It's the first week of your internship, and you are walking towards the Teachers' Lounge alongside your mentor teacher, already five minutes into your thirty-minute lunch period. To begin your internship, your mentor teacher believed it would be of value to observe several different English teachers in action. Just today, you had the opportunity to observe three different English teachers 10th grade English classes taught by different teachers.

You noticed that the teaching methods of each teacher were quite different in terms of what aspects of literary texts teachers focused on, the types of writing assignments employed, and the curriculum content. In talking with each of the teachers after the class periods, you discovered that they each espouse very different theories about the nature of English, with some focusing on the need to teach cultural content; others, on the need to teach literary and rhetorical forms and structures; and others, the need to engage students in critical literacy and inquiry.

Based on these competing beliefs, you are perplexed as to how to develop your own beliefs about the teaching of English Language Arts. Enter the Teachers' Lounge to engage with different teachers regarding their approaches to teaching English Language Arts, beliefs that may inform what and how you teach.