bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Conversation Currents: Writing: A Mode of Thinking
Authors: Fu Danling , Hansen Jane
Published: March 2024

Scholars Danling Fu and Jane Hansen discuss the writing process and the significance of writing across content areas. They examine the relationships between the push for standards, the writing process, reading text, and thinking. They also offer advice for making writing more manageable for emerging writers.
Teacher Research as a Practical Tool for Learning to Teach
Authors: Lysaker Judith , Thompson Becky
Published: March 2024

Teacher research has a long, rich history. However, teacher research is primarily limited to practicing teachers and those pursuing graduate education. It is only beginning to be used as means of understanding the instructional needs of English Learners. In this article, a preservice teacher and her university instructor describe the role of inquiry in an early literacy course. They tell the story of a semester-long teacher-research project in which the preservice teacher learns about the role of inquiry and native language in responding to the instructional needs of a young English Learner. It is a story in which thinking about teaching and learning as inquiry emerges as a powerful guide in finding one’s way as a preservice teacher on unfamiliar ground, one in which the practice of teacher research becomes a practical tool for seeing, valuing, and responding to difference.
Professional Book Reviews: Response to Intervention
Authors: Stephens Diane
Published: March 2024

There are often vague calls for teachers to become “change agents.” It is frequently unclear, however, just what it is that teachers reasonably can do on a daily basis to make a difference. The federal initiative Response to Intervention (RTI) offers one possibility: classroom teachers can take responsibility for students who are not yet experiencing success as readers and “intervene” to change that pattern. The four books reviewed by Diane Stephens in this column offer information that can help teachers provide such instruction and, in so doing, function as “change agents”—as teachers who can change the trajectory of a child as a reader.
Conversation Currents: Create Partnerships, Not Programs
Authors: Allen JoBeth , Kinloch Valerie
Published: March 2024

This Conversation Currents features JoBeth Allen and Valerie Kinloch discussing their thoughts and experiences working with families and communities. Allen bases her comments on the belief that programs have to be adaptable to many different constituencies and demographics, and so must be recreated every year with every teacher and every new group of students and their families. Kinloch agrees that building relationships leads to thinking about “how we create partnerships with different types of people that will last across long periods of time.” Together they discuss how these partnerships can support literacy and engagement.
The Hunger Games: Literature, Literacy, and Online Affinity Spaces
Authors: Curwood Jen Scott
Published: March 2024

This article examines adolescent literacy practices related to The Hunger Games, a young adult novel and the first of a trilogy. By focusing on the interaction of social identities, discourses, and media paratexts within an online affinity space, this ethnographic study offers insight into how young adults engage with contemporary literature. Moreover, it contributes to our understanding of how they use technology as an integral part of social networking and meaning making. The article ends with recommendations related to the teaching of young adult literature and the integration of digital tools and online spaces into the curriculum.
Research and Policy: Teaching about and with Informational Texts: What Does Research Teach Us?
Authors: Maloch Beth , Bomer Randy
Published: March 2024

This column explores the research that investigates teaching children with informational texts, which is a growing concern and focus in Common Core State Standards (CCSS.) The authors highlight empirical data that study the use of informational texts with young learners. The article is foregrounded in four key findings: make the texts available and accessible, create authentic opportunities for engagement, engage students through interactive read-alouds, and employ explicit instruction.
Research and Policy: Grassroots Inquiry: Reconsidering the Location of Innovation
Authors: Ghiso María Paula , Campano Gerald , Simon Rob
Published: March 2024

This column explores a grassroots approach to educational innovation as an alternative to the dominant entrepreneurial model, whereby market solutions are thought to be the best mechanism to spur change. We contend that there is a need to delink automatic connections between innovation and entrepreneurship and to reimagine the location and nature of innovation. Drawing on postcolonial theory and various examples of grassroots communities of inquiry, we highlight how practitioners, parents, and students develop creative ways to address issues relevant to their immediate contexts of teaching and learning. Our model of grassroots innovation espouses cooperation, rather than merely competition, and involves inquiry processes that value a diversity of perspectives, especially from those most directly impacted by educational policies and practices.
Children’s Literature Reviews: 2013 Orbis Pictus Award Winners
Authors: Wilson Fran , Giorgis Cyndi , Herbeck Joyce , Morris-Wilkey Lisa , Parsons Sue , Sullivan Ed , Thompson Deborah
Published: March 2024

This column presents the 2013 Orbis Pictus Award winners. The Orbis Pictus Award recognizes outstanding nonfiction books published for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. This award, established by the Elementary Section of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1989, is the first book award to honor nonfiction books written especially for children.
Conversation Currents: Digital Storyworlds: Transmedia Literature in the ELA Classroom
Authors: Pullinger Kate , Havard Amanda , Hundley Melanie
Published: March 2024

As stories evolve into new, varied, and experimental formats in our current digital age, teachers, authors, storytellers, and readers are presented with myriad new conversations about the creation, discussion, and dissemination of literature. What does it mean to consume a story in the digital age? What do the terms we use to describe them—digital fiction, story worlds, transmedia, interactive fiction—really mean? In this conversation, author-educator-storytellers Kate Pullinger (Inanimate Alice) and Amanda Havard (The Survivors, Immersedition™), and language arts professor Melanie Hundley of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University discuss with LA the quintessential question of current literacies: As stories appear in varied digital formats, how will both new forms and content shape students’ discussions of narrative, their understanding of story, and their lives as readers?
Literacy Reform and Common Core State Standards: Recycling the Autonomous Model
Authors: Botzakis Stergios , Burns Leslie David , Hall Leigh A.
Published: March 2024

The Common Core State Standards (2009) currently being adopted by 46 states in the US are the latest in a string of education policy decisions predicated on the autonomous model of literacy (Street, 1984). As such, they focus upon learning outcomes and materials, with little regard for the need to adapting learning to students’ contexts. This article details an account of how the autonomous model attained its current state of prominence, starting with the National Reading Panel’s (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) report that defined effective literacy learning, which was a major driving force behind the No Child Left Behind legislation. This article also describes what the model neglects in terms of 21st century literacy and offers suggestions for breaking the cycle of ill-informed, demonstrably ineffective policy decisions facilitated by such an autonomous model.
Translanguaging Tareas: Emergent Bilingual Youth as Language Brokers for Homework in Immigrant Families
Authors: Alvarez Steven
Published: March 2024

This article reports from five years of qualitative research into the languages and literacies of language brokers during tutoring sessions between emergent bilingual elementary school students, their mothers, and homework mentors at an after-school program in New York City. Alvarez’s research explores the translanguaging practices (García, 2009; 2012) of participant youth language brokers who simultaneously translated and interpreted homework with adults. He examines translanguaging events during homework tutoring, documenting how practices such as language brokering develop tactical repertoires for youths communicating language arts assignments between their mothers, mentors, and peers. Emergent bilingual youth and their homework mentors at the after-school program involved Spanish-dominant mothers in English language activities, permitting mothers’ increased collaboration in their children’s homework assignments. Together, families and mentors worked to pool their bilingual resources in the practices of doing monolingualized homework multilingually and with meaningful involvement.
Children’s Literature Reviews: A Splash of Books for Reading and Sharing with Students in Grades K–8
Authors: McNair Jonda C. , Day Deanna , Möller Karla J. , Zapata Angie
Published: March 2024

This column features notable children’s books spanning a number of genres and subgenres (e.g., wordless books, graphic novels). There are varied topics addressed including geographical discoveries, Horace Pippin, Elizabeth Blackwell, friendship, and even bubble gum.
Professional Book Reviews: Building on Children’s Worlds: Shifting Instructional Focus
Authors: Donnelly Amy , Ellerbe Marcie , Keel Melanie , Myers Michele , Criss Kelli
Published: March 2024

This series of book reviews spotlights teaching as an act of social justice and, thus, as demanding instruction and curricula that is socioculturally responsive to the knowledge and experiences children bring to the classroom. A bedrock of research verifies a universal reality: Children bring rich literacy experiences and cultures to school. Unfortunately, children’s diverse literacies may not currently inform instruction and curricula to the degree it should, despite long-standing research. Insights from Mexican American students, African American families, and parents, coupled with issues surrounding mandated curricula and new multicultural literature provide compelling perspectives to better inform ways classrooms and schools operate. Our nation is diverse and the books reviewed sound a clarion call for the absolute necessity of responsive pedagogy to promote equity and quality curriculum for all.
Becoming Text Analysts: Unpacking Purpose and Perspective
Authors: Leland Christine H. , Bruzas Stevie R.
Published: March 2024

Many students believe that textbooks are objective and read them uncritically. When they find conflicting accounts, they have few strategies for figuring out what to believe. In this study, a fourth-grade teacher invited her students to become text analysts as they examined divergent texts about two social studies topics: the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the so-called new world and the internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II. Descriptions of these topics in textbooks and in children’s literature were compared and contrasted in terms of whose perspectives they privileged and/or neglected and what the authors wanted readers to believe. Students showed growth in their ability to understand and evaluate authors’ purposes and perspectives.
Composing the Career Portfolio and the Classed Subject
Authors: Collin Ross
Published: March 2024

In this article, I consider how subjectivities are composed and assessed within the boundaries of a career-focused portfolio program. First, by examining how portfolio composition is taught in senior English courses, I identify the qualities of the subject position students are called to occupy. Next, I present discourse analyses of portfolio materials composed by two students of different class backgrounds. More specifically, I explore how these students draw upon and adapt different resources to promote themselves as different kinds of subjects-in-worlds. As these disparate performances are assessed according to their coherence with certain class values, I argue, the program rates certain lives more favorably than others.
Placement of Students into First-Year Writing Courses
Authors: Elliot Norbert , Deess Perry , Rudniy Alex , Joshi Kamal
Published: March 2024

The purpose of the present study is to examine concurrent and predictive evidence used in the validation of ACCUPLACER, a purchased test used to place first-year students into writing courses at an urban, public research university devoted to science and technology education. Concurrent evidence was determined by correlations between ACCUPLACER scores and scores on two other tests designed to measure writing ability: the New Jersey Basic Skills Placement Test and the SAT Writing Section. Predictive evidence was determined by coefficients of determination between ACCUPLACER scores and end-of-semester performance measures. A longitudinal study was also conducted to investigate the grade history of students placed into first-year writing by established and new methods. When analyzed in terms of gender and ethnicity impact, ACCUPLACER failed to achieve statistically significant prediction rates for student performance. The study reveals some limits of placement testing and the problems related to it.
Integrated Literacies in a Rural Kenyan Girls’ Secondary School Journalism Club
Authors: Kendrick Maureen , Early Margaret , Chemjor Walter
Published: March 2024

Our purpose in this paper is to foreground contextual issues in studies of situated writing practices. During a year-long case study in a rural Kenyan secondary school, we applied a number of ethnographic techniques to document how 32 girls (aged 14-18 years) used local cultural and digital resources (i.e., donated digital cameras, voice recorders, and laptops with connectivity)within the context of their after-school journalism club. We take inspiration broadly from the concept of liminal spaces, which we bring together with notions of placed resources, New Literacy Studies (NLS), multiliteracies, multimodality, and identity work. We argue that the learning space of the journalism club, including its mediating digital tools, affords identities of empowerment to students’ writing and experimentation. On close examination of the transitional space of the journalism club, we see the foundational practices of situated rehearsal, appropriation, and performance of the roles and linguistic repertoires that the learners associated with competent journalists. We conclude that the club as a learning space, including its “props” and digital resources, fostered new degrees of freedom, community, equality, and creativity. We are left with questions about the characteristics of transitional learning spaces and how these might serve as fertile ground for growing competent writers in a range of educational contexts.
World Englishes in the Mainstream Composition Course: Undergraduate Students Respond to WE Writing
Authors: Wetzl Ana Maria
Published: March 2024

Even as globalization has transformed communication into a multicultural experience, composition programs in American academia continue to promote a prescriptive approach to language(Katz, Scott, & Hadjioannou, 2009; Richardson, 2003), encouraging students to incorrectly assume that “there is only one right way to use written language” (Lovejoy, 2003, p. 92). Thisapproach can foster biased attitudes among our students while leaving them unprepared for interaction with linguistically diverse populations and users of World Englishes (WEs) in particular.Composition courses should prepare students for multicultural communication by increasing their awareness of WEs and developing the skills they need to interact with their WE peers atschool, in the workplace, and in their home communities. This study looks at the impact such an approach can have on American students’ perception of World Englishes, generally, and WEtexts, specifically. Interviews, surveys, and essays were used to explore the language attitudes of American college students before and after they participated in several activities meant to developtheir knowledge of linguistic diversity and to familiarize them with World Englishes. The research provided encouraging signs of a possible correlation between increased knowledge about linguisticdiversity and positive language attitudes.
Instructional Note: Cultivating Writers: Figurative Language in the Developmental Class
Authors: Nelson Alexis
Published: March 2024

Teaching developmental students to use simile and metaphor in their essays improves their writing and helps the teacher become a more dialogic reader; moreover, creating original figurative language kindles the analogical imagination that characterizes the academy.
Feature: A Framework for Rereading in First-Year Composition
Authors: Keller Dan
Published: March 2024

This article offers a pedagogical framework for using rereading as a mechanism for guided, repeated practice with the critical activities of first-year composition.
Feature: Emphasizing “Community” in the Community College Experience: The Value of a Liberal Arts Education
Authors: Almeda Cheryl , Stotz-Ghosh Julie
Published: March 2024

This essay describes the unique advantage community college students have of concentrating their liberal arts studies in the intimate environment of their two-year experience, sharing examples of successful strategies that emphasize and build community in the liberal arts tradition at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
Feature: A Case for Visual Rhetoric in Two-Year College Composition
Authors: Ernster Thomas J.
Published: March 2024

Using visual rhetoric as a mode of instruction in two-year college composition can have a positive and powerful impact on teaching and learning.
Readers Write: Bridging the Divide: Dual Enrollment Five Years Later
Authors: McCrimmon Miles
Published: March 2024

The author claims that dual enrollment programs are here to stay and that collaboration and shared equity will allow these programs to continue to improve.
Instructional Note: Using Google Drive to Prepare Students for Workplace Writing and to Encourage Student Responsibility, Collaboration, and Revision
Authors: Cotugno Marianne
Published: March 2024

In this article, I explain how integrating Google Drive into your classroom can help prepare students to participate effectively in workplace writing practices and can promote student responsibility, collaboration, and effective revisions.
Feature: Diggers in the Garden: The Habits of Mind of Creative Writers in Basic Writing Classrooms
Authors: Anderson Kristine Rae , Becker Jeffrey , Cantrell Mary , Reeves Phoebe , Stukenberg Jill
Published: March 2024

Five two-year-college writer-teachers from different states (California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Wisconsin) present ways that creative writers can make particular contributions to the important and meaningful work of teaching basic skills composition, particularly at institutions of access, and particularly at this time when that work is so crucial.
Feature: Deserting the Narrative Line: Teaching the Braided Form
Authors: Sinor Jennifer
Published: March 2024

This essay describes an approach to teaching the braided essay, highlighting the rewards and difficulties.
Reading and Critiquing: An Analysis of Talk about Strong Books for Girls
Authors: Schmidt Renita , Thein Amanda , Whitmore Kathryn F.
Published: March 2024

In exploring what makes strong books for girls, these authors begin by looking at their critical conversations with each other.
What Every Teacher Should Know
Authors: Moore Michael T. , Zancanella Don
Published: March 2024

Two long-time teacher educators write passionately about the political nature of the CCSS with a special focus on close reading and text complexity.
Exemplars and Epitaphs: Defending Young Adult Literature
Authors: Goering Christian Z. , Connors Sean P.
Published: March 2024

The authors explain the value of using young adult literature in the curriculum and argue for its greater use, while expressing concern that the integration of the CCSS may work against that goal.
Finding Voice: Learning about Language and Power
Authors: Christensen Linda
Published: March 2024

Christensen discusses why teachers need to teach students "voice" in its social and political context, to show the intersection of voice and power, to encourage students to ask, "Whose voices get heard? Whose are marginalized?" As Christensen writes, "Once students begin to understand that Standard English is one language among many, we can help them access their multiple voices—the one they use on the basketball court, the one they use in speech and debate, the one they use at the kitchen table, and the ones they use in their writing."
Next Steps in the Journey: Learning to Listen to Student Voices: Teaching with Our Mouths Shut
Authors: Wilhelm Jeffrey D.
Published: March 2024

According to Wilhelm, a teacher’s power lies in learning to work with students, starting with listening. He recommends setting up conditions and mechanisms that help you learn from your students what they are learning, what challenges they are facing, and how best to teach them. Through inquiry, the classroom can become a vital and engaging intellectual community, and the learning that results is often “hard fun.”
Narrative as a Springboard for Expository and Persuasive Writing: James Moffett Revisited
Authors: Radcliffe Barbara J.
Published: March 2024

In middle school, the focus of writing instruction shifts away from narrative writing to more academic writing. In the process, many students become less engaged as they respond to inauthentic prompts; additionally, their writing becomes stilted and formulaic. This article addresses the role narrative writing plays by acting as a springboard to the more privileged modes of exposition and argumentation. Leaning on James Moffett's, "I, You, and It" theory, the author presents the instructional practice of spiraling writing experiences to support the development of middle school writers. Embedded within a unit on teen violence, students' writing is scaffolded as they move through a purposeful progression of informal to formal, personal to impersonal, and lower to higher abstraction.
News and Notes from the Middle Level Section—Student Writing and the Writing Students Do
Authors: Medlock Martha
Published: March 2024

Medlock, Associate Chair of the Middle Level Section Steering Committee, stresses the need for authentic purposes when trying to engage students with writing. For instance, teachers can introduce students to Good Reads or other websites where students can write for their peers; another idea is to partner with other students, possibly a local elementary class, where middle level students can write stories for younger children. Having come to realize that capitalizing on individual interests is a sure path to engagement, she also emphasizes the value of letting students choose their own topics for writing.
Finding Our Way: Eighth Graders Explore Social Networking Sites
Authors: Leland Chris , Ociepka Anne , Kuonen Kate
Published: March 2024

As adolescents spend more and more time engaging in various online activities, teachers are questioning the role that language arts curricula might play in helping them become savvy technology users. In this study, an eighth-grade teacher responded to her students' unauthorized participation on MySpaceâ„¢ by initiating an inquiry into social networking sites (SNSs). This inquiry explored positive and negative aspects of online participation and included two main components: 1) a series of engagements that focused on social networking issues in the news and 2) extended opportunities to engage in online interaction through Think.com, a site open only to teachers and students. Students concluded that participation in social networking provided opportunities for making international connections and for sharing their perspectives without having to compete with others for a chance to speak during oral discussions. The authors concluded that the experience provided opportunities for authentic literacy learning and the development of a more reflexive stance. Students showed evidence of growth in their ability to think critically about how they have used social networking to perpetuate injustices.
Critical Media Literacy: A Pedagogy for New Literacies and Urban Youth
Authors: Choudhury Mohammed , Share Jeff
Published: March 2024

Using new literacies critically can be an excellent pedagogy for motivating and empowering students who feel alienated from their school and society. This article describes how one middle school teacher engaged his inner-city English language learners with critical media literacy as a way of making their learning more meaningful and motivating. The students interviewed and photographed community members during walking fieldtrips in their neighborhood as well as classroom interviews with guest speakers. During their outings, students explored the community using an inquiry-based approach for observing and documenting the assets and the problems around their school. As part of the critical media literacy, students analyzed portrayals in the media of Latinos like themselves and their neighborhood. This created an opportunity for them to compare their findings with the mainstream reporting from the local newspaper. As a summative project, the students created alternative representations of their concerns and findings in which they discussed the assets in their community as well as ideas for solving some of the problems. Not only did the students increase their self-esteem and sense of pride in their community, they also demonstrated substantial academic gains in their English language development.
Not Just Good Science Teaching: Supporting Academic Language Development
Authors: Silva Cecilia , Weinburgh Molly , Smith Kathy Horak
Published: March 2024

In this article, the authors explore ways in which they have worked together in understanding the complexities of academic language within the science classroom and discuss strategies they have used to teach academic language to young adolescent English Language Learners (ELLs) within inquiry-based science lessons.— They discuss strategies they use to explicitly teach linguistic components of academic language and provide examples of ways they support ELLs in understanding how mathematical expression and visual representation support meaning making with the hybrid language of academic science.
Student to Student: Using Picturebooks to Promote Academic Literacy
Authors: Ranck-Buhr Wendy
Published: March 2024

The development of academic literacy requires students to think critically about multiple text types. Picturebooks can be rich and varied resources on which to base well-designed instruction that will facilitate thinking, discussions, connections, and problem solving in multiple content areas. From the Holocaust to ecology to grammar, picturebooks use informative text and outstanding (and meaningful) artwork to grow knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for myriad topics and genres. Don’t be afraid to try it!
CODA: The Question of Teaching Vocabulary: Which Words? In What Ways?
Authors: Wilhelm Jeffrey D.
Published: March 2024

Recognizing the importance of vocabulary for comprehension, Wilhelm asks two key questions: which words do I teach and how should I teach them? Through years of trial and error, Wilhelm has adopted these principles to answer which words: teach important words students will see and use again; words necessary to conceptual understanding; words that serve as gateways to other words and concepts. As for how to teach them, Wilhelm emphasizes teaching in context to increase retention of the word and to support engagement with the subject matter. He elaborates with specifics on instruction and student activities that have proven valuable. He ends with a reminder that teaching and learning vocabulary is essential to academic success for all students, including ELLs, and to the struggle for equality and civil rights.
The Image Becomes the Weapon: New Literacies and Canonical Legacies
Authors: Low David E. , Campano Gerald
Published: March 2024

This article explores how texts not traditionally considered academic (such as comics) and texts often read in schools (such as canonical novels) have porous boundaries and are often informed by the same literary legacies. Drawing on a qualitative practitioner research study, we illustrate how African American naturalism, á la Richard Wright, finds its way into contemporary graphic novels as well as into the multimodal works produced by youth. Through the work of a fifth-grade student in a comics club, we highlight how graphic narratives may be seen as extensions of preexisting literary traditions, which students both inherit and invent.
Tough Teacher Evaluation and Formative Assessment: Oil and Water?
Authors: Popham W. James
Published: March 2024

Although empirical and experiential evidence continues to indicate that the formative-assessment process improves students’ learning, many of today’s teachers are reluctant to employ it. This reluctance stems from their warranted concerns about the increasingly rigorous teacher-evaluation programs that almost every teacher in America will soon be undergoing. Clearly threatened by these federally stimulated teacher-appraisal procedures, many teachers are loath to try anything new—including formative assessment. Yet, because federal guidelines for state-level teacher evaluation programs call for significant reliance on evidence of students’ learning, when teachers employ formative-assessment in their own classrooms, they are more likely to promote the very sort of student growth that will result in positive teacher evaluations. This analysis describes the formative-assessment process, examines the nature of federally spawned teacher evaluation, and suggests how the two can happily coexist.
A Call for Action: Engaging in Purposeful, Real-World Writing
Authors: Assaf Lori Czop , Johnson Joël
Published: March 2024

Knowing that students have little ownership when writing is presented as a school-based exercise, we describe how a seventh-grade English language arts teacher engaged her students in a persuasive writing unit. Understanding the importance of a spiral curriculum (Bruner, 1977) and deep scaffolding (Brown & Broemmel, 2011), we illustrate how using multiple, complex mentor texts, inquiry-based instruction (Ray, 1999), and a variety of writing activities facilitated a deep understanding of persuasive devices and a sense of purpose and audience. Students not only learned how to write persuasively but also came to understand the power of writing in the real world.
The Promise of Remix: An Open Message to Educators
Authors: Shelby-Caffey Crystal V. , Caffey Ronald , Caffey Cameron A. , Caffey Kolbi A.
Published: March 2024

The roles of teacher and learner have been redefined and educators are beginning to tap into the benign yet seemingly unappreciated activities that adolescents engage in outside of school as a means to foster critical thinking as well as to engage them in the new literacies needed for active participation in global citizenry. In this article coauthored with two adolescent sons, the authors consider remixing as they have experienced it in their various roles as parents, educators, artists, and middle school students. An opportunity exists to explore additional avenues regarding the impact of new literacies on teaching and learning. How do the experiences of adolescents, parents, and educators reflect the remixing of roles, strategies, and instruction? What should educators be considering?
Speaking and Listening in a New Key: Discursive Performances in Light of Common Core
Authors: Aquino-Sterling Cristian
Published: March 2024

This article addresses ways in which middle schools teachers can facilitate their students' acquisition of oral language production beyond sentence-level structures. The author provides a definition of discourse and strategies on how to develop discourse practices in middle school classrooms.
Strengthening Argumentative Writing with Speaking and Listening (Socratic) Circles
Authors: Styslinger Mary E. , Overstreet Jessica F.
Published: March 2024

This article shares the results of a classroom inquiry into Socratic Circles and their impact on written argument. Two questions were asked: 1) What is the nature of student talking and listening during Socratic Circles? 2) What are the effects of talking and listening circles on argumentative writing? The article describes the implementation, language, and effects of circles on writing argument. Engaging in Socratic Circles had little effect on students' ability to provide evidence to support claims. However, the exchange of different viewpoints led students to reconsider initial perspectives, consider counter-arguments, and formulate written rebuttals. In these ways, Socratic circles strengthened argumentative writing.
CODA: Classroom Conversation: Inquiry, Dialogism, and Deep Understanding
Authors: Wilhelm Jeffrey D.
Published: March 2024

Wilhelm credits his continued love of teaching to the “joy that I experience” when students’ middle schoolers or practicing teachers’ “deeply and creatively immerse themselves” in challenging conversation. Wilhelm helps define the facets of “internally persuasive” discourse of honest inquiry, as opposed to authoritative discourse, and confirms his belief that inquiry is the way to teach. He believes that trusting our students’ capacity to make meaning and our own capacity to teach kids how to make meaning are part and parcel of expert teaching and deep learning.
Strategies to Get Started with Blended Learning
Authors: Gonzalez Alex
Published: March 2024

What is blended learning, and perhaps more important—what does it look like and how do you get started? The rise in access to digital resources has prompted educators across content and grade levels to look for ways to harness these resources through relevant practices, providing educators and their students ways to engage critical skills through the purposeful integration of technologies. In “Strategies to Get Started with Blended Learning,” we take a look at how teachers are using tools to prompt students, collect and provide feedback that inform their instruction, pedagogical and technological considerations, as well as tips to get started. Take blended learning beyond just a trending buzzword in education. Learn about the tools and practices teachers are currently using to blend their instruction.
The Loggerhead Turtles of Cape Romain, South Carolina
Authors: Caldwell David K.
Published: March 2024

Detailed field studies show that Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta caretta (L.), make exploratory crawls to the beach during nesting season, and the fact that a turtle is on the beach does not necessarily mean she will nest at that spot, although she apparently will nest in the immediate vicinity on the night she explores, or very shortly thereafter. Evidence, contrary to popular beliefs, shows no correlation between nesting activity and the stage of the moon, tide, and weather conditions. The physical features of the beach are apparently the most important factors in determining degree of nesting activity. The nesting procedure in South Carolina is consistent with that noted in other populations throughout the species' range. Details of the nest and of the eggs, their incubation, and hatching are presented for future comparison with other species. An average period of incubation of 55 days is demonstrated in South Carolina, and a growth rate is given for the embryos. Many hazards, such as numerous kinds of predators, roots of vegetation, and unfavorable conditions of temperature and moisture are shown to exist for the eggs and hatchlings, resulting in a high rate of mortality. Considerable variation in size, color, and body form is demonstrated for hatchling loggerheads.
Multiple and Group Nesting by the Atlantic Loggerhead Turtle
Authors: Caldwell David K. , Berry Frederick H. , Carr Archie , Ragotzkie Robert A.
Published: March 2024

Tagging results and studies of unlaid eggs in dissected females demonstrate that individuals of the Atlantic loggerhead sea turtle nest several times on the same stretch of beach in a summer, but it is not yet known whether each individual lays every year. Individual turtles can locate these places with some precision. Tagging results show groups of turtles nest together several times, and it is believed they stay together during the periods between the nesting emergences.
Demographic Disparities in 5G Technology Adoption among Paddy Farmers in Kedah: A Comprehensive Study
Authors: Nurul Hazwani Abdul Hamid  , Noormaizatul Akmar Ishak  , Ahmad Tajudin Baharin  , Evawaynie Valquis Md Isa  , Mohd Fisol Osman
Published: March 2024

This research aims to investigate the adoption of 5G technology within the agricultural sector, specifically among rice farmers in Kedah, Malaysia, and understand the demographic disparities in 5G adoption. It also addresses the challenge of equitable 5G technology adoption and explores how demographic factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, and income levels influence adoption patterns. A mixed-methods approach, comprising surveys, interviews, and field observations, is employed to collect data from a diverse sample of farmers. The study utilizes theoretical frameworks related to automation, productivity, and connectivity to analyze the impact of 5G technology on agricultural practices. Only descriptive analysis of demographic characteristics will be reported after the survey is conducted using a questionnaire through the What'sApp application. The research reveals significant gender imbalances in adoption rates, with implications for equitable access to technological advancements. It also highlights the influence of age and income on adoption patterns. The study underscores the importance of tailored strategies to ensure the adoption of inclusive 5G technology in the agricultural sector.
Preserving Sacred Sites and Property Law
Authors: Rule Troy A.
Published: March 2024

Should courts have the power to order the federal government to give land rights to particular groups based solely on their religious beliefs? Calls for legal rules requiring such effectual transfers have grown in recent years as Americans have started to confront the country’s history of mistreatment of Native Nations and other disadvantaged groups. Most recently, Indigenous claimants in a pending Ninth Circuit case want the court to interpret the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to entitle them to a remedy resembling a perpetual easement on certain federal land that would prohibit development on the land to protect a sacred site. At first glance, a law requiring the federal government to give the equivalent of an easement in public land to a singled-out religious party might seem like an appealing way to further important reparative justice or religious freedom goals. However, legal rules requiring such uncompensated property transfers on the basis of religion would also contravene bedrock principles of constitutional and property law and threaten crucial climate change mitigation efforts. This Article is the first to rigorously examine the broader consequences of embracing rules that would compel governments to effectively forfeit public land rights to advance vital reparative justice or religious liberty objectives. It then outlines an alternative approach to preserving Indigenous sacred sites that would respect federal land rights and give Native Nations a much stronger voice in site protection decisions.
B Vote: Block chain Based Voting System
Authors:   Computer Engineering Department, Atharva College of Engineering, Mumbai University, Maharashtra, India, Chutke Shubham , Parkar Shreyas , Swargam Omkar , Bhimanpally Sumeet , Sharma Shweta
Published: March 2024

The current electoral system faces various challenges such as vote rigging, hacking of electronic voting machines, and election manipulation, leading to a lack of faith in the system among citizens. The adoption of an electronic voting system based on block chain technology could potentially address these issues. This paper proposes a model of e-voting based on popular block chain frameworks that provide block chain as a service, which maintains participant confidentiality while still being open to public scrutiny. The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the theme, demonstrating the usefulness of block chain technology in the design of a secure and transparent e-voting system. Distributed ledger technology is a powerful tool in the world of information technology, with the potential to revolutionize various applications. Block chain offers advantages such as cryptological underpinnings and transparency, making it a disruptive technology in modern times. The proposed e-voting system based on block chain technology offers the potential to improve the resilience of e-voting systems, and ensure the integrity of the election results. Overall, this paper provides insights into the potential of block chain technology to tackle the challenges facing the current electoral system and improve the transparency and security of e-voting systems. Key Word: Iblock chain, confidentiality, Distributed ledger, transparency, security, metamask, solidity, Ethereum, Decentralization, testnet, Hardhat, Dapp, Consensus, immutability, blocks.
Citation-infusion of research papers with AI?
Authors: Rohlfing Ingo
Published: March 2024

I came across the AI company Sourcely these days. It promises to “  Finish Your Research in Minutes. Save Your Sleep. Paste your essay to find, summarize, and add credible sources. (That’s something Google Scholar can’t do!)  ” Saving time for sleep is good and if it would work, it would outperform GS, or any traditional search for citations and references, for that matter. However, I have some thoughts and concerns.
Process tracing is possible with most-likely and least-likely cases
Authors: Rohlfing Ingo
Published: March 2024

The idea of most-likely and least-likely cases dates back to Eckstein and was one of the few remaining things in qualitative research there seemed to be no disagreement about because they are considered an asset in causal analysis. In a paper that is advance access, Beach and Pedersen (BP) now argue that process tracing and the analysis of mechanisms does not make sense with most-likely and least-likely cases.
rOpenSci Code of Conduct Annual Review
Authors: Saibene Yanina Bellini , Padgham Mark , Woo Kara , Morandeira Natalia
Published: March 2024

Our community is our best asset. It’s so important to us, it’s in our mission statement. We recognize that communities are not inclusive by default; they require deliberate attention, including an enforceable Code of Conduct. rOpenSci is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, welcoming, and harassment-free experience for everyone.
Succession Planning and its Impact on Business Performance: A bibliometric Method to Identify Future Research in Family Firms
Authors: Ramirez-Solis Edgar
Published: March 2024

Our study employs a multifaceted bibliometric analysis to map the intellectual landscape of succession planning in family businesses and its impact on performance. It was based on articles from the Web of Science database from 2017 to 2023. Utilizing VOSviewer software for the analysis, various mapping techniques such as co-authorship networks, geographical dispersion, and keyword co-occurrence were deployed. The findings underscore an increasing scholarly interest in family business succession yet point out a waning emphasis on the planning aspects and their direct implications for business performance. Notably, the study detects a substantial research gap in the Latin American context, suggesting potential for socially and practically high-impact contributions. This study enhances the existing literature by revealing these nuanced trends and gaps and employs a unique methodological approach, using bibliometric analysis to highlight critical interconnections between crucial terms. Thus, the research paves the way for future academic endeavors while offering practitioners actionable insights.
An Online Platform in 3D Virtual Environment, a Tool in Entrepreneurship Empowerment for Goods and Services Supply Chain
Authors: Dagkinis Ioannis K.
Published: March 2024

This paper presents a virtual trade platform to promote entrepreneurial spirit and provide a systemic approach to support businesses and consumers to successfully promote their products and services in exhibitions through virtual reality, overcoming problems of transport, cost, and weakness for their participation due to insularity. Several activities were developed in the 3D Virtual World, involving the entrepreneurial spirit with innovative activities and procedures, increasing opportunities and putting theoretical knowledge into practice. The S.A.A.T. online expo platform uses 3D virtual reality (VR) to enhanced entrepreneurship focused on the agri-food domain and the tourism, since it is possible for SME’s to promote products and services by overcoming distance problems from potential customers and interested investors, easily. According to the above mentioned, the online S.A.A.T. expo platform provides some of the main functions of a modern virtual exhibition, in order to improve the applications of VR in those fields.
Dampak Kenaikan Harga Minyak Goreng Bagi Pedagang Kecil
Authors: Dewi Lutfia Rahma
Published: March 2024

The increase in cooking oil prices in early 2022 is a global case for Indonesia and the people of Ponorogo are no exception. Cooking oil is usually always available in large quantities in all supermarkets, but now it looks empty and there is almost no supply because the price is very significant. This study aims to determine how the impact of rising cooking oil prices for small traders in Babadan Ponorogo District. The method used in this study is a qualitative research method and the results show that the increase in cooking oil prices greatly affects the sales aspect of food traders, because the main ingredient in food processing is cooking oil. In addition, traders hope that the government can solve this problem by restoring the stock of cooking oil on the market and lowering the price of cooking oil.
Kenaikan harga minyak goreng di awal tahun 2022 merupakan kasus global bagi Indonesia dan tidak terkecuali juga dirasakan oleh masyarakat Ponorogo. Minyak goreng biasanya selalu tersedia dalam jumlah banyak di semua supermarket, namun kini terlihat kosong bahkan hampir tidak ada pasokan karena harga yang sangat signifikan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana dampak kenaikan harga minyak goreng bagi pedagang kecil di Kecamatan Babadan Ponorogo. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode penelitian kualitatif dan hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kenaikan harga minyak goreng sangat berdampak pada aspek penjualan para pedagang makanan, dikarenakan bahan utama dalam mengolah makanan yaitu minyak goreng. Selain itu, para pedagang berharap pemerintah dapat mengatasi masalah ini dengan mengembalikan stok minyak goreng di pasaran dan menurunkan harga minyak goreng.