Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Seasons, Emily Feveryear

The Utah English Journal

Fall:

The falling leaves

Bring a familiar crunch and

A familiar warmth.

This time I am ready.

Flames, Lorena Lesué

The Utah English Journal

She had worked herself thin,

hunched over a keyboard or the students’ desks

for fifty hours a week.

By year nineteen,

the muscles atop her shoulders

bookended her neck

like turtle shells.

Book Review: There Goes The Neighborhood, Feliciana Lopez-Goodman

The Utah English Journal

Rhea’s motives seem simple—save her best friend from eviction and stop the neighborhood from falling apart. As is true for all complex characters, there is more to Rhea, Zeke, and Malachi as they create a fake gang in their South LA neighborhood of Kofa Park. In Jade Adia’s debut novel There Goes the Neighborhood, gentrification is front and center as three teenagers take on the responsibility of saving their neighborhood and their chosen family.

Minoritized Students’ Internship Experiences In World Languages: A Call For Research, Mathias Guerreiro-Aires, Paula Garrett-Rucks

Dimensions

Higher education has undergone important shifts over the past two decades, with U.S. universities placing more emphasis on career readiness and internships becoming an integral part of academia (National Association of Colleges and Employers [NACE], 2021). Moreover, the student population in U.S. universities has become more diverse (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2023), which has drawn more attention to issues of equity and access to career readiness initiatives such as internships (Greenman et al., 2022). Disparities exist for students from historically marginalized racial and ethnic communities, such as Black, Latinx, and Afro-Latinx students, from their White peers not only …

Functional Grammar And Artificial Intelligence: A Vision For Enhancing The Teaching Of Arabic In Universities For Non-Specialists, Dr. Fathi Ahmed Alshormani

Faculty Peer-Reviewed Papers | بحوث هيئة التدريس المحكمة

No abstract provided.

Kendrick Lamar Brings New Literature To The Ela Classroom, Chris A. Peck

The Utah English Journal

Until April of 2017 I was only mildly aware of Kendrick Lamar. I had listened to and enjoyed songs like “Alright” and “Swimming Pools” but had little experience past these songs. After his album D.A.M.N. came out, I began to see several posts regarding the importance of this album, many responses by professors and teachers I knew well and trusted.

Co-Creating A Community Of Learners Through Interactive Read-Alouds Of Expository Texts, Kari Allsup

The Utah English Journal

I am reading aloud Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature’s Undead (Johnson, 2013) to a group of 7th grade students. The text describes the larva stage where a young jewel wasp feasts on the cockroach’s insides. As I read, there are scattered exclamations of “ewwww,” “sick,” and audible gasps. I stop reading to dig into these reactions.

Sentence Detective: Investigating Sentence Structure To Support Reading Comprehension, Rachel Knecht

The Utah English Journal

Jacob was honest about his usual reading strategies. Like Jacob, readers with a history of reading difficulties may deal with challenging, long, or unfamiliar sentences by skipping or stumbling over them (Nomvete & Easterbrooks, 2020; Vaughn et al., 2022). But, Jacob offered another strategy— Sentence Detective. Over the past six weeks, Jacob had learned how to use Sentence Detective, a strategy for breaking sentences down into meaningful, more manageable parts. Although skipping or skimming may have been his go-to strategy for sentence-level comprehension, he now had another tool to try out.

“We Don’T Have To Take Things So Seriously”: Humor, Queer Livability, And Homonormativity For A Rural English Language Arts Teacher, Brandon Haskey-Valerius, Ryan Schey

The Rural Educator

Extending and challenging existing research about LGBTQIA+ life in rural educational contexts, this ethnographically informed qualitative study describes how Lulu—a white, cisgender, queer secondary English language arts teacher in a rural, public school in the Midwest—discursively constructed the functions of her humor with respect to teaching, queerness, and their interrelations. Drawing on social theorizations of humor, particularly queer theorizations of humor, this article argues that Lulu described her humor as having three functions: building relationships, facilitating learning, and opening possibilities for queerness. These findings illustrate tensions in that Lulu leveraged humor to build a livable, joyous career in which she …

Secondary Stage Students' Perceptions Regarding (Myschool) Learning Management System's Role In Learning English, Huda Ali Sallam

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

This study set out to explore students' opinions and self-efficacy level in relation to the use of MySchool learning management system. The study has added focus on its usefulness in facilitating English language learning. The study sample involved 420 female secondary stage students within one educational district in Riyadh. The study instrument is a 24-item closed-ended questionnaire which was distributed using a Microsoft Forms link. The items of the questionnaire were divided into four main elements: perceived practicality, perceived usefulness, general satisfaction, and sense of self-efficacy. The obtained data was subsequently analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) 24 …

Incorporating Extensive Reading Into The Foreign Language Curriculum, Jane E. Hardy, Victoria Rodrigo

Dimensions

Extensive reading is an approach to language learning that encourages learners to read a large quantity of easy reading material. A substantial body of research confirms the effectiveness of this approach for developing proficiency in both first (L1) and second (L2) languages. This paper explains what extensive reading is, why it is important, and how it can be incorporated as part of a language curriculum. The paper also provides a review of research on the effectiveness of extensive reading in several different languages and recommends many extensive reading resources, including open access materials, to facilitate the implementation of extensive reading …

Demonstrating A Free Listing Data Collection Approach To Cultural Instruction, Gregory De La Piedra

Dimensions

Free listing tasks are a common data collection method used by cultural anthropologists, language historians and linguists (Nolan, 2002; Ryan et al., 2000; Weller & Romney, 1988; Wolfram & Schillings-Estes, 1998). These tasks are interviews in which a researcher asks groups of respondents to list words or expressions that come to mind for a given cultural topic. This study focused on a free listing task collected from working class Mexicans about fiestas y celebraciones [parties and celebrations]. Although this topic is routinely included in second language (L2) teaching materials, common terms or slang used by Spanish speaking populations that U.S. …

Resources And Approaches For Integrating High-Leverage Teaching Practices: A Content Analysis, Sara Ahnell

Dimensions

Implementing high-leverage teaching practices (HLTPs) for language learning can help ensure teachers create and deliver a high-quality curriculum, especially when working with Novice learners who require more scaffolded instruction. This study aimed to fill a gap by identifying print resources and approaches available to support world language teachers’ integration of HLTPs into instructional design for Novice learners in middle and high school classrooms (grades 6-12). In the Fall of 2022, various resources were analyzed according to their use in assisting teachers with integrating HLTPs, state standards, and current second language acquisition (SLA) research into instructional design. These resources included several …

Why World Language Teachers Stay: Teacher Retention In West Virginia, Challenges And Opportunities, Laura Guglani, Tori Gastón

Dimensions

The present study investigates World Language (WL) teacher retention and the challenges and opportunities of teaching a WL in a rural state. Data came from ethnographic interviews conducted with 10 participants, current Spanish teachers teaching throughout West Virginia. Through thematic analysis, eight themes emerged: Lack of Exposure to Cultural Diversity, Lack of Qualified Teachers, Toll on Mental Health, Pressure to Defend the Value of WLs, Remaining in West Virginia, Passing on the Love of Language and Cultural Learning, Innovative Pedagogical Approaches, and Strong Professional Support Systems.

Book Reviews: Family Style: Memories Of An American From Vietnam, Derick Marchant

The Utah English Journal

Do you ever eat a meal so intertwined with memory that each bite transports you back to the moments surrounding it? For me, it’s paella. The rice dish seasoned with saffron, paprika, and lemon juice puts me right back in small apartments in Spain with my legs under a blanket-covered table, a heater blasting on my legs, laughing and shelling shrimp with Spaniards. I can’t eat paella without craving the company that surrounded me in those warm Spanish apartments. In Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam, Thien Pham chronicles his family’s immigration story via vignettes centering around his …

The Utah English Journal, Volume 53, 2025: Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Improving Small-Group Discussion Through Literature Circle Activities, Reilly Ryan

The Utah English Journal

Consider the following scenarios in which I’ve given students a platform to discuss “high-interest” topics: “Class, I want you to discuss whether you think school should start one hour later than it currently does. I’m going to set a timer for three minutes, and I would like you to continue your discussion during the entire time.” If school start time seems too educational, I might offer an even more accessible topic such as “What is the greatest movie of all time?” or “Where is the best place in town to get a hamburger?” The pleasing cacophony I hear immediately after …

Moving Beyond Summary, Susan E. Anderson

The Utah English Journal

The due date. That dreaded day when 50% of my students have worked their way through the writing process and are ready to turn in their essays ON TIME. They chose topics, researched, organized, wrote rough drafts, edited and revised repeatedly, peer-reviewed, more editing and more revising, cited their sources, formatted, and even applied the hanging indentation to their works cited page. And as the other 50% trickle in their late papers clearly lacking some of these important steps, my next responsibility begins: I start to read 175 essays. With my rubric ready to start assessing, I see a frustrating …

The Uses And Challenges Of Teaching Writing With Artificial Intelligence, Tom Henry

The Utah English Journal

Computers and Composition recently noted: “In less than a year, ChatGPT hit 100 million weekly users which made it the fastest-growing consumer Internet application to date. The ease, practicality, and ability to compose both in text and multimedia has made generative AI technology (like ChatGPT) ubiquitous” (Ranade and Eyman, 2024). Popularity aside, the question should be asked: Can students use AI ethically? A white paper from UNESCO puts forth the proposition that “Technology is never ideologically neutral… New generative AI models and utilities are no exception” (Giannini, 2023, p.3). Collating these claims, there are tasks where AI is ethical and …

Facilitating Dialogue: Leveraging Classroom Literature To Navigate Critical Conversations With High School Students, Kaylee Smedley

The Utah English Journal

The quotation refers to the Contemporary American Thought (CAT) class, a high school course in Chris Crutcher’s Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, where Moby and his classmates navigate complex and controversial issues under Ms. Lemry’s guidance. Encouraged to discuss meaningful topics like children’s rights, war, social class, abortion, and religion, they research, debate, and explore nuances, ultimately drawing scrutiny from parents, the community, and the administration (Crutcher, 1993).