This paper investigates the impact of assignment to the Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents (ALFA) Lab, an additional semester-long class taken during an elective period, on ninth grade student reading achievement, motivation, and frequency. We conducted a regression discontinuity (RD) study where 1,378 students from diverse high schools in four…

Purpose: Research on nonschool settings suggests young people benefit from digital multimodal composition. Less is known about how digital composing can support students as they interpret required literary class texts. To understand the potential benefits and challenges of digitally composing for literary analysis, design interviews with two high…

Reading comprehension is a central skill in secondary education. To be able to provide adaptive instruction, teachers need to be able to accurately estimate students' reading comprehension. However, they tend to experience difficulties doing so. Eye tracking can uncover these reading processes by visualizing what a student looked at, in what…

Although competent argumentative writing is important for academic success and daily life, it is difficult to teach, especially in middle schools where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). Previous research has indicated that extensive reading or writing improves the descriptive writing skills of EFL students. However, it is not certain…

Reading is a core element in language education. Despite extensive research in second/foreign language (L2/FL) reading, relatively little is known about the differences between two common practices: Compulsory reading (i.e. reading assigned by teachers) and voluntary reading (i.e. self-initiated reading). This article reports two related…

Despite the value of reading, research documents declining reading rates among American adolescents - a decline that exacerbates student dropout rates and academic performance. As a high school English teacher in a public, regional, suburban school, increasing the number of students who deeply read the assigned texts for class has been a…

Opportunity and learning gaps between upper-middle-class students and lower SES students that impact academic performance and social development are widening. The purpose of this Action Research study was to understand the interests of students, as well as the academic support most needed, to cultivate the development of 21st century skills and…

This article presents the results of a study carried out to explore the elements of Young Adult Literature (YAL) present in the prescribed texts for Malaysian secondary school English as a second Language (ESL) students (3rd cycle). The three novels studied were; "Captain Nobody" by Dean Pitchford, "Sing to the Dawn" by MinFong…

This case study explored the relationship between levels of content choice in three high school online English language arts courses and evidence of student motivation in student work and students' thoughts about motivation. These courses were designed around the main components of Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness) and…

This paper draws on Bakhtin's (1981) notions of discourse and ideological becoming to investigate how adolescents' experiences with young adult literature and other texts might inform their thinking around issues of social justice. We engaged in a number of activities with the young adolescent participants: thought maps, illustrations of poignant…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the reading of a book-length fiction or non-fiction text in one disciplinary literacy (DL) teacher education course. This paper considers how the assignment may help pre- and in-service teachers understand literacy as multifaceted and connected within and beyond their content areas (Moje, 2015). The research…

Building on work that brings literacy instruction and student science learner identity together, this study addresses a gap in research related to student experiences as readers in middle school science classrooms. To understand student perceptions of pedagogical approaches to reading in science, we asked 45 middle school students to reflect on…