Education Commons^™

Benefits And Uses Of Diverse And Bilingual Children's Books: And The Creation Of A Classroom Resource, Elizabeth Tobin

Honors Projects

In response to the information found in existing literature, I created my own bilingual text dealing with adoption and abandonment written for young children, entitled A Family for Nadia. I have studied Spanish for four years and have worked with numerous Spanish/English speaking children in my work with a small orphanage in Guatemala. These experiences have inspired me to create this children’s book. I used the search for identity theme to tell the story of a young Guatemalan girl who has lost her parents. The story is told in both English and Spanish with bolded text to emphasize the …

Global Voices: A Student-Centered Guide To Teaching English As An International Language, Megan M. Mcara

Master's Projects and Capstones

It is time for change in the world of English language teaching. The dominant view and practice of teaching English as a neutral, straight-forward act of imparting “objective” grammatical, phonological and semantic knowledge to passive students does not serve the interest or needs of the estimated 1.5 billion students learning English in today’s interconnected, dynamic world. Critical theories and approaches such as critical pedagogy, critical literacy, and the participatory approach can help identify this problem and offer solutions, yet little has been done to apply and translate these theories into practical, useable materials for teachers in the classroom. This project …

Delving Into Multicultural Literature With Inquiry, Juan Gonzalez

Honors Theses

This paper argues for the use of multicultural literature in the classroom, and puts forth a unit plan that uses critical literacy in an English 11 classroom, though it can be readapted to fit other grade levels. Bishop (1990) describes multicultural literature as a set of windows, that people use to view the experiences of others, and mirrors, that reflect and validate peoples’ experience, a core principal in this paper. Critical literacy is comprised of four dimensions (Lewison, Flint, & Van Sluys, 2002) that allows for analyzing literature in a different and meaningful way. The final part of this paper …

Factors That Influence Teachers' Use, Or Non-Use, Of Small Group Discussion, Julie Snider Snider

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE TEACHERS’ USE, OR NON-USE,

OF SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

by

JULIANNE SNIDER

August 2016

Advisor: Dr. Karen Feathers

Major: Reading, Language, and Literature

Degree: Doctor of Education

This qualitative study explored teacher answers to one question: What factors influence teachers’ decisions to use, or not use, small group discussion. Research supports a variety of small group discussion approaches to meet a range of curricular goals. Despite the philosophical move to student-centered discussion approaches, and research supporting small group discussion as an effective literacy approach, teacher led whole class discussion continues as the dominant approach. An online teacher …