Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Adolescent Literacy And Collaborative Inquiry, Rob Simon, Amir Kalan

English Faculty Publications

In a teacher education classroom in Toronto, groups of middle school students, teacher candidates, and university researchers, members of our research collaborative, the Teaching to Learn Project (Simon et al., 2014; Simon & the Teaching to Learn Project, 2014), discuss projects developed from curricula they coauthored for Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (1986). Maus documents Spiegelman’s father’s recollections of the Holocaust and the author’s own struggles to come to terms with what it means to be the child of a Holocaust survivor.

Youth and teachers involved in the Teaching to Learn Project collectively worked through what historian …

Using Literature To Combat Bullying And Suicide, Laura Giles

The Utah English Journal

Every day in Utah, two youth are treated for suicide attempts. On average, 37 youth die from suicide each year in the state. Additionally, 942 others are injured in suicide attempts each year. In 2013, suicide surpassed unintentional injuries to become the leading cause of death in Utah among youth ages 10 through 17 (Utah Department of Health, 2014).

Integration Of English And Social Studies, Craig Jeppson, Kasie Payne

The Utah English Journal

One day while eating lunch in the faculty lounge, Kasie commented on a lesson that her students had learned in Craig’s class. As we started to compare notes, it occurred to us that we shared a lot of students. Over the course of that year, we continued to share thoughts, lessons, war stories and even engaged in a little competitive banter. What became increasingly clear was that our classes complemented each other. Craig could guide students to answer content-related geography questions such as: “How can countries grow economically and sustainably?”, “Why do people fight?”, and “How does the physical environment …

Colorful Conversations, Denee D. Tyler

The Utah English Journal

When the Common Core was adopted, it quickly became evident that the ELA sections are pretty heavily packed. Many English teachers feel overwhelmed at the sheer volume of standards we are expected to cover. Teaching young readers and writers requires a significant investment of class time, and as a result, many of us end up using class discussions as the sole assessment for the Speaking and Listening standards.

An Introduction To Teaching Transitions, Amy Banks

The Utah English Journal

Transitions can be a challenge for writers at any stage. For example, I once explained to an eighth grade class my observations on a sample piece of writing. I praised their strengths, and then explained a consistent problem throughout the classes: the use of “in conclusion” for their restatement of their main claim. I teased them with no shame, and they giggled and admitted to classmates that it was the only option that came into their minds. One brilliant student then shouted out, “What if we wrote the worst argument main claim ever, starting with ‘In conclusion?’” So, we wrote …

Book Review: Highly Illogical Behavior, Jaden Anderson

The Utah English Journal

Growing up and finding your place in the world can be difficult, but having family and friends to cheer you on helps. Building relationships and remaining loyal is a prevalent theme in John Corey Whaley’s Highly Illogical Behavior. Written in the perspective of teenagers Solomon Reed and Lisa Praytor, they help each other live in the “real world,” while their perception of reality is challenged.

Our Classroom Journey Of Changing Our 7th Grade View Of The World, Gaylynn Parker

The Utah English Journal

How do I feel when I am treated unfairly? This essential question in my 7th grade Honors Language Arts class is usually met with comments such as, “My parents won’t let me get a cell phone” or “I’m tired of babysitting my siblings for free every weekend.” This year it was different. Pairing informational text with current events and literature changed the way my students saw themselves and the world, creating an awareness that elevated their perspectives from superficiality to depth as they examined the world through new eyes.

Making The "Moves" More "Modal", Thomas Henry

The Utah English Journal

We live in a multimodal world. Almost every piece of information that we receive on computers and mobile devices is multimodal. For those new to this term, multimodality refers to multiple modes of communication: the textual, the visual, the written, the aural/oral, and the gestural (Kress, 2000). Although seemingly appearing in isolation, these modalities are often expressed in pairs simultaneously. For instance, pictures may include text, videos often include audio, and even speakers and actors use gestures in their performances. In everyday online communication via Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter, we convey and respond to both textual and visual information working …

Book Review: Dark Energy, Marina Gutierrez

The Utah English Journal

“This story isn’t about dark energy, except to say there is a ton of stuff in the universe that we don’t understand” (Wells, 2016, p. 2).

With a touch of blue racing through her hair as she drives her BMW 550i Gran Turismo, Alice Goodwin was doing just fine in Florida. That is until her dad whisks her 2,000 miles away to the Minnetonka School for the Gifted and Talented in Minnesota. After stocking up on sweaters, she settles in at her new school while her father, director of special projects at NASA, investigates the crash landing of an alien …

Book Review: All Better Now, Mindee S. Ricks

The Utah English Journal

A modern memoir following a misfit girl from kindergarten to college, All Better Now is equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful. The author and protagonist, Emily Wing Smith, struggles for years to fit in with other kids—she is everything except “normal.”

Book Review: The Hidden Oracle, Tessa Hauglid

The Utah English Journal

“Is anything sadder than the sound of a god hitting a pile of garbage bags?” So questions the (former) god, Apollo, after Zeus turns him into a pimply 16-year-old boy, jettisoning him into a New York City dumpster. Apollo quickly realizes he has lost the very attributes that make him a god: immortality, beauty, and strength. The only divine gifts he seems to have retained are his expansive ego and his wit.

Nsu Early Literacy And Reading Education Curriculum 2016, Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice College Archive

No abstract provided.

Gender Stereotypes In Children's Literature, Christine C. Nebbia

Graduate Research Papers

This research paper focused on the creation of nine professional development sessions using critical literacy practices in order to analyze and examine gender stereotypes in children's literature addressed in the classroom. This professional development grew out of an in-depth examination of the research over the past 40 years addressing gender stereotypes and gender representation in children's literature, as well as, the literature on critical literacy practices and issues of social justice. The professional development sessions were designed around three major goals: to enable teachers to independently analyze children's literature for gender stereotypes; to help teachers understand the four components of …

Book Review: Summerlost, Amanda Shrum

The Utah English Journal

Cedar Lee’s life is ripped apart when she loses her father, and brother, Ben, in a car accident. Instead of coming to terms with her loss, twelve-year-old Cedar tries to distract herself by immersing herself in the charming world of the Summerlost Festival, a theater that performs the works of William Shakespeare. However, working at the festival has the opposite effect and causes Cedar to face her fears and the reality of her loved ones’ deaths. In her first middle grade novel, Summerlost, Ally Condie sets a moving and sincere story of grief and acceptance against a setting that is …

Reading With Your Ears, Amber Bird

The Utah English Journal

As the weight and the stress of the semester ended, I closed my British and American anthologies and put them back on the bookcase. With finals completed and assignments submitted, I had finished one of my most difficult semesters. I was anticipating a break. My solace came to me in the form of a well-used and well-read paperback young adult novel: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. After weeks and weeks of intense reading for other classes, having the opportunity to read this book was pure magic. As I mentally wandered through the hallways of Hogwarts reading about Harry, Ron, …

Inspiring Students To Value Reading, Ann C. Sharp, Lorilynn Brandt, Douglas S. Gardner

The Utah English Journal

Have you ever seen a struggling reader rally his friends to buy the same book at a school book fair, and then spearhead a series of literacy circle activities during recess time? Uncommon at best, right? Recently, one fourth grade teacher in Utah County while implementing reading motivational principles in her classroom reported just such an incident. In her words: “I have a group of boys in my class and one of them is a[n] extremely low reader and I don’t know if he has ever tried reading a chapter book or anything like that, and they made their own …

Book Review: Writing With Mentors: How To Reach Every Writer In The Room Using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts, David Premont

The Utah English Journal

Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell, in their debut book, demonstrate their proclivity toward strategic and infectious writing habits in Writing with Mentors (2015). Marchetti and O’Dell’s student-centered writing classroom is evident from the onset of their book as they approach writing in an inquiry-based manner, saturated with examples from professional writers.

Book Review: Reading Nonfiction: Notice & Note: Stances, Signposts, And Strategies, Lorraine Wallace

The Utah English Journal

For years, Utah’s Core Curriculum Standards have included teaching informational text, but with Utah’s adaptation of the Common Core, teaching nonfiction is being emphasized more than ever before, and many teachers have grudgingly incorporated these texts into their curriculum. However, many of us have just assigned these new texts with little deliberate instruction, and our students have typically tried to read nonfiction the same way they have always read fiction. After all, they think, reading is reading.

Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

What A Wonderful World! Using Batchelder Books To Support Literacy, Deborah Parrott, Reneé C. Lyons

ETSU Faculty Works

Are you searching for fresh opportunities to support literacy through reader response activities? Batchelder Awards and international stories are relatively untapped resources that offer a global approach for children to expand comprehension through tales from many nations. Pairing these stories with reader response exercises provides an outstanding opportunity for collaboration with social studies and language arts teachers. Handouts will be provided. (F4-E162)

Robo-Teaching? : Automated Essay Scoring And K-12 Writing Pedagogy, Swati Viren Chauhan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper will examine the current state, and future, of AES in secondary literacy education through a review of current research in the topic. An analysis of the history of assessment will seek to explain why AES systems have gained such popularity within high-stakes assessment, and how the use of AES in secondary education, high-stakes testing affects pedagogy. This paper will also look into reliability and validity issues that are presented when using AES as a form of scoring essays. Finally, this paper explores some ways that AES can be used effectively within the K-12 writing classroom, rather than solely …

From One New Teacher To Another: How To Be A Hero Without Losing Yourself, Jade Weinheimer

The Utah English Journal

Whether new to the ranks or a seasoned veteran, it's hard to forget those first few years of your teaching career-mine have been burned into my memory like a brand on cattle. The policy information overloads, the crippling case of Imposter's Syndrome, the sleepless nights, the tower of essays to grade, the classroom management fiascos, the lesson plan flops, and meetings, meetings, meetings. These things can be the stuff of nightmares.

Motivation In Guided Reading: Effects On Upper Grade Readers, Margie Jordan, Stephanie Galt

The Utah English Journal

After coaching teachers on ways to improve guided reading practice for the last two years and watching both teachers and students as they struggle and succeed in increasing reading awareness, we began to notice a pattern. It wasn't a pretty one.

Book Review: The Start Of Me And You, Adrianne Larsen

The Utah English Journal

Paige believes that if she could just check each item off of her to-do list, then things could be normal again; she could be normal again. Included on the list are dating, traveling, finding new friends, and swimming. While the to-do items may look simple, they prove to be more elusive than Paige thought. Making changes and moving forward are the lessons Emery Lord grapples with in her novel, The Start of Me and You. As Paige, the protagonist, attempts to clear her "begin again" check list, as she calls it, she realizes that some things in life are a …

Hi/Lo Books: Making Struggling Readers Stronger?, Catherine Crosby

The Utah English Journal

For the last two years I've taught an eighth grade reading intervention class to struggling readers who mostly hate reading and only open a book if a teacher or a parent makes them. Students in this age group should be reading in the 925 to 1185 Lexile range, but in our school, students in Reading SA range from 300 to 900 Lexile. They can graduate out mid-year if they can bring their Lexile score up to 1050, and while this motivates some students, others have had such negative reading experiences that they have given up on reading. The books written …

Book Review: Magonia, Amanda Garlock

The Utah English Journal

At one point or another, everyone feels like they don't belong. But in Maria Dahvana Headley's soaring fantasy, Magonia, Aza Ray Boyle actually doesn't belong. At least, not on earth.

Book Review: In The Best Interest Of Students, Kasey Hammer

The Utah English Journal

With the nearly nationwide adoption of the new Common Core Standards, educators, parents, legislators and students find themselves ensconced with a new fervor int he age-old scholastic debate: What is the bets method for teaching students? In his newest book, In the Best Interest of Students, Kelly Gallagher sifts through the varied voices int eh common Core discussion and presents his readers with a real, in-depth look at both the strengths and weaknesses of the ELA Common Core Standards.

Book Review: Black Dove White Raven, Johnny Allred

The Utah English Journal

Life is complicated, challenging, and often unfair. Understanding your family, your friends, or even yourself-especially while trying to grow up-can be a difficult task. Throw in racism and gender biases, and you'll catch a glimpse of the challenges faced by the two young protagonists in Black Dove White Raven by Elizabeth Wein. Mixing together American and Ethiopian history from the 1930s, Wein tells the story of Em, a young white girl, and Teo, a young black boy, who grow up together in an unconventional family and in an unforgiving world.

The Utah English Journal, Volume 43, 2015: Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

The Tale Of Two Attici: What To Make Of Harper Lee's "New" Novel, Joseph Wiederhold, Chris Crowe

The Utah English Journal

Kristin and I met for lunch, but neither of us had the stomach for food. My tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird sat on the table between us. Gregory Peck lay cradled in her arms, forever smiling from the cover of LIFE Magazine's special issue: "The Enduring Power of To Kill a Mockingbird:, And Lee,s new/old novel, Go Set a Watchman, rested face down on the edge of the table. I had unconsciously placed the novel in time-out.