements that are so often lost in the language classroom.

In this TED talk video Dave Eggers is talking enthusiastically about free tutoring centers where students receive one-on-one attention from either more experienced peers or teachers who volunteer to go to these centers at least two hours a week. He backs up the need of having individual help by research data (I would be interested to see the primary research) which say that 35-40 hours a year one-on-one attention students can get one grade level higher. The first center was opened to offer help in English and writing. Although there was an issue of trust at first to visit the center, with time and some advertising the center got packed with students. They even published their own writing in a form of a book, which is inspiring as it honors their work, hardship, creativity and thoughts. Now they have 1400 students in the center and they want to grow nationwide. Also, they have a website (http://www.onceuponaschool.org/) where there is somebody to show guidance to those who are interested in starting their own learning center in their town (for their public school students). To me, this is a great idea to inspire students and keep their motivation going in a particular subject. I wonder if they have done research and found out students of what achievement tend to go there, is it possible that those who are already into writing, science, languages, etc, are the ones visiting these centers. I also wonder if the volunteers who are there to help receive any kind training about certain methodology or ground rules.

Li, Xuemei. "Identities And Beliefs In ESL Writing: From Product To Process." TESL Canada Journal 25.1 (2007): 41-64. ERIC. Web. 11 Mar. 2012. This article explored the differences between first language culture and second language culture in an attempt to fill the gap between them. It offered some really insightful notions on the connection between both western and eastern current learning norms and their historical developments. Li points out that western learning can be traced back to the Socratic ideologies; which were to question yourself and others, be skeptical, and to form self-generated knowledge. Li says that Eastern education is based on Confucian ideologies which is a more "humanistic" approach that taught to achieve social harmony by being "reproductive" rather than analytical and to focus on correctness instead of originality. The article also conveyed the idea of the importance of authority in the classroom and explained that students of Eastern cultures place high value on their teacher's position. It explains their indifference to "micro-processes" such as peer critiquing. The article was about 20 pages, but all of the good information is in the first part, the "Background of the Study. The rest is pretty much just a repeat of everything mentioned in the first part. It was a good and insightful article. I would recommend it (at least the first part).

this article sound good...i think i will use it later.

In this article, President of Teaching That Makes Sense, Steve Peha shares his views, methods, philosophy, and applications of teaching writing to others. He addresses questions like "how do teachers achieve the best practice" and "what is the best practice for writing instruction?" Steve also has incorporated a chart that dichotomously sorts the attributes of the quality, process, strategies, reading-writing connection, philosophy, management and forms of writing. He also includes his "Six Traits" of evaluative criteria for assessing a variety of genres of writing. His arguments are quite applicable and logical, and his instructive guide is considerably pragmatic and "easy to follow." For anyone endeavoring to assist and critique others' writing on an academic plain will find this article to be of assistance. Even if there is a disagreement on some of the material, it is arranged in a way that can be slightly altered and still beneficially applicable.

This article by Dr. Janette Hughes talks about the import role poetry plays in literacy development and how multi-media uses of poetry in the classroom can further enhance and engage a students learning process. For the sake of how in depth both of these subjects are, I'm only going to discuss what Dr. Hughes says about poetry and literacy development in this article. "Paying attention to the language and rhythms of poetry helps build oral language skills…..Children with well-developed oral language skills are more likely to have higher achievement in reading and writing" (Hughes). Poetry has an elitist stereotype to it, and tends to be something kept out of middle school and high school classrooms for the most part. Some English classes may briefly touch on some of the cannons of poetry, but only focus on a traditional notion of reading the context and finding the one single meaning. As Hughes states, "The dominant model of poetry teaching, particularly for older students, has been to teach poetry through print text and to focus on finding one meaning to be dissected. In contrast, poets emphasize the importance of hearing the poem read aloud, engaging with it, and probing for deeper meaning through discussion with others" (Hughes). I feel that engagement in poetry provides tools applicable to understanding every type of text. The brevity in poetry forces your mind to work in more analytical ways, and a facilitation of this analysis with other students provides a type of engaging learning experience that can be applied to any type of text for any class. This article really fascinated me, and left me with many more questions and ideas I would like to explore regarding poetry in the classroom.

This article focuses on the relationship between students and teachers and how students feel about the way their teachers act. They gathered information by conducting surveys and focus-groups in an effort to truly understand how what students think about their teachers, and how their relationships effected the students' achievement in school. They collected information from three different sources: special education, general education, and honors education. The results for all three were incredibly similar with some slight differences in what the students focused on. In general, the students responded very amiably to teachers who demonstrated respect and caring for their students and conveyed high expectations of them. It became clear that students were very aware of the amount of effort teachers put in to connecting with their students and the amount of work the teachers put in to the class. In many cases when the teachers told stories, demonstrated respect, and tried to relate to their students on a personal level, treating them as humans and peers rather than subordinates, the students were not only more engaged in the assignments but they admitted that they grew fond of those teachers and their classes. The article was incredibly interesting to me because of the fact that they focused on the students' perceptions rather than the teachers'. I've read many studies that interview teachers and discuss what the teachers think they've effectively conveyed to their students but it is rare to really see how students feel and think, though it seems to me that the students' opinions should be a larger focus because they're the ones who are trying to learn. This article has made me realize that what a teacher says is not always the most important aspect of effectively teaching information, but instead, what really matters, is the way they say it and the way they make their students feel.

This source details the author's experience of teaching a course called 'Experimental Writing' to college seniors. Using several chapters from the book Free Play by Steven Nachmanovitch, the instructor introduces the topic of play as an important element of the course. Having read the book myself I think that it is a worthy read, and it has influenced my approach to academic projects by widening my perception of my action as not just reactionary study toward a grade, but play within a field offered by the instructor where success and failure are accepted as process and there is no fixed upper limit to achievement. In other words the writing is can be thought of as a kind of 'funktionslust' a pleasure of doing, not simply an action toward an objective. To create motivation within students requires that they let go of the dire seriousness that school is associated with; school is something to be completed out of necessity not something that can offer individuals new insight to themselves, or the aspects of themselves that have been suppressed by conformity and fear. The author does not entirely endorse the use of Nachmanovitch's text in 'traditional writing classes' because the text discourages many of the elements that are at hand in the traditional approach to teaching (like writing for a letter grade). I chose to be an English major because I felt the most freedom of expression within my English classes; I was offered a choice of what topics to engage with. But increasingly specific expectations from teachers handcuffed my raw creativity. Even so, I think that an increased degree of freedom within writing classes would boost student enthusiasm. The question then is how do we increase the freedom of expression for students of basic writing, where there are necessary modes of measure for the articulation of the chosen subjects (other than simply allowing them to choose their subjects)? To what degree does the rubric shape student identity by for

This article focused on how student-teacher relationships play a part in the students' development. They particularly focused on what part alienation played in students' academic achievement and in their level of disciplinary problems. It also focused on how these relationships varied between different school settings and among varying racial-ethnic groups.