Though there are many studies on reading and writing skills focusing on different dimensions, the relationship between the learning context and the development of reading and writing is an area needing further attention. This comparative case study was purposed to investigate the attitudes of two groups of language learners towards reading and…

Adolescent literacy has emerged via the high-stakes standardized test known as the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) as a critical area of debate and study. Research has indicated a direct connection between literacy and identity, and that student literacy practices differ from traditional measures of literacy located in school…

Explores the role of literacy and curriculum in identity construction among fifth graders. Suggests: (1) there was a coherence of perspectives about six of the students while there was less agreement for the other six students; (2) literacy was a more important feature of some students' identities than others; and (3) the literacy curriculum…

A study examined the personal, social, and political functions that underlie the reading and writing that young children do about themselves, their families and communities, and their culture. Subjects, five third-grade children attending an inner-city elementary school, participated in an alternative language arts program involving independent…

This conceptual essay critiques current understandings of children's motivation for literacy learning, and argues for a reconceptualization of motivation that centers on the learner as agent in the social construction of meaning. The essay is illustrated with vignettes and examples drawn from two ethnographic studies conducted in whole-language…

Examines a collaborative inquiry study group that provides a context for increased engagement and risk-taking by a struggling, young writer. Captures the process of one child's literacy activities during six weeks of inquiry study that transformed his attitude toward reading and writing as well as his confidence in his own capabilities. (SG)

Presents four case studies to examine how first and second graders worked together using source texts to write their own informational books. Concludes that all four pairs of students were successful in many ways. Notes how the students saw themselves as experts, and were able to see firsthand how important reading and writing were in their…

Examines four college students' descriptions of their early reading experiences and their texts composed in class, to reveal notable parallels between their reading histories and their present writing performances. (SR)

Discusses a project in which a professional writer, poet Ian McMillan, was brought into middle school classrooms to aid in writing instruction. Describes the writer's contributions to the program, the problems he encountered, and his perceptions of the purposes of writing and the value of his writing residency. (SG)

A study examined how two third-grade bilingual (Mexican-American) students resisted, appropriated, and/or internalized a whole language curriculum and the relationship between student interaction with and response to the whole language curriculum and their literacy development. Participant-observer ethnographic field notes recorded over an entire…