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Language and Literacy Education

Theses and Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

Education, Language and Literacy

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Expanding Our Space: Stories Of Mindful Practice, Emily Jean Whitecotton Jan 2017

Expanding Our Space: Stories Of Mindful Practice, Emily Jean Whitecotton

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation tells the story of a qualitative, narrated inquiry study on the narrated experiences of the students and teacher who participated in a mindfulness workshop, designed by the teacher-researcher, and learned within a classroom where the teacher-researcher used mindfulness techniques as a part of their classroom life. This study was designed as an inquiry into the question: How do the students and teacher narrate their experiences as members in a mindfulness workshop over the course of a year? The teacher-researcher collected audio recordings of interviews with participants and whole group discussions that occurred within the workshop and classroom. These …


The Use Of Print Referencing Techniques Through Preschoolers’ Play-Based Creative Writing Experiences: The Impact On Oral Language Development, Print Awareness, And Literacy Abilities With Children Diagnosed With Language Disorder, Catherine Ann Sanderson Jan 2017

The Use Of Print Referencing Techniques Through Preschoolers’ Play-Based Creative Writing Experiences: The Impact On Oral Language Development, Print Awareness, And Literacy Abilities With Children Diagnosed With Language Disorder, Catherine Ann Sanderson

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explored the lives of 10 children who were diagnosed with a language disorder. The children were enrolled in a therapeutic half-day speech-language preschool classroom for 3- and 4-year-old children within a public-school system in the rural Southeast. The research included a 15-week mini-ethnographic case study utilizing participant observation. Through a sociocultural Vygotskian approach used to meet their language and literacy needs holistically, I encouraged the children to use meaningful artifacts from which their play, talk, and stories developed. I collected both qualitative and quantitative data to assess how creative writing experiences including print referencing approaches impacted …


Finding Sanctuary In Sisterhood: A Middle School Literacy Group Critically Analyzes Race, Gender, And Size, Dywanna E. Smith Jan 2016

Finding Sanctuary In Sisterhood: A Middle School Literacy Group Critically Analyzes Race, Gender, And Size, Dywanna E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This critical qualitative study documented intersectionalities of race, gender, body image, and literacies as interpreted by five eighth grade Black female students during an eight-week after school literacy group. Ethnopoetic methodologies were used to represent findings and provide insights about how critical literacy engagements can be used to create discursive spaces where young Black girls describe and define these intersectionalities, how they are socialized into current beliefs, make meaning of beauty ideals portrayed in media, and interpret gender, obesity, and race. Through content analysis of field notes, audio recorded sessions, research partner interviews, researcher journals, and genre artifacts, this study …


More Than One Voice: Utilizing Students’ Home Languages And Cultural Experiences In Reading Recovery, Sarah Catto Jan 2016

More Than One Voice: Utilizing Students’ Home Languages And Cultural Experiences In Reading Recovery, Sarah Catto

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the experiences of three Latino emergent bilingual children and their Reading Recovery teacher as they engaged in Reading Recovery lessons offered in English with the support of Spanish. The negative impact of cultural bias and expectations of assimilation into English has implications for needed innovations in classroom literacy practices,as well as ways to address teachers' inexperience in teaching culturally and linguistically different students. This case study sought to gain a better understanding of the impact of students’ native languages and aspects of cultural diversity that influenced reading and writing instruction, as well as the instructional methods and …