Language and Literacy Education Commons^™

Adaptive Instruction Through Reflection: How Preservice Teachers Create And Implement Individualized Literacy Lessons In A University Reading Center, Jennifer Marie Lennon

Dissertations

Modern classrooms are increasingly diverse. Students vary in their academic abilities, personal interests, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and previous experiences (Allen et al., 2013). To meet the varied needs of students, educators must adapt their instruction so all are able to find success. Modifying lesson plans and changing instruction based on student needs are forms of adaptive instruction (Hoffman & Duffy, 2016; Vaughn, 2019). This study explored the metacognitive processes of preservice teachers (PSTs) as they implemented adaptive instruction within their literacy lessons in a university reading center tutoring program. Adaptive instruction was examined through two lenses: first, as PSTs …

Community Language Ideologies: Implications For Language Policy And Practice, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Qizhen Deng, Xiaoyan Gu, Alexa Yunes-Koch, Kara Viesca

Literacy, Language and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nebraska is increasingly becoming a linguistically and culturally diverse state. As a designated refugee resettlement state, Nebraska rural and urban communities harbor different world languages. With the current research showing the importance of home languages for educational success and the importance of multilingualism, this study seeks to discuss community language ideologies through data analysis of a sample of community members (N = 1584). The study uses survey methods and quantitative statistical analysis. The findings disclose that a dominant monolingual ideology is rooted among community members. Community members’ language ideologies varied by race and educational background. In addition, community members’ …

The Santa Ana Youth Media Project: Ypar And Media Advocacy, Jorge F. Rodriguez

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The Santa Ana Youth Media Project (SAYMP) was born during the summer of 2019 and grew from a need, expressed by youth, for more critical media literacy that could further amplify and focus on narratives that reflect how youth navigate their personal, cultural-social, and economic environments. Our media projects consist of intentional participative research and journalistic designs that document stories using tools such as narrative inquiry, Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and video/media production to visually capture the narratives of youth and community within the city of Santa Ana and its larger Orange County context. Our goal is to develop …

The Transition From Topic-Prominence To Subject-Prominence In Chinese Learners’ Acquisition Of English As A Foreign Language, Limei Zhang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT The present study investigates the transition from topic-prominence (TP) to subject-prominence (SP) in Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of English syntactic structures. Chinese and English are categorized as typologically different languages, Chinese being a topic-prominent language and English being a subject-prominent language. Previous research suggests that Chinese EFL learners’ English syntactic production is characterized with Chinese TP features, which constitute a major source of production errors, and that these features tend to decrease while the English SP features increase as learners’ proficiency levels go up. However, the questions of how these TP features develop in the acquisition process and what …

Teaching Phonics Mastery Through The Use Of Differentiated And Instructional Strategies, Ashley Honeyman

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This capstone reports the effectiveness of using differentiated instructional and assessment strategies to improve student understanding in phonics mastery. Based on pretest data that analyzed understanding of short u consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, phonics instruction was implemented to meet the needs of students in whole-group and small-group settings. This unit consisted of five whole-group lessons over short u blending and segmentation. In addition to the whole group learning, specific students were pulled for small-group intervention. The unit concluded with a post-assessment that tested student understanding on real and nonsense CVC words; these assessments were implemented to assess if the integration of …

Using Explicit Instruction And Frequency Building To A Performance Criterion To Teach Writing To College Students With Disabilities, Alyssa R. Mcelroy

Dissertations

Proficient writing skills are critical for academic, vocational, and social outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). However, many individuals struggle to develop proficient writing repertoires. Explicit Instruction (EI) and Frequency Building to a Performance Criterion (FPBC) are two effective teaching strategies. EI is comprised of clear, direct instructions and scaffolding to support a gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student, and follows a model, lead, test format. Once a skill is mastered, it should be built to fluency. FBPC is method that uses timed practice and feedback to build skills to …

Fashion Around The Francophone World: A 20-Unit Lesson Plan For Teaching Students 7-12 How To Discuss Clothing In French, Justin Solheim

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper is the directions for a high school French world language curriculum at the novice-low level. The curriculum covers 20 class periods, or four weeks, and it uses a variety of pedagogical techniques and technologies to help students quickly learn and retain French vocabulary and grammar. Each class period is 40 minutes. The lessons use a variety of assessments and feedback to help students improve and allow the teachers to monitor student achievement. The following lessons focus on forming basic sentences and practicing the basics of subject-verb agreement, while teaching the vocabulary for different types of clothing in the …

Investigating The Critical Literacy Practices Of Adult Learners: A Case Study Of Four Leveled Reading Courses At A Community College, Anna Fontaine

Dissertations

This study investigates the critical literacy practices of adult learners at a community college. Student participants were selected from four different leveled reading courses. In this study, four guiding questions were adopted from Klenner and Sandretto (2011): (1) How do students make personal connections to text?; (2) In what ways do students identify multiple points of view in the text?; (3) In what ways do students identify where people in the text and included or excluded from social situations?; (4) In what ways do students discuss the influences the text has had on their views of society? These four questions …

From Experiences To Beliefs: An Exploratory Case Study On Science Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Emergent Bilinguals, Yamil Ernesto Ruiz

All Dissertations

Emergent bilingual (EB) students in the US are those who are in the process of developing academic English proficiency. EBs are some of the fastest growing populations of students in American public schools. There exists a great deal of research geared towards developing both curricular resources and instructional strategies to best support EBs in the science classroom, however many of these professional development studies lament the lack of growth in terms of achievement in science learning outcomes of EBs. It is possible that due to a lack of transformation in their beliefs that the teachers in these studies do not …

Scaffolding Strategies That Benefit And Support Adult English As A Foreign Language Reading Comprehension: A Literature Review, Walkiris Mejia Ortega

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The poor reading proficiency and the lack of reading comprehension strategies have been a major flaw for adult university learners in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, particularly in the case of English majors at the School of Foreign Languages in the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Research has shown this reading gap can be improved through suitable instructional strategies and assistance referred to as scaffolding. The purpose of this literature review was to investigate how beneficial scaffolding is for EFL adults´ reading comprehension, which scaffolding strategies prove effective in supporting EFL reading comprehension, and how those …

The Use Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Esol Classes, Beth A. O. Haddinger

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is organized into five distinct chapters addressing multiple aspects of learning and engagement as it relates to English Language Learners (ELLs) in the classroom. First, the problem of practice is identified and explored. We, as educators, must look closely at instructional and systemic issues, actionable elements, broader strategies of improvement, and leverage, which refers to the ability of a program to motivate students and to generate a sense of practical value in academics. The next aspect of this dissertation proposal reviews the existing research literature. This literature review focuses on the specific learning needs of ELL students. Specifically …

The 5r Model Of Language Learner Autonomy: Reconstructing Autonomous Language Learners In Distance Education, Roseniya G. Tamano

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

Although the concept of language learner autonomy (LLA) has traditionally revolved around learners’ capacity to assume control over their own learning, the circumstances brought about by the pandemic prompt us to delve deeper into this capability. What is the nature of LLA, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic? This study uses a Philippine case to redefine and operationalize LLA by comprehensively describing this phenomenon. It focuses on the themes revealed in the lived experiences of the learners and proposes a model of LLA based on these findings. Exactly 41 Grade 10 ESL learners from a science high school served as participants …

Challenges Encountered In The Implementation Of The National Literacy Acceleration Program (Nalap) In The Abura Asebu Kwamankese District, Ghana, Julius Arhin-Asamoah

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The National Literacy Acceleration Program (NALAP) aims to enhance early grade primary school pupils' literacy rates, yet national evaluations reveal widespread deficiencies in reading proficiency in both the local language and English. This study examines challenges in implementing NALAP in the Abura Asebu Kwamankese district, Ghana, focusing on the teacher and resource-related issues. A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was employed. The study covered 12 basic schools in the Abura Asebu Kwamankese district. In all, 61 respondents comprising 50 teachers and 11 circuit supervisors were involved in the study. The findings highlight teacher-related issues such as inadequate pedagogical practices, low motivation, …

Review: Expanding Writing Center Research With Discourse Analysis, Sara Swaim, Randall W. Monty

The Writing Center Journal

Corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) is a growing field of study that provides for holistic understandings of written texts, spoken discourse, rhetorical strategies, and the people who use them. Organized as a discussion of the topics, methods, and their potential applications for writing center research, this essay reviews three edited collections, Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review by Charlotte Taylor and Anne Marchi (Routledge, 2018); The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis by Eric Friginal and Jack A. Hardy (Routledge, 2020); and Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis by Camilla Vásquez (Bloomsbury, 2022). Each introduces a range of …

Calling In Antiracist Accomplices Beyond The Writing Center, Hillary Coenen

The Writing Center Journal

A reflective, ethnographic study of a grassroots, antiracist educational workshop (The Conversation Workshops, TCW) reveals that writing center (WC) pedagogy and feminist invitational rhetoric’s (FIR) influence on TCW enables participants to recognize their own and their partners’ expertise, meaningful experiences, valuable perspectives, and their need to be listened to, accounted for, and understood. In an invitational model, particularly one based on a one-with- one, interpersonal dynamic, participants are more like collaborators than audiences, an approach that can be applied in diverse educational settings, and which reflects the WC’s model of one-with- one pedagogy. This dynamic also reveals one of TCW’s …

Prison: The New Frontier Of Collaborative Learning, Jamal Bakr

The Writing Center Journal

This essay explores writing center theories and collaborative praxis from the perspective of an individual who has experienced long-term isolation and incarceration. This writer reflects on how participation in his college-in- prison community, including his service as a writing tutor and teaching fellow, has led to his immersion in prosocial healing behaviors that come with liberative and collaborative pedagogical processes.

Destigmatizing Working With Dyslexic Learners, Riley N. Dandurand

The Writing Center Journal

In the field of writing center research there is a paucity of information regarding tutoring students with dyslexia. This comes as no surprise considering it is only in the last 50 years that there has been a conscious effort to include those who have exceptionalities in all areas of education. In addition to a lack of research and training there is another issue that arises with disclosing exceptionalities. Those studying dyslexia have found that students are hesitant to disclose their learning disability because of the stigma and feelings of differentiation from their peers (Brizee et al., 2012). The question then …

Embedded Vs. Drop-In Tutors In Developmental Writing Contexts: Course/Tutoring Perceptions And Impact On Student Writing Efficacy, Kendon Kurzer, Anna Hayden, Jennifer Nguyen

The Writing Center Journal

Many higher education institutions offer drop-in tutoring programs hosted by writing specialists to support struggling students while others may also/alternatively embed tutors directly into courses. In this quasi-experimental study, we compared survey results from 100 students in basic/developmental courses that featured embedded peer tutors with 78 students who experienced tutoring via a walk-in writing center. Variables explored included writing efficacy and course/tutor perception survey items. While students generally found both embedded and walk-in tutoring to be helpful, the ratings for embedding tutoring tended to be statistically stronger for most variables we investigated, suggesting that students responded more positively to embedded …

Front Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Front matter and editors' introduction to The Writing Center Journal 41:2 (2023).

The Impact Of Writing Center Consultations On Student Writing Self-Efficacy, Isabelle M. Lundin, Victoria O'Connor, Sherry Wynn Perdue

The Writing Center Journal

This study sought to determine the impact writing center consultations have on student writing self-efficacy and to illuminate effective consultant strategies for fostering student writing confidence. As part of a multimethods study, a survey was administered for students to reflect upon and to assess their feelings of writing self-efficacy by describing experiences in writing center consultations. Selected respondents were asked to elaborate on the strategies used by their peer consultant(s) in an optional open-ended interview. Findings suggest that writing center consultations help increase writing self-efficacy. The effective consultant strategies described by study participants are synthesized into an overarching consultant framework …

Keynote: Story Culture Live: Black American Story Spaces As Actionable Antiracism Work, Clarissa J. Walker

The Writing Center Journal

“Story Culture Live: Black American Story Spaces as Actionable Antiracism Work,“ was a keynote given at the Northeast Writing Centers Association Conference at the University of New Hampshire in spring 2023. The keynote details the genesis of my podcast, Story Culture Live, which reimagines storytelling as actionable activism in antiracist work and explores concepts such as Black teller agency, kinship, and collective responses to tensions through storytelling that can inform and build new stories in writing centers.

Keynote: Notions Of Writing Center Community And Some Challenges To Them, Carol Severino

The Writing Center Journal

It is crucial for writing center professionals who discuss community to ask ourselves what we mean by the term as applied to writing centers. In this keynote, I explore various notions of community that are influenced by writing center growth, expansion, and complexity, especially in relation to Iowa’s writing center. After relating a personal story about our new tutors’ traditional notion of community and an account of our own center’s expansion and growing complexity over the decades, which challenges their traditional notion, I discuss other obstacles to community, bringing in the critiques of writing center scholars. Finally, I synthesize what …

Keynote: Butting Heads And The Agency To Yield: Maverick Considerations In The Writing Center, Rebecca Hallman Martini

The Writing Center Journal

Despite their history of marginalization, writing centers need to be spaces where consultants, writers, and administrators act with agency. This requires both knowing when and how to act, as well as deciding when to yield. In challenging policies of seeming neutrality, I argue in this manuscript that writing center practitioners can center the needs and knowledge of consultants and writers alike. Finally, I call for more research about writer experiences with writing centers, which can (and should) meaningfully shape our administrative practices.

Keynote: Looking At Writing Centers Through Scientific Spectacles: The Expertise And Commitments That Characterize Contemporary Writing Centers, Bradley Hughes

The Writing Center Journal

This article is adapted from a keynote address at the July 2022 European Writing Centers Association (EWCA) conference, sponsored by the University of Graz in Austria, whose theme focused on writing centers as spaces of empowerment. Designed for peer tutors as well as writing center faculty, this talk first celebrates some examples of writing centers empowering student writers and tutors. It then attempts to articulate what scientific spectacles allow us to see when we look deeper into these examples of empowerment: some of the big ideas, the abstract principles, the constellation of expertise and commitments that underlie our contemporary writing …

Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for WCJ 41.2.

Design Thinking’S Effect On Empathy Development In Middle School English- Language Arts, Kim Starkey

Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the impact of Design Thinking on students' empathy development in middle school English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms. The study involved two middle school instructors with eight classes, implementing Design Thinking, Reader's Workshop, and traditional ELA curriculum in different combinations (n =102) and two control classes (n =27).

The Adolescent Empathy Measure (AMES) and rubrics for analyzing student writing samples were used to assess changes in empathy. The AMES was given before and after the interventions, and the writing samples were analyzed before and after the interventions as well. The findings indicate …

Revamped Socratic Seminars: Great Ideas, Morgan Taylor

New Jersey English Journal

Revamped Socratic Seminars called 'Great Ideas' encourage student ownership and active participation. Preparing with open-ended questions and online tools, the approach fosters a learner community and deepens subject understanding, assessed through a tracking system.

Creating A Productive Ela Classroom Environment, Caroline E. Schack, Hagan Wells, Gary A. Pickle

New Jersey English Journal

Two early service teachers and one pre-service teacher offer strategies for creating a more effective, inclusive ELA classroom experience. The approaches include writing as a process, unification of behavioral management through class assignments, and a restorative approach to communication. Implementing these strategies can revive productivity in the ELA classroom.

Writing Is A Process, Not A Product: Encouraging Student Engagement Through Self-Assessment, Erin Riley-Lepo, Kayla Teeling

New Jersey English Journal

Going beyond traditional writing practices by utilizing a student-centered approach can benefit both student and teacher. In this essay, two high school English teachers present theories on student-regulated learning, formative assessment, and self-assessment in writing instruction. Then, they describe and provide examples of how these theories inform their writing instruction.

A Post-Pandemic Perspective: Challenges, Choices, And Adaptations, Joseph S. Pizzo

New Jersey English Journal

This poem deals with the challenges of returning to an in-person experience after having faced the challenges associated with teaching in remote and hybrid classrooms during the pandemic.