Reading and Language Commons^™

Invisible Shipwrecks And Neurological Endangerment: The Trade-Off In Seeking Asylum - Reframing The Neurobiological Cost Of Forced Migration, Eisha Giran

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Forced migration along the Spain–Morocco route represents one of the most visible humanitarian crises of the twenty-first century, yet its neurological dimensions remain insufficiently examined. This paper investigates how prolonged displacement and trauma reshape neural systems involved in stress regulation, memory, and emotional processing. It introduces the concept of neurological endangerment, defined as a condition of prolonged and inescapable threat exposure during forced migration in which stress-response systems remain chronically activated, opportunities for recovery are structurally constrained, and cumulative neurobiological risk persists beyond the period of immediate danger.

To address the gap between biological measurement and lived experience, this paper …

Learning Through Reading: Confronting Novel Linguistic Forms In Literature, Quinn Doyle

German Studies Honors Projects

How do readers learn to engage with novel forms of written language that fall outside of their established linguistic repertoire? And how do texts themselves facilitate this process? This thesis looks for answers to these questions in literary theory, multilingualism studies, applied linguistics, and a diverse corpus of literary works. I propose a comprehensive descriptive vocabulary of novel language use in literature, and then observe how these frameworks work in concert in an exemplary text by analyzing Christine Brooke-Rose’s multilingual novel Between. I conclude by discussing how the “exceptional” cases explored in this thesis can change our understanding of …

Career And Technical Education Teacher Efficacy In Embedding Disciplinary Literacy: A Predictive Correlational Study, Susan Gwin Higley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this predictive correlational nonexperimental study was to determine the relationship between high school career and technical education (CTE) teachers’ years of experience, teachers’ highest level of education, and teachers’ participation in disciplinary literacy professional development, and their relationship to teachers’ efficacy in embedding disciplinary literacy instruction into their content area teaching. The reading requirements for CTE students are very different from the curriculum taught in English Language Arts classes. Also, texts in specific disciplines of CTE vary greatly. As such, CTE teachers must embed disciplinary literacy in their daily teaching to ensure that their students develop the …

English Diphthongs For English Learners: The Same, But Different, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

In any language, diphthongs need to be reckoned with, but teaching diphthongs to learners of English as a new language requires greater insight and special skills. In this column, we take a look at English diphthongs, why they matter, and how they might be best handled when teaching English language learners.

Esl 103 - Intermediate English As A Second Language, Maria L. Plochocki

Open Educational Resources

The enclosed is a sample syllabus for an intermediate ESL class, created with Open Educational Resources. It includes essential course information such as a schedule of meetings and assignments, as well as course and institutional policies and resources.

Codenames For Language Courses, Jeffrey Nolan Mcculley, Chloe Bennett

UTA Libraries Staff Publications - Archive

In this lesson, students deepen their proficiency in the target language by designing and implementing a foreign-language edition of the game Codenames. Drawing on their understanding of vocabulary, semantics, and cultural nuance, students adapt game components and rules to account for language-specific challenges such as word ambiguity, cognates, homophones, and idiomatic meaning. Through collaborative gameplay, students actively apply linguistic knowledge in a communicative, problem-solving context that emphasizes precision and strategic language use. The lesson promotes critical thinking, intercultural competence, and authentic language practice while reinforcing vocabulary acquisition and comprehension in an engaging, student-centered format.

Parents Engaging In Early Literacy (Peel): Outcomes From A Shared Reading Program Implemented Via Text Messaging, Victoria Henbest, Brenda L. Beverly, Gina M. Mejia

Victoria S. Henbest Publications

Purpose: Investigators delivered an asynchronous parent education for improving early literacy skills of typically developing preschoolers. The home-based shared-book reading program, PEEL, consisted of strategies modeled via videos and sent as text messages.

Method: Twenty parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to one of two 8-week programs targeting evidence-based early literacy strategies. One parent group was taught strategies to support print-related knowledge for learning to read, and the other learned skills to promote vocabulary and story knowledge underlying comprehension.

Results: The asynchronous parent education resulted in more frequent parental use of taught strategies compared to non-taught strategies during …

"Just Friends:" The Linguistics Of Queerness In Lady Audley's Secret And Carmilla, Kelley A. Peters

English

Many queer studies scholars have debated the legitimacy of queer coding within Victorian literature, such as Marc Milton Ducusin, who wrote Queer Doubles: The Victorian Sensation Novel and English Sexology, and Sharon Marcus, the author of Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England. These authors analyze real-life and fictional behaviors of those within Victorian England to argue that queerness is present in certain Victorian works. However, these arguments do not adequately address the linguistic significance of the queer coding present in these works, and they specifically ignore the label of “friend” and its many meanings in Victorian …

Bridging Machine Learning And Islamic Scholarship: A Study In Hadith Translation And Similarity Analysis, Asiyah R. Speight

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Translation of Islamic religious texts poses unique challenges requiring both linguistic and theological expertise. This study explores the application of neural machine translation (NMT) models to Arabic-English hadith translation while analyzing semantic similarity patterns across different human translations. Using the complete Sahih Bukhari corpus (7,550 hadiths) as the primary dataset, we adopt a dual approach combining transfer learning and comprehensive neural network analysis to demonstrate the critical impact of corpus size on model performance.

First, we fine-tune a pre-trained MarianMT Arabic-English translation model on the full Sahih Bukhari corpus, comparing models trained on 40 hadiths versus 7,550 hadiths. Performance is …

Assessing The Language And Reading Abilities Of Students With Mosaic Down Syndrome, Emma G. Conradi

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Language and reading are important skills for academic and social success, yet individuals with Down syndrome often face significant challenges developing these skills (Abbeduto et al., 2007; Martin et al., 2009). However, almost all the available research on the language and reading abilities of individuals with Down syndrome comes from research focused on individuals with Full Trisomy 21. To date, there has been virtually no research specifically examining the language and reading skills of individuals with mosaic Down syndrome (Buckley & Bird, 2002), a rare karyotype of Down syndrome. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to describe the language …

From Ghorer Golpo To Global Voices: Digital Storytelling As A Decolonial Pedagogy For English Language Learning In Bangladesh, Tamanna Sharmin Kabir

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

From Ghorer Golpo to Global Voices: Digital Storytelling as a Decolonial Pedagogy for English Language Learning in Bangladesh highlights how Digital Storytelling operates as a culturally sustaining and technologically supported approach within Bangladeshi undergraduate English education. Informed by my own navigation of Western and South Asian narrative traditions, the study responds to a longstanding challenge in English instruction: exam-focused, Eurocentric pedagogies often marginalize learners’ cultural identities and lived experiences. The research investigates how participants engaged with Digital Storytelling as a multimodal, technology-enhanced practice that supports language development, identity expression, and intercultural communication.

The study employed an arts-informed case study design …

Zero Textbook Low Cost Syllabus For English 2100 (Writing 1), Anne Grevenitis

Open Educational Resources

In English 2100, our focus will be on autoethnography as a genre of writing. To write an autoethnography is to examine the value of the personal and use traditional modes of research to flesh out the narrative of the self. Through diverse research methods (interviews and site observation) and a multiple-step writing process (journaling, drafting and peer reviewing), your autoethnography should make a substantive contribution, have aesthetic merit, have reflexivity, make an impact, and express a reality.

The Inimitable And Neologistical Dickens, Peter J. Capuano

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This article traces the provenance of the adjective Dickensian and argues that Dickens both inaugurated new words, phrases, and idioms, and also popularized many obscure ones that are part of our common lexicon today.

Ai-Enhanced Structured Literacy Intervention For Secondary Students: A Case Study Of Science Of Reading, Jennifer Bird

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This study examines the effectiveness of Lexia PowerUp, an AI-powered literacy program, for sixth-grade students requiring Tier 3 reading intervention. Seven sixth-grade students (six boys, one girl; five African American, two Caucasian; all qualifying for free/reduced lunch) participated in a six-month intervention combining 50 minutes of daily small-group instruction with individualized Lexia PowerUp usage. Researchers measured progress through Achieve 3000 Lexile assessments and Lexia PowerUp performance data across three skill strands: Word Study, Grammar, and Comprehension. All participants demonstrated Lexile level improvements from beginning-of-year to mid-year assessments, though students remained below sixth-grade benchmarks (925-1070L). Analysis of Lexia PowerUp progression showed …

Reading Deeply: Rethinking How And Why We Read, Luke Hawley, Rose Postma, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Regardless of genre or medium, what’s essential reading—or watching or listening—today?"

Posting about ­­­­­­­­thoughtful and engaged reading practices from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

Reading Deeply

Neural Associations Between Fingerspelling, Print, And Signs: An Erp Priming Study With Deaf Readers, Brittany Lee, Sofia E. Ortega, Priscilla M. Martinez, Katherine J. Midgley, Phillip J. Holcomb, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Fingerspelling is a leading predictor of reading ability for deaf people who use a signed language, but few neuroimaging studies have examined how it supports reading. We used event-related potentials to investigate how fingerspelled words prime printed words. Twenty-four skilled deaf adult readers completed a Go/No-Go task while viewing printed English word targets following related and unrelated primes in one of three conditions: printed English words, American Sign Language (ASL) signs, and fingerspelled words. N400 priming effects were strong across all three conditions. Early N400 effects were similar for printed word primes and fingerspelled word primes, suggesting shared orthographic representations. …

Extracting From The Extracurriculum: Using Extracurricular Composition Practices To Bring Purpose, Voice, And Engagement Back To The English Classroom, Grace N. Ellis

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores how principles and practices from extracurricular literacy spaces and the extracurriculum as a whole can inform and revitalize the secondary English classroom. In response to growing student disengagement, apathy, and disconnection, particularly within highly standardized and product-focused classrooms, this argument investigates how programs such as the Nebraska Writers Collective’s All Writes Reserved program and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Young Writer Camp model authentic engagement, identity exploration and development, and rhetorical agency through creative, student-centered writing practices. Drawing from composition theory, educational research, and experiential data from Nebraska-based writing initiatives, the thesis argues that incorporating choice, safe-risk taking, …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Benefits Of Informal Practical Experiences As A Central Teaching Method In A Literature Of Adolescents Course, Jillian Harpster

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio includes the course context and organizational format of a junior-level required course for pre-service secondary English teachers. Formatting and context information include teaching methods and course materials. As a central teaching method of the course, students are required to attend a practicum that is additional to their observational practicum (sophomore year) and their clinical practicum (senior year). In this way, the praxis of the coursework and the informal practicum serve as an intentional moment of praxis, while also scaffolding students towards their senior year practicum and beyond (student teaching, early career teaching). Ultimately, the argument of the portfolio …

How A Garden Hoe Changed My Literacy Life: A Story Of Teaching, Coaching, And Becoming, Kelsey J. Walker

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

In this dissertation, I explore how personal practical experiences teaching reading intervention impacted my own understanding of the role of a secondary literacy coach. Drawing on the concepts of dialogism and adult learning theory, I leveraged learning conversations to grow my own body of knowledge. The methodology of this study was done using narrative inquiry and autoethnography. This methodological blend allowed me to closely study myself as the primary participant with a unique positionality as a scholarly practitioner. I unpack the complexities, contradictions, and tensions of my lived experience through stories and vignettes set in a rural midwestern public school …

The Branch Waitlist Project, Addison E. Youngkin

SPARK Symposium Presentations

The problem that we have found is that The Branch has a limited number of English education classes, as well as limited numbers of teachers and other opportunities for students to engage and learn. The waitlist for the English learning classes is about 150 students long, and this study will explore a way to provide students with helpful resources for everyday life while they are waiting to get into actual classes. This will be done through research about the topics that students struggle the most with in their everyday lives. Our specific objectives include providing those within the waitlist with …

From Theory To Practice: A True-Crime Podcast, Lauren V. Peckham

Senior Honors Projects

The Criminal Element is an innovative, victim-centered podcast that bridges the gap between criminological theory and real-world criminal cases. The podcast is designed as an educational resource for undergraduate Criminology and Criminal Justice students, alongside general audience members interested in learning more about criminological theory. Through the lens of true crime, this podcast is an engaging exploration of foundational and advanced theories while avoiding sensationalism and exploitation, a prevalent problem among true crime media. Each episode connects criminological theoretical concepts – such as strain, social learning, and social disorganization – to contemporary and historical cases, providing listeners with accessible and …

Shakespeare’S Early Histories And The Construction Of Government, Paul Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Shakespeare’s first tetralogy has been treated as an account of the reinvention of government, especially a Hobbesian reinvention demonstrating how authoritarian government forces order out of chaos. This article argues that, though Hobbesian elements present themselves, Shakespeare employs subtexts available to his time and place to speak of how orderly government is constituted: that is, he relies on accounts of the Fall from perfection into chaos and the return from it through divinely blessed kingship that are present in syncretic readings of Ovid and the Bible. The two subtexts give order to the progress from Fall into chaos and back …

Music And Word Learning In Children Diagnosed With Developmental Language Disorder, Rebekah G. Sweeney

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Purpose: This study investigates whether incorporating music into vocabulary interventions improves rate of learning and retention of words in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Emerging literature continues to show the plentiful benefits of music as a tool for intervention in many settings, including the world of speech pathology (Levitin, 2024). However, it is also evident that there is a connection between struggling with language, and struggling with musical elements, such as rhythm and pitch perception, particularly in children with DLD (Boorom et al., 2022; Kreidler et al., 2023). This study seeks to tease out if music is an effective …

Library Post Partnerships: A Solution To Increase Access To Public Library Facilities In The Las Vegas Metropolitan Area, Wendy Rein

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Resource deserts are areas with residential populations that lack access to public amenities. Current standards in the field of Library and Information Sciences recommend a two-mile buffer zone around public libraries in order to ensure access and use of facilities. In the Las Vegas metropolitan area, multiple library deserts can be identified overlapping with areas designated for community development. This research shows that public libraries provide resources that can improve community metrics, notably educational and vocational outcomes, but that many neighborhoods in the region lack access to a facility. Increasing the distribution of public libraries as they are currently architecturally …

Textual Transformations: An Introduction To Ai For Composition 101, J. Elizabeth Clark

Open Educational Resources

This curriculum unit is a critical literacy unit about AI designed for first-year writing. The introductory composition course prepares students for academic writing with a heavy emphasis on writing-as-process, critical reading, gathering information, inquiry-based writing, and taking research notes. This curriculum unit pairs the writing portion of the course with an AI critical literacy framework for students.

This is a 20-hour, 9 lesson unit designed for an introductory composition course:

• Prepwork: Preliminary Assessment and AI Policies

• Lesson 1: What is AI?

• Lesson 2: The History of AI

• Lesson 3: How Does AI Work?

• Lesson 4: AI in Action

• Lesson 5: …

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Translanguaging: Old Wine In A New Bottle, Or New Wine?, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

The conversation about translanguaging is creating waves around the world, and Illinois is no exception. This column serves to remind the reader of some of the antecedents to this influential concept (“old wine”), predicts how this movement may affect your education setting (“new bottle”), and lays out a few of the aspects of translanguaging that may indeed be “new wine.”

Chaucer’S Complaint To His Purse And Authority In The World, Paul A. Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Chaucer’s Complaint to His Purse concerns more than the poet’s financial need under the new Lancastrian administration. It speaks to the limits of Henry IV’s royal authority and, through irony, to the limitations of Chaucer’s purse’s power. Underlining royal limits, Chaucer petitions the king as one who holds office through election and line but not con-quest, which is Henry’s position on his office as well. In speaking iron-ically of the purse’s authority, the poet addresses the gold that the mon-arch might grant him as if it constituted a human or divine patron, but he does so in a hierarchy of …

Lgbtq+ Maine Timeline (Sources Included), Megan Macgregor

USM Libraries & Learning Scholarship

This timeline is in no way complete. If you would like to add something to the timeline please reach out to Megan MacGregor ([email protected]) with the event AND a source showing that it happened.

Toward A Welcoming Classroom: Assessment Of Student Perceptions Of Writing Education In Introductory Honors College Courses, Hilary K. Snow

Honors in Practice Online Archive

This study examines student perceptions of an introductory-level writing program in honors at a large, public R1 university. Author considers the efficacy of pedagogical interventions aimed at identifying gaps in the experience of writing for students from BIPOC and first-generation backgrounds and at developing more inclusive teaching practices. Collective revisions to the program’s writing philosophy, objectives, and rubrics helped instructors gain clarity and consistency across sections. A two-part survey was conducted at the beginning and end of the semester, and metrics were calculated for all respondents (N = 176) and targeted subgroups (n = 37; n = 30). …