Education Commons^™

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 …

Building A Beloved Community Of Literacy In Professional Spaces, Elizabeth Petroelje Stolle, Jennifer L. Vanderground

Michigan Reading Journal

This article shares the experiences of two literacy teacher educators who sought to create a beloved community for both themselves and the teachers with whom they work within their professional spaces. The authors emphasize the importance of fostering safe, collaborative environments that promote personal and professional growth. Drawing from the principles of the Beloved Community, popularized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the authors discuss the value of embracing a growth mindset when building such communities. Specifically, the article delves into two different professional development models as effective frameworks for cultivating beloved communities: Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and Learning Labs …

Toward A Theory Of An Integrated Theoretical Approach Of Literacy For Black Boys, Aaron M. Johnson

Michigan Reading Journal

In the education landscape the literacy of Black boys is viewed from deficit framing. Often, educators, politicians, and laypeople point to scores on standardized assessments such as the MSTEP, NAEP, ACT, SAT, and NWEA, these tests only tell a part of the story. The part of the story that those assessments do tell is the abject failure of schools’ ability to engage Black boys in school-based literacy and catapult them into proficient and advanced proficient reading levels. The part of the story that those assessments do not tell is the literate lives that Black boys lead. Furthermore, schools do a …

Wakanda: Opening The High School Classroom To Afrofuturism, Carrie M. Mattern

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Afrofuturism has a solid place in high school classrooms thanks to the current work of Ryan Coogler, but also to those who have been in this work for decades including the Mother of Afrofuturism herself, Octavia Butler, adrienne maree brown, dream hampton, and a litany of Black poets and artists. This article leaps inside an Afrofuturistic unit curated for high school seniors with feedback and insight from their teachers and also the students who buckled up for a journey through time, space, and place.

To Be Young, Black, And In The Academy: A Collection Of Lessons, Yetunde Alabede, Jessica Reed, Blake Thompson

Michigan Reading Journal

Literacy, a foundational tool that unlocks opportunities, can be viewed in both narrow and confining lenses. We, doctoral students at Michigan State University, center our own experiences in order to redefine such narratives of what literacy means, can mean, and should mean for students of color throughout the African Diaspora. We explore methods to disrupt, experiences to resist, and questions to challenge the ways that students and educators engage with various concepts of literacy. Though we come from various backgrounds, this manuscript seeks to push forward a dialogue that allows for the multiple literacies that Black children have, language and …

A Spark Of Light In The Darkness: A Framework Of Habits And Routines That Grow Literacy Identities, Andy Schoenborn

Michigan Reading Journal

Using familiar and flexible classroom routines, authentic literacy habits, and encouragement, his students moved from "I hate reading and writing" to self-identifying as readers and writers in a matter of eighteen weeks.

Teaching With The Genius In Mind: Enacting Literacy As A Civil Right, Katie Glupker, Pam Gower, Angela Knight

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Because literacy is a civil right, educators are responsible for designing and implementing literacy education that is designed with the excellence of all students in mind. In order to learn about ways to ensure that literary practices are equitable for all students, the authors joined an educators’ book club to read Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad. Muhammad describes the Black literary societies of the past and challenges educators of today to enhance classrooms by upholding equity and excellence through a five-layered framework: Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy.

We studied Muhammad’s …

Book Review Letting Go Of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction For White Students, Jeremy Hyler

Michigan Reading Journal

Race, racism, and literary whiteness are at the forefront of many conversations in education today. In Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students, authors Carlin Borsheim-Black and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides highlight what should be addressed in our classroom today to address race and racism.

Free To Read: Growing Elementary Students' Literacy In The Summer, Allison M. Nieboer

Michigan Reading Journal

This article describes the implementation of “Free to Read”, a summer reading program with three key components: free student-selected books, Little Free Libraries and one-minute parent videos. The author explains how these three components come together to form a summer reading program that provides access and choice to a community of readers. Recommendations on creating such a program are shared at the end of the article.

Carrying The Stories Of Las Mariposas: Literacy As Collective And Transformative, Deborah Vriend Van Duinen

Michigan Reading Journal

Literacy is often understood as the acquisition of individual skills and knowledge. In this essay, I explore different approaches to understanding literacy that focus on social meaning-making and action. Drawing on historical examples of literacy learning and my recent experiences in a community-wide reading program focused on Julia Alvarez’s (1994) In the Time of the Butterflies, I use the concept of “carrying stories” to reflect on how literacy learning can be collective and transformative for self and society.

Policies, Practices, Places, And People: How Elementary Preservice Teachers Learned Literacy Teaching, Chad H. Waldron

Michigan Reading Journal

This article features cases of how elementary education preservice teachers made sense of teaching literacy. Their contexts for teaching varied in policies, curricula, and demands for their literacy teaching, shaped their learning and understanding of literacy instruction and assessment as beginning teachers. The research featured in this article pushes upon conceptualizations of "good" literacy teaching and how mentor teachers serve a critical role in preparing the next generation of elementary literacy teachers. Recommendations are made on how to best support elementary preservice teachers in literacy instruction and assessment.

Connecting The Dots Between Academic And Social-Emotional Learning With Literacy, Allison Phillippe

Michigan Reading Journal

This article emphasizes the importance of supporting Social Emotional Learning (SEL) with literacy instruction, which could benefit both the academic and emotional success of students in your classroom. Currently in education there is a growing rate of students who have experienced trauma and could greatly benefit from SEL (Price & Ellis, 2018). The ability to incorporate SEL into current literacy instruction can help ensure we are meeting the individual needs of each student. This article will begin by defining SEL and explain its growing importance in education today. Then, it will discuss how social-emotional and academic learning are connected. Finally, …

“We Can Do This At Our School!” Place-Based Education, Literacy, & Learning, Erica R. Hamilton, Janet Staal, Jessica Vander Ark

Michigan Reading Journal

This article highlights the power of using place-based education (PBE) in a K-8 school to support and extend students' literacy and learning. Through PBE, teachers learn to use their local places such as playgrounds, neighborhoods, parks, streams, forests, and urban centers as contexts to make connections and facilitate learning. Moreover, as seen in the examples provided throughout this article, PBE empowers teachers and students to study and read the world, integrate knowledge across disciplines, write for authentic purposes and audiences, create and share narratives connected to local places, and engage in and share research. As a result, students’ excitement for …

Pizza, Pages, And Family Engagement: A Simple Approach To Family Literacy Night, Jennie Baumann

Michigan Reading Journal

Family engagement in schools is a worthy but difficult pursuit. Between scheduling challenges, family needs, and other systemic factors, how can educators encourage family participation? This article details a simple practice using pizza, existing curriculum, and local resources as a way of working smarter to create a culture of family engagement around literacy.

Course Redesign To New Paradigms: Exploring Humanizing Racial Literacies With Pre-Service Teachers, Becky Beucher, Tisha Ortega, Grant Souder, Kimberly Martin-Boyd, Katy Killian

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Spring 2021, undergraduate students across the country were entering their second year of obligatory online learning. This moment in time correlated with an increased attention to the Black Lives Matter movement by white youth and the mainstream public. This study, guided by a team of teacher educators committed to realizing racial justice in Secondary literacy education, designed and examined the impact of humanizing racial literacies curriculum taught through forced on learning on undergraduate pre-service teacher’s perspectives about anti-racist curriculum design. This study builds upon a growing body of research on realizing humanizing racial literacies in teacher education pedagogy. The curriculum …

Yellow Pads And The Return Of The Writer, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Scholastic Liberation: Schools' Impact On African American Academic Achievement, Aaron M. Johnson

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

This article addresses some of the factors that contribute to low achievement observed in African American students. It is common that either schools or school districts are unable to fix the problem or they are unaware about how the beliefs and attitudes about African American students can contribute to their low performance in school. Furthermore, this article encourages school institutions to examine themselves and change school environments to align to the identities of African American students. African American students must be liberated from negative assumptions about them and to do that, individuals and the institution of school as a whole, …

Everyday Advocacy As Part Of Everyday Professionalism, Cathy A. Fleischer, Alaina Feliks, Melissa Brooks-Yip, Sarah Andrew-Vaughan

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

What would happen if we began to see advocacy as part of teachers’ professional identity, as an integral part of who we all are as teachers—not just in moments of crisis, but every day? This article demonstrates how three teachers have made everyday advocacy part of their identity after participating in advocacy training, by exploring the action plans they created surrounding issues of concern in their local contexts.

A Tapestry Of Eyes In The Literacy/Literature Class, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

It is essential that language arts classes make room for different voices, different cultures, and new settings for writing. This paper examines ideas and methods for expanding the discourse and refers to Morrison's Bluest Eye as a way to appreciate the dilemma our students face.