Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Language and Literacy Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Language and Literacy Education

An Education In Democracy: Understanding And Subverting Censorship In The English Classroom, Hannah R. Woolsey Jan 2023

An Education In Democracy: Understanding And Subverting Censorship In The English Classroom, Hannah R. Woolsey

MSU Graduate Theses

The politicization of education has presented a challenge to offering students diverse English Language Arts instruction. Across the county, lawmakers have proposed legislation that limits discussion about race and sex or allows parents to restrict their child’s exposure to materials that violate their moral or religious beliefs. In this tug-of-war, teachers will be forced to decide between avoiding controversial topics or risking dismissal. Increasing censorship, now codified by law in many states, is rooted in our polarized political landscape, divided along cultural and geographic lines. The challenge facing educators, then, is how to create space for inclusive, social justice-oriented instruction …


Implementing Instructional Scaffolding To Support Secondary Students' Abilities To Write Mathematical Explanations, Camry J. Cowan May 2021

Implementing Instructional Scaffolding To Support Secondary Students' Abilities To Write Mathematical Explanations, Camry J. Cowan

MSU Graduate Theses

This study examined the implementation of an instructional scaffolding teaching strategy in the secondary mathematics classroom. An iterative process was used to implement an initial design of instructional scaffolding, reflect on its efficacy, and adjust the design as needed. The goal was to assist students in learning to write responses of high epistemic complexity, which is an indicator of the degree of conceptual understanding. A total of 94 responses written by 35 students in two high school Algebra 2 courses were analyzed for epistemic complexity. Across three iterations of the implementation of instructional scaffolding, students wrote at the highest levels …


Critical Pedagogy And The Ethics Of Care: How Values Affect The Classroom Dynamic, Colby D. Reed Dec 2018

Critical Pedagogy And The Ethics Of Care: How Values Affect The Classroom Dynamic, Colby D. Reed

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis centers on the benefits of Paulo Freire’s critical and liberatory pedagogy for introductory composition classes when used as an ethical and moral template as opposed to a sociological ideology. Using care ethics as a lens, chapter one begins by addressing current difficulties and criticisms present in the discussion of care ethics and the pedagogy as the models for composition classes and then applying the ethics of critical and liberatory pedagogy to these issues. Chapter two builds on that by exploring what ethical and moral elements are present in Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and how they relate to …


Video Composition, Creative Discourse, And Facilitated Freedom: A Teacher's Journey To Reveal Student Potential, Michael A. Brinkmeyer May 2018

Video Composition, Creative Discourse, And Facilitated Freedom: A Teacher's Journey To Reveal Student Potential, Michael A. Brinkmeyer

MSU Graduate Theses

This research project was conducted in response to students’ lack of engagement in traditional modes of instruction and composition in a high school English Language Arts course. In order to better understand students as creative composers of knowledge, this research project asked students to engage in the video production process in collaborative groups. The research was conducted over the course of eight class periods in three different sections of Junior-level English Language Arts courses. Analysis of the data from this study reveals three important findings: 1) students respond well to creative and relevant performance assessments; 2) students’ collaborative conversations, or …