The authors examine the functions of literacy in three accountability-driven English language arts classrooms. To explore the interplay between transmission-oriented, standards-based instruction and local interpretations and uses of literacy, they employed Pennycook's (2010) notion of relocalization. The authors examine how accountability…

Despite high levels of disengagement in urban literacy classrooms, few teachers have seen fit to explore spoken word--the performance of poetry--as a tool to engage students in literacy. Spoken word poetry serves as a powerful means of self-representation for youth that are traditionally portrayed as threatening, menaces to society that do not…

INCLUDED IS AN ANTHOLOGY OF ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, POEMS, AND ESSAYS. TEACHERS ENCOURAGED THE WRITING AND CAREFULLY SELECTED THE ITEMS PUBLISHED. ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE STUDENTS COMPLEMENT THE LINES. THE SUBJECT MATTER VARIES WIDELY. SELECTIONS ARE SHORT IN LENGTH.

AN EFFECTIVE AND PLEASANT THERAPEUTIC EFFECT CAN BE PRODUCED BY ENCOURAGING EMOTIONALLY-DISTURBED ADOLESCENTS TO LOOK AT, WORK WITH, AND WRITE UNRESTRICTEDLY ABOUT NATURAL BEAUTY. THEIR OCCASIONAL UNRESPONSIVENESS IS CHANGED TO WILLINGNESS AND THEIR CREATIVE EFFORTS ARE RE-DIRECTED FROM EXPRESSIONS OF FEAR AND DESPAIR AS THEY OBSERVE COLORFUL…

June Jordan, a prolific and most-published African American essayist and poet and a professor in the African American Studies department at the University of California, Berkeley, ventured to challenge the institutionalized Ivory Tower traditions and subsequently established a university program called Poetry for the People (P4P) in 1991. Such…