Education Commons^™

Exploring Teachers’ Lived Literacies : Disrupting Hegemonic Conceptions Of Literacy In Schools, Katie F. Whitley

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In schools, literacy is often positioned as a fixed set of reading and writing skills. This can limit what counts as an academically acceptable literacy practice despite the complex and nuanced ways people communicate in their personal and social contexts. With this tension around conceptions of literacy in mind, I wondered how teachers thought about literacy in their lives and in what ways (if any) their personal conceptions of literacy crossed the boundary into their classrooms. Thus, this study examines three secondary English language arts teachers’ conceptions of literacy using a feminist approach to new literacies as the theoretical framework …

Teacher Activism For Emergent Bilingual Learners : A Qualitative Study, Cyrene A. Crooms

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This qualitative dissertation study explored what informed the pedagogical moves of four teacher activists of emergent bilingual learners (EBLs). Quijano’s (2000) theory of coloniality of power served as a theoretical lens to examine the historical underpinnings of current education language legislation and policies impacting EBLs. There is a growing body of literature on teacher activism, but very few studies center teacher activism for linguistic justice. Picower’s (2012) framework for teacher activism was used to create data sources, which included interviews, artifacts, field visits, and personal communication. Data were analyzed using open and axial coding strategies. Findings were presented in four …

Languaging School Into Being : A Discourse Analysis Of Online Ela Classes Within The Context Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jason Christopher Toncic

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, school buildings across the United States shut their doors and transitioned students and teachers to remote learning, most often utilizing internet-based technology to provide either asynchronous or synchronous lessons. I was a high school English Language Arts teacher in Stone Valley School District in Northeastern New Jersey when the unprecedented school closures moved my classes online for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.

As a teacher researcher who specialized in New Literacy Studies, I was particularly sensitive to how students and I used technology to continue lessons after the school building shut …

Robo-Teaching? : Automated Essay Scoring And K-12 Writing Pedagogy, Swati Viren Chauhan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper will examine the current state, and future, of AES in secondary literacy education through a review of current research in the topic. An analysis of the history of assessment will seek to explain why AES systems have gained such popularity within high-stakes assessment, and how the use of AES in secondary education, high-stakes testing affects pedagogy. This paper will also look into reliability and validity issues that are presented when using AES as a form of scoring essays. Finally, this paper explores some ways that AES can be used effectively within the K-12 writing classroom, rather than solely …

The Best Practices For Teaching Writing To Postsecondary Students With Acquired Brain Injuries, Julianne Candio Sekel

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Because the writing abilities of postsecondary students with acquired brain injuries (ABI) are often determined by the student’s age when the injury was acquired, the severity of the injury, the amount of time that has passed since the injury, and the quality of the student’s writing education before the injury, it is impossible to generalize the best strategies to assist students with ABI in writing. However, through a review of existing literature on teaching writing to students with ABI, the relationship between oral and written discourse, expressive writing, educational intervention, and assistive technologies, this study presents a list of recommendations …

Tracking The Basic Writer, Timothy Donohue

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Since the 1970s, composition teachers and theorists have been advocating the term “basic writer” to give a space and voice to underprepared students entering college by providing them with basic skills remediation. Despite the various pedagogical approaches to these classes that have been established and put into practice over the years, there is still large disagreement among educators on how to best prepare these students for entrance into the mainstream college environment.

This study begins by examining the history of the basic writing movement, acknowledging key figures and the salient ideas of their works. A broad overview is given to …

Using A Wiki To Teach College Level Academic Writing, Dawn Moore

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Teaching writing by employing the tools made available by Web 2.0 technology allows students to meet the changing educational requirements for writing with technology. This paper argues that the wiki is a facile tool for teaching academic writing at the college level. It theoretically and pedagogically situates the wiki in a threedimensional rhetorical context. This paper also demonstrates how and why the wiki functions as a collaborative writing tool adhering to a socially constructed view of knowledge. As a constructive hypertext, wikis can be used to teach, clarify, reinforce, and deepen many fundamental writing skills. This paper reviews the body …

Does Introductory Writing Instruction Help Students To Succeed At Montclair State University?, Sean Molloy

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study examines whether Montclair State University (MSU) students who were placed into an introductory writing course between 2005 and 2009 later succeeded as measured by retention rates, academic advancement and available grade data. While available data was limited, retention rates and grade data suggest that most of these students have succeeded so far at MSU. The study also submitted an online survey to former introductory writing course students which asked whether they believe that their experience in that course was an actual contributing cause to their academic success. Survey responses of 68 students confirm that most believe the course …

The Effects Of Coauthoring On Student Writing, Stacey E. Spector

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Teaching student writing can be a very frustrating yet rewarding experience. Because there are so many ways to approach writing instruction and the writing process, there is often a disconnect between teachers’ expectations and students’ performances. A plethora of research has been done on teaching the writing process: peer editing, revising, and other areas of writing instruction. However, not much has been explored in terms of how writing can improve if we ask students to write together.

The goal of having students write together, or coauthor, is to allow them the chance to learn from each other and explore the …

Fairway Community College’S English Basic Skills Departmental Exam : Mastery Test Madness, Kelly Alanna Keane

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The developmental English departmental mastery exam that all students who were placed into remedial English must pass before they can move to College English is problematic because of questionable reliability and validity. Additionally, it has unintended consequences for the courses that comprise the developmental English program at Fairway Community College. These consequences include though are not limited to: decreasing pass rates from developmental English to College English, curriculum that is negatively impacted by this assessment, and a complete disconnect between practice and theory in the classroom. After working through current assessment theories combined with best practices in basic writing, I …

Preparing Low-Income Middle And Secondary Students To Participate Effectively In Academic Discourse Through Writing, Franc Lacinski

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Students from low-income families often perform poorly on formal assessments in language arts. Examining data using the 2008-2009 State of New Jersey Department of Education School Report Cards, a comparison was made between low-income districts and affluent districts in three areas: High School Proficiency Assessment Language Arts Literacy Scores, SAT Verbal Scores and SAT Essay Scores. Students from low-income districts performed significantly lower in these areas than students from the higher income districts and from the average performance rates for the State of New Jersey. This lag in performance affects students’ choices for higher education, for job opportunities, as well …

Exploring The Strategies Students Use When Reading, Evelyn Gilles

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Research in the field of reading has shown that oral reading fluency is important because it is correlated to successful reading comprehension. Although some students acquire fluency skills, others struggle to use strategies to develop fluency. My concerns about reading fluency came about because my students were not reading texts smoothly and accurately. This action research project was designed to discover what strategies first grade students use to read unfamiliar words. Specifically, I focused on whether or not blending would be a good strategy to improve reading fluency. In order to address the issue of reading fluency, I gathered information …

Discovering The Connections Students Make During Reading, Suzanne Nepomuceno

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Research shows that reading comprehension is enhanced if the reader constructs meaning by making connections to the text. Connections may be made between readers and their background knowledge and/or between readers and other texts they have read. The purpose of this action research project was to determine if teaching students how to make these two kinds of connections would enhance their comprehension. To this end, a metacognitive strategy called Making Connections was implemented and taught to the students during their normal reading lessons. Data were collected through interviews with the students about this strategy, observation charts that recorded their connections, …

Literacy Instruction And The Learning Disabled High School Student : Ideas And Applications For A Mindful Classroom, Suzanne E. Kos

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis suggests that the emergent field of mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy can be a uniquely effective tool for use in the English classroom for learning disabled (LD) high school students. By first exploring definitions of difference and initiating a conversation about how we, as a society, conceptualize difference and how we provide literacy instruction for students who learn differently, this thesis advocates for a more complex and meaningful understanding of the difficult issues surrounding teaching literature and writing to LD high school students. The discussion then introduces some of the central tenets of mindfulness and contemplative practice and explores, …

Using Creative Writing Instruction In The Urban High School English Classroom To Promote Writing Skills In Remedial Level Students, Maureen Harrison

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this research is to investigate the value of creative writing instruction for increasing the literacy of remedial students in urban High School English classes. Students who are placed in remedial level classes often have preconceived negative feelings concerning their ability to produce academic writing. As I later discuss through the research of Debra Holmes Matthews, John A. Daly and Michael D. Miller, these preconceived notions impact the motivation and educational experience of remedial level students. In my research I will examine the ability of creative writing to motivate struggling student writers and help to improve specific writing …

Montclair State University’S Secondary English Education Program : Perceptions And Expectations Of Pre-Service And Beginning Teachers Of Writing, David B. Malter

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

Class Indifference - A Divided Nation : Finding Common Ground Through American Pragmatism And Democratic Principles In The Composition Classroom, Stacey L. Morrison

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Social class plays a significant but often silent part in American politics, lives, and education. As the events of Hurricane Katrina clearly illustrate, the poor and working class often suffer discrimination that leaves them completely powerless. Their position in life shapes not only how they are seen and treated, but also how they see their world. Their cultures differ markedly from middle and upper class cultures, further alienating them from possible greater personal achievement in a system that champions middle-class values. Education, being a microcosm of our society, mirrors our class conflicts, often failing to teach working-class students in an …