Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy最新文献

This paper explores the possible negative implications of teacher selected whole-class reads rooted within the traditional canon of English Language Arts instruction and possible solutions for re-engaging the disengaged adolescent reader through choice reading and the implementation of more culturally relevant texts. Historically, English Language Arts educators assign required readings to the entire class without taking into account the lens through which students view the texts. This paper identifies how texts deemed historically valuable and enabling by the educator can actually be disabling and disengaging to the learner. Additionally, this paper offers insights regarding the positive shifts that can stem from reimagining the traditional canon utilizing a whole-class read scenario into a more democratic and culturally responsive English Language Arts canon. Assigned whole-class reads are defined as selections of text chosen by the teacher with the understanding that every student is required to engage in the text. These are not chosen by students and they are not part of independent reading. The goal of this paper is to first, inform educators concerning the disabling effects of choosing whole-class texts inside the traditional canon without viewing the texts through the varied interests, abilities, socio-economic backgrounds, integration of students' cultural knowledge and experiences, and maturity levels of the students served. Furthermore, this paper will provide a basis for increasing educator knowledge regarding the traditional canon, disabling and enabling texts, and culturally responsive ELA practices along with particular scaffolds in hopes of re-engaging the disengaged adolescent reader.

As a term, “connective literacies” refers to the reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and critical thinking skills necessary for students to engage and interact meaningfully, productively, and safely in a variety of digitally connected spaces. Using a critical literacies approach to honor the voices of adolescents as producers and consumers of online texts, in the present study, researchers conducted two focus groups of nine eighth-grade students. Adolescents shared their insights about their use of connective literacy skills in and outside of school, including how they use digital technologies, and how they connect with others in digital spaces. Researchers share and discuss five thematic findings, using transcript excerpts as illustrations to present adolescents' perspectives. Finally, we offer future directions for educators, policymakers, researchers, families, and students to advance adolescents' connective literacy skills.

Historically, language instruction involving Black Language (BL) assumes a goal of eradication, particularly in school-sanctioned literacy practices. Language arts education for Black students must be liberatory, that is, antiracist and artful. The opportunities for English Language Arts (ELA) teachers to create, augment, and change the course of traditional ELA methods are abundant. In this article, the author takes up “inquiry as a stance” to provide a retrospective analysis of the implementation of two Artful Language Learning Opportunities (ALLOs) from an uncritical code-switching unit plan designed for 11th-grade students in 2011, and to offer ways that the ALLOs were (and could be) modified to center the dynamism that BL and thus disrupt White linguistic hegemony. This study's implications highlight the need to shift language instruction toward exploring critical concepts, embracing cultural pride, and incorporating equitable frameworks to empower students and transform teaching practices. By prioritizing the study of BL, educators can create inclusive learning environments that recognize and celebrate linguistic diversity, and, in doing so, understand that mastery in standardized English(es) is an inevitable outcome.

This report describes a study of three English teachers' and three students' participation in two high school environment clubs. Teachers' and students' interview perceptions were analyzed based a critical inquiry systems thinking framework involving inferences of purposes, outcomes, norms, and beliefs/discourses constituting energy/transportation, agriculture/food production, and economic systems impacts on climate change. Interviews were also analyzed in terms of teachers and students assuming roles in club projects and their use of tools mediating their participation in these projects. Teachers and students critiqued the purposes of systems as leading to negative climate change outcomes, as well as norms and beliefs/discourses justifying these systems. They also assumed roles related to fostering sustainability practices, including planting school gardens, supporting recycling/composting, and using tools to inform audiences about their activities. Literacy teachers can draw on the systems thinking framework for general instruction about systems impacting climate change.

Over the last years, the hashtag #BookTok has been viewed more than 100 billion times on TikTok. Hence, both scholars and practitioners have plead for integrating #BookTok in the literacy classroom, expressing the hope that this digital subculture might flip adolescents' conceptions of reading and improve their reading motivation. This article presents the first empirical inquiry into students' evaluations of #BookTok in an educational context. Reporting a survey study among 142 ninth-grade students in the Netherlands, who were introduced to #BookTok through a compilation video featuring the most popular Dutch #BookTokers, the article shows that the phenomenon especially appeals to students who already read for pleasure frequently. Evaluations by book avoiders, on the other hand, were overwhelmingly negative. Promisingly, though, students who can be described as “book doubters,” who do not read often despite a relatively positive reading attitude, frequently reported an intention to use #BookTok, both in leisurely and educational settings. Hence, the article argues that integrating #BookTok in literacy education might especially serve students fitting the book doubter persona. At the same time, the results underline the importance of differentiation in the literacy classroom, also regarding the use of #BookTok.

With increased availability, accessibility, and capability of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, we argue that human processes of virtuous and multimodal composition can support meaningful communication. After defining our perspectives on writerly virtue and multimodality, we suggest how writers and their instructors might approach the use of AI tools in virtuous and multimodal writing and argue that writing processes promote human development, and the products support purposeful human-to-human communication. We explain our views of virtuous and multimodal composition with examples of writers across contexts and provide potential implications for writerly development and writing instructors.

In this article, the authors analyze the ways literacy integration evolved in a multi-year interdisciplinary after-school program that supports youth through a focus on literacy, physical activity, and health. To deviate from the increasingly siloed assumptions around literacy education and attend to a more interdisciplinary, integrated perspective, the authors theorized literacy across multiple theoretical perspectives to examine 5 years of program implementation in three different sites (New York City, Los Angeles, and Paraguay) with culturally and linguistically diverse youth (ages 9–14), program leaders, and researchers. Drawing on assemblage theory to guide the analysis, the authors sought to identify the multidimensional (im)materialities that converged to produce evolutions of literacy integration in an after-school program. Analyzing data for assemblaging factors that produced youths' literacy engagement differently throughout program years led to identifying three emergent assemblages that frame the findings: (1) Well-intentioned literacy integration but more complex than expected, (2) Imprints of schooled literacy with sociocultural emergence, and (3) Community- and youth-centered literacy integration. The authors conclude with implications for educators and after-school leaders seeking to integrate literacy with interdisciplinary aims.

Proficiency with sentence-level features of language is essential for reading comprehension of academic texts, especially for early adolescents who face increasingly complex, discipline-specific texts as they enter upper elementary and middle school. However, little research has been done to explore instruction in sentence-level features. This qualitative case study explores how a sixth-grade social studies teacher developed knowledge of sentence-level features and implemented sentence-level instruction through a professional learning inquiry, as well as how 3 sixth-grade students responded to challenging sentences as a result of this instruction. Findings from thematic analyses of both teacher and student data sources indicate that increased metalinguistic awareness of sentence-level features in the teacher participant was essential to effective, discipline-specific instruction in sentence-level features. Additionally, explicit instruction in sentence-level features led to increased metalinguistic awareness in students, which supported their comprehension of challenging sentences.

Dialogic talk affords students opportunities to share ideas and co-construct knowledge while developing various literacy skills such as perspective taking, text comprehension, and argumentative reasoning. In this study, we examine how seventh- and eighth-grade students in four classrooms discuss a controversial topic about changing a National Football League team's controversial name and analyze their discursive roles using thematic content analysis. We provide dynamic profiles of student speakers, including those who take on primary, secondary, tertiary, and periphery roles within discussions. We also discuss how these roles shift and provide implications for teachers who engage students dialogically around controversial, yet essential, topics.