ABSTRACT
In the United States, the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom can be seen as a highly dynamic site: one in transition as it shifts curricular practices and policies to meet the changing social, economic, and demographic conditions of the 21st century (Burke, 2008). At the same time, and perhaps more often, the ELA classroom can be seen as a deeply conservative context, imbued with history, highly resistant to change, and continuing to maintain at its core, values, beliefs, and practices formed during the industrial age (Luke, 2004a, 2004b). Perhaps it is best described as a complex context where the confl icting forces of ‘tradition and reform play out in the everyday of classroom life (Applebee, 1974; see also Sperling & DiPardo, 2008). Although this may be true for all school subjects, the dreams of the past, demands of the present, and possibilities for a soonto-be-realized future would seem to collide with particular force in the high school ELA classroom.
