Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Literacy For Life: Daily Reading Effectively Promotes Success (Reps), Karen Washington, Terecia Gill

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Literacy is at the heart of basic education and essential for eradicating poverty, achieving equality, and ensuring that all students have the opportunity for lifelong success. Administrators, instructional coaches, and teachers will be fascinated by the simple, but effective strategy for improving the literacy skills of students at risk through authentic, highly-engaging daily “REPS” activities in every class.

A Teaching-Learning Grant Initiative: Developing The Critical Literacy Instructional Abilities Of Pre-Service Educators, Anne Katz Ph.D., Vivian Bynoe

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Pre-service educators in a section of "Exploring Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Diversity in Educational Contexts" were introduced to the concept of critical literacy. Throughout the course of the semester, students were provided with the opportunity to apply their knowledge of this framework through a series of discussions around the young adult novel, Does My Head Look Big in This? (Abdel-Fattah, 2008). Guest speakers— in the form of a local high school student who recently began wearing a hijab to school, as well as a visiting scholar who specializes in critical literacy—expanded students’ perspectives. Results of a pre and post-test, as well …

Mirrors & Maps: Using Ya Literature To Navigate Risks In Adolescent Life, Lesley Roessing

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

YA literature allows adolescents to mirror themselves in books, safely discussing problems in their lives through conversations about how characters handle/mishandle problems. Novels provide maps to navigate risks and issues experienced by teens. The presenter, a former middle-grades teacher and author of No More “Us” and “Them,” teaches Bibliotherapy and will share Young Adult novels/memoirs and strategies that focus discussions on risks contemporary adolescents face.

Using A Shared Vocabulary To Teach Key Qualities Of Good Writing In A Fourth Grade Classroom, Kristi Schoppe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to investigate what happens when teachers replace traditional grammar instruction methods with small group guided instruction focused on a set of vocabulary terms used in writing. The vocabulary terms represent the key qualities of writing; the terms for teachers and students is word choice, ideas, conventions, organization, voice, sentence fluency, role, audience, format, and topic. This study aims to learn more about this topic by investigating how using a shared vocabulary during writing instruction in a fourth grade classroom will engage students longer to improve their writing through the writing process.

Book Review: Duran, C. (2017). Language And Literacy In Refugee Families. United Kingdom, Uk: Palgrave Macmillan. 226 Pp. Isbn: 978-1-137-58754-1, Nguyen Dao

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Book Review by Nguyen Dao: Duran, C. (2017). Language and Literacy in Refugee Families. United Kingdom, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.

Cultivating Critical Reading: Using Creative Assignments To Promote Agency, Persistence, And Enjoyment, Nate Mickelson

Publications and Research

Skillful and attentive critical reading is crucial for success in college. Research has shown that pedagogies that foreground the transactional nature of reading are more effective than those that frame reading as a process of decoding meanings transmitted in the text. Despite this, existing approaches to reading instruction often reinforce a transmission model of reading that prioritizes the decoding of textual meaning over more active engagement. Assignments that explicitly or implicitly define reading as a process of identifying correct interpretations in this way risk reinforcing the shame and frustration students experience as they struggle to interpret texts. As an alternative, …

Markers Of An “Inclusive” Reading Classroom: Peers Facilitating Inclusion At The Margins Of A Fourth Grade Reading Workshop, Mary R. Coakley-Fields

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

What are indicators, or markers, of ‘inclusive’ reading classrooms? As elementary school teachers across the United States are increasingly required to teach reading to diverse, heterogenous groups of students within the same classroom space, practitioners and researchers seek to identify what constitutes 'inclusion' in reading instruction. This study explores how two fourth grade friends – one labeled ‘struggling’ and one labeled ‘average’ by normative reading assessments – transgress classroom expectations around quiet, leveled reading behaviors while also facilitating each other’s inclusion in the classroom reading community. Combining ethnographic methods and D/discourse analysis, this study explores the dominant cultural Discourses that …

A Collaborative Children's Literature Book Club For Teacher Candidates, Tara-Lynn Scheffel, Claire Cameron, Lindsay Dolmage, Madisen Johnston, Jemanica Lapensee, Kirsten Solymar, Emily Speedie, Meagan Wills

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This paper highlights the two-year journey of an extra-curricular book club for teacher candidates as they explored children’s literature in order to further their teaching practice. Initial themes were confirmed and refined as the journey of the book club concluded after two years. A sociocultural theoretical framework guided this work and considered Cambourne’s (1988) conditions of learning, specifically immersion in texts, as well as the important role of social contexts in developing shared text meanings. A qualitative methodology, drawing on participatory action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005) and taking a case study approach to sharing the "case" of this collaborative …

Who Gets To Play? Issues Of Access And Social Justice In World Language Study In The U.S., Cassandra Glynn, Beth Wassell

Dimensions

In this paper, we draw on the current literature to argue that access to world language study for students from minoritized groups, students from under-resourced schools, and students with disabilities is a significant social justice issue. This inequitable access is exacerbated by three key issues: the devaluation of students’ languages and cultures in schools; the elitist nature of language study; and the one-sided nature of the curriculum. However, in response, we offer four concrete suggestions, at the classroom, school/ district, and policy levels, that can disrupt these historic trends and ensure that all students have access to advanced study of …

Disrupting Standard Practice: Queering The World Language Classroom, James Coda

Dimensions

World language education (WLE) offers students the opportunity to explore the linguistic and cultural identities of the target language. However, critical issues, such as the diverse sexual identities found within the target cultures and of the language learners themselves are often not addressed within the language learning experience. Also implicated are discourse and knowledge/power, which serve to erase certain students’ identities from the curriculum. Queer theory/pedagogy, which resists normal (Jagose, 1996), has much to offer WLE related to addressing heteronormativity. Thus, this article explores the myriad ways in which queer theory/pedagogy could potentially be useful in WLE to challenge normative …

An Interview With Terry A. Osborn, Stacey Margarita Johnson

Dimensions

In this interview with Terry A. Osborn, whose work set the stage for the momentum that is currently building around social justice in language education, Dr. Osborn shares his perspective on the past, present, and future of language education.

Promoting Social Justice Through 21st Century Skills: Thematic Units In The Language Classroom, Begoña Caballero-García

Dimensions

This article demonstrates the ways in which the Spanish curriculum at one private university integrated social justice learning targets guided by the ACTFL 21st Century Skills Map and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills in a Living Learning Community (LLC) course called “Social Consciousness and Developing 21st Century Skills.” The LLC interdisciplinary approach combined an intermediate Spanish course with a compulsory one credit course for all first year students. Examples from four thematic units in the Spanish intermediate class illustrate activities intended to foster learners’ social consciousness, empathy, collaboration, diversity appreciation, civic engagement, personal responsibility, and leadership. This article draws …

High-Impact Practices In A Hispanic Linguistics Course: Facilitating Lessons About Linguistic Diversity And Advocacy, Stephanie M. Knouse

Dimensions

This investigation examines how students responded to the content and critical approach in an undergraduate course in Hispanic linguistics titled “Bilingualism in the Spanish-Speaking World.” To enhance learning, students participated in one of two high-impact practices (HIPs)—service-learning or a research investigation—as their final project. On an end-of-course questionnaire both final project groups strongly indicated that they would advocate for and educate others about linguistic diversity. Findings also suggest that both HIPs fostered meaningful connections to the critical topics covered in class. To conclude, recommendations are offered for how K-16 programs might include “linguistics” lessons that emphasize social justice.

Social Justice In Beginning Language Instruction: Interpreting Fairy Tales, Britta Meredith, Mareike Geyer, Manuela Wagner

Dimensions

This chapter bridges theories of social justice (e.g., Osborn, 2006) and intercultural citizenship (e.g. Byram, 2008) to classroom practices in an introductory German course at a research university. By interpreting a fairy tale [Cinderella], 16 university students reflected on issues of gender roles and (in)equality both in historical and current contexts. Several activities in a 75-minute online session are described. In this brief intervention, students demonstrated the ability to contemplate complex, real-life issues such as gender roles and stereotypes using the target language.

Making Visible The Invisible: Social Justice And Inclusion Through The Collaboration Of Museums And Spanish Community-Based Learning Projects, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez, Martha Wright

Dimensions

Concerns about inclusion and social responsibility as conduit for social justice on university campuses offer a platform for interdisciplinary initiatives. Here we focus on one such initiative, which seeks to build community between University of Richmond students and local Latino and Hispanic populations using the University of Richmond Museum collection. Collaborations between museums and Spanish classes, including a community-based learning component (Spanish Community-Based Learning and Museums - SCBLM), provide outreach to the local community and might prompt dialogues about extant social injustices (however overt or subliminal). In these experiential learning projects, the museum serves as a communal resource to embody …

Preservice Teacher Sense-Making As They Learn To Teach Reading As Seen Through Computer-Mediated Discourse, Angela J. Stefanski, Amy Leitze, Veronica M. Fife-Demski

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Abstract

This collective case study used methods of discourse analysis to consider what computer-mediated collaboration might reveal about preservice teachers’ sense-making in a field-based practicum as they learn to teach reading to children identified as struggling readers. Researchers agree that field-based experiences coupled with time for reflection benefit preservice teachers as they learn to teach reading. However, research is not as clear about which features of practicum experiences lead to preservice teacher learning, which may contribute to preservice teacher misconceptions, and how learning about reading instruction might be rendered more visible to researchers. Grounded in sociocultural perspectives, analysis focused on …

Searching For Mirrors: Preservice Teachers’ Journey Toward More Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Tanya Christ, Sue Ann Sharma

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Culturally relevant text selection and pedagogy support students’ motivation, engagement, literacy outcomes, and positive identity formation. Nevertheless, there is limited research on teacher preparation that fosters these outcomes. We explore 17 preservice teachers’ challenges and successes with culturally relevant text selection and pedagogy for their students’ literacy instruction. Data sources include reader responses, lesson plans, and reflections. Emergent coding and constant comparative analysis yielded four categories of challenges (resistance, limited view of culture, lack of knowledge about students’ cultures and identities, and lack of opportunities for students to develop critical consciousness) and three criteria for successes (knowledge about the students’ …

Editorial Review Board Rh V.57 N.1

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract provided.

Proficiency: Atl – All The Levels

Dimensions

SCOLT Dimensions Volume 53

Literacy Education Across Languages In Writing Centers., Lance M Gibson

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Literacy education in writing carried out through writing centers (WCs) is a practice that occurs beyond one individual language; rather, almost every developed country provides some extent of education regarding written communication in an alternate language, whether facilitated through a WC or a classroom. Many of these countries’ methods for writing education have been documented in either self-reported evaluation or surveys; however, this documentation of methods is only the beginning of a larger conversation about how these international writing methods have evolved into discussions on topics related to these methods. Writing education that occurs in multiples languages within the same …