Students need strong literacy skills to succeed in core academic subjects--English, mathematics, science, and social studies--and to be prepared for college and careers. "Reading Apprenticeship"® is a professional development program that aims to help teachers improve their students' literacy skills. The program also aims to improve…

Technological advancements continue to present a variety of learning opportunities for students. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study is to seek an understanding about students' experiences with a virtual reality (VR) activity in an Advanced Placement English course. Analyzing the observations and interactions…

The purpose of the study was to explore the use of visuals as it applied to English Language Arts instruction for teachers in suburban and urban middle and high schools in a metropolitan area in the state of Georgia. This study was implemented to address the reading needs of students in response to the changing context of literacy in an age of…

This pilot study investigates content-area preservice teacher perceptions of literacy practices as humanizing pedagogy. Findings from open-ended survey questions and a focal interview suggest preservice teachers see the connection between literacy learning and the teaching of their content area. They also have a budding understanding of how…

A review of literature suggests students make meaning using different modes while reading a graphic novel (Connors, 2010; Dallacqua, 2010; Hammond, 2009; Jimenez, 2013; Pantaleo, 2013; Rogers, 2014). This case study ran for six weeks. Twenty students were involved. Grounded in the theoretical framework of social constructivism, this qualitative…

Working with second-grade teachers, the authors designed a six-day integrated science and language arts unit to investigate the structures that insects use to make their sound vibrations. They were inspired by "The Very Quiet Cricket" (Carle 1990), which was used as the focus text for the unit, as well as "Bug Music"…

Research indicates that feeling is fundamental to the multilayered experience of literary interpretation. However, despite great strides in U.S. high school classrooms, discussions about literature are still often characterized by known-answer discourses that exclude feeling. This article builds on small-scale studies of affective evaluation, an…

In 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released a Literacy Strategic Plan that lays out a vision for "[a]n excellent education in English language arts (ELA) and literacy for all students in Massachusetts" (DESE, 2019a). In support of achieving the goals outlined in the strategic plan, DESE…

In this article, the authors share discoveries about how taking risks can expand students' and teachers' narrow experiences with academic writing. The article outlines four teaching strategies one of the authors implemented in her classroom, highlighting how these strategies fostered student and teacher flexibility, agency, and confidence in…

In light of an increased focus on the importance of soft skills to academic achievement and success later in life, educators are looking towards social-emotional learning (SEL) as a means for addressing the diverse needs of students. This qualitative study was aimed at understanding how secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers use literary…

The purpose of this investigation is to examine how teacher candidates create and teach lesson plans that include trade books and the 5E model of inquiry science. Specifically, this study examines how elementary school teacher candidates, enrolled in a science methods course, intended to use trade books to teach interdisciplinary science and…

The author describes a literacy activity that took place in an 11th-grade English language arts classroom: student-created role-play. Through a discussion of two such role-plays, the author explores how these performances illustrate students' engagement with raciolinguistic ideologies that marginalize certain speakers through the simultaneous…

Purpose: Faced with increasing systemic constraints and pressures, secondary school English teachers often implement transactional approaches to pedagogy and curriculum aimed at improving student results on external exams, which are then used to rank schools. Despite the pressure to teach this way, teachers acknowledge the power of literature,…

This dissertation uses practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, 2009), narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 1990; Rolling & Bey, 2016; Schaafsma & Vinz, 2011; Toliver, 2020a), composite character counter storytelling (Baker-Bell, 2020), and critical discourse analysis (Bloome et al., 2008; Bloome & Power-Carter,…

Following the racial unrest of 2020, anti-racist rhetoric from K-12 schools and university teacher education institutes magnified. Despite claiming alliance with anti-racism, it became unclear whether the actions of teacher education, both in-service and pre-service, matched their rhetoric. To determine how, if at all, teacher education informs…