"Layers of Learning" explores read-aloud strategies designed to enhance your reading and writing standards by capitalizing on the way literature can impact caring communities. With over 200 picture-book suggestions, author JoEllen McCarthy introduces the Heartprint Framework, which demonstrates how you can layer literacy and life lessons…

Teachers need tools to build mental models of what makes a book diverse, how a book impacts the classroom community, and what contribution it makes within a classroom library. Beyond this, teachers need a resource that will offer cogent arguments and support for their book choices to administrators, parents, and colleagues. This article includes a…

In today's developing view of education, a disquieting trend looms--the erosion of students' right to choose what they read. This erosion, fueled by an alarming surge in censorship attempts, casts a shadow over the very essence of intellectual exploration. Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented number of challenges aimed at restricting…

This study aims to understand how women's voices can be empowered in a high school English Language Arts (ELA) class. Through the use of female authors and female protagonists in the classroom texts, this study seeks to understand if implementing female-driven texts enhances female students' literary experiences, empowers the personal identities…

Despite the value of reading, research documents declining reading rates among American adolescents - a decline that exacerbates student dropout rates and academic performance. As a high school English teacher in a public, regional, suburban school, increasing the number of students who deeply read the assigned texts for class has been a…

Increased awareness of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has come with an increase in books that depict individuals with ASD. However, media representation of disabilities could be misguided. To integrate literature in the classroom that helps students better understand the population of ASD, carefully choosing quality books (e.g., narrative fiction)…

This paper focused on teachers' personal stories to determine the pedagogical function and impact of children's literature. This study employed a life-story interview approach within a qualitative narrative inquiry methodology. The sample consisted of ten teachers from different branches. Participants were recruited using purposive sampling. Data…

Children's picture books contribute to children's development of gender identity and can impact aspirations and expectations of roles in families and society. However, the world represented in children's books reflects predominantly middle class, heterosexual, male heroes and characters. This paper reports on a cross-cultural study investigating…

Significant traumatic events affect communities and schools. Teachers need tools to help navigate challenging conversations with their students. Consequently, we utilized our children's literature course on the use of picture books that would invite dialogue supporting children responding to traumatic events. Specifically, we reconceptualized an…

Presentation of text in picturebooks is an under-investigated field that requires consideration in order to support readers and those selecting books for readers. A unique form of picturebook is the bilingual picturebook which presents a story in two languages. The complexities of language readability and legibility are increased in these books,…

In this practitioner article, we detail how American English language arts and social studies teachers can select and teach young adult literature using LaGarrett King's Black historical consciousness framework. We provide supplemental, related research along with teaching suggestions and titles for each of the Black historical consciousness…

The purpose of this basic qualitative generic study was to explore the methods and techniques urban elementary teachers use to learn the subject matter and pedagogical skills necessary to incorporate multicultural literature into their daily lessons. The problem is that we know what multicultural literature consists of and why it is critical to…

The purposes of this exploratory case study were twofold: (1) to understand the strengths and challenges teachers experienced when designing and delivering language interpretation tasks for use with second- and third-grade bilingual students, and (2) to ascertain what teachers perceived to be the benefits and drawbacks of the instructional…

The concept of "sustainable development" was proposed to re-examine the human development model. Initiated by the United Nations, education for sustainable development (ESD) has become an important tool for educators to achieve sustainable development. Although "Early Childhood Education" (ECE) is often taken as a starting…

This article explores how selfies and shelfies on the digital platforms Instagram and TikTok contribute to the dynamics of intermediation for Australian teen readers by presenting two contrasting case studies. The first features Australian Bookstagrammer @BookBookOwl whose social media accounts feature aspirational content in which identity…