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An intact 10th grade English as a Foreign Language vocational business junior college reading intervention class (n = 52) received 16 weeks of integrated reading strategy instruction with extensive reading while an intact traditional class (n = 48) received traditional intensive reading instruction with extensive reading. The intervention class showed reading proficiency improvements and increased use of reading strategies, especially strategies activating background knowledge. Furthermore, reading proficiency could be differentiated by learners' use/disuse of context to aid reading comprehension. Outcomes shed light on English reading instruction in Taiwan and offer language teachers an alternative to the traditional approach. Guidelines helpful in designing quality instructional procedures to improve vocational school students' reading proficiency and pedagogical implications for reading strategy instruction in the global language classroom are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated how a high school literacy coach provided coaching to support teachers’ understanding and implementation of disciplinary literacy instruction. With a focus on collaborations between the literacy coach and teachers in the disciplines of social studies, math, and English, this article presents three case studies that illustrate how the coach and teachers designed instruction within and beyond the district’s curricular frameworks. Findings suggest when the coach situated herself as a collaborator, rather than an expert, and positioned the teacher as the disciplinary expert, the coach and teacher were able to foreground the discipline and plan meaningful disciplinary literacy instruction. The use of open-ended questions, think-alouds, and an examination of instructional tasks from students’ perspectives enabled the teachers to strengthen their disciplinary literacy instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explores the ways in which artifacts, spaces, and structures became entangled as two fifth-grade students collaboratively composed multimodal responses to literature (e.g., videos and PowerPoints). Data sources included video and audio recordings of classroom interactions, students’ multimodal compositions, artifacts from the composing process, screen recordings, in-process and final student interviews, surveys, and instructional artifacts. Through an integrated analysis of students’ collaborative composing processes and products, this study traces the material, personal, and interactional resources that students navigate as they compose—and presents a description of how students take on a variety of interactional roles in the creation of their joint work. The findings of this study can be used to shape our understanding of young adolescents’ collaborative multimodal composing practices for academic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has historically been much less research on the literacy skills of adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) compared to the amount of intervention research targeting their behavior. Within the limited literacy research available, there are multiple issues that need to be addressed, including (a) a predominant focus on children in elementary school, (b) gender differences in students with EBD, and (c) variation in the labels of research participants. The purpose of this integrative, comprehensive review was to investigate these concerns and provide a summary of the data to guide future research studies. A total of 63 articles targeting the reading and/or writing skills of middle and high school students with EBD were identified, spanning 37 years of research (1980-2016). Analysis of the articles revealed that less than 15% of the participants were female, and the percentage of females included in this research has declined across time; 11 different labels have been used to describe research participants; oral reading fluency, persuasive writing, and reading comprehension were the three most common dependent variables; and less than 5% of studies took place in inclusive general education settings. Recommendations for practitioners serving students with EBD and for researchers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situated within the historical and current state of writing and adolescent literacy research, this systematic literature review screened 3504 articles to determine the prevalent themes in current research on writing tasks in content-area classrooms. Each of the 3504 studies was evaluated and coded using seven methodological quality indicators. The qualitative synthesis of studies is organized by the overarching categories of context, cognition, and content. The studies are further grouped by relevant themes to explore how the incorporation of writing tasks into content-area instruction benefits the secondary students’ content-area learning and knowledge acquisition. Primary themes include the elements of explicit strategy and inquiry-based instruction, the impact of prewriting models, the role of metacognition and journaling, and the writing-related implications for content-area assessment. Recommendations for future research are offered. Additionally, practical implications for secondary content-area teachers are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that eighth grade young adults would indicate greater motivation to read books with accurate representation of conversations in male genderlect, with genderlect being defined as "a set of linguistic features that characterizes language production of a socially defined gender category (typically woman/girl and man/boy)" (Johnson, 2009). Fifty-six eighth grade volunteers--29 female and 27 male--were presented with five excerpts from young adult novels that contained conversations in male genderlect. These excerpts were paired with the same conversation re-written in Standard English. Subjects were asked to indicate which seemed more like a book they would like to read--the male genderlect version or the Standard English version. The hypothesis was not supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the extent to which middle and high school English teachers integrate reading and writing instruction as complementary processes. Using qualitative research methods, researchers investigated the following: (a) Do middle and high school English teachers conceive of and enact the teaching of reading and writing as integrated disciplines? and (b) Might staff development experiences modeling integrative techniques affect teachers’ perceptions and practices? The study’s results indicate participants (N = 55) believe the various facets of reading and writing instruction are connected and should be integrated; however, many do not feel equipped to deliver instruction in an integrated fashion. Findings also indicate that focused professional development featuring strategy-modeling has the potential to shape teachers’ beliefs and practices; however, teachers may not sustain these changes without embedded, long-term support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Disciplinary literacy scholars promote text-based instruction in the service of disciplinary inquiry, and scholars of teacher education promote practice-based preparation for teachers. This study brings these scholarly communities into conversation by investigating how practice orientations in teacher education influence novice teachers' literacy teaching. We conducted video analyses of teacher education coursework and novice teachers' classroom instruction in secondary English language arts. Data were collected during a summer institute for novice teachers designed through a partnership between a university and an alternative teacher education program. Analyses revealed that when learning targets for novice teacher participants were explicitly connected to teaching practice through the use of representations, decompositions, and approximations, those targets were more frequently observed in novices' subsequent classroom instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research acknowledges the value of youths reading books that represent their lives and cultures, yet there is a growing need to better understand how youths of understudied groups respond to multicultural stories. This single-case study of a multilingual refugee adolescent from Burma (Myanmar) investigates how she draws from her lived experiences in responding to literature. Using the culturally situated reader response model (Brooks & Browne, 2012) to understand the participant’s response to literature allows us to see how her transaction with the texts was mediated by various aspects of her lived experiences as a refugee and adolescent girl. The participant’s powerful response is indicative of not just the need for relevant literature but also authentic ways to respond with a caring adult. Findings suggest that far more important than new programs or strategies, multilingual youths need access to relevant literature and authentic meaning-making for educators to most effectively nurture their literacy, language, and identity development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For the past 20 years, Dr. Jack Cassidy and his collaborators have surveyed leaders in the field about the issues in literacy that are receiving attention and those that are no longer in the limelight and presented the findings in the annual “What’s Hot, What’s Not” column. This tradition has continued into 2017 as 25 literacy leaders and emerging scholars were all interviewed either by phone or in person to determine important topics in the field. The article provides the “hot” and “not hot” topics for 2017 and serves as an important instruction and development tool for literacy educators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the shift from page to screen has dramatically redefined conceptions of writing, very little is known about how youth compose with multiple modes in digital environments. Integrating multimodality and multiliteracies theoretical frameworks, this comparative case study examined how urban twelfth-grade students collaboratively composed across three multimodal projects when responding to and analyzing literature. Data sources included screen capture and video observations, student design interviews, written reflections, and multimodal products. Findings revealed that multimodal composing was a complex, dynamic, and varied process mediated by the interaction of multiple factors. Students exhibited modal preferences when working with open and flexible digital tools - spending a majority of time working with that particular mode and relying on it to carry the communicative weight of their compositions. The development of multimodal composing timescapes for this study provided new insights into students' rapid and frequent cross-modal traversals as they worked on their digital projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for change be collaborative rather than competitive? Can we envision self-love, wellness, and intercultural understanding as compelling ends of a reimagined literacy pedagogy? Toward these ends, this essay offers demographic, moral, and economic imperatives for fundamentally reconsidering literacy policy and practice. It then presents five “big” ideas. We must ask different questions, we must identify and problematize our notions of success, we must advocate for the equitable distribution of material resources, we must fight for bottom-up accountability practices, and we must envision new literacy practices that reflect our new global reality. Finally it advocates a global postcolonial critical literacies framework where teachers are positioned as intellectuals and agents of change, where students have opportunities to collaboratively produce and distribute multimodal compositions, where children have access to a wider array of literary texts that enable them to become powerful, reflexive readers of the word and the world, and where parents and communities are partners in the project of nurturing powerful readers, authors, and speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the alternative English spelling practices of a student who is considered to be a long-term English learner. It draws on a theoretical framework that integrates a social perspective on spelling with a rejection of idealized conceptions of bilingualism. The analyzed English spellings presented in this article were identified in eight texts that the focal student composed during her English language arts class. Notably, this examination was contextualized within the focal student’s linguistic and schooling history. The resulting findings document that the focal student was a simultaneous bilingual who had a troubled history with formal schooling—the place where many young people learn spelling conventions. The predominant practice that characterized her alternative spellings was her use of conventional English sound-to-letter relationships to create a written echo of the speech patterns of her home, school, and community. When her alternative spelling did not reflect these Englishes, they typically illustrated her familiarity with the normative spelling of particular words. Yet the practices that characterized her spelling meant that they strayed from accepted conventions (e.g., transposition/omission/insertion of letters). The focal student’s alternative spelling practices illustrated her familiarity with the English writing system and the depth of her knowledge of multiple Englishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study documents the process of implementation of an adolescent reading intervention. Using data from observations of teachers (n = 17) during the 2013-14 school year, I conducted a nuanced descriptive analysis of fidelity of implementation (FoI). I also analyzed weekly logs completed by literacy coaches (n = 3) to examine variation in quantity and intensity of coaching. I then compared variation in coaching with variation in FoI, and finally compared FoI to outcomes for students (n = 287). FoI at observation 1 was found to predict coaching time, and FoI across both observations predicted student outcomes, emphasizing the critical role of implementation in intervention research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of writing arguments requires a linguistic and cognitive sophistication that eludes many adults, but students in the US are expected to produce texts that articulate and support a claim-simple written arguments-starting in the fourth grade. Students from language-minority homes likewise must learn to produce such writing, despite their relatively limited experience with the English language, reflected in the availability of smaller mental lexicons and more restricted syntactic constructions. Yet some features of bilingual children's cognition, such as precocious development of theory of mind and strong metalinguistic awareness, might support the crafting of arguments in writing, where the explicit consideration of multiple points of view can serve to strengthen one's case for a claim. In this study we examine the incidence of social perspective-taking acts in the argumentative essays of language-minority and English-only students in Grades 4-6 and find that language-minority students match or surpass the English-only students on two critical measures of perspective taking (perspective acknowledgment and perspective articulation). We also explore possible links between students' use of perspective taking in their argumentative essays and a validated formal measure of the same skill, uncovering different relationships between them in the two language groups. Links to previously attested bilingual advantages and to the development of argumentation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many secondary teachers prohibit use of the first person in academic writing, little empirical evidence exists linking first person use with writing quality. This study examined first person use in 111 brief argumentative essays composed by sixth grade students (ages 11–14) in American public schools. It first analyzed the ways in which students use the first person, and then investigated whether there is any association between first person use and overall quality of writing. Findings suggest that students used the first person frequently, often in its more assertive forms, and that there is no association between use of the first person and quality of argumentative writing. Implications for instruction are that teachers should not ban the use of the first person, but should teach students how to use it more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines features and processes of a sixth grade teacher (Jane) utilizing text sets as a tool for facilitating critical thinking. Jane’s strong vision and student-centered beliefs informed her use of various texts to teach language arts as she worked to address demands of the Common Core State Standards. Text sets promoted multiple perspectives and fit with her beliefs about student empowerment. Despite contextual constraints, Jane used professional judgment to apply her learning from professional development to design and implement instruction. Findings support the idea that teachers need autonomy when choosing multiple texts across genres as well as effective strategies to engender critical thinking. Results can help guide further inquiry into types of teaching and classroom environments that facilitate or impede critical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that reading engagement and motivation are strong predictors of reading performance. Reading motivation may decline as students approach adolescence, resulting in less time spent with text. To date, there has been no research on how practitioners might directly support students to address affective factors in reading. In this exploratory case study, three disengaged, Year 8 readers received five sessions of an affective intervention aimed at helping them explore and challenge their own ambivalence towards reading. Quantitative and qualitative data from pre-, post- and three-month follow-up indicated a range of benefits in relation to reading engagement and motivation, including improved self-efficacy, increased participation and the usefulness of talking about affective factors in reading. Findings are further examined and implications for practitioners are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the educational uses of graphic novels. Because of this, misconceptions and stereotypes exist. This article presents findings from a study examining the effects of graphic novels on high school students’ (N = 217) reading comprehension. A graphic adaptation of a traditionally taught text (Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”) was explored as (a) a replacement text and (b) a supplemental text. The study design utilized a factorial analysis of variance with three independent variables: text type, grade level, and gender. A reading comprehension test was developed to serve as the dependent variable. Findings indicated significant effects for all factors. At the conclusion of the study, post interviews were conducted to elicit students’ and teachers’ perceptions of interacting with the graphic text. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This conceptual review addresses the bifurcation of content area and disciplinary literacy by examining each as regimes of truth. We look specifically at the ways in which both approaches comprise, in Foucault's terms, "regimes of truth" within their respective epistemological domains. Following a brief history of adolescent literacy, extant research is considered. By employing a theoretical framework based on Foucault's notions of "connaissance" referring to a particular corpus of knowledge, and "savoir" or knowledge in general, research and discourse surrounding the current debate over content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are taken up to deconstruct stances within these domains with the aim of a reconstruction that captures the affordances of both. Suggestions for moving the field out of this binary through a collaborative focus on interdisciplinary approaches are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A school's walls are taken-for-granted spaces, not seen as central to teaching. This article asks: How do teachers facilitate writing on secondary classroom and hallway walls that helps to build rich text environments through texts that are local, material, and multimodal? Further, how are those texts reflective of literacy practices appropriate for the 21st Century, resistant to standardized curriculum, and built on students' literate lives? Findings suggest that teachers used butcher paper, markers, post-its, magnetic tile words, and walls to engage students in 21st Century literacy practices. And, even within a test-focused curriculum, students produced an array of multimodal compositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the development of her own reading life and how that rich reading life failed to influence how she taught reading early in her career. During graduate studies, while researching in classrooms where reading workshop was the instructional model and through talking to those exemplary teachers, the author came to understand both the how and why of teaching readers, not books. Drawing on experience and research literature, the author offers ways to develop students’ reading lives within the context of English language arts classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth readers navigate complex school contexts involving not only different classes, teachers, and texts but also various institutional processes, such as tracking and reading assessment. Yet little research has examined how or why adolescents’ literacy skills vary as youths interact with these myriad contexts across space and time. During this year-long study, I shadowed eight ninth graders identified as struggling readers across content classes. Data sources included 425 hours of observations, 64 interviews, assessments, and school records and artifacts. Analysis showed that participants’ interactions with interrelated institutional contexts for reading intervention and school discipline tended to position students as deficient readers and deviant youths regardless, sometimes, of engaged, skillful reading. Findings have implications for the reconstruction of secondary literacy contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although low English reading test scores play an important role in long-term English learners (LTELs) continued classification as English learners (ELs), limited research exists on how these students actually construct meaning with academic texts in English. This article uses a literacy-as-social-practice perspective to examine the reading practices that five high school LTELs vocalized during think-alouds with biology and English language arts texts. The findings document the focal students’ detailed understandings of the texts and identify four categories of meaning-making practices in which students engaged to differing extents during think-alouds: summarizing and identifying important information; making connections to background knowledge; going beyond the text; and recognizing limitations. These findings are significant because they provide a much-needed depiction of the actual reading practices of students who have remained classified as ELs for all or most of their academic trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representational logic cannot account for the entanglements of all that matters in making new media: feeling bodies, vibrant matter, feeling bodies and vibrant matter all moving and at different rates. In the currently shifting communicative landscape, where mobile technologies are the primary means for youths’ digital production, all this movement, all this moving matter, is integral to generating fuller, more (than) human expressions of youths’ new media making. This article therefore develops a non-representational theory of new media making through an intra-action analysis of five adolescents making a digital book trailer while moving within and across three locations. As guiding poststructural methodology, intra-action analysis attuned the authors to moments when bodies-materials-place became perceptibly entangled in the drawing of boundaries and exclusions. Analysis expresses how emergent (re)shapings of boundaries and exclusions across production settings were concurrent with a process of privileging text-based/media-based ideas and thereby various students’ becoming agencies and capacities to act as new media makers. The article concludes arguing that poststructural attention to literacy in the making matters as an ethical imperative for researchers and educators. Literacy in the making enacts boundaries and exclusions that participate in ongoing discursive-material practices, which have potential to produce histories differently in as yet unimagined futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines the multimodal literacy practices of 11-year-old Nigel as he plays with assemblages of people, objects, and practices in his storywriting. The study asks “How does following the seemingly off-task multimodal literacy practices of one pre-adolescent youth across his home-community-school terrain provide insight into contemporary literacy learning and instruction?” Using assemblage theory, the article maps a period in time, the early months of his fifth-grade experience, when one boy approached the literacies privileged in his classroom with what appeared to be a certain amount of disregard, while engaging in personal literacy practices that were both rich and, at times, subversive. The analysis maps the people, signs, material objects, events, and places in the unfolding of Nigel’s play with two symbolic figures, the line rider and the stick man. Viewed across time and place, Nigel’s textual and embodied play with these figures demonstrate ways a young adolescent, fully immersed in and engaged with his digital and material world, “overwrites” official texts and produces rich stories that go unnoticed by the adults around him. This unfolding took place in unpredictable ways, and as it occurred, literacy practices that brought intellectual and visceral engagement, pleasure and pride, and agentive recourse to Nigel in his practice of literacy came into focus. The emergence of Nigel’s inscriptions across multiple terrains provides insight into ways in which a socio-material perspective, with its focus on the role of affect and the body, may assist us in re-thinking multimodal writing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between recreational book reading and improved literacy performance is consistently supported by educational research. Increasing engagement in recreational book reading remains imperative for English teachers, though how to best facilitate this in a secondary context is an object of contention, with limited research in this field. The West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading explored attitudes and engagement in recreational book reading. Student responses provide valuable insight directly from the target group that can help to shape best practice for adolescent literacy educators. Findings are presented around six key themes, and include strategies for choice, access to attractive and diverse books, time availability, time allocation, concentration and encouragement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]