Barrow teachers Ysheena Lyles and A.J. Jackson have been published by the National Council of Teachers of English. The article is about how Gee's theory of social languages is at work in Ysheena's powerful lesson that used Fahamu Pecou's art, rap songs by various artists, and more traditional literature by Gary Soto and Robert Frost to build connections between students' everyday lives (and language) and academic texts (and language). Ysheena's teaching, and this lesson in particular, is having an impact beyond her classroom. Teachers at Russell Middle have been using the lesson, and shared it last summer in their text-based writing Professional Learning.

At the bottom of the article you can click on a screencast in which a coach and teacher in another district (in Ohio!) discuss the article and how it relates to their practices. Also, Fahamu Pecou is using the example of Ysheena's lesson in his dissertation at Emory showing how his work can have pedagogic implications. Learn about this inspiring lesson.

A.J. Jackson is an instructional coach at Russell Middle and Ysheena Lyles is a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Bear Creek Middle.