Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Book Review, Mary-Jo Morse

The Reading Professor

Book Review

Considering Equity In Literacy Lessons That Integrate A Digital Tool, Kristi Tamte, Beth Beschorner

The Reading Professor

Teachers in the 21st century must be able to create conditions for justice within their classrooms and the broader educational system while simultaneously preparing children with the digital literacies that are necessary to be fully literate. Yet, there is evidence that many teachers are not prepared to do either. Thus, teacher educators have a responsibility to create conditions within teacher preparation that support pre-service teachers (PSTs) to do both. This research project aimed to design and test a framework that builds equity into the Technology Integration Planning Cycle (TIPC) to support PSTs' ability to advance justice within their practice while …

Young Adult Literature As A Catalyst For Preservice Teachers To Challenge Norms Of The Secondary Ela Classroom, Heather Pule

The Reading Professor

Young adult literature (YAL) has the potential for transforming English Language Arts (ELA) preservice teachers' (PTs') practice (Flores et al., 2019; Haddix & Price-Dennis, 2013). Purposefully designed YAL curriculum in teacher education (TE) can affect PTs' literacy identities (Spitler, 2009), support them in thinking critically about the effects of prevailing secondary ELA norms, and show them the power and possibilities of representative and inclusive classroom texts. To portray the topics of disruption organically and to disrupt the traditional social science research format, poetic inquiry was used to portray PTs' reflections.

Self-Perceptions On Efficacy In Reading Teacher Education: A Case Study In An Online Literacy Clinic, Mary L. Hoch, Michelle Fry

The Reading Professor

As our educational landscape continues to shift, so must our practices in higher education, including those of the literacy clinic. As we transition to various digital modalities, it is essential to research the self-perceptions and feelings of preparedness that result from the completion of the practicum experience. This case study was designed to examine participants' perceptions of their ability to plan, design, and implement literacy interventions with school-age students. Participants were in-service teachers who were seeking a graduate degree and/or reading endorsement in an online program. As part of their reading endorsement practicum requirement, they served as tutors in an …

Increasing Pre-Service Teachers' Awareness Of Children Experiencing Homelessness, Rachael Waller, Melissa Sullivan-Walker

The Reading Professor

As homelessness becomes a growing issue in the United States, children experiencing homelessness can be educationally at risk. However, teachers can make a significant difference for these children. In this study, we sought to increase empathy and understanding for children experiencing homelessness for the pre-service teachers whom we teach. Using the windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors framework (Bishop, 1990), we implemented an activity in which pre-service teachers read and discussed children's books portraying different types of homelessness. This paper will articulate how students made connections with the texts and deepened their understanding and empathy about children experiencing homelessness.

To Avoid Or Grapple With Tensions? Preservice Teachers Learning To Teach Literacy For Social Justice, Kathryn Struthers Ahmed

The Reading Professor

This nested case study explored the individual and environmental factors shaping preservice teachers' (PSTs') learning about teaching literacy for social justice while student teaching in urban, high-poverty schools. Grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory, findings show how the unique interplay of contextual factors led to different learning outcomes for PSTs, despite having similar experiences and perspectives on literacy teaching. Notably, when PSTs avoided tensions and contradictions between their student teaching placements and their university-based teacher education program, their learning towards the university's programmatic goals was constrained. However, when they opted to grapple with instructional tensions, their learning was more expansive. …

Guidelines For Authors

The Reading Professor

No abstract provided.

About The Cover

The Reading Professor

No abstract provided.

Trp Staff, Editorial Board, Toc

The Reading Professor

No abstract provided.

Cover, Summer/Fall 2024

The Reading Professor

No abstract provided.

The Construct Of English Native Speaker In Hong Kong, Ka Long Roy Chan Dr.

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

The discussion paper provides a discussion of the construct of English native speakers among Hongkongers. Beginning with a review of the linguistic landscapes of Hong Kong, including English language education and English usage, followed by an introduction of a debate on the construct of English native speakers, this paper demonstrates the potential inclusion of Hongkongers as native speakers of English, with the use of their English varieties, Hong Kong English. Additionally, the paper argues for a revision of the traditional geographically-bounded definition of ‘native speaker,’ drawing upon discussions by Rampton (1990), Kachru (1998), and Hansen Edwards (2017a, 2017b) regarding the …

Supporting Students To Craft Specific, Complex, And Nuanced Thesis Statements, Ruth Li

Journal of Response to Writing

In this teaching tip, I introduce an exercise that engages students in offering feedback on their peers' in-progress thesis statements. The exercise encourages students' critical awareness of their own and others' writerly choices.

Agonism In A Classroom Discussion On Strindberg's Miss Julie, Emma N. Tysklind, Linn Areskoug, Eva Hultin

Democracy and Education

In many parts of the world, researchers and policymakers alike report possible threats to democracy and its institutions. Accounts in the media of hatred and threats aimed at people taking part in public discourse, and of a polarized political debate, raise general questions about the current state and future of democratic dialogue and processes. Solutions are sought, by both research and policy, in the educational context. Some researchers have turned to the agonistic theory proposed by Chantal Mouffe, highlighting the democratic role of conflict and dissent. Empirical research on agonism in education is, however, scarce. In this article, we explore …

How Do We Get These Kids Reading? Supporting Readerly Identity In Secondary English Classrooms, Jenelle Williams, Jay Haffner

Michigan Reading Journal

In this article, we aim to clarify the specialized purposes for reading in secondary English language arts (ELA) classes. We will suggest ways ELA teachers can help build (or repair) students’ readerly identities while also ensuring they graduate with the necessary skill sets to transfer their knowledge into further studies, careers, and lifelong pleasure reading.

Blended Genres: Pairing Picturebooks And Poems Across The Curriculum, William P. Bintz

Michigan Reading Journal

Abstract

This article reports on an action research project conducted by a teacher educator in literacy education as part of a graduate course entitled Reading and Writing across the Content Areas. The purpose of the project was to actively engage graduate students, all of whom were pre-service and in-service teachers, in a course-related project in which students developed and implemented blended genres across the curriculum. It begins by situating blended genres within the traditional notion of paired text as a curricular resource and instructional strategy to support the process of intertextuality. It provides a brief overview of the course-related …

Safeguarding Learning Before, During, And After Emergency Remote Teaching, Carol Ann Paul, Lisa Reason

Michigan Reading Journal

This qualitative study explores 25 elementary educators’ experiences after Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) and examines the role of technology and face-to-face (f2f) interactions in the literacy classroom. Teachers in the study found substantial learning lags and extreme difficulty getting students reacclimated back into the classroom postpandemic. While they found technology to be adequate for differentiation and instant feedback, they noted the importance of f2f interaction for building relationships, social and emotional learning (SEL), reading, language, and fine motor skills. Aligned with Duke and Cartwright’s (2021) Active View of Reading Model, the study’s results advocate integrating SEL and literacy instruction, along …

Supporting Students’ Social-Emotional And Literacy Development With Read-Alouds, Allison Phillippe

Michigan Reading Journal

Literacy practices involving children’s literature, such as interactive read-alouds, are one way to integrate transformative SEL and literacy to simultaneously support children’s academic and social-emotional education goals. While there is plenty of evidence that supports social-emotional learning (SEL) and literacy integration, more research is needed to explore approaches that integrate transformative SEL aimed at fostering more equitable learning enviornments and providing suggestions for teachers to replicate this type of instruction in their own classrooms. In this article, I describe my researcher-practitioner collaboration with a fifth-grade teacher to design a justice-oriented approach to integrate SEL and literacy called Read Alouds for …

Navigating The Dialogic Tensions And Self-Contradictions As A Bilingual Researcher, Eun Young Yeom

The Qualitative Report

This autoethnography delineates how, I, as a bilingual researcher proficient in Korean and English, negotiated the tensions between conforming to English-only academic writing norms for survival in academia and embracing translingual writing practices during the composition of my dissertation. Based on the salient themes and repeating experiences that I penned in analytic memos, field notes and diaries, I meticulously rearranged the thoughts and emotions, weaving them into stream-of-consciousness-style narratives. Through this method, I aimed to vividly portray the inevitable tensions that might be experienced by numerous bilingual researchers speaking English as a second language. This autoethnography particularly portrays the troubles …

Decolonizing Writing Centers: An Introduction, Glenn Hutchinson, Andrea Torres Perdigón

Writing Center Journal

Guest editors' introduction to The Writing Center Journal 42.1 (2024).

Front Matter

Writing Center Journal

Front matter for The Writing Center Journal 42:1 (2024).

Beyond Accommodations: Imagination, Decolonization, And The Cripping Of Writing Center Work, Karen Moroski-Rigney

Writing Center Journal

This article examines connections among disability, colonization, university policies, and writing center work in North America. By positing that university policies have long mimicked medical and scientific processes for creating—and then discriminating against—perceived categories of disability, this article makes interventions into traditional writing center practices and pedagogies without dismissing the spirit with which these aspects of our field came to be. The article has several central claims:

• Disability has been constructed by nondisabled entities (including doctors, scientists, and institutions).
  
  
• Disability’s “drift” and myriad forms act as both specter and insidious insurance against progress or inclusive design.
  
  
• Writing center scholarship has …

Centerless? Making Sense Of Disruptions In The Graduate Writing Center, Shannon Mcclellan Brooks

Writing Center Journal

This critical self-reflection is not a success story; rather, it is an effort of decolonial thinking that reckons with the idea, experience, and practice of centerlessness during pandemic-induced online transitions and operations in a graduate writing center (GWC). By tracing the contours of a series of interlocking disruptions the author and her graduate writing center community experienced during COVID-19, this article brings into sharp focus present colonial legacies inhibiting effective developments, moves, and adaptations to the GWC physical center space and praxis. Through retrospectively following pandemic-induced disruptions to her center, the author critically engages how epistemologies of coloniality and modernity …

Decolonizing Tutor And Writing Center Administrative Labor: An Autoethnography Of A South Asian Writing Center’S Personnel, Saurabh Anand

Writing Center Journal

This piece informs my journey of thinking and contextualizing the validity of autoethnography as a decolonial qualitative research method in writing center scholarship. This piece provides the lilt of everyday writing center initiatives, labor, and workings using five email exchanges as data depicting my interactions with various writing center stakeholders as a transnational writing center studies student-tutor, administrator, and doctoral student from South Asia, specifically India. This piece also argues how I used my experiences as one of a writing center’s personnel as a tool of empowerment in my liminal position in my writing center and elaborates on those experiences, …

Back Matter

Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for Writing Center Journal 41.3. Contains a Call for Nominations for the 2024 Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award.

Re/Searching (For) Hope: Archives And (Decolonizing) Archival Impressions, Romeo Garcia

Writing Center Journal

On archives and archival impressions, this essay extends archival research to the elsewhere and otherwise. The essay asks, how do we reposition the contents of archives so that we can position ourselves in relation to it otherwise? It puts forward a theory of (decolonizing) archival impressions.

Reflexiones Sobre La Construcción De Espacios Bilingües: Los Centros De Escritura Como Puentes De Diálogo Académico En Torno A La Escritura Y A La Cultura, Andrea Salamanca Mesa, Ana Sofía Ramírez Viancha

Writing Center Journal

This article reflects on the creation of bilingual spaces, focusing on writing centers as facilitators of academic dialogue regarding academic writing and culture. The writing centers of Pontifical Javeriana University and Florida International University jointly explore how these centers can serve as bridges to promote effective communication and cultural exchange in educational environments where different languages coexist. The analysis addresses the significance of these spaces in fostering linguistic diversity and the impact on academic development. Este artículo reflexiona sobre la creación de espacios bilingües, centrándose en los Centros de Escritura como facilitadores del diálogo académico en torno a la escritura …

Book Review: How Education Policy Shapes Literacy Instruction: Understanding The Persistent Problems Of Policy And Practice, Nicole Hertz

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Abstract: This review of How Education Policy Shapes Literacy Instruction: Understanding the Persistent Problems of Policy and Practice, edited by Rachael Gabriel, explores the most pressing educational concerns and their relationship to history and policy, written by scholars from all over the country, such as retention, intervention, early childhood and English language literacy acquisition, and coaching. With the current Science of Reading (SoR) movement and all the related laws that are being passed throughout the United States based on current educational reform measures, this review explores the relationship to past, present, and future literacy legislation, through a historical lens, …

Shifting The Balance: 6 Ways To Bring The Science Of Reading Into The Upper Elementary Classroom- A Review, Mary-Jo Morse

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

In recent weeks, the New York State Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled her “Back to Basics” plan to improve reading achievement in New York State. As part of her plan, Governor Hochul has proposed that millions of dollars be allocated in the state’s budget to train “20 thousand teachers in Science of Reading Instructional best practices and announced an expansion of SUNY and CUNY’s microcredentialing programs for teachers focused on the Science of Reading.” (Hochul, 2024). With the Science of Reading becoming a major component in reading instruction, this new text, Shifting the Balance: 6 ways to Bring the Science of …

Centering Equity And Social Identity: Reflections On Culturally Sustaining Literacy Lessons From Two Elementary Classrooms, Nadine Bryce

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Two elementary teachers illustrate how awareness of children’s sociocultural contexts and social identities can inform literacy instruction.

The Pedagogy Of Play In Teaching Of Reading: Low Tech And High Tech Interactive Reading Methods, Elizabeth Klein

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Play is essential to the healthy growth and development of children. As children play, they explore new roles, try out new ideas, and bond with each other. Play increases language, cognitive, and social skills. How can the power of play be harnessed and shaped for educational purposes? How can teachers infuse play into the classroom to improve reading and related language skills?

Teaching reading requires a combination of teaching skills but also requires ways to motivate students to read. Whatever the reading level or ability, most students will enjoy reading and read more often when they connect to the text …