bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, Positioning, and Resistance in Multimodal Instructional Contexts
Authors: Collins Kathleen M.
Published: March 2024

How do the children in our classrooms get identified as certain “types” of students, as “disabled” or as “competent”? What factors bear on who the children in our classrooms are able to be? How might exploring the answers to these questions lead us to create classroom communities that are more inclusive, livable, and equitable? Beginning with this inquiry, Collins explores how multimodal forms of literacy and varieties of social positioning contribute to shaping students’ identities in classrooms. She shares the story of Christopher, an African American boy labeled “deficient” by the school he attends. Drawing on a variety of literacy tools present within his teacher’s multimodal instruction, Christopher worked to be recognized as competent within his classroom community. His efforts to do so illustrate how classroom interactions and instructional choices work to position children as “normal” or as “deficient.”
Professional Book Reviews: Socially Engaged Scholarship: Linking Youth Popular Literacy Practices and Social Justice
Authors: Turner K. C. Nat
Published: March 2024

This column features the books of colleagues who are both teacher educators and senior scholars in the field of literacy working for social and educational justice. Their work not only calls for engaging youth in intimate and honest conversations about racism, inequality, and social justice using accessible language, but each scholar has made long-term commitments to personally work alongside the African American and Latino youth they aim to learn from using a method of socially engaged scholarship. Collectively, the books reviewed in this column investigate effective practices of incorporating three different genres of youth popular culture to develop students literacies while addressing issues of social import beyond the walls of the classroom: sports—What a Coach Can Teach a Teacher: Lessons Urban Schools Can Learn from a Successful Sports Program, written by Jeff Duncan-Andrade; multimodal media production—Harlem on Our Minds: Place, Race, and the Literacies of Urban Youth, by Valerie Kinloch; and hip hop culture—Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity by Marc Lamont Hill.
In Closing … : Poetry Is …
Authors: Lewis J. Patrick
Published: March 2024

J. Patrick Lewis makes a creative run at defining the elusive genre of poetry, capturing the diverse meanings and emotions each reader draws from its words and internalizes as his or her own.
Post-Scripts: Teaching Reading in the Aftermath of Prescriptive Curriculum Policies
Authors: Maniates Helen , Mahiri Jabari
Published: March 2024

NCBL and Reading First are negotiated in implementing beginning reading instruction. The article describes and analyzes how two critical conditions for creating opportunity—access to qualified teachers and rigorous academic curriculum—are met by examining the enactment and adaptation of a prescriptive core reading program disproportionately targeted at “low-performing” schools. Although prescriptive curricula attempt to ensure achievement, classroom implementation is mediated by teachers exercising professional prerogative. The quality of these mediations is determined by a teacher’s expertise in negotiating the tensions between fidelity of implementation and adaptation to local context. Through extensive classroom observations and teacher interviews, this case study illuminates fundamental issues of teacher quality as they are realized by an experienced teacher.
To Follow, Reject, or Flip the Script: Managing Instructional Tension in an Era of High-Stakes Accountability [FREE ACCESS]
Authors: Stillman Jamy , Anderson Lauren
Published: March 2024

Considerable research indicates that high-stakes accountability policies have the capacity to influence language arts instruction, particularly in urban, high-needs schools where pressure to increase test scores tends to be most acute. This article utilizes Cultural Historical Activity Theory to critically examine the constraints and affordances of situating student teaching in such settings and explores how teacher educators might re-mediate preservice teachers’ learning about literacy instruction accordingly. Specifically, the article examines in depth one student teacher’s account of her own attempts to supplement a mandated reading program in an urban second-grade classroom and then reimagines how her practice might have looked had she been supported explicitly to manage tensions between accountability demands and robust literacy goals. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of the implications for teacher education practice in today’s policy context.
Finding the Heartbeat: Applying Donald Graves’s Approaches and Theories
Authors: Koshewa Allen
Published: March 2024

Allen Koshewa writes about the impact that Donald Graves’s work has on his teaching, thinking, and learning. He offers specific ideas for how he implemented Graves’s ideas into his writing curriculum.
Professional Book Reviews: Building Knowledge for Life
Authors: Laman Tasha Tropp , Long Susi , López-Robertson Julia , Kaufman Douglas , Colwell Ryan
Published: March 2024

This column features books that reflect strong convictions about teachers’ and teacher educators’ “nonnegotiable and moral imperative and mandatory professional responsibility” (Gay, 2010, p. 250) to “act now, without a moment’s hesitation” (p. 247) to transform classrooms and teacher education programs so that no child is lost in the so-called achievement gap. The works reviewed offer possibilities for building academically rigorous classrooms that honor and support children as they build on their funds of knowledge within the very real confines and constraints that so many educators experience on a regular basis. Included in this issue are: Change Is Gonna Come: Transforming Literacy Education for African American Students by Patricia A. Edwards, Gwendolyn Thompson McMillon, and Jennifer D. Turner; Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice by Geneva Gay; Latino Children Learning English: Steps in the Journey by Guadalupe Valdés, Sarah Capitelli, & Laura Alvarez; Teaching with Vision: Culturally Responsive Teaching in Standards-Based Classrooms edited by Christine E. Sleeter and Catherine Cornbleth; and Bedtime Stories and Book Reports: Connecting Parent Involvement and Parent Literacy, edited by Catherine Compton-Lilly and Stuart Greene. Additionally, Douglas Kaufman and Ryan Colwell review a number of seminal texts by Donald Graves, including: Writing: Teachers and Children at Work, A Fresh Look at Writing, Bringing Life into Learning: Creating a Lasting Literacy, and How to Catch a Shark: And Other Stories about Teaching and Learning.
Conversation Currents: The Casualties of Policy on Early Literacy Development
Authors: Allington Richard , Pearson P. David
Published: March 2024

In this column and in the podcast, Allington and Pearson name the casualties of policies, such as Reading First and No Child Left Behind. The impact is reduced time spent actually reading for meaning, the paucity of rich, meaningful discussions about literature between teachers and students, and an overemphasis on fidelity. Additionally, they discuss how DIBELS has woven itself into the fabric of early literacy policies and pedagogy and how teachers use DIBELS to monitor progress without evidence to demonstrate its effectiveness on developing readers.
Writing for the Big Screen: Literacy Experiences in a Moviemaking Project [FREE ACCESS]
Authors: Bedard Carol , Fuhrken Charles
Published: March 2024

An integrated language arts and technology program engaged students in reading and writing activities that funded an experience in moviemaking. With video cameras in hand, students, often working collaboratively, developed expanded views of the writing and revision processes as they created movies that mattered to them and found an audience beyond the school walls.
Professional Book Reviews Critique! Design! Engage! Opening New Spaces for Multimodal Experiences
Authors: Clary Deidre , Lachuk Amy Johnson , Corley Andrew M. , Spence Lucy
Published: March 2024

Professional books about digital tools entice us to Critique! Design! and Engage! Deidre Clary, Amy Johnson Lachuk, Andrew M. Corley, and Lucy Spence invite us to read teachingmedialiteracy.com: A Web-Linked Guide to Resources and Activities (Beach, 2007), Artifactual Literacies (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010), and Making Meaning: Constructing Multimodal Perspectives of Language, Literacy, and Learning through Arts-based Early Childhood Education (Educating the Young Child) (Narey, 2009) to discover how we can improve our practice by integrating these exciting tools.
Children’s Literature Reviews 2011 Orbis Pictus Award Winners
Authors: Ford Kim , Kaplan Jeffrey S. , Porter Diana , Chatton Barbara , Kristo Jan , Thompson Deborah , Morris-Wilkey Lisa
Published: March 2024

The 2011 Orbis Pictus Awards celebrate the very best in children's nonfiction literature for this year. Kim Ford, Jeffrey S. Kaplan, Diana Porter, Barbara Chatton, Jan Kristo, Deborah Thompson, and Lisa Morris-Wilkey give us detailed descriptions of the stories worth celebrating.
Learning from Bilingual Family Literacies
Authors: Murillo Luz A.
Published: March 2024

This ethnographic study explores the literacies of bilingual families living in the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.—Mexico border. Murillo argues that immigrant families living on the border play an important role in their children’s literacy development, but that their voices are seldom heard in schools due to powerful and persistent deficit views of Spanish and Spanish-speaking families. To counter these views, Murillo describes the literacy practices that bilingual families engage in on a daily basis, and reports bilingual parents’ views about literacy in Spanish and English. To encourage and guide language arts educators who wish to use bilingual family literacies as resources for teaching and learning, Murillo identifies key themes and instructional strategies that bilingual and monolingual teachers alike can use with bilingual readers and their families.
“Oigan, tengo un cuento”: Crossing la Frontera of Life and Books
Authors: López-Robertson Julia
Published: March 2024

This teacher research study took place in a bilingual second-grade classroom in the southwestern United States. The study investigates the cuentos told during pláticas literarias/literature discussions and explores how five young Latinas used their cuentos to communicate meaning through intertextual connections. These intertextual connections revealed that young children from linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds are indeed capable of drawing on their cultural traditions “in this case storytelling” to make meaning. Their cuentos were used as the building blocks for the pláticas literarias and provided counternarratives to the prevailing deficit view used to measure the academic potential of Latinos.
Research and Policy: Diverse Local Literacies and Standardizing Policies
Authors: Bomer Randy , Maloch Beth
Published: March 2024

The authors challenge educators to speculate on how to address local issues in a world that is increasingly diverse and global. This Research and Policy section emphasizes the seemingly paradoxical importance of both local and global literacy, illuminating the tension between the preservation of local literacy and a global standardization of literacy education. The article also addresses the rapid globalization of literacy due to technologies that expand learners’ horizons beyond their small communities and the increased diversity that stems from a mobilized immigrant population.
Critical Lessons and Playful Literacies: Digital Media in PK—2 Classrooms
Authors: Husbye Nicholas E. , Buchholz Beth , Coggin Linda Skidmore , Powell Christy Wessel , Wohlwend Karen E.
Published: March 2024

Utilizing a New Literacies Studies framework, this article presents critical lessons in film production from a multiple site case study. Examples of children’s classroom experiences demonstrate how filmmaking and play come together in a process of storying’a collaborative and multimodal approach to text composition. Students in both preschool and early elementary contexts expressed an expanded understanding of composing collaboratively through digital means. Students also utilized technology in sophisticated ways and accessed their knowledge of popular culture and film conventions through the process of storying. Storying allowed diverse learners to cultivate their literate identities along a variety of possible developmental avenues. These multiple pathways to literate identity development invite teachers to examine what counts as literacy within the classroom and imagine possibilities for students when oral language and written text are no longer privileged.
Kindergarten Is More Than Ready for the Common Core State Standards
Authors: Kramer-Vida Louisa , Levitt Roberta , Kelly Susan P.
Published: March 2024

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once -a -month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district’s kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the teachers to concentrate student work on kindergarten and beyond-grade-level writing standards. Transitioning from a basal-based, isolated skills worksheet writing program to a meaning-making writing process approach enabled the teachers to use their professional experience and discretion to articulate and operationalize their fundamental beliefs about teaching writing. As the teachers worked through their own struggles with how to teach writing, and as they made some hard methodological decisions, these teachers began to see the writing standards as a flexible framework whose expectations could be exceeded by their general education, special education, and English Language Learner kindergarten population.
It Sounds More Like a Gangbanger: Using Collaborative Translation to Understand Literary Concepts
Authors: Puzio Kelly , Keyes Christopher S. , Jiménez Robert T.
Published: March 2024

The authors present and discuss an instructional strategy—collaborative translation—that builds upon the cultural and linguistic strengths that many bilingual and emerging bilingual students bring to school. Collaborative translation involves six steps: choosing appropriate texts, connecting students to texts, independent reading, sharing the main idea, requesting a translation, and sharing/critiquing those translations. We discuss and explore aspects of collaborative translation to help language arts teachers enact this instructional strategy in the classroom. We view collaborative translation as an important way for teachers to simultaneously teach literacy concepts and support the development of bilingual students.—
Professional Book Reviews: Transformative Texts
Authors: Byrd Angela , DeFord Diane , Davis Brennan , Goodman Janie , Jewett Pamela C. , Johnson Lamar , Long Susi , Oglan Victoria , Rodriquez Sanjuana , Stephens Diane
Published: March 2024

The six books brought together in this column provide us with ways to critically consider and re-evaluate our beliefs about inequities in education, e.g., the education of bilingual, bicultural children, and African American children, the tangible challenges associated with urban education, the re-evaluation of reading and writing workshops, and the responsibility of teacher education programs to meet the needs of teachers and schools in today’s educational climate. The texts reviewed in this column go beyond critique to provide the reader with hope. While helping us broaden and deepen our understanding about language, literacy, race, and the education of teachers, they also describe ideas teachers can experiment with and detail the very real and positive impact these ideas can have upon our practices and out students’ learning.—
Children’s Literature Reviews: 2015 Notable Poetry Books
Authors: Day Deanna , McNair Jonda C. , Möller Karla J. , Zapata Angie
Published: March 2024

This children's literature review column presents notable poetry books published in 2015.
Young People’s Everyday Literacies: The Language Features of Instant Messaging1
Authors: Haas Christina , Takayoshi Pamela , Carr Brandon , Hudson Kimberley , Pollock Ross
Published: March 2024

In this article, we examine writing in the context of new communication technologies as a kindof everyday literacy. Using an inductive approach developed from grounded theory, we analyzeda 32,000-word corpus of college students’ Instant Messaging (IM) exchanges. Through our analysis of this corpus, we identify a fifteen-item taxonomy of IM language features and frequency patterns which provide a detailed, data-rich picture of writers working within the technological and situational constraints of IM contexts to creatively inscribe into their written conversations important paralinguistic information. We argue that the written features of IM function paralinguistically to provide readers with cues as to how the writing is to be understood. By writing into the language paralinguistic cues, the participants in our study work to clarify, or more precisely disambiguate, meaning. Through a discussion of four of these features—eye dialect, slang, emoticons, and meta-markings—we suggest how the paralinguistic is inscribed in IM’s language features.
Subjectivity, Intentionality, and Manufactured Moves: Teachers’ Perceptions of Voice in the Evaluation of Secondary Students’ Writing
Authors: Jeffery Jill V.
Published: March 2024

Composition theorists concerned with students’ academic writing ability have long questioned the application of voice as a standard for writing competence, and second language compositionists have suggested that English language learners may be disadvantaged by the practice of emphasizing voice in the evaluation of student writing. Despite these criticisms, however, voice continues to frequently appear as a goal in guidelines for teaching writing and on high-stakes writing assessment rubrics in the United States. Given the apparent lack of alignment between theory and practice regarding its use, more empirical research is needed to understand how teachers apply voice as a criterion in the evaluation of student writing. Researchers have used sociocultural and functionalist frameworks to analyze voice-related discursive patterns, yet we do not know how readers evaluate written texts for voice. To address this gap in research the present study asked: 1) What language features do secondary English teachers associate with voice in secondary students’ writing and how do they explain their associations? 2) How do such identified features vary across genres as well as among readers? Nineteen teachers were interviewed using a think-aloud protocol designed to illuminate their perceptions of voice in narrative and expository samples of secondary students’ writing. Results from an inductive analysis of interview transcripts suggest that participating teachers associated voice with appraisal features, such as amplified expressions of affect and judgment, that are characteristic of literary genres.
Editors’ Introduction: 100 Years of Research
Authors: Dressman Mark , McCarthey Sarah , Prior Paul
Published: March 2024

This issue coincides with the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, whose theme, “Reading the Past, Writing the Future,” celebrates NCTE’s 100th anniversary as the Anglophone world’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to the improvement of the teaching of English. The expansion of publications under the NCTE imprint from a single publication, (The) English Journal, beginning in 1912, to twelve peer-reviewed journals today focusing on issues and topics from early childhood to university-level English and from theory and research to policy and practice stands as a testament to NCTE’s longstanding commitment to empirical inquiry. We realized, in other words, that we needed to find a way to celebrate the tradition of research in all of NCTE’s journals published throughout its history.
Reflections on Making the Progressive Vision a Reality: Commentary on “A Journey through Nine Decades of NCTE-Published Research in Elementary Literacy”
Authors: Au Kathryn H.
Published: March 2024

Au comments on Elizabeth Dutro and Kathleen Collins's fascinating and broad-ranging review of perspectives and findings in elementary literacy research, based on an examination of roughly 7,700 titles published in NCTE journals.
“One Story of Many to Be Told”: Following Empirical Studies of College and Adult Writing through 100 Years of NCTE Journals
Authors: Roozen Kevin , Lunsford Karen J.
Published: March 2024

This article reflects on where and how empirical research, focusing particularly on college/adult writing and literate practice, has appeared over the last century in the complete runs of English Journal, College English, College Composition and Communication, Research in the Teaching of English, and Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Recounting our story of the empirical scholarship published in NCTE’s journals, we first appraise what has been meant by empirical research over the century and clarify how we define it for this article. We then frame that definition by considering how alternative discourse has regularly offered a significant counterpoint to that research. We next turn to the central theme of our reflections, the expanding scene of writing that has developed across the century. Finally, we conclude by considering emergent interests in global scholarship on writing and literate practice.
Examining Instructional Practices, Intellectual Challenge, and Supports for African American Student Writers
Authors: Alston Chandra L.
Published: March 2024

The debate surrounding how best to support African American student writers continues today as the gap between achievement scores persists. This qualitative analysis documents the classroom structures and instructional practices of two English Language Arts teachers working in a predominately African American public middle school, whose students demonstrated growth on the state’s standardized assessment of English Language Arts. Teachers were chosen based on value-added measures of student achievement using test score gain and observational data of their writing instruction. Both teachers explicitly and repeatedly targeted writing skills and strategies during instruction and offered aligned instructional supports. Tasks assigned were intellectually challenging and aligned with the targeted skills and strategies. The data suggest ways to balance both skill and strategy instruction and a process approach to writing instruction, which many argue is supportive of African American students’ writing development.
The Multimodalities of Globalization: Teaching a YouTube Video in an EAP Classroom
Authors: Chun Christian W.
Published: March 2024

This article examines the ways in which a multimodal text—a YouTube video on globalization and business—was mediated in two English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms, and how these mediations shaped the instructor’s and her students’ meaning-making in specific ways. I first explore the complex multimodal discourses involved with this particular video and present my own reading of it. In addressing the instructor’s and students’ engagements with this video, I adopt a mediated discourse analysis approach to examine their classroom discourses that interact with the social circulation of a globalization discourse featured in this multimodal text. A conversation with the participating instructor, who articulates several issues including concerns about the possible politicization of her classroom if certain approaches to texts are used, is also presented and used to examine her subsequent approach with her students in the second class. I discuss the ways in which social actors take up discourses differently, and conclude by exploring the possible classroom practices that can address an increasingly multimodal curriculum.
Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English
Authors: Beach Richard , Bigelow Martha , Brendler Beth , Coffino Kara , Dillon Deborah , Frederick Amy , Gabrielli Michelle , Helman Lori , Ngo Bic , O’Brien David , Rambow Adam , Scharber Cassie , Sethi Jenna , Braaksma Martine , Janssen Tanja , Thein Amanda Haertling , Liang Lauren , Stornaiuolo Amy
Published: March 2024

This November issue of RTE once again contains the Annual Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English, available only here, on the NCTE website.
An Outcomes Assessment Project: Basic Writing and Essay Structure
Authors: Caldwell David , DeRusha Jeanine , Stanton-Hammond Gail , Straight Steve , Sullivan Patrick
Published: March 2024

An outcomes assessment project we conducted at our open admissions institution turned out to be considerably more enjoyable and worthwhile than we anticipated.
Making (and Not Making) Connections with Web 2.0 Technology in the ESL Composition Classroom
Authors: Nakamaru Sarah
Published: March 2024

This essay describes one ESL instructor’s motivation for and experience with implementing a class wiki.
Instructional Note: This Is the Story of How We Begin to Forget: Zen and the Art of Not Teaching Writing
Authors: Davis Kevin
Published: March 2024

The third goal of Zen practice, helping others achieve enlightenment, suggests that we should help students learn about their own composing practices and histories as part of their instruction, but we cannot help others until we learn to help ourselves by reflecting on our own processes and histories, becoming enlightened, and liberating ourselves.
What Works for Me
Authors: Rhodes Michelle , Tambornino Pamela , Bateman Eric , Hayes Amanda , Arnold Jane
Published: March 2024

Legos Build the Way to Successful Process Analysis Writing, Michelle Rhodes (New Voice) Native American Elder Stories Make Descriptive Essays Easier, Pamela Tambornino (New Voice) Teaching Writing Style and Revision, Eric Bateman Dialect and Language Analysis Assignment, Amanda Hayes (New Voice) A Scaffolded Essay Assignment on Poetry, Jane Arnold (New Voice)
A Lifetime of Grammar Teaching
Authors: Ellis Rod
Published: March 2024

This professional autobiography, covering the time from my first teaching job in Spain upto the present, documents my development as a teacher, teacher educator, and researcher,showing how my thinking about teaching has evolved through my deepeningunderstanding of how learners learn the grammar of a second language.
Using Contrastive Rhetoric in the ESL Classroom
Authors: Quinn Janet M.
Published: March 2024

This hands-on article advocates teaching form to ESL students through the use of contrastive rhetoric, demonstrates how students apply L1 and L2 forms, and offers suggestions for the classroom.
Navigating Uncharted Waters: An Accelerated Content-Based English for Academic Purposes Program
Authors: Hernandez Kelly , Thomas Michelle , Schuemann Cynthia
Published: March 2024

This article chronicles an English for Academic Purposes curriculum development experience of a grant-funded project to create an Accelerated Content-Based English curriculum for intermediate- and advanced-level English Language Learners.
Prisoners Teaching ESL: A Learning Community among “Language Partners”
Authors: Olinger Andrea , Bishop Hugh , Cabrales Jose R. , Ginsburg Rebecca , Mapp Joseph L. , Mayorga Orlando , Nava Erick , Núñez Élfego , Rosas Otilio , Slater Andre D. , Sorenson LuAnn , Sosnowski Jim , Torres Agustin
Published: March 2024

A program in which prisoners teach ESL classes, supported by volunteer teacher-trainers, is a learning community with immense and sometimes unforeseen value.
Integrating Critical Thinking into the Assessment of College Writing
Authors: McLaughlin Frost , Moore Miriam
Published: March 2024

The authors describe their attempt to devise a practical way to integrate critical thinking more overtly into the assessment of college writing across the disciplines.
Inquiry into Assessment Strategies: From Kidwatching to Responsive Teaching
Authors: Mills Heidi , O’Keefe Tim
Published: March 2024

Observation (“kidwatching”) is the basis for all the assessment and curriculum development that happen in this third-grade classroom. Professional inquiry into the naturally occurring data from the classroom promotes an expanded view of literacy and gives the teacher a detailed picture of what students are learning.
Kidwatching with a Critical Eye: The Power of Observation and Reflexive Practice
Authors: Kuby Candace R.
Published: March 2024

Kuby explores the difficulty of engaging in “critical whole language” with her young summer school students as they explore an injustice on the playground.
The Trouble with “Struggling Readers”
Authors: Dudley-Marling Curt
Published: March 2024

Curt Dudley-Marling considers the labels we attach to students as metaphors that actually help shape our realities of those students.
“Two Cars Fighting with Guns”: Literary Strengths in Student Writing
Authors: Spence Lucy K.
Published: March 2024

Lucy Spence introduces us to “generous reading” through her story of Vidal, a fifth grader. When we read Vidal’s work with a generous lens, he is positioned not as a limited English speaker or struggling writer, but as someone who can already write well in specific ways.
Honoring the Past; Looking to the Future
Authors: Johnston Jim
Published: March 2024

Middle Section member Johnston traces the history of the Middle Section, from the growing acknowledgment that middle level teachers had specific needs and concerns that had to be addressed to voting for the Section’s establishment to presenting at the NCTE Annual Convention with a student who had once considered himself to be a non-reader. He urges readers to get involved and to reap the benefits’ for them, for their students, and for the Section’ of exchanging ideas, experiences, and dreams.
Renewing Two Seminal Literacy Pactices: I-Charts and I-Search Papers
Authors: Assaf Lori Czop , Ash Gwynne Ellen , Saunders Jane , Johnson Joël
Published: March 2024

In this article, the authors describe how Jenae, a seventh-grade English language arts teacher, modified I-Charts (Hoffman, 1992; Randall, 1996) and I-Search papers (Macrorie, 1988) to support the needs of her adolescent English Language Learners (ELLs). They highlight how she improved upon two timeless instructional practices by integrating technology and scaffolding the students into the research process. They include multiple examples for middle grade teachers to use with their students and highlight key components to make these two seminal literacy practices worthy of continued use in the future.
Grading Written Work: An Integral Part of Writing Workshop Practice
Authors: Robbins Kristen
Published: March 2024

This article chronicles how the process of reviewing and grading student written work became an integral part of a middle school teacher’s writing workshop practice. In addition to discussing how reading student work can bring educators back to the heart of the profession (including the belief that spending time with drafts can reap more rewards than concentrating on final products), she explains her belief that it is central to quality teaching, lesson planning, and student growth.
Fostering Meaningful Middle School Literacy Learning: Investigating Beliefs and Practices [FREE ACCESS]
Authors: Brock Cynthia H. , Boyd Fenice B.
Published: March 2024

This article takes us inside two urban middle school classrooms where the majority of students speak African American English. In addition to exploring the nature of literacy instruction inside Mrs. Baird’s and Ms. Lawson’s classrooms, we examine both teachers’ underlying beliefs with respect to language, literacy, and learning. This inquiry serves as a foundation for explaining why one teacher’s instructional practices are far more effective than the instructional practices of her fellow teacher.
Student Perspectives on Quality Teaching: Words and Images
Authors: Bell Athene , Ewaida Marriam , Lynch Megan R. , Zenkov Kristien
Published: March 2024

This article reports on the findings of a photography and literacy project (“Through Students’ Eyes”) the authors conducted with middle level English language learners and alternative high school youth from a mid-Atlantic (US) ex-urban area. In order to bridge middle and high school settings, the authors used multimodal and photo elicitation methods to allow young adults to document and describe their relationships to school, thus helping to uncover youths’ perceptions of “quality” literacy pedagogies. They learned that visually based practices support young adolescents’ literacy engagement, engage diverse students in core language arts practices, and help youth persist through middle school, high school, and beyond.
Reading Intervention in the Middle Grades
Authors: Allington Richard L.
Published: March 2024

At the minimum, one of every four middle school students will struggle to cope with the grade-level textbooks they are typically assigned to read. Few reading programs used in middle schools have any research evidence that they actually improve student reading proficiencies. Only three programs had even modest evidence of a positive effect, and none of these three targeted decoding proficiencies as the primary problem. There seems to be no reliable research evidence available for over 100 commonly used commercial reading programs. In lieu of using a commercial reading program, Allington offers five research-based principles for providing effective middle school reading instruction, both across the school day and during intervention sessions.
Reading and Talking about Books: A Critical Foundation for Intervention [FREE ACCESS]
Authors: Wozniak Cheryl L.
Published: March 2024

Reluctant and struggling readers, many of whom are boys, are placed in reading intervention classes; however, often the environmental conditions of these intervention classrooms are not conducive for fostering a student’s love for reading. This article describes Cambourne’s optimal conditions for literacy learning and the results from implementing a 6-week reading intervention built upon these conditions. The classroom intervention consisted of teacher book talks, interactive read-alouds, independent reading with unrestricted choice of books, and partner talk. Three of the six sets of book talks and read-alouds were in genres or text formats of high interest to reluctant boy readers: graphica, information and sports, and scary/horror/mystery. Survey and interview data from students and teachers suggest that giving students access to books of high interest, unrestricted choice of texts, and time in school to read and talk about books can improve students’ reading attitude, reading self-efficacy, and amount of reading. The teachers’ reading beliefs and practices also changed. After the study, both teachers planned to implement the instructional strategies they learned from the study.
Collaborative Strategic Reading: Fostering Success for All
Authors: Annamma Subini , Eppolito Amy , Klingner Janette , Boele Amy , Boardman Alison , Stillman-Spisak Stephanie J.
Published: March 2024

The authors interviewed 17 middle school reading and language arts teachers as part of a larger study on an evidence-based intervention called Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR). CSR is a multi-component reading instructional model combined with cooperative grouping and peer discussion. We show from the teacher interviews that CSR has benefits for all middle school students, especially those historically at risk for school failure, including English Language Learners, struggling learners, and students designated with a special education label. The teachers’ perceived benefits for these students included additional oral language exposure for ELLs through interaction with peers, access to different levels of text for students in special education, and explicit strategy instruction for struggling learners. The teachers also commented on CSR’s positive impact on their classroom communities: CSR fostered cooperation, built students’ confidence and self-esteem, and facilitated increased student engagement.
Using a Network of Strategies Rubric to Become a Self-Regulated Learner
Authors: Schmitt Maribeth Cassidy
Published: March 2024

Clay’s work regarding how learners develop independent, strategic control over the process of constructing meaning from written texts indicates that all learners need a flexible repertoire of strategies as a network for: (a) problem solving or working on text on the run, (b) self-monitoring of the message for clarity and coherence, and (c) self-correcting or revising when problems occur (Clay, 1991, 2001). Those who struggle with learning in the middle grades may require explicit interventions; their teachers can help them learn to use the network of strategies rubric described in this article as a guide for being independently responsible for constructing meaning.
Using Literature to Teach Inference across the Curriculum
Authors: Bintz William P. , Moran Petra Pienkosky , Berndt Rochelle , Ritz Elizabeth , Skilton Julie A. , Bircher Lisa S.
Published: March 2024

Today, increasing numbers of teachers at all grade levels are recognizing that inference is a powerful way of thinking and an important 21st century skill for all students to use and develop across the curriculum. Increasing numbers of teachers are also recognizing that developing and implementing integrative curriculum is important at all grade levels, especially in middle grades education. This article shares high-quality literature and instructional strategies to teach inference across the curriculum in middle grades education. It provides background on inference and then shares literature and strategies to teach inference in science, social studies, mathematics, and language arts. It ends with some thoughts about the teaching and learning of inference.
Mentor Texts and Funds of Knowledge: Situating Writing within Our Students’ Worlds
Authors: Newman Beatrice Mendez
Published: March 2024

The funds of knowledge concept serves as scaffolding for encouraging students to draw on background experiences and home language to generate authentic writing. This article describes and illustrates several classroom strategies, including 1) using culturally relevant mentor texts; 2) applying Nancie Atwell’s writing territories concept; 3) adapting Harry Noden’s Image Grammar; and 4) introducing cubing as a discovery strategy.
Language and Learning under the Microscope
Authors: Davis Sarah
Published: March 2024

In any content area, teachers have opportunities to help their
students develop more robust vocabularies; however, many content area teachers know relatively little about effective instructional practices for vocabulary development (Fisher & Frey, 2008). This article offers content area teachers three examples of rich opportunities for word work: prime the descriptive pump, go beyond the words in bold, and make connections with connectors. The article describes how content area teachers can use these opportunities to further their content teaching, and also how they can use research–based strategies to support word acquisition in each case.
“Why Are There So Many Words in Math?”: Planning for Content–Area Vocabulary Instruction
Authors: Smith Antony T. , Angott Robin L.
Published: March 2024

Vocabulary presents a challenge to students in content area classes, making it difficult to understand new concepts and make connections to background knowledge. This article describes the 5 Cs, a tool developed to help content area teachers consider vocabulary as part of lesson planning. By selecting a set of key words for instruction, teachers can help students focus on conceptual understanding and connect new ideas to existing knowledge.
Background Knowledge and the Magazine Reading Students Choose
Authors: Gabriel Rachael , Allington Richard , Billen Monica
Published: March 2024

Can students read difficult but self-selected texts–and if so, how? In this article we describe what we learned about middle school students’ use of background knowledge and specific vocabulary from interviews and surveys in our longitudinal study of magazine reading habits. Then we discuss the implications of these findings for structuring independent reading opportunities and facilitating connections between students’ in– and out–of–school literacies.
News and Notes from the Middle Level Section: Building a Community of Readers
Authors: Kajder Sara
Published: March 2024

Kajder describes the journey she took with her students to build a community of readers, sometimes using technology that was new to her as much as it was to some of her students. Through listening to her students, keeping up with professional literature and meetings, and analyzing what it was that made reading fun to begin with, Kajder and her students rediscovered the fun, the excitement, and the learning that all kinds of texts can incite.
Improving Groups Using the Lens of the Overachiever
Authors: Nelson Trudi J.
Published: March 2024

The potential benefits of collaboration often become overwhelmed with complaints of freeloaders students who do not do their share of the work in the group but get the same grade. However, a survey of gifted students shows that they are likely to take on the bulk of the group’s work, a situation that may not encourage group members to get involved. Guided by the surveys and teacher interviews, classroom teachers organizing group work are encouraged to consider: 1) the size and structure of the assignment given, 2) the assessment of the group members in content, product, and process, and 3) the training of students to work well together.
Absorption properties of lipid-based substances by non-invasive fast mid-infrared imaging
Authors: Kümmel Tim , Teumer Tobias , Dörnhofer Patrick , Manser Steffen , Heinrich Sascha , Hien Andreas , Marx Jürgen , Methner Frank-Jürgen , Rädle Matthias , Wängler Björn
Published: March 2024

In this study, we present a new optical non-contact measurement method, which is based on general characteristics of a flying-spot scanner. The focus is on the mapping of lipid-based substances, especially the scanning of fingerprints. The assessing of human fingerprints is conducted by using two lasers emitting in different selected wavelengths. Images generated by using these wavelengths comprise absorption information of the examined sample. By using image-processing and conversion algorithms, the lipid-based substances in the detected image section could not only be captured, but also displayed three-dimensionally. The setup of the optical scanning method presented here utilizes the mid infrared region, especially the wavelength range between 3 μm up to 4 μm. It was optimized in order to scan an area up to 50 cm2, with a spatial resolution of 20 μm and a data rate of 300 kS/s. Our data shows that mapping of human fingerprints can be performed by using the described method. Furthermore, a processing of the data set results in topographical information.
Os princípios de aprendizagem dos bons videogames, de James Paul Gee, e suas aproximações com a teoria sociológica do jogo, de Roger Caillois
Authors: Monteiro Elane Cristina Pinheiro , Furtado Renan Santos , Santos Marcio Antonio Raiol dos
Published: March 2024

Este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir as aproximações entre os princípios da aprendizagem presentes nos bons videogames, abordados por Gee, e a teoria sociológica do jogo elaborada por Caillois, projetando as contribuições desse debate para pensarmos sobre o processo de ensino e aprendizagem das práticas corporais na Educação Física escolar. A partir do horizonte de um ensaio teórico com intenções reflexivas, verificamos que a perspectiva de Gee corrobora a de Caillois, na medida em que reconhece as amplas possibilidades de fruição que o jogo apresenta. Cabe destacar que os princípios dos bons videogames elencados por Gee não somente incorporam a ideia de que, no jogo, podemos buscar competir, testar a nossa sorte, representar algo ou obter a sensação da vertigem, mas também pensam essas características do jogo em conexão com processos de desenvolvimento de potencialidades humanas, que, na educação, ocorre por via de aprendizagens. A nosso ver, essas amplas contribuições teóricas oriundas de estudos empíricos podem também ajudar a avançar o ensino das práticas corporais na Educação Física escolar contemporânea.
A hepatikus encephalopathia jelentősége a gyakorlatban
Authors: Folhoffer Anikó , Szalay Ferenc
Published: March 2024

A hepatikus encephalopathia a máj elégtelen működéséhez és/vagy a portalis keringés zavarához társuló, pszichés, neurológiai, neuromuscularis zavarokkal járó tünetegyüttes, az agyat érintő más betegség nélkül. Lehet reverzibilis, de súlyos esetben a beteg halálához vezethet. Heveny és idült májbetegséghez társulhat. Nagy teher a beteg és a társadalom számára. Kialakulásában endogén és exogén faktoroknak lehet szerepe. A hepatikus encephalopathia miatt kórházba kerülő betegek túlélése egy év múlva 42%, 3 év múltán már csak 23%. A gyakorlat szempontjából fontos, hogy a kezdeti stádiumok észrevétlenek, csak elektrofiziológiai, pszichometriai vizsgálattal mutathatók ki, holott a reflexidőt, az intellektuális működéseket, a helyzetfelismerést, a magatartást lényegesen befolyásolják. Mindez az országúti közlekedésben kockázati tényezőt jelent. A patomechanizmus, az osztályozás, a diagnózis, a kezelés lehetőségeinek összefoglalását követően rövid történelmi áttekintés adnak a szerzők az ammónia és a hepatikus encephalopathia kapcsolatáról.
Impact of Boko Haram Insurgency on Educational Infrastructure Development in Potiskum Local Government Area, Yobe State, Nigeria: A Perception Study
Authors:   Department of Public Administration and Management, Kampala International University, Uganda, Mulegi Tom , Bappi Usman ,   Department of Public Administration, Gombe State University, Gombe, Nigeria, Banga Mohammed ,   3Department of Public Administration, College of Administrative, Management and Technology (CAMTECH) Potiskum, Yobe State, Nigeria, Joyce Shakiro Iluku ,   Department of Public Administration and Management, Kampala International University, Uganda
Published: March 2024

Security threat is a phenomenon that is currently drawing the attention of everybody across the globe. However, the activities of Boko Haram insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria in recent time have significantly affected educational activities in the region. This paper focused on the Perception of secondary school teachers on the impact of Boko Haram insurgency on Government Senior Secondary School Infrastructure development in local Government in Potiskum, Yobe State. The study adopted survey research design. The population of the study comprised all teachers and school administrators in Government Senior Secondary Schools in Potiskum which amounted to 729. Samples of 248 respondents were randomly selected from the population. Questionnaire designed along a Likert scale was used for data collection. The data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics, the descriptive statistics used include; mean, standard deviation and percentage, while graphs and charts were used to present the data. The Inferential statistics used was Paired-tTest. The findings of the study revealed that, Boko Haram insurgency has negatively affected the school infrastructure in Government Senior Secondary Schools in Potiskum. Besides, the hypotheses tested at 5% were significant (sig-v. >P = 0.05). The study thereby concluded that, infrastructures, in Government Senior Secondary Schools in Potiskum have been affected by activities of Boko Haram. Finally, the study recommended that, government should make provision for infrastructures destroyed by Boko Haram insurgency. Keywords: Boko Haram, Security threat, Perception, insurgency, infrastructure