Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Building Engaged Readers: Fostering Students Engagement And Motivation, Breanna R. Gierak

Masters Projects

Student engagement and motivation are essential components of literacy development and academic achievement in elementary classrooms. However, research indicates that many elementary students are becoming disengaged due to a variety of factors, including increased technology use, decreased motivation, limited family involvement, and fewer opportunities for meaningful interactions around literacy. This masters project is grounded in research that examines the importance of fostering engagement and motivation in elementary literacy and synthesizes current research on the instructional practices that promote positive reading experiences. The literature highlights the influence of supportive classroom environments, teacher-student relationships, collaborative learning, purposeful technology integration, and storing family-school …

Empowering Pedagogical Practice Through Autoethnography Within The Context Of Family Literacy Projects, Sarah M. Johnson

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Family Literacy Projects being used in the high school setting to promote cultural and linguistic identities. The Family Literacy Project is used to bridge the gap between student identities at school and the identities at home. The purpose of this study was for the teacher to reflect in an autoethnographic study of herself in relation to the context of community, pedagogy, and the perceived needs and changes of the project for both students and the school’s culture. Through the autoethnographic study, the focus of the Family Literacy Project is in its importance to the school, community, students, and teachers was …

Bank Street School For Children’S Story Of Integrating Structured Phonics Into A Progressive Literacy Approach, Melanie Bryon, Douglas R. Knecht, Emily Linsay, Emily Schottland

Occasional Paper Series

This article explores how the Bank Street School for Children (SFC), a historically progressive institution rooted in child-centered, experiential learning, has successfully integrated structured phonics into its literacy program. Traditionally focused on whole language practices, SFC recognized inconsistencies in student reading outcomes and, beginning in 2017 undertook a multi-year evaluation of its literacy approach. Guided by the core values of child development and equity, and research in cognitive science, the school adopted a research-based phonics program, implementing it across Kindergarten through fourth grade over multiple years. This shift aimed to ensure all students—not just those with strong language backgrounds—gain the …

All Flourishing Is Mutual: Cultivating A Gift Economy Of Literacy, Lindsey Lush, Melissa Kurtz

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, two scholars and practicing elementary educators argue that the policies and practices of the Science of Reading (SoR) movement in early literacy education are being constructed with the logic of a market economy, shaped by neoliberal ideologies of individualism, scarcity, and competition. Compelled by our concerns for the bodies and beings of readers and reading teachers in the context of our Northeast Georgia public elementary school and provoked by our shared engagement with The Serviceberry, Indigenous scientist and scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book on lessons from the natural world, we engage a postqualitative approach to emergent, relational …

Learning In The Wild: A Discourse Analysis Of Literacy Practices And Educational Outcomes In Montana’S Youth Climate Activism, Tyler Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines youth climate activism in Montana as a site of literacy practice, civic learning, and critical climate engagement. Focusing on the University of Montana Climate Response Club, the study asks how youth climate activists use literacy practices to interpret climate issues and participate in civic action, and how those practices reflect elements of critical climate literacy. The study defines critical climate literacy as a set of socially situated practices through which young people read, interpret, question, and respond to climate change as both an environmental issue and a civic problem shaped by power. Rather than treating climate literacy …

Beyond Instrumentalization: Adventures In Crafting A Community-Engaged Education, Katherine Kruger, Beth Brown

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This article explores the design, functions and experiences of a community-engaged education from the points of view of a university student and a lecturer. Whilst experiential learning is currently being presented as fundamental to university employability agendas in the UK, we reflect on the other important consequences of creating a more porous educational community. We suggest that taking arts and humanities pedagogies – archival research and collage in particular – outside of the classroom, positively impacts belonging and social justice, elements that are less easily captured by university metrics. Moreover, we propose that these pedagogies can be utilised to challenge …

Musical Language And Communication: Students Connect Music Streams To Literacy, Mathematics, Science, And Movement, Kelly Collier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation discusses how music and literacy claim many of the same skills, ways music may be used as a motivational tool to help promote strategies for skill development, and how teachers working in teams have the innovation to generate strategic learning. By combining music symbolism with the literacy curriculum, one can create a set of elementary school lessons that integrate musical melody with the facets of literacy, mathematics, science, and movement to formulate beneficial opportunities for student engagement and learning. Students cultivate learning by using the elements of rhythmic literacy, such as identifying beat values in conjunction with their …

Understanding The “L” In Cslp Within The Literacy Conundrum, Julia Lynch, Andrea Perrone

Michigan Reading Journal

Rooted in culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally sustaining literacy practices (CSLP) focus on equity in education (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris, 2012). Our view of CSLP emphasizes integrating the arts into literacy instruction to leverage students' cultural assets, stimulating their cognitive processes and recognizing literacy's interdisciplinary role in learning. As we align literacy practices with state standards, high-stakes testing, and research-based methods, it's crucial for educators and society to embrace them. Traditionally, literacy instruction has prioritized written language, creating hierarchical structures that lead to learning gaps and inequitable opportunities. An arts-based CSLP framework addresses these issues by ensuring literacy includes diverse …

Can Generative Ai Help Solve Functional Illiteracy?, George Goga

Artificial Intelligence, 2024-25

This two lecture module with an associated student assignment explores how technology can both support and complicate literacy development.

Lecture 1 “An Introduction to Functional Illiteracy and Generative AI” provides a foundational understanding of functional illiteracy, exploring its causes, impacts, and implications for education and society. This lecture sets the stage for understanding the intersection between functional illiteracy and AI, offering a critical perspective on how technology can both support and complicate literacy development.

Lecture 2 “Bridging the Literacy Gap Using Generative AI” focuses on practical strategies for leveraging generative AI technologies to enhance literacy instruction and address disparities in …

Curriculum As Theology: A Framework For Analyzing Curriculum As Theological Text, Russell Miller

The Journal of Faith, Education, and Community

This article seeks to establish a framework that contemplates curriculum as theological text by exploring the works of Neil Postman, W.F. Pinar, and C.S. Lewis in relation to past and present research and commentary. The paper investigates a range of concepts related to theology and curriculum including culture and religion, ethics, and morality. The author argues that curriculum is intrinsically a theological endeavor due to the nature of humanity and the interaction between learning and spiritual development.

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 …

Examining Elementary Teacher Perceptions And Experiences Of Transitioning From Knowledge-Based To Inquiry-Based Social Studies Standards, Benjamin Stephen Pinnick

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Elementary educators are responsible for the earliest years of student learning in a public setting. The amount of content students are expected to master continues to grow in scope, and the methods that are utilized shift to align with educational research and social momentum. After a decade of Common Core policies, social studies education in elementary schools has become a deemphasized subject. Reading and math, as well as science, have taken a greater precedence in today’s classrooms.

Yet, expectations for the creation of knowledgeable and participatory citizens continue to serve as a goal in elementary schools. Conceptualization of citizenship form …

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.

Cutting As A Literacy Practice: Exploring The Fractured Body, Desire And Rage Through Queer And Trans*+ Youth Embodiments, Bess Van Asselt

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

By attending to the ways in which cutting manifests in the life histories of three queer and trans*+ youth of color, I argue that cutting is a literacy practice. I focus on the life histories of three youth, Jay, Harper and Sam, who have different experiences, reasons for, and reactions to their cutting. With each story, we learn something new about the act and how it pushes us to the brink of literacy pedagogy. Jay’s narrative forces us to reckon with youth who refuse to or cannot maintain their bodily integrity. Harper’s story brings to the fore the violence of …

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.

“The Hidden Door That Leads To Several Moments More”: Finding Context For The Literacy Narrative In First Year Writing, Denise Goldman

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The literacy narrative has emerged as a useful genre in composition pedagogy because of the perceived bridge it provides between personal narrative and academic literacy. Although there remains disagreement among practitioners with regard to its purpose and efficacy, it continues to be a staple in the writing classroom because it has the potential to help students learn analytical skills while fostering investment through the features of a personal narrative. Recent efforts in the field, especially with regard to questions of transfer of writing, have focused on the benefits of genre and community discourse analysis as a means to help students …

Reproducing The Status Quo In The Middle School English Classroom: A Critical Examination Of Literacy Learning Via Personalized Learning Technology, Michele Mcconnell

Dissertations

Personalized learning technology (PL Tech) is a growing educational reform movement supported by federal grant dollars. As a bourgeoning educational movement, no research has been conducted to explore the potential effects of such structures in supporting student literacy learning. Additionally, current education reform research often lacks the perspective of the students experiencing the reform. Therefore, this study sought to examine the lived experiences of middle school students using PL Tech to understand what structural and cultural arrangements influenced students’ literacy learning.

Portraiture, a qualitative methodology, was employed to conduct the study at a charter school in Fresno, California implementing PL …

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, …

Teaching Our Past To Preserve Our Future: Ignorance And The Insurrection, Haleigh Jacocks

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

No abstract provided.

Using Hip-Hop Culture To Engage In Culturally Relevant Literacy Instruction, Mokysha D. Benford, Jacqueline D. Smith

The Journal of the Research Association of Minority Professors

The COVID-19 pandemic along with Black Lives Matter have both cast a spotlight on inequities that exist racially, and the glaring disparities in the digital divide that exist in our culture today. With student demographics changing across the nation, these issues have created a need for educators to effectively meet the needs of a diverse student population that is and continues to change. Schools and classrooms need to be culturally responsive using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and learning styles of diverse students to make learning more engaging and effective more than ever. Culturally responsive literacy instruction bridges the gap …

What Do You Do When You Don't Know How To Respond? Supporting Pre-Service Teachers To Use Picture Books To Facilitate Difficult Conversations, Kathryn Struthers Ahmed, Nida Ali

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, the authors – a preservice teacher (PST) and a teacher educator – consider how teacher education might better prepare PSTs to use picture books to facilitate difficult conversations in elementary classrooms. They share missed opportunities from their own experiences in a fourth-grade fieldwork classroom and in a graduate-level elementary literacy methods course where they felt unprepared to respond to students’ comments about “controversial” topics. They reimagine how these experiences might have been transformed to be more educative for PSTs, first by considering how they could have responded more thoughtfully in the moment and then by thinking about …

A Teacher’S Reflection On Catholic Social Teachings And Hopeful Curriculum During Covid-19, Kierstin Giunco

COVID-19 and Catholic Schools

This reflection details the online adaptation of a robust advocacy unit that was grounded in Catholic Social Teachings. As this unit asked students to unravel single narratives and persuade others to take action, there was a seamless link between the original design and a “hopeful curriculum,” which is supportive during a time of crisis as the goal is social-justice through solidarity and active participation (Renner, 2009) Through intentionally redesigning the unit guided by student curiosity, the classroom was simultaneously engaged with faith and social justice. Students became active advocates, especially through the intertwined nature of their topics and current events. …

A Teacher's Reflection On Catholic Social Teachings And Hopeful Curriculum During Covid-19, Kierstin Giunco

Journal of Catholic Education

This reflection details the online adaptation of a robust advocacy unit that was grounded in Catholic Social Teachings. As this unit asked students to unravel single narratives and persuade others to take action, there was a seamless link between the original design and a “hopeful curriculum,” which is supportive during a time of crisis as the goal is social-justice through solidarity and active participation (Renner, 2009) Through intentionally redesigning the unit guided by student curiosity, the classroom was simultaneously engaged with faith and social justice. Students became active advocates, especially through the intertwined nature of their topics and current events. …

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 …

Dialectic Of Empathy. A Book Review Of Educating For Empathy: Literacy Learning And Civic Engagement, Dan Deweese

Democracy & Education

In Educating for Empathy: Literacy Learning and Civic Engagement, Mirra describes the value of teaching “critical civic empathy” in K–12 literacy classrooms. Distinguished from standard curricular uses of empathy that stress politeness at the level of the individual, critical civic empathy challenges students to take active steps toward questioning how imbalances of power and privilege arise and what assumptions should be questioned in order to address those imbalances. Mirra examines various teachers who center social issues in their literacy classrooms through the use of literature, the techniques of high school debate, research methodologies that see students as knowledge producers, …

Media Literacy As An Internal And External Process. A Response To “Red States, Blue States, And Media Literacy: Political Context And Media Literacy”, Jolie C. Matthews

Democracy & Education

Curry and Cherner’s article, “Red States, Blue States, and Media Literacy: Political Context and Media Literacy,” discusses preservice teachers’ perspectives of teaching media literacy skills in politically opposite “Red” and “Blue” States. In this response, I argue the inclusion of additional demographic information about participants might open up new avenues for which to analyze the data. I also address how the article theoretically takes up media literacy as well what other definitions exist, with suggestions for how the term might be expanded to include internal (self-reflective) and external (outside sources) processes for students and educators to consider.

Teacher Perceptions And Implementation Of A Content-Area Literacy Professional Development Program, Osha Lynette Smith, Rebecca Robinson

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The Common Core State Standards recommend that all educators equip students with the literacy skills needed for college and careers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine middle-level content-area teachers’ perspectives on a district-led literacy professional development program and their implementation of the literacy strategies they learned. The conceptual framework included Bruner’s constructivist, Bandura’s self-efficacy, and Knowles’s andragogy theories. These theories informed the investigation of adult learners’ perspectives regarding the way they learn and gain confidence in providing literacy instruction. Eleven English, math, science, and social studies teachers participated in the study through individual interviews. Data were …

Supporting Students' Choice And Voice In Discovering Empathy, Imagination, And Why Literature Matters More Than Ever, Kimberly Hill Campbell

Democracy & Education

This article explores why we need to be intentional about the literature we explore in our English language arts classrooms. It explores the question of what literature should be considered and strategies for using democratic practices in support of literature circles. It also reinforces the importance of collaborative practitioner research to explore curriculum decisions and classroom practice to ensure we are meeting the needs of the diverse students with whom we work.

Failure To Launch?: Advancing The Case For Financial Literacy Interventions In Postsecondary Education, Cathleen Snyder

Dissertations, 2014-2019

For college undergraduates, the thought of managing money is often new, exciting, and terrifying in the same breath. Some students have learned well from their parental and prior academic influences, and yet others may be overwhelmed by a lack of those same resources. As postsecondary institutions endeavor to level the proverbial playing field, helping college graduates launch into meaningful, financially independent lives, it begs additional consideration on the intervention methods that might be most impactful.

This study examined a for-credit, curriculum-based intervention specific to personal finance topics. It attempted to answer several key questions: How knowledgeable are students relative to …

Systems Thinking In A Second Grade Curriculum: Students Engaged To Address A Statewide Drought, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Amy Ardell, Laurie Macgillivray, Rachel Lambert

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Faced with issues, such as drought and climate change, educators around the world acknowledge the need for developing students’ ability to solve problems within and across contexts. A systems thinking pedagogy, which recognizes interdependence and interconnected relationships among concrete elements and abstract concepts (Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2012), has potential to transform the classroom into a space of observing, theorizing, discovering, and analyzing, thus linking academic learning to the real world. In a qualitative case study in one school located in a major metropolitan area in California, USA teachers and their 7- and 8-year-old students used systems thinking in …