Education Commons^™

Exploring Translanguaging And Identity Among Jordanian Graduate Students In Ontario, Mohamad Almashour

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study investigated the use of translanguaging strategies by Jordanian graduate students in Ontario, Canada, as a means of adjusting to the local language and culture. It further scrutinizes the influence of these practices on their identities. The study also probes into the potential opportunities and impediments that these students may encounter in higher educational establishments in Ontario.

Data collection was accomplished through semi-structured online interviews, which were subject to qualitative analysis to respond to the research queries. The analytical process was grounded in a theoretical framework combining sociocultural theory, critical literacy, and language ecology, thereby offering a profound understanding …

A Critical Analysis Of Cultura In Spanish World Language Textbooks, Amanda Holbrook

Education Doctorate Dissertations

This action-oriented multimodal discourse analysis explored how a high school Spanish world language textbook series construes Spanish speakers and cultures and invites students to engage with them through written texts and visual images. Through a lens of analysis based on systemic functional linguistics and influenced by critical discourse analysis and critical literacy pedagogy, this study found that the textbooks erase Spanish speakers as active creators of cultures, construe them as a standardized monolithic group when present, and construe cultures as tied to the interests of tourists and linked to place. Moreover, the textbook series invites students to engage with Spanish …

“It Kind Of Shows The Terrible Morality Of This Scene": Using Graphic Novels To Encourage Feminist Readings Of Jewish Hebrew Texts With Religious Significance, Talia Hurwich

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

This study considers whether and in what ways graphic novel adaptations of traditional Jewish Hebrew texts can encourage adolescent Modern Orthodox girls to adopt autonomous critical responses when encountering narratives that present women in unequal roles vis a vis men. According to scholars, Jewish literacy should teach students to read traditional Hebrew texts reverently while forming autonomous interpretations and opinions. Instead, Jewish educators teach normative readings posed by approved rabbinic authorities. This is particularly the case when teaching issues relating to gender among Modern Orthodox Jews, a conservative Jewish denomination, strives to synthesize tradition with the values of modern, secular …

Liberating Instruction: A Critical Bilingual Literacy Approach For Latinx Students, Anel V. Suriel

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

This article reviews Dr. Carla España and Dr. Luz Yadira Herrera’s En Comunidad: Lessons for Centering the Voices of Experiences of Bilingual Latinx Students. Though a critical bilingual literacies approach, the language practices, experiences and cultural histories of Latinx students are centered for literacy instruction in grades 3-8. Before instruction begins, the authors support educational practitioners in creating equitable educational and language stances that hold students’ language practices in a strength perspective. Each chapter that follows details and explains a thematic unit of student that guides educators in creating lessons based on students’ experiences and are summarized within this review. …

Engaging Middle School Emergent Bilinguals In Language Awareness: A Practitioner Researcher Study, Carol Lickenbrock

Dissertations

This practitioner research study (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) traced the journey toward critical literacy of a group of seven emergent bilinguals and me, their teacher, over the course of a four-month unit on argument as part of our English for Speakers of Other Languages 3 (ESOL3) class. Many of these students, like many emergent bilinguals in the United States, had been disempowered because they had not had access to the academic texts of school. As part of this research, students worked with tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyze the interpersonal, ideational and textual metafunctions of argumentation in lessons …

Toward Diversity In Texts: Using Global Literature To Cultivate Critical Perspectives, Rick Marlatt

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

Abstract Literature study in the 21st Century should be characterized by the inclusion of global texts that afford diverse students the opportunity to engage in their literacy development through and alongside authors, characters, and storylines that represent their own linguistic and cultural traditions. In this narrative analysis, I reflect on the importance of equity-driven literature study from my perspective as a teacher educator at a Hispanic-Serving Institution in the Southwestern United States. Following an introduction to the political and institutional contexts surrounding text selection in schools and a brief review of the literature, I situate myself and my students as …

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

National Youth Advocacy and 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 …

Integrating Multiple Instructional Mediums To Teach Critical Literacy With The Adult Linguistically Diverse Learners, Kaemanje Thomas

Publications and Research

Critical reading is the apex of tertiary education and the chief focus in higher education courses as they prepare adults for the workforce. Without significant improvements in academic preparation and support, many linguistically diverse [LD] students will have higher drop out rates in their first year of college. Developmental reading instruction practices are designed to emphasize moving the first-year LD students from sub-par reading levels towards the application and development of critical reading skills, as demanded by their college courses. Many community colleges across the United States prepare assessments tests in reading and mathematics for most, if not all, newly …

Teaching Global Literature To “Disturb The Waters”: A Case Study, Kelly K. Wissman

Literacy Teaching & Learning Faculty Scholarship

Within this qualitative case study, I describe how a fifth-grade teacher in an affluent and culturally homogenous school attempted to “disturb the waters” through teaching global literature. Framed by transactional theories of response and critical language awareness, I identify three central pedagogical moves that supported disruptions of students’ assumptions and beliefs: (1) inviting students to share their aesthetic transactions, (2) privileging multiple perspectives and genres, and (3) calling attention to language choices as a central line of inquiry. I argue that both transactional and critical approaches to literacy and language are necessary in order to move students beyond disinterested and …

Using Multiple Instructional Mediums To Foster Critical Literacy Skills With The Adult Lingusitic Diverse Learner, Kaemanje Thomas

Publications and Research

Critical reading is the apex of tertiary education and the chief focus in higher education courses as they prepare adults for the workforce. Without significant improvements in academic preparation and support, many linguistically diverse [LD] students will have higher dropout rates in their first year of college. Developmental reading instruction practices are designed to emphasize moving the first-year LD students from sub-par reading levels towards the application and development of critical reading skills, as demanded by their college courses. Many community colleges across the United States, prepare assessments tests in reading and mathematics for most, if not all, newly admitted …

Language, Literacy, And Conscientização In American Public Schools, Julie Ward

Theses and Dissertations

Language, Literacy, and Conscientização in American Public Schools synthesizes poststructural language theory to critique literacy teaching and assessment norms in American public schools in order to theorize a pedagogy of racial and economic justice that embraces globalization and immigration. Chapter I creates a theoretical framework for language that rests firmly on both Lev Vygotsky’s and Jacques Lacan’s sociohistorical approach to language acquisition and language use. Mikhail Bakhtin’s work demonstrates the heteroglossic nature of discourse, while Antonio Gramsci politicizes this framework through an understanding of hegemony. Chapter II sketches ethnographic research on teaching practices of various American communities, focusing on ideology …

Re-Reading, Re-Writing, And Re-Imagining Texts: Critical Literacy In A Kindergarten Classroom, Meredith Labadie

Dissertations

This qualitative action research study focuses on the integration of critical literacy practices in a kindergarten classroom. Critical literacy recognizes that no texts are neutral, and that authors position their readers in particular ways. Thus critical literacy practices are those concerned with positioning readers to inquire into issues of language and power, and to disrupt, critique, and challenge texts. In this study, critical literacy was brought to life through a curriculum of rereading and revisiting texts over time. The study took place in the researcher’s kindergarten classroom, and follows students’ discussion, written responses, and dramatizations around texts read aloud in …

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Critical Literacy As An Instructional Method, Edward Lehner, Kaemanje Thomas, Jean Shaddai, Toni Hernen

Publications and Research

This paper reports the results of a quasi-experiment investigating the efficacy of using critical literacy as an instructional method. Using a quantitative comparison method, critical literacy is the study’s treatment. The treatment measures the final exam scores of linguistically diverse urban community college students enrolled in college developmental reading courses against 13 other statistically similar classes. The primary data are the results of a standardized final exam. This quasi-experimental study demonstrates the effectiveness of a critical literacy model when employed in a community college setting. Further, this study introduces a quantitative rationale for using critical literacy and establishes the practice …

Transcribing Arts And Identities: A Case Study On Literacies At Guadalupe Middle School, R. Joseph RodríGuez

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

Through single-case study research at a middle school site, students whose first language is Spanish gain instruction in an English language arts classroom using literary works with guided, close reading. Moreover, students’ background, cultural, and prior knowledge are consulted by the teacher as literature comes to life via socially responsible biliteracies, which value students’ identities and cultural and linguistic wealth in the presence of bilingual literary narratives. Through a teacher’s literary lesson planning that complements students’ social interests, students are able to communicate their developing and bridging biliteracies, increase critical literacy awareness, and practice bilingual abilities through interactive instructional lessons …

Performing Critical Consciousness In Teaching: Entanglements Of Knowing, Feeling And Relating, Kathleen A. Mcdonough

Doctoral Dissertations

At a time when education reform is guided by neoliberalism, accountability and standardization have reshaped teaching as highly technocratic and threatened the democratic possibilities of public education. Even so, many teacher education programs have taken up the call to prepare teachers to teach for social justice, whether framed as multicultural education, critical literacy, or critical pedagogy. A construct that ties these pedagogical approaches together is critical consciousness, with the aim of some teacher education efforts to evoke critical consciousness among preservice teachers. This study focuses on exploring how nine educators from elementary grades to higher education experience and enact critical …

Speaking Back To Structure: Critical Multimodal Media Literacy & The Politics Of School Reform, Kate Way

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the development of critical multimodal and media literacy skills in high school aged students against the backdrop of current state and national education policy. Following the progress of students in a semester-long writing course that focuses on critical multimodal and media literacy, the study examines how critical literacy skills develop within different modes and mediums – particularly those enabled by new media and digital technologies – and considers the implications of critical multimodal and media literacy skills for student engagement, agency, and achievement. The study further analyzes the impact at the institutional level of educational reforms incentivized …

A Multiple Case Study Of Whiteness And Critical Literacy Practices Among White Elementary Teachers In Urban Public Schools, Amanda Rose Vandehei

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether white elementary teachers' perception of Whiteness influences critical literacy practices in elementary classrooms in an urban school district in the Southwest United States. This study consists of six white elementary school teachers.

Using Hardiman's model of White Identity Development, (WID) this study specifically explores the phenomenon of Whiteness and how teachers view themselves as having white privilege and advantage in American society. Hardiman's WID model includes five stages of white racial identity development in which a white person begins with no awareness of him or herself as a racial being and …

Exploring Elaborated Noun Phrase Use Of Middle School English Language Learners Following Writing Strategy Instruction, Stephanie R. Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

English Language Learners (ELLs) are a growing population within the U.S. school system. In the secondary grades, this diverse group requires instruction to improve not only English language proficiency but also utilization of the academic language register, especially in writing tasks. The present study focused on ELLs in middle school. The aim was to explore the effects of enhanced Self–Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing instruction on the use of complex language, particularly elaborated noun phrases (ENPs) when SRSD was combined with linguistic instruction on increased sentence complexity.

As a part of a larger study exploring critical literacy and the persuasive …

Critical Literacy Vs. Reading Programs: Schooling As A Form Of Control, Roberto E. Bahruth

Roberto E. Bahruth

In the United States, despite years of educational research demonstrating the ineffectiveness and harm caused by reading programs based upon a behaviorist paradigm, political mandates of state and federal programs insist upon their continued use. One might conclude that this insistence is born out of ignorance, however, it seems clear that the populations most harmed by these programs are the poor and minorities. Privileged class students are also harmed because of the "literalcy" (shallow "literacy") these programs produce. I discuss the politics of literacy and language programs in the United States and how they serve to oppress as they reproduce …

Critical Literacy Vs. Reading Programs: Schooling As A Form Of Control, Roberto E. Bahruth

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the United States, despite years of educational research demonstrating the ineffectiveness and harm caused by reading programs based upon a behaviorist paradigm, political mandates of state and federal programs insist upon their continued use. One might conclude that this insistence is born out of ignorance, however, it seems clear that the populations most harmed by these programs are the poor and minorities. Privileged class students are also harmed because of the "literalcy" (shallow "literacy") these programs produce. I discuss the politics of literacy and language programs in the United States and how they serve to oppress as they reproduce …