This article (a) explores the experience of an early childhood teacher researcher as she intentionally uses interactive read-alouds to promote social justice and to encourage critical consciousness in her preschool classroom and (b) offers guidance for educators to embark on their own social justice journey. Over the course of a 2-year study, the…

The authors present a plan for classroom teachers and literacy professionals to conduct case studies, particularly of students' reading motivations and engagement. The authors argue for case study as a way for practitioners to contribute important knowledge to the field that is grounded in practitioners' deep, contextual understanding of the…

High-level comprehension instruction is the focus of the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. However, it has been a challenge for states to provide the professional development (PD) needed to support teachers' implementation of the CCSS. Professional learning communities (PLC) are a means of providing school-embedded PD to…

An inner-city second grade teacher-researcher and her university-based partner examine how she and her inner-city second graders learned to resist and expand the constraints of their mandated, scripted reading curriculum by exploring their neighborhood and classrooms as communities spaces for literacies learning. Drawing on an interactional…

Discusses the benefits of teachers becoming researchers the field of education rather than researchers telling teachers what needs to be done and how. (MG)

Draws on the Teachers Learning Collaborative (a network of three teacher study groups across southeastern Michigan) to illustrate the potential of teacher research for informing the field, as well as to demonstrate a particular model within which such research can be accomplished. (SG)

Presents an analysis of teacher research studies that illustrates the variety of choices teachers make in exploring questions within their own classrooms. Concludes with a representation of an array of possibilities from which teacher researchers might choose or use to guide them as they select or invent their own methodological solutions within…

Describes teacher inquiry in the University of Georgia's National Reading Research Center's School Research Consortium (SRC). Discusses reasons to formalize the teaching and reflecting process by conducting research, how SRC members are becoming researchers, and what impact SRC research is having. (SR)

Describes how a teacher and a teacher educator collaborated to extend their thinking regarding effective learning environments and to challenge their own uncertainties through dialog. Discusses four aspects of effective learning environments: creating authentic, meaningful, and personalized curriculum; making visible differences in language and…

Notes that the move from writing privately to writing professionally can be daunting. Suggests that various kinds of sharing, group interaction, and feedback from colleagues can ease the transition from private to public writing. (SR)

Views the classroom teacher's role as collaborator in research and as individual scholar from a historical perspective, considers some of the values and shortcomings in these trends, and suggests some projects in the language arts that may be of interest to the teacher scholar. (HOD)

Focuses on the author's desire to create student-led discussion groups, instead of teacher-led groups. Considers specific research questions for student-led groups. Inquires what kinds of writing and discussion students would engage in if given the opportunity to make their own writing/discussion choices. Indicates that students do engage in…

Describes some of the activities teacher researchers are doing in their classrooms, focusing on ways they use language, literature, and literacy activities to examine their students' development as well as their own growth. Also outlines ways teachers organize and analyze their observations in an effort to make them somewhat systematic. (HOD)