This socioculturally framed case study focuses on children's sense of agency in educational settings. The study has two objectives: (a) to portray the modalities of children's sense of agency in preschool and first grade settings, and (b) to identify the sociocultural resources that mediate children's sense of agency in these two activity…

As digital media practices become readily available in today's classrooms, literacy and literacy instruction are changing in profound ways (Alvermann, 2010). Professional organizations emphasize the importance of integrating new literacies (New London Group, 1996) practices into language-arts instruction (IRA, 2009; NCTE, 2005). As a result,…

Explores the nature of first-grade students' oral narratives and the connections between teachers' instructional practices and students' narratives. Presents six case studies that describe students' school achievement, their oral narratives, and teachers' practices. Finds certain classroom practices, which either support or narrow opportunities…

Presents a case study of a first-grader who began to articulate a literary voice through her appropriation of narrative form. Focuses on her active response as she made narrative discourses her own. Draws on the work of L. Vygotsky and M. Bakhtin to suggest a way of talking about how young writers construct themselves. (SR)

Presents a case study of one child's narratives and of the teacher's efforts to change sharing time in a first grade classroom. Demonstrates the social nature of the classroom language community and provides an understanding of how children and teachers can work together to understand and support each other's stories. (PRA)

The rationale for using critical autobiography projects in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction is discussed, and procedures for implementation are outlined. Writing a critical autobiography involves the student's presenting a personal narrative while exploring external factors influencing his life. Critical experiences in life provide…

The case study presented in this paper describes the thinking-in-action of a first grade teacher who, within the natural setting of her classroom, was constructing a new way of teaching language arts by changing to a whole language approach. In contrast to traditional implementation models, this study highlights the constitutive nature of…