This article introduces Project RAISSE: Reading Assistance Initiative for Secondary School Educators and shares the findings of a study into those factors found to motivate study group participants at two rural high schools in the southern USA. The research team collected qualitative data over a two-year period, including interviews, artifacts,…

For years, educators have been trying to free history instruction from the mire of memorization and propel it with the kinds of inquiry that drive historians themselves. The common core standards may offer more impetus for districts and schools to adopt that brand of instruction. A study of one such approach suggests that it can yield a triple…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore 72 preservice teachers' attitudes toward and experiences with sharing their content area as well as their recreational reading with teenager students. Methodology: Preservice teachers who were enrolled in a required secondary content area literacy course at a Midwest university, including 49 in a…

Secondary preservice teachers (N = 67) in a required content area literacy course and 30-hour field experience presented tradebooks, biographies, as well as pre, during, and after reading lessons based on topics in their content area to middle and high school students. At the end of the semester, they were asked to complete an anonymous survey.…

The authors present a case study of a world history teacher's mediation of her students' world historical thinking and writing through unit-level cognitive tools. They analyze both scaffolding and disciplinary tools that the teacher constructed for her students in order to improve their world historical thinking, and the degree to which the…

Little research exists on effective ways to prepare secondary mathematics and science teachers to work with English language learners (ELLs) in mainstream mathematics and science (subsequently referred to as STEM) classrooms. Given the achievement gap that exists between ELLs and their native-speaking counterparts in STEM subjects, as well as the…

For their 57th annual conference, the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) met in Dallas, Texas at Addison Marriott Quorum by the Galleria. This year's conference theme was Exploring the World of Literacy, which was also used as the title for this year's Yearbook, Volume 36. Included are double-peer reviewed papers,…

In an attempt to address perceived shortcomings in traditional content-area literacy preparation, an interdisciplinary group of teacher education faculty developed an approach called "content-driven literacy" (CDL), which was applied to the design of courses to prepare preservice secondary science and social studies teachers. This article…

Content area teachers at the secondary level often complain that the students are unwilling or unable to read and comprehend the textbooks. Yet these teachers have seldom had instruction in the teaching of reading. They state that teaching of reading is someone else's job. They state that they need to progress through the entire textbook, and that…

This article explores content area pre-service teacher beliefs about disciplinary knowledge, perceptions of effective content area teaching, and existing beliefs about how to integrate literacy into the content areas. Ten pre-service teachers across ten secondary content areas were asked to describe three important variables in secondary teaching:…

Literacy is one of the most critical components of academic success, but the majority of students are leaving high school without the reading and writing skills needed to succeed in college and a career. According to ACT, fewer than 40 percent of black and Latino students are ready for college-level reading when they graduate from high school.…

In this article, Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan argue that "disciplinary literacy"--advanced literacy instruction embedded within content-area classes such as math, science, and social studies--should be a focus of middle and secondary school settings. Moving beyond the oft-cited "every teacher a teacher of reading" philosophy…

"Strategy instruction" is quickly becoming one of the most common--and perhaps the most commonly misunderstood--components of adolescent literacy research and practice. In this essay, veteran teacher educator Mark Conley argues that a particular type of strategy instruction known as cognitive strategy instruction holds great promise for improving…

The purpose of this study was to examine how secondary teachers have been taught to teach reading-to-learn over the last four decades, and to teach the struggling and reluctant readers in their classes. In this study, twelve secondary reading methods textbooks were analyzed. The textbooks were chosen based on four criteria: (a) availability, (b)…

While incorporating digital technologies into the classroom has offered new ways of teaching and learning into educational processes, it is essential to take a look at how the digital shift impacts teachers, school administration, and curriculum development. "Academic Knowledge Construction and Multimodal Curriculum Development" presents…