Most recent papers:

• Preparing Preservice Educators to Teach Critical, Place‐Based Literacies.
  Anna Mendoza.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. October 10, 2017
  Secondary education means helping students develop a diverse repertoire of literacy skills, but the focus has been on disciplinary and digital literacies practiced by geographically distributed communities (an international, middle class curriculum) rather than on practices associated with orality, the trades, and minority, immigrant, and Indigenous knowledges. In contrast, critical approaches to literacy instruction recognize the need to incorporate students’ place‐based funds of knowledge into the curriculum. To illustrate one such approach, this article presents a case study of practitioner research in a secondary teacher education program. Although the syllabus of a core course on adolescent literacies focused on academic and digital ones, teacher candidates who participated in a form of qualitative inquiry called Indigenous métissage had much to say about place‐based funds of knowledge in their subject areas during a field trip and class discussion. These findings suggest that critical, place‐based literacy may be an untapped resource in teacher education.

  October 10, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.708   open full text
• Building Background Knowledge Through Reading: Rethinking Text Sets.
  Sarah M. Lupo, John Z. Strong, William Lewis, Sharon Walpole, Michael C. McKenna.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 19, 2017
  To increase reading volume and help students access challenging texts, the authors propose a four‐dimensional framework for text sets. The quad text set framework is designed around a target text: a challenging content area text, such as a canonical literary work, research article, or historical primary source document. The three remaining dimensions include visual texts (e.g., a video, pictures), informational texts to build students’ background knowledge and vocabulary, and an accessible young adult novel or current events article to help students engage with the topic. Working together, these texts can build students’ background knowledge, make the target text accessible to students, and also allow them to synthesize information across sources. The authors suggest that quad text sets are useful in English, science, and social studies classrooms.

  September 19, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.701   open full text
• Embracing the Other in Gothic Texts: Cultivating Understanding in the Reading Classroom.
  Jennifer Renner Del Nero.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 04, 2017
  This case study explores the understandings that seventh graders constructed with Gothic texts in a reading unit designed by the researcher. Gothic is a fictional genre defined by horror and mystery. The stories’ protagonists are often marginalized individuals. The genre was selected due to its popularity with adolescents. Qualitative data were collected and reviewed using thematic analysis. The results of the study reveal that as a result of grappling with the societal other, participants gleaned meaningful knowledge that enriched them personally and socially.

  September 04, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.697   open full text
• Reading and Writing as Scientists? Text Genres and Literacy Practices in Girls’ Middle‐Grade Science.
  S. Elisabeth Faller.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 04, 2017
  Science teachers are often charged with providing discipline‐specific literacy instruction. However, little is known about the reading and writing genres, or text types, typically found in these classrooms. In particular, there is a lack of knowledge about what opportunities adolescents have to engage with the genres privileged in science to learn the discipline's specialized ways of making meaning and communicating knowledge. This article reports on a case study of the reading and writing genres found within four middle‐grade science classrooms in one small all‐female school. Results suggest that although a variety of text genres were present, there was little discussion of how and why science content was presented in particular ways. Notably, students also had far more opportunities to read than write extended nonfiction. Teachers can cultivate a more reciprocal relation between reading and writing in science by using genres that students read as models for their writing.

  September 04, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.698   open full text
• Improving Cohesion in Our Writing: Findings From an Identity Text Workshop With Resettled Refugee Teens.
  Shannon M. Daniel, Caitlin Eley.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 04, 2017
  Analysis of data in an after‐school writing workshop wherein resettled refugee teens were reading and writing identity texts to prepare for achieving their postsecondary goals suggests that a discursive practice of the connective press was productive in helping teens develop cohesion in their writing. Although true communicative competence in an additional language includes grammatical, strategic, sociocultural, and discourse competence, language‐learning environments too often focus on grammatical competence only. Because facilitating language learners’ development of discourse competence can seem more complex than explicitly teaching grammar, this article offers possibilities for educators working with language learners who strive to enhance their reading comprehension and writing skills. The connective press, which is a prompt for someone to notice or create connections between ideas in different parts of a text, seemed productive for teens as they analyzed texts, brainstormed their writing collaboratively, and peer‐edited one another's essays.

  September 04, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.700   open full text
• Middle‐Grades Students' Understandings of What It Means to Read in a High‐Stakes Environment.
  Mary Beth Schaefer.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. July 18, 2017
  In this practitioner inquiry, the teacher researcher found that a culture of high‐stakes testing had pervaded her diverse, urban seventh‐grade students' conceptions of reading; students associated reading with tests and skills‐based worksheets rather than pleasure. Using students' voices, passions, and interests, the teacher researcher broadened students' reading conceptions and abilities by introducing them to Langer's reading theory. Students used the theory to develop deep understandings of their own and others' reading needs, skills, and desires. Students constructed understandings of self as reader, found pleasure in constructing personalized reading skills and strategies, and reconstructed notions of reading to assert authority and power. Students also helped one another (re)discover pleasure in reading.

  July 18, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.689   open full text
• Multilingual Literacies: Invisible Representation of Literacy in a Rural Classroom.
  Lydiah Kananu Kiramba.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. July 18, 2017
  In many countries, educational policies typically mandate school activities that promote a homogeneous and narrow range of academic literacies for all learners despite the diverse nature of human learning. This ethnographic case study examines how a 12‐year‐old Kenyan fourth‐grade student performing below average on all standardized tests used multiple invisible literacies while documenting his knowledge and life experiences in a rural context. Invisible literacies are covert meaning‐making literacy practices that are not privileged in the classroom. Examination of these practices shows a convergence between school and home literacies, suggesting a need for education stakeholders to identify literacies that are otherwise marginalized and to reposition multilingual learners in nondeficit ways by centering and integrating these literacies. This study demonstrates that a monolithic and monolingual approach to literacy, in isolation from other visual, oral, and practical forms of literacy used by multilingual rural students, denies such learners access to and development of literacy in general.

  July 18, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.690   open full text
• How the Visual Rhetoric of Online Discussions Enables and Constrains Students’ Participation.
  Michael B. Sherry.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. July 04, 2017
  Whole‐class discussions, in which students share and refine ideas with others, can now take place in online forums. In face‐to‐face classrooms, previous research has identified conversational techniques, such as open‐ended questions and uptake of what others have said, that can promote dialogic, whole‐class discussions. However, few studies have examined how students’ participation can be enabled and constrained by the visual design of online forums. This article evaluates three online conversations among students of different disciplines and geographic regions at secondary, postsecondary, and graduate levels, evaluating the success of each example based first on conversational techniques and then on the visual design of the online forum. Rhetorical principles such as contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity may help teachers evaluate and redesign potential online forums for more effective online discussions, including how classroom setup, routines, and multimedia can shape students’ participation.

  July 04, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.683   open full text
• Powering Up Students to Challenge Their Own Deficit Views.
  Loraine McKay, Laura Dean.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 30, 2017
  Intervention programs designed to improve literacy skills also produce unintended outcomes that sustain a deficit view around some students. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions about learning of a group of 12–14‐year‐old Australian students assigned to a reading intervention class. The article reports on data collected from students over a six‐month period through interviews, including illustrated responses, and classroom observations. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. Findings suggested that the ecology of the classroom was instrumental in how these adolescents determined an economy of effort, oscillated power and control, and positioned themselves as learners. Further research about how to position students as decision makers within the intervention programs to which they are assigned is required to counter the deficit views that surround and are sustained by some adolescents.

  June 30, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.681   open full text
• Learning From High School Students’ Lived Experiences of Reading E‐Books and Printed Books.
  Ellen Evans.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 29, 2017
  E‐book sales are down nationwide, and younger readers are proving to be surprisingly persistent in their preference for printed books. Although 66% of schools nationwide offer e‐books, adoption is growing at a slower than expected rate. This study takes a closer look at high school students’ experiences as they read John Steinbeck's fictional novella Of Mice and Men, some using e‐books and others using printed texts. Using a phenomenological approach to data collection and interpretation allowed for a focus on the lived experiences of the students; results showed that students’ experiences were affected by factors such as the time and place of reading, the physical structure of the text, and the ways that others in the social context relate to the text. These factors are often hidden influences that teachers should take into consideration when assigning texts.

  June 29, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.685   open full text
• Mediating Emotive Empathy With Informational Text: Three Students’ Think‐Aloud Protocols of Gettysburg: The Graphic Novel.
  James S. Chisholm, Ashley L. Shelton, Caroline C. Sheffield.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 29, 2017
  Although the popularity and use of graphic novels in literacy instruction has increased in the last decade, few sustained analyses have examined adolescents’ reading processes with informational texts in social studies classrooms. Recent research that has foregrounded visual, emotional, and embodied textual responses situates this qualitative study, in which three eighth‐grade students learned about the graphic novel format, responded in writing to interpretive prompts, and thought aloud during their reading of Gettysburg: A Graphic Novel by C.M. Butzer. Analyses of students’ responses to the multimodal text revealed how constructing inferences between visual and linguistic sign systems mediated their emotive empathy—a central, if limited, component of historical empathy.

  June 29, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.682   open full text
• Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird Today: Coming to Terms With Race, Racism, and America's Novel.
  Michael Macaluso.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 29, 2017
  This article urges educators to responsibly teach, discuss, and read against To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee for fear that it may otherwise perpetuate subtle racist ideologies in generations of students who continue to read it in schools. One way to do this is through a comparative lens of old and new racism.

  June 29, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.678   open full text
• “The Last Block of Ice”: Trauma Literature in the High School Classroom.
  Amber Moore, Deborah Begoray.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 17, 2017
  This article explores the potential of using trauma literature in the secondary high school classroom, drawing from a case study that explored grade 10 secondary students’ responses to a trauma story. These responses were primarily collected from their digital writing and reveal a number of interesting findings, including the expression of anger and aggression in their writing, discussions of combating depression, and engaging in supportive communication. In addition, some students did not address some expected topics, so there were some interesting silences that emerged in the study.

  June 17, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.674   open full text
• Enhancing Digital Literacy and Learning Among Adults With Blogs.
  Laurie A. Sharp.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 17, 2017
  Digital literacy and learning among adults has been identified as an area requiring research. The purpose of the present study was to explore technology acceptance and digital collaborative learning experiences with blogs among adult learners. This analysis employed a quasi‐experimental mixed‐methods approach guided by a sociocultural theoretical framework. Participants were graduate students (n = 46), and data were collected through pre‐ and postsurvey instruments. Quantitative analyses were conducted using paired sample t‐tests, which revealed statistically significant findings regarding determinants of technology acceptance. Qualitative analyses were conducted using grounded theory analytic techniques, which revealed four core conceptual categories: cautionary aspects and constraints, personal and communal dimensions, learner dispositions, and affordances. A discussion of these categories and examples of supportive data was provided. Based on these findings, implications for adult educators are described regarding strategies to enhance technology acceptance and the design of digital collaborative learning experiences among adult learners.

  June 17, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.675   open full text
• Economic Relevance and Planning for Literacy Instruction: Reconciling Competing Ideologies.
  George L. Boggs, Trevor Thomas Stewart, Timothy A. Jansky.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 02, 2017
  The language of economics and economic imperatives are driving standardized school reform in the United States without input from teachers. This teacher action research project responds to concerns about contemporary school reforms by considering how economics‐minded dialogue about literacy education can help teachers support students’ literacy practices. The study explores the use of an economic model for planning, implementing, and evaluating composition instruction based in sociocultural literacy research. The model classifies classroom activities according to economic principles of connectedness and production. This model supported collaborative dialogue about writing instruction problems. Three phases—cycles of planning, implementation, and evaluation of instruction—progressively demonstrated how thinking economically about literacy instruction supported a teacher's decision making toward student‐centered writing instruction. The study frames economic analysis as a positive support for students’ acquisition of new literacies. It also suggests how teachers may make sense of economics‐oriented educational reform goals for literacy instruction.

  June 02, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.671   open full text
• Blurring the Boundaries Between School and Community: Implementing Connected Learning Principles in English Classrooms.
  Ashley Cartun, William R. Penuel, Stephanie West‐Puckett.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 02, 2017
  In participatory cultures, the lines between producers and consumers of text are blurred, and communities emerge that are based on shared interest and peer support. Although literacy scholarship has mostly focused on youth engagement and literacy practices within online participatory cultures, scholars in the learning sciences investigate these ideas through connected learning. This article explores bringing connected learning principles into English classrooms and examines how one high school, partnering with the National Writing Project, redesigned their senior English course and senior capstone project around connected learning. The authors highlight its design and share students’ experiences with the project to illustrate the possibilities and tensions around designing for such a project in school settings.

  June 02, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.668   open full text
• But What Does It Look Like? Illustrations of Disciplinary Literacy Teaching in Two Content Areas.
  Emily C. Rainey, Bridget L. Maher, David Coupland, Rod Franchi, Elizabeth Birr Moje.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 29, 2017
  In this piece, the authors offer two illustrations of central features of disciplinary literacy teaching. One illustration describes an episode of history literacy teaching, and the other describes an episode of physics literacy teaching. Both examples show how teachers may support students’ development of disciplinary inquiry, disciplinary concepts, and extended use of texts in secondary classrooms. Illustrations were drawn from a long‐term study of the teaching practice of attending teachers and preservice teaching interns affiliated with Clinical Rounds, the secondary undergraduate teacher education program at the University of Michigan. Conclusions are relevant for teachers seeking to design and enact disciplinary literacy teaching in their classrooms and for all literacy practitioners seeking a common language for recognizing and naming aspects of disciplinary literacy teaching across disciplinary domains.

  May 29, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.669   open full text
• Using Every Word and Image: Framing Graphic Novel Instruction in the Expanded Four Resources Model.
  Carla K. Meyer, Laura M. Jiménez.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 08, 2017
  In many classrooms, teachers have started to incorporate graphic novels in classroom instruction. However, research has suggested that some readers may have limited understanding of how to read graphic novels, which can create challenges for teachers using the medium. Drawing from a larger study, this article highlights two cases, an expert graphic novel and an expert traditional print text reader, to illustrate how the expanded four resources model may be used as a framework to guide novice graphic novel readers as they engage with graphic text. The article provides next steps for educators as they begin their journey with graphic novels.

  May 08, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.666   open full text
• Admitted or Denied: Multilingual Writers Negotiate Admissions Essays.
  Shauna Wight.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 08, 2017
  This article presents data from a collection of yearlong case studies on resident multilingual writers’ college admissions essays. The focal student in this piece revealed the challenges that such writers face in presenting themselves to college admissions officers. Exploring these cultural and linguistic conflicts, this analysis uses Goffman's performance theories, which argue that writers (re)construct identities in response to changing social cues. Literacy educators, researchers, and policymakers can use these insights to help resident multilingual writers balance the demands of academic audiences with their preferred forms of representation.

  May 08, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.667   open full text
• Digital Participation, Agency, and Choice: An African American Youth's Digital Storytelling About Minecraft.
  Tisha Lewis Ellison.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 12, 2017
  This case study examines one African American adolescent male's digital choices and experiences during the creation of a digital story about Minecraft. This study introduces digital participatory choice cultures as a framework to consider how he might recognize and use existing meaning‐making and composition strategies to bridge what young people know, do, and learn both within and outside educational settings. Data include interviews, observations, photo elicitation, digital photos, and digital and nondigital texts. First, the author highlights the student's choices to create a topic and digital story. Second, the author examines how the student's digital choices illustrate the literacies, agency, and identities inherent in digital participatory choice culture, which helped him express himself in both cultural and digital ways. The analysis demonstrates how race mattered in the student's digital composition, which suggests that literacy educators can design instruction to learn about and build from their students’ already existing funds of knowledge.

  April 12, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.645   open full text
• What Do I Say Next? Using the Third Turn to Build Productive Instructional Discussions.
  Evelyn Ford‐Connors, Dana A. Robertson.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 10, 2017
  Research has strongly supported the role of classroom talk as a valuable teaching and learning tool. Carefully crafted teacher–student discussions that encourage broad student participation and knowledge building correlate with increased knowledge generation and higher academic achievement. To better understand classroom talk as an instructional lever, researchers have identified a number of teacher talk moves associated with increased student participation, critical reasoning, and improved comprehension of texts and content. In particular, when teachers make use of the third turn in their talk with students, they create opportunities for more productive student interactions with content and one another. This article examines how teachers use the third turn to orchestrate productive discussions, using examples based on content analysis of teacher–student discussions in classroom settings.

  April 10, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.656   open full text
• Writings on the Wall: Nurturing Critical Literacy Through a Community‐Based Design Project.
  Lynn Sanders‐Bustle, Rosary Lalik.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. March 14, 2017
  The purpose of this article is to explore the potential of artistic design to promote critical literacy among adult learners. Conducted by a university literacy educator and a university art educator, this qualitative study examined adults’ divergent perspectives in the design of a mosaic at a center for the homeless. Participants included a university art educator, undergraduates, and outreach center clients. Data included transcribed interviews, written reflections, and field notes. Data were coded and themes identified and reexamined to accurately describe the project's potential for promoting critical literacy. Findings demonstrate how design, a contested literacy space, disrupted social habits, challenged stereotypes, negotiated texts, and transformed perceptions. Yet, time, institutional constraints, missed opportunities for critical dialogue, and other coercive elements limited the project's transformative potential. This suggests that such projects can be an important step toward adults’ critical literacy but are insufficient for garnering long‐term consequences.

  March 14, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.641   open full text
• The Daybook Defense: How Reflection Fosters the Identity Work of Readers and Writers.
  Amy Vetter, Joy Myers, Jeanie Reynolds, Adrienne Stumb, Coley Barrier.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. March 14, 2017
  Classrooms play a large part in shaping youths’ identities as readers and writers. Due to the pressures of high‐stakes exams, for example, reading and writing identities are often defined by a set of academic skills that students can or cannot perform. Such rigid concepts of readers and writers often cause secondary students to believe that their literacy abilities are fixed (i.e., as struggling readers). This study explores how reflective conversations through a daybook defense (an oral reflective assessment for a writer's notebook) opened opportunities for students to redefine what it meant to read and write in two English language arts classrooms. Findings suggest that reflections opened opportunities for students to articulate behaviors of reader/writer identities and express beliefs about reader/writer identities. Implications suggest that such reflective opportunities can provide spaces for students to rewrite reader/writer identities in the classroom.

  March 14, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.643   open full text
• Developing Enhanced Morphological Awareness in Adolescent Learners.
  Rebecca A. Hendrix, Robert A. Griffin.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. March 14, 2017
  Morphological awareness—knowledge of roots and affixes within language and their interactions with one another to create multitudes of words—is arguably a skill requiring extended study beyond the elementary grades. With the rigors of contemporary curriculum that gradually guide students into college and career readiness—and, essentially, into literate citizenship—enhanced morphological awareness derived from specific study within a secondary curriculum is imperative for adolescents and, by extension, adult learners. This article outlines various facets of enhanced morphological awareness among adolescent learners, arguing its place as a necessary skill set to be included within a developmentally appropriate secondary curriculum. Theoretical bases for such skill development can be found in the aspects of both schema theory and psycholinguistic theory, and its development has also been justified in other related literature. These foundations manifest themselves in relevant classroom strategies that can enhance adolescents’ literacy.

  March 14, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.642   open full text
• Creative Criticism: Dialogue and Aesthetics in the English Language Arts Classroom.
  Nathan Blom.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. March 09, 2017
  The author discusses the theoretical foundations for creative criticism, a term denoting the application of multimodal responses to literature for the construction of meaning. The author develops a theoretical framework from Bakhtin's principles of dialogical interpenetration, internally persuasive discourse, and utterance, as well as Dewey's conceptions of unified aesthetic experiences. The author then uses this framework of transactional processes to illuminate the efficacy of classroom applications of creative criticism. In particular, the author examines two projects from 12th‐grade English language arts classrooms. The first uses musical and visual response to make meaning out of classical literature. The second engages students in annotating literature online through the use of multimodal responses. This research articulates theoretically grounded principles of effective multimodal response to literature.

  March 09, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.634   open full text
• This Is Who I Want to Be! Exploring Possible Selves by Interviewing Women in Science.
  Jessica Singer Early.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. March 09, 2017
  This article shares a study of an interview/writing project for adolescent girls, which was a component of the Girls Writing Science Project at a diverse urban high school in the Southwestern United States. The group of high school girls planned, initiated, conducted, and wrote interview profiles of women scientists from their local community. This study of adolescent writers represents a model for teachers across disciplines to use the teaching of writing as a pathway for students to access, explore, and articulate possibilities for their future selves in connection to science. More specifically, this project offers a means of narrowing the gender divide in the sciences by supporting students in studying high‐achieving women working in science‐related careers and by practicing writing as a real‐world, transferable skill with meaningful purpose.

  March 09, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.635   open full text
• Remixing My Life: The Multimodal Literacy Memoir Assignment and STEM.
  Kristine E. Pytash, William Kist, Elizabeth Testa.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. March 09, 2017
  The authors explore the experiences and multimodal compositions of a student at a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) high school who opted to take an elective course on multimodal autobiography. They document how her meaning making included her beliefs and perspectives about the world, as well as a finely developed aesthetic sense.

  March 09, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.633   open full text
• Picturing Ethnic Studies: Photovoice and Youth Literacies of Social Action.
  Cati V. Ríos.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. February 14, 2017
  This study uses photovoice to examine the ways in which Chicanx youths hone their critical and multimodal literacy skills in a secondary ethnic studies course. While the institutionalization of secondary ethnic studies courses swiftly expands in school districts across the United States, more research is necessary to understand the nature of these courses. This inquiry examines student photovoice compositions, participant observations, and in‐depth semistructured interviews to ascertain some of the affordances of an ethnic studies course from the perspectives of participating students. The following question guides this paper: How do students articulate the importance of ethnic studies in their lives? Students’ creations of photovoice compositions allowed them to communicate ideas around ethnic studies in authentic ways that valued their cultural practices and resources. Findings highlight student literacies of social action across three domains: individual, community, and structural.

  February 14, 2017   doi: 10.1002/jaal.631   open full text
• Understanding and Evaluating English Learners’ Oral Reading With Miscue Analysis.
  Melissa Latham Keh.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. December 28, 2016
  Miscue analysis provides a unique opportunity to explore English learners’ (ELs’) oral reading from an asset‐based perspective. This article focuses on insights about eight adolescent ELs’ oral reading patterns that were gained through miscue analysis. The participants’ miscues were coded with the Reading Miscue Inventory, and participants were also interviewed about their miscues. The data illustrate how ELs use linguistic information to construct meaning despite high numbers of miscues. Qualitative analysis revealed miscue patterns that require special attention in instruction and assessment of ELs. Additionally, the author discusses how teachers can begin to discern whether oral reading differences stem from nonnative language features or from the act of reading.

  December 28, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.625   open full text
• Transnational Chinese Students’ Literacy and Networking Practices.
  Xiqiao Wang.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. December 13, 2016
  Situated in the context of a first‐year writing course at a Midwestern public university in the United States, this study examines Chinese international students' networking practices through the mediation of WeChat, a popular social networking application for smartphones. Based on interviews with 36 students and detailed accounts of one focal student's activities in WeChat study groups, this study shows that students' literacy practices and identities are dynamically co‐constructed with intersecting local and global forces. Social theories of identity and the Chinese concept of guanxi (carefully cultivated personal connections that are used to gain social advantages) provide ways to examine identities at the intersection of local and distant circumstances and practices that span geographical and linguistic spaces. Findings reveal the implications of such identity work on students' social and academic experiences, while encouraging teachers to consider pedagogical practices that leverage students' rich cultural and linguistic knowledge.

  December 13, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.623   open full text
• “We're Already Somebody”: High School Students Practicing Critical Media Literacy IRL (in Real Life).
  Jane M. Saunders, Gwynne Ellen Ash, Isabelle Salazar, , Rowan Pruitt, Daniel Wallach, Ellie Breed, Sean Saldana, Ana Szachacz.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. December 01, 2016
  As new media and multiliteracies become an expanding space for reading and writing both in and out of schools, it seems fitting to document events where students are engaged in authentic literacy events. This article tells the story of what happened when a group of news writers chose to publish an editorial in their news magazine critical of an invited speaker. After the story gained momentum through both the traditional press and social media, students experienced a twofold lesson: what it feels like to raise their voices and be heard, and ways to respond to and learn from the backlash of their critique.

  December 01, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.617   open full text
• “Impossible Is Nothing”: Expressing Difficult Knowledge Through Digital Storytelling.
  Lauren Johnson, Maureen Kendrick.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. November 26, 2016
  The study focuses on a digital storytelling project conducted in a school district's transition program, in which adolescent refugee and immigrant English learners were invited to share aspects of their identities and social worlds through a range of modes. In this article, the authors look closely at one student's digital story through a multimodal analysis of three slides. The findings show how engaging with nonlinguistic modes provided enhanced opportunities for the student to explore and make visible complex and abstract facets of his life and identity, particularly as they relate to difficult past experiences.

  November 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.624   open full text
• Teaching in the Cracks: Using Familiar Pedagogy to Advance LGBTQ‐Inclusive Curriculum.
  Michelle L. Page.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. November 26, 2016
  English language arts teachers and other literacy educators have the opportunity to create more positive and more inclusive school experiences for gender‐ and sexual‐minority students, but many hesitate to transform their curricula and practices because of fear of community protest. To support educators who feel vulnerable or constrained, this article summarizes challenges facing gender‐ and sexual‐minority students and then describes the benefits and limitations of a variety of familiar instructional approaches that teachers can use to make curricula more inclusive, ultimately reducing isolation and invisibility of LGBTQIA students and experiences.

  November 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.616   open full text
• Making Meaning Through Media: Scaffolding Academic and Critical Media Literacy With Texts About Schooling.
  Courtney Kelly, Carleigh Brower.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. November 01, 2016
  This study investigated how an interdisciplinary first‐year seminar focused on representations of schooling in popular culture supported the acquisition of an academic version of critical media literacy. The authors explore how tapping into students’ funds of knowledge, constructing carefully scaffolded assignments, and offering targeted, personalized feedback allowed the instructors to support students as they acquired academic and critical media literacy through recursive acts of meaning making. Findings suggest that implementing these practices may help students perform close counterreadings of media texts and compose evidence‐based arguments that examine the clear and hidden lessons that these texts teach.

  November 01, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.614   open full text
• Multimodal Literacies: Imagining Lives Through Korean Dramas.
  Grace MyHyun Kim, Delila Omerbašić.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. October 27, 2016
  Global networks of information and interactions have created new conditions for access to myriad literacies, languages, and communities. Engagements with transnational texts and communities can support the imagination of lives different from one's local context. This article presents data from two qualitative studies of adolescent literacy practices about popular‐culture texts produced in Korea. Although these adolescents did not reside in Korea, the authors found that they constructed transnational spaces through these multimodal literacy practices: imagining different lives and engaging in multilingual mediascapes. Adolescents in both studies expressed a sense of belonging not exclusive to their places of residence. The findings support the argument that multimodal literacy practices developed through engagement with another country's popular‐culture texts support imaginative identity construction. These findings have implications for researchers and educators interested in multimodal literacies, digitally mediated learning, multilingualism, and transnational studies.

  October 27, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.609   open full text
• Source Code and a Screwdriver: STEM Literacy Practices in Fabricating Activities Among Experienced Adult Makers.
  Eli Tucker‐Raymond, Brian E. Gravel, Kaitlin Kohberger, Kyle Browne.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. October 25, 2016
  This article presents results from developing and applying an initial analytic frame for observing and explaining literacy practices in making activities. It describes literacy‐related themes that emerged when the framework was applied. These themes are discussed within the making process of fabrication, one of a number of goal‐directed stages of making. Findings indicate that literacy practices in fabrication are openly shared, networked, and often oriented toward interfacing between physical and digital worlds. Results come from interviews with 14 adult makers. Implications for project‐based learning contexts and for literacy teachers are shared.

  October 25, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.612   open full text
• Courageous Voices: Using Text Sets to Inspire Change.
  Kelly N. Tracy, Kristin Menickelli, Roya Q. Scales.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. October 25, 2016
  This article describes how one teacher immersed her sixth graders in an intensive three‐week thematic text set unit centered on courage. Her aim was to help students discover and take action on issues that mattered to them as they learned important literacy skills and strategies. Students engaged in significant reading, writing, and discussion as they developed and enacted action plans to create positive change. Intentionally designed instruction moved from teacher‐led whole‐class lessons on the same texts to student‐led small‐group/individual learning with multiple texts. Texts included a variety of formats (e.g., picture books, songs, articles, poems) from varied reading levels.

  October 25, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.613   open full text
• The Mentored Multigenre Project: Fostering Authentic Writing Interactions Between High School Writers and Teacher Candidates.
  Jessica A. West, Paula Saine.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 27, 2016
  This article describes the Mentored Multigenre Project, a virtual writing collaboration experience between high school writers and teacher candidates. Our goal was to create an authentic opportunity for our high school students to receive writing feedback from virtual writing mentors, while also creating an opportunity for our teacher candidates to practice the craft of teaching writing. In this article, the authors outline the ways in which they prepared and supported the high school students during the project. Then, the authors highlight an emergent case from the project to demonstrate the virtual writing collaboration experience in action and evaluate the extent to which it created an authentic writing experience for one high school writer. Finally, the authors share their reflections on the experience and suggestions for others interested in using a learning management system to connect high school writers with teacher candidates.

  September 27, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.602   open full text
• “Everybody Knows Your Business”/“Todo Mundo Se Da Cuenta”: Immigrant Adults’ Construction of Privacy, Risk, and Vulnerability in Online Platforms.
  Silvia Noguerón‐Liu.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 19, 2016
  This article examines immigrant adults’ understandings of privacy, risk, and vulnerability in digital literacy practices that involve visual media. Although the benefits of digital media production have been explored with immigrant youths, the perspectives of adults remain unexplored. Informed by critical and transnational perspectives to digital literacies, ethical guidelines in visual media research, and social constructions of privacy, the author analyzes interactions in technology workshops for Spanish‐dominant, immigrant adults. Findings illustrate how adults’ understandings of online privacy are shaped by simultaneous affiliations to local and transnational networks. Findings also show differences in adults’ distribution, consumption, production, and presence in visual media published in online platforms, as well as their perspectives about participating (or refusing to participate) in these practices. Implications for practitioners implementing technology projects with nondominant and immigrant communities are discussed.

  September 19, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.599   open full text
• Middle and High School Teacher Responses to an Authentic Argument Writing Seminar.
  Angela M. Kohnen.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 10, 2016
  This qualitative study examined a five‐day summer professional development workshop for English language arts teachers on argument writing. Fourteen teacher participants learned from five different professionals who discussed the role of argument in their fields. Teacher blog posts were coded to understand what teacher participants perceived as important to or different from their previous understandings. Findings include (a) authentic argument is as much about an attitude or state of mind as it is about a product on paper; (b) in schools, argument instruction is very focused on structure; (c) research and data are essential to argument outside of schools; and (d) authentic argument has consequences. These findings have implications for those teaching argument writing as an authentic act.

  September 10, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.601   open full text
• Using Harry Potter to Bridge Higher Dimensionality in Mathematics and High‐Interest Literature.
  William Boerman‐Cornell, David Klanderman, Alexa Schut.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. August 31, 2016
  The Harry Potter series is a favorite for out‐of‐school reading and has been used in school, largely as an object of study in language arts. Using a content analysis to highlight the ways in which J.K. Rowling's work could be used to teach higher dimensionality in math, the authors argues that the content is sufficient in such books to engage the interest of students who may be negatively predisposed toward mathematics but are very enthusiastic about Harry Potter books, and vice versa. The article illustrates and explains three‐dimensional objects in two‐dimensional space, pocket dimensions, three‐dimensional movement through two‐dimensional space, and higher dimensional movement through examples and descriptions from scenes in the Harry Potter series and suggests ways in which similar analyses could be performed on other high‐interest texts, helping students forge new insights about mathematics literacy.

  August 31, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.597   open full text
• “A Place Thriving With History”: Reclaiming Narratives About Literacy in the Arkansas Ozarks.
  Sean P. Connors.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. August 22, 2016
  Building on scholarship that emphasizes a relationship between critical literacy and place‐conscious pedagogy, this article describes a community inquiry project that asked undergraduates in an introductory literacy studies course to use oral histories that they collected from people in the Arkansas Ozark region to engage in placemaking and reclaim narratives about literacy in the area where they lived. The Literacy in Ozark Lives project challenged the students to examine the oral histories with an eye toward identifying people and institutions that sponsored their interviewees’ experiences with reading and writing, and explaining how social and economic transformations in the region shaped the purpose of their interviewees’ literacy. To conclude the project, the students produced digital video essays intended to complicate problematic cultural models that promote a deficit view of people and literacy in the U.S. South, particularly the Arkansas Ozark region.

  August 22, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.596   open full text
• Adolescent Multilinguals’ Engagement With Religion in a Book Club.
  Jayoung Choi, Gertrude Tinker Sachs.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. August 22, 2016
  The study examines four adolescent multilinguals’ engagement with religion, as well as outcomes of that engagement, in an out‐of‐school book club. The qualitative analysis of participants’ talk in book club meetings, writing responses, and individual interviews revealed that multilinguals tap into their religious knowledge and identities in making sense of secular literature. Engaging with different religious identities in literature discussion inevitably led to conflicts and tensions, but the ways in which the multilinguals dealt with the conflicts varied. In spite of tensions, they gained academic and social competence as learners of English as an additional language (EAL). This investigation contributes to the scarce body of literature around the interconnectedness among religion, identity, and literacy. It also adds to the field by depicting interactions of EAL learners from diverse religious backgrounds, nonbelievers and believers in Hinduism and Islam.

  August 22, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.591   open full text
• Common Themes in Teaching Reading for Understanding: Lessons From Three Projects.
  Susan R. Goldman, Catherine Snow, Sharon Vaughn.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. August 05, 2016
  This article reflects a metaview of the work of the three research projects funded through the Institute for Education Sciences under the Reading for Understanding competition that addressed middle‐grade through high school readers (grades 4–12). All three projects shared the assumption that instruction is necessary for successful reading to learn just as it is for learning to read. Through multiple studies conducted independently, the three projects arrived at common themes and features of productive instruction for reading for understanding with adolescent readers. These common themes are elaborated with instructional examples and include the following: (a) Students purposefully engage with multiple forms of texts and actively process them, (b) instructional routines incorporate social support for reading through a variety of participation structures, and (c) instruction supports new content learning by leveraging prior knowledge and emphasizing key constructs and vocabulary.

  August 05, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.586   open full text
• Leveraging Digital Mentor Texts to Write Like a Digital Writer.
  Donna E. Werderich, Michael Manderino, Gabriella Godinez.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. July 20, 2016
  This article presents an approach to reading like a digital writer to support adolescents' narrative writing in digital formats. By providing digital mentor texts for students to read like digital writers, a more comprehensive and perhaps deeper understanding of digital writing and the memoir genre can emerge.

  July 20, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.584   open full text
• Blurring Boundaries: Drama as a Critical Multimodal Literacy for Examining 17th‐Century Witch Hunts.
  Sara Schroeter, Amanda C. Wager.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. July 11, 2016
  This article illustrates how critical multimodal literacy practices engage secondary students to further explore differences and similarities between past and present instances of discrimination within a process drama, where students and teachers explore a topic through unscripted role‐play. Data from a classroom‐based ethnography are drawn on to show how students in two grade 9 social studies classes made meaning from their engagements with a process drama about 17th‐century witch hunts. The authors use field notes, interviews, and photographs to reveal some of the complexities of using drama in the classroom, while highlighting the relevance of critical multimodal literacy practices for creating meaningful engagements with curriculum.

  July 11, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.585   open full text
• “They Didn't Teach Us Well”: Mexican‐Origin Students Speak Out About Their Readiness for College Literacy.
  Luz A. Murillo, Janine M. Schall.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. July 08, 2016
  This study reports on Mexican‐origin university students' perceptions of their K–12 literacy experiences and preparation for college‐level reading. Participants were first‐generation college students from Spanish‐dominant homes enrolled in a reading‐intensive course at a four‐year Hispanic‐serving institution. The study was conducted as part of an initiative to assist predominantly low‐income, Latino/Hispanic students enrolled in entry‐level reading‐intensive courses, with the goal of improving postsecondary persistence. Data consisted of individual interviews and participants' language and literacy autobiographies and were analyzed from an ecology‐of‐literacy perspective. Findings included contrasts between home and school literacy forms and practices, differences between high school and college as learning environments, linguistic discrimination experienced at school, and negative ideologies associated with Spanish as a barrier to the development of strong literacy skills in English. Suggestions are offered for improving academic literacy instruction for Mexican‐origin youths.

  July 08, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.581   open full text
• Disciplinary Literacy and Inquiry: Teaching for Deeper Content Learning.
  Hiller A. Spires, Shea N. Kerkhoff, Abbey C.K. Graham.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 30, 2016
  Disciplinary literacy is gaining momentum as an approach to adolescent literacy. Believing that a key aspect of disciplinary literacy is knowledge construction, the authors introduce a model for relating disciplinary literacy with project‐based inquiry. Rather than merely exploring topics during inquiry, students use practices of a discipline to understand claims and evidences and to create new knowledge. The aim is that students will engage in authentic, intellectually challenging work so their products will have value within and outside of school. The model proposes to help teachers create an instructional path for deeper learning within the disciplines.

  June 30, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.577   open full text
• Teaching With a Technological Twist: Exit Tickets via Twitter in Literacy Classrooms.
  Carla Amaro‐Jiménez, Holly Hungerford‐Kresser, Kathryn Pole.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 27, 2016
  In this article, the authors describe, reflect, and analyze the implementation of a commonly used teaching strategy with a technological twist: exit tickets via Twitter. Longitudinal data collected over the course of three years demonstrated that using Twitter to reinvent a nondigital teaching practice ultimately demonstrated a better understanding of student learning, provided a model for effective teaching, and offered more opportunities to hear student voices. Likewise, analyses showed the most important benefit of the strategy was an immediacy to classroom interactions. Examples of these interactions and the value in the immediacy, which allowed the instructor to capitalize on teachable moments and cocreate curriculum with students, are highlighted.

  June 27, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.572   open full text
• Don't Believe the Hype: Hip‐Hop Literacies and English Education.
  Crystal Belle.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 23, 2016
  Current scholarship suggests that many youths identify with hip‐hop, especially youths of color. Study of this artistic form has been suggested as a means of helping youths acquire and become fluent in literacy practices. This article explores how the use of a hip‐hop literacies curriculum addressed the literacy skills of urban ninth‐grade English students while helping them contextualize the significance of their in‐school and out‐of‐school literacy experiences. The article explains the connections between literacies and hip‐hop–based education, illustrates how hip‐hop can serve as a culturally responsive and rigorous pedagogical tool in the English classroom, and shares students' views on the use of such curriculum.

  June 23, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.574   open full text
• Revealing the Naturalization of Language and Literacy: The Common Sense of Text Complexity.
  Erica H. Newhouse.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 23, 2016
  This article illustrates the process and obstacles encountered when applying the Common Core's three‐ part model of determining text complexity to an urban literature text. This analysis revealed how the model privileges language and literacy practices that limit the range of texts used in classrooms through a process of naturalization and by appealing to common sense. Implications include possibilities for interrupting the process of naturalization by encouraging teachers to be more critical of text complexity measurements, shifting the focus of determining text complexity and text selection from standardized measurements to student‐centered practices, and providing students with access to more diverse texts.

  June 23, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.570   open full text
• How and When Did You Learn Your Languages? Bilingual Students’ Linguistic Experiences and Literacy Instruction.
  Maneka Deanna Brooks.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 21, 2016
  Educators are expected to take into account students’ linguistic experiences when designing literacy instruction. However, official school records traditionally provide limited information about students’ linguistic histories. This article presents educators with a linguistic survey that can help bridge this gap. The survey is an easy‐to‐use classroom resource through which educators can gather information about their students’ linguistic experiences. Notably, it is based on ideas about and research on bilingualism that are not traditionally discussed in mainstream literacy education. To illustrate the survey's potential for instruction, the article includes a case study of a 10th‐grade student and discusses the implications of the type of information garnered by the survey for literacy pedagogy. As a whole, this article supports educators in making more linguistically informed decisions about literacy instruction.

  June 21, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.573   open full text
• Seeking a Balance: Discussion Strategies That Foster Reading With Authorial Empathy.
  Aidan T. Brett.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 15, 2016
  This study investigates the extent to which students' use of different discussion strategies fosters a balance between attending to the technical elements of authored texts and responding empathetically. Because small‐group discussion is a common approach to literary study, the analysis focuses on two small‐group discussions of “Charlie Howard's Descent,” Mark Doty's poem about the murder of a young gay man by other young men in his community. The two discussions were parsed into episodes that were scored according to the extent that they displayed balance. Then, each student turn was analyzed in terms of the discussion strategies employed. The analysis suggests that the strategies of searching for meaning, contextualizing, and interpreting contribute to the most balanced readings. Noting author's craft can lead to overly technical readings, although it has the potential to be paired with other strategies to facilitate a more balanced discussion.

  June 15, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.567   open full text
• Surface, Deep, and Transfer? Considering the Role of Content Literacy Instructional Strategies.
  Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, John Hattie.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 13, 2016
  This article provides an organizational review of content literacy instructional strategies to forward a claim that some strategies work better for surface learning, whereas others are more effective for deep learning and still others for transfer learning. The authors argue that the failure to adopt content literacy strategies by disciplinary teachers may be due, in part, to the mismatch between the approach and the level of learning expected.

  June 13, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.576   open full text
• Curriculum Matters: The Common Core, Authors of Color, and Inclusion for Inclusion's Sake.
  Christina Berchini.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 26, 2016
  In this article, the author employs a critical analysis of a short story with cross‐cultural themes to illustrate how it is framed in a widely used textbook aligned with the Common Core State Standards. The author shows how the inclusion of literature by authors of color in any curriculum does not necessitate that the needs of racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse student populations are being met in meaningful ways. The author concludes this article with implications and suggestions for instructional practice which center on identifying the counter‐stories that might be hidden beneath a diluted treatment of important contributions to children's literacy engagements made by authors of color. In short, the author argues that how students and teachers are served by corporatized recommendations for literacy engagement is an issue worthy of sustained and critical attention.

  May 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.546   open full text
• Secondary Teachers' Reflections From a Year of Professional Learning Related to Academic Language.
  Hannah Carter, Kimberly Crowley, Dianna R. Townsend, Diane Barone.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 26, 2016
  This article explores the changing beliefs and practices of 25 secondary teachers participating in a yearlong professional learning (PL) partnership. To demonstrate differences in teachers' approaches to and understandings resulting from that PL, the authors looked more closely at three teachers and found that their ideas about academic language instruction and their related pedagogy progressed in ways that were consistent with the stated PL objectives. However, the teachers varied in the way they situated the learning within their practice. The cases presented highlight the aspects of PL that resonated most with the teachers participating in the yearlong initiative.

  May 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.554   open full text
• Helping Students Bridge Inferences in Science Texts Using Graphic Organizers.
  Diego Roman, Francesca Jones, Deni Basaraba, Stephanie Hironaka.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 26, 2016
  The difficulties that students face when reading science texts go beyond understanding vocabulary and syntactic structures. Comprehension of science texts requires students to infer how these texts function as a unit to communicate scientific meaning. To help students in this process, science texts sometimes employ logical connectives (e.g., because, therefore) that serve as landmarks that students can use to create a mental model of the text. Yet, how often are logical connectives used to mark inferences in science texts, and what can teachers do to support their students when these connectives are absent? This article discusses the frequency and types of logical connectives in four science textbooks and illustrates the types of obstacles that science texts present for students in their inference‐making process. Further, this article offers teachers a practical strategy that they can use to apprentice their students into the ways that science texts function to communicate scientific concepts.

  May 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.555   open full text
• Connecting and Collaborating Within and Beyond a Massive Open Online Course.
  Kristine E. Pytash, Troy Hicks, Richard E. Ferdig.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 26, 2016
  In this article, we draw on the experiences of two young adults, Beth and Jamie (pseudonyms), who participated in a connectivist Massive Open Online Course (cMOOC) to explore how adolescents can become active members in a community of learners and the digital literacy practices that support this entry. We argue that Beth and Jamie engaged in digital literacy practices that allowed them to be socially connected, and that they participated and established themselves as equal members in a community of practice. Their experiences has implications for how we engage students in literacy experiences that encourage them to be connected learners in larger communities of practice.

  May 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.549   open full text
• Characteristics of Literacy Instruction That Support Reform in Content Area Classrooms.
  Daniel K. Siebert, Roni Jo Draper, Daniel Barney, Paul Broomhead, Sirpa Grierson, Amy P. Jensen, Jennifer Nielson, Jeffery D. Nokes, Steven Shumway, Jennifer Wimmer.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 26, 2016
  Current reforms in content area education present new challenges for literacy educators. These reforms promote engaging students in the practices of the disciplines—teaching students how to participate in an activity in which disciplinary content is produced. Content area literacy (CAL) instruction that supports only the learning of general academic or school literacies undermines these content area reforms and their focus on participation because it does not teach the literacies that students need to participate in the disciplines. In this article, the authors present an argument for why CAL instruction should focus on teaching disciplinary literacies instead of a general academic literacy. The authors show how CAL instruction focused on disciplinary literacies can support the educational goals of both literacy educators and content area reformers. The authors also contrast four corresponding characteristics of both types of CAL instruction and illustrate these with examples.

  May 26, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.526   open full text
• Reading Fluency and College Readiness.
  Timothy V. Rasinski, Shu‐Ching Chang, Elizabeth Edmondson, James Nageldinger, Jennifer Nigh, Linda Remark, Kristen Srsen Kenney, Elizabeth Walsh‐Moorman, Kasim Yildirim, William Dee Nichols, David D. Paige, William H. Rupley.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 14, 2016
  The Common Core State Standards suggest that an appropriate goal for secondary education is college and career readiness. Previous research has identified reading fluency as a critical component for proficient reading. One component of fluency is word recognition accuracy and automaticity. The present study attempted to determine the word recognition accuracy and automaticity indicators for incoming college students and to examine the relationship between oral reading rate and ACT scores. Knowledge of such performance may provide secondary literacy educators with another tool for assessing reading proficiency and college readiness. Eighty‐one students were asked to read a college‐level narrative passage. Mean student accuracy and automacity scores were determined, as well as correlations between accuracy, automacity, and students’ ACT scores. Results suggest a moderate and significant relationship between measures of automaticity and both the ACT reading subtest and ACT composite scores.

  May 14, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.559   open full text
• Academic Language Across Content Areas: Lessons From an Innovative Assessment and From Students’ Reflections About Language.
  Paola Uccelli, Emily Phillips Galloway.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 06, 2016
  Educators are aware of the need to promote students’ academic language to support text comprehension. Yet, besides teaching academic vocabulary, many educators continue to ask, What would this instruction entail? Guided by a new framework known as core academic language skills (CALS), the authors’ research focuses on delineating core language skills that contribute to reading comprehension to make them more visible to educators and researchers. In this article, findings from two studies are integrated to argue for a mixed‐methods approach to advance academic language research and pedagogy. In study 1, the authors assessed upper elementary/middle school students’ CALS and quantitatively examined the association between CALS and reading comprehension. In study 2, the authors used qualitative methods to collect and analyze students’ oral reflections about academic language. Key findings from these studies and their implications for academic language pedagogy in today's schools are discussed.

  May 06, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.553   open full text
• Rethinking the Writing Process: What Best‐Selling and Award‐Winning Authors Have to Say.
  Michael R. Sampson, Evan Ortlieb, Cynthia B. Leung.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 04, 2016
  Increasing attention has been directed recently to literacy education as a means for disciplinary learning and career readiness. All the while, concepts of print have dramatically changed because the majority of reading and writing now occurs in digital formats. Therefore, it is an ideal time to investigate the complexities of the writing process to determine how current writers hone their skills and how pedagogical practices can reflect those elements of writing. To unearth ways in which students can develop the writing proficiencies necessary for academic and career success, this investigation set out to determine the writing processes and practices of prolific best‐selling and award‐winning authors. Using a questionnaire containing both open‐ended and multiple‐choice items, findings reveal that successful writers maintain degrees of plasticity in terms of how their story, content, and voice unfold. Their processes for writing are not only purposefully pragmatic and highly individualized but also do not always progress linearly through the five elements of the writing process. Recommendations are made to assist classroom teachers of writing in their pedagogical planning, instruction, and assessment.

  May 04, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.557   open full text
• Reading for Reliability: Preservice Teachers Evaluate Web Sources About Climate Change.
  James S. Damico, Alexandra Panos.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 25, 2016
  This study examined what happened when 65 undergraduate prospective secondary level teachers across content areas evaluated the reliability of four online sources about climate change: an oil company webpage, a news report, and two climate change organizations with competing views on climate change. The students evaluated the sources at three time intervals based on 1. a screenshot of each source; 2. full web access to each source and prompted with critical questions to answer; and 3. after a whole class discussion about each source. Having the opportunity to evaluate the sources three times led students to modify their reliability ratings. Findings also reveal challenges some participants had differentiating between facts and opinions as well as distinctions in what they determined to be evidence in a source.

  April 25, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.551   open full text
• Reconsidering the Hypothetical Adolescent in Evaluating and Teaching Young Adult Literature.
  Mark A. Sulzer, Amanda Haertling Thein.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 25, 2016
  Courses on teaching young adult literature (YAL) often encourage preservice English language arts teachers to consider their future students as they evaluate texts for classroom use. In this study, Sulzer and Thein analyzed preservice teachers' responses to familiar questions used to frame discussions of YAL—questions that ask them to read on behalf of a hypothetical adolescent reader. Findings suggest that evaluating YAL this way may naturalize myths about who adolescents are, what they care about, and what they are capable of. Understanding and addressing these myths may be beneficial to all who are involved in selecting literature for adolescents.

  April 25, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.556   open full text
• Layering Intermediate and Disciplinary Literacy Work: Lessons Learned From a Secondary Social Studies Teacher Team.
  Christina L. Dobbs, Jacy Ippolito, Megin Charner‐Laird.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 18, 2016
  Secondary teachers nationwide are encouraged by the Common Core State Standards and recent research to enact disciplinary literacy instruction. However, little is known about how teachers make sense of teaching disciplinary literacy skills to adolescents. To what extent might adolescents still need the kinds of foundational support provided by what Shanahan and Shanahan called intermediate strategy instruction, or instruction in general reading comprehension strategies? In this article, the authors describe findings from a disciplinary literacy project in which a group of high school social studies teachers (and the authors) discovered that a complex layering of intermediate and disciplinary literacy work was required to meet students’ needs. Implications for teams of teachers wishing to explore this tension and keep their focus on helping students access and communicate content material are shared.

  April 18, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.547   open full text
• The Reliability and Validity of Peer Review of Writing in High School AP English Classes.
  Christian Schunn, Amanda Godley, Sara DeMartino.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 18, 2016
  One approach to writing instruction that has been shown to improve secondary students' academic writing without increasing demands on teachers' time is peer review. However, many teachers and students worry that students' feedback and assessment of their peers' writing is less accurate than teachers'. This study investigated whether Advanced Placement (AP) English students from diverse high school contexts can accurately assess their peers' writing if given a clear rubric. The authors first explain the construction of the rubric, a student‐friendly version of the College Board's scoring guide. They then examine the reliability and validity of the students' assessments by comparing them with their teachers' and trained AP scorers' assessments. The study found that students' assessments were more valid than the ones provided by a single teacher and just as valid as the ones provided by expert AP scorers. Students' and teachers' perceptions of the peer review process are also discussed.

  April 18, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.525   open full text
• Digital Curation: A Framework to Enhance Adolescent and Adult Literacy Initiatives.
  Sue Ann Sharma, Mark E. Deschaine.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 18, 2016
  Digital curation provides a way to transcend traditional academic fields of study and create instructional materials available to support adolescent and adult literacy initiatives. The instructional capabilities that Web 2.0 tools offer provide curators with the ability to reach audiences in a way that has not been possible in the past. The authors propose a digital curation framework for teachers to use as they collect, categorize, critique, conceptualize, and circulate resources. Based on this framework, the authors identify 10 valuable Web 2.0 tools that are available for effective content literacy digital curation.

  April 18, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.523   open full text
• From Keats to Kanye: Romantic Poetry and Popular Culture in the Secondary English Classroom.
  Megan E. Bowmer, Jen Scott Curwood.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 18, 2016
  This case study examined a Romanticism unit within a Year 9 English class in Sydney, Australia. It considered whether popular culture could build connections between students’ lives and Romanticism, and whether the process of remixing ‘high’ Romantic poetry with ‘low’ popular culture could foster student engagement. Thematic analysis of interview, survey, observation, and artifact data revealed three key findings. Firstly, through exploring popular culture texts, students believed Romantic concepts related to their world but not to them. Secondly, the extent to which students understood Romanticism through popular culture was influenced by personal, textual, and educational factors. Thirdly, students felt that the collaborative remixing process promoted freedom of expression. While many teachers are concerned that popular culture will displace canonical literature, this study found that this is not the case: incorporating popular culture is not an ‘either/or’ approach, but it is an enriching, complementary practice.

  April 18, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.550   open full text
• A Review of Literacy Interventions for Adults With Extensive Needs for Supports.
  Susan R. Copeland, Jessica A. McCord, Ashley Kruger.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 06, 2016
  Literacy skills enhance opportunities for a meaningful life. Many adults with extensive support needs did not receive effective literacy instruction in school, which limits their future opportunities. We reviewed 17 research studies examining literacy interventions for these adults. We were interested in (a) who were the participants, (b) the types of literacy targets represented, (c) the types of interventions utilized, and (d) the outcomes of these interventions. Findings documented that adults with extensive support needs can and do acquire literacy skills across the lifespan. Although there is a promising trend to teach for meaning using a multi‐component approach, few studies examined transfer of learning beyond the intervention setting. We discuss the implications of findings for future research and for practice.

  April 06, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.548   open full text
• Youth Workers as Literacy Mediators: Supporting Young People's Learning About Institutional Literacy Practices.
  Uta Papen, Virginie Thériault.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 06, 2016
  This article examines the role of youth workers as literacy mediators: people who help others with written texts. Drawing on a secondary analysis of data from a qualitative study conducted in Quebec, Canada, the authors discuss situations in which staff from a community‐based organization helped young people with written texts, such as bureaucratic letters and forms. Such institutional literacy practices were found to be stressful and difficult but were crucial for the young people's ability to access resources and opportunities. Literacy mediation, contrary to what other studies have shown, offers important opportunities for literacy learning. The youth workers were able to counter the negative emotions that dominant literacy practices often provoked and, in so doing, helped young people develop greater confidence and ability to deal with such literacy practices in a more informed and empowered way.

  April 06, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.545   open full text
• Flipped Professional Development: An Innovation in Response to Teacher Insights.
  Brooke L. Hardin, David A. Koppenhaver.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 06, 2016
  This article reports on a study of K–12 teachers' responses to an innovative flipped professional development series focused on literacy instruction. Thirty‐six participants voluntarily enrolled in one or more of three professional development courses. Findings address teacher evaluation of the efficacy of both the structure and the content of the courses. The flipped model appears worthy of further exploration as an effective means of offering professional development opportunities in literacy to teachers. A rationale is presented for selecting and applying the flipped model, and the design process is shared to facilitate replication.

  April 06, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.522   open full text
• “He Didn't Add More Evidence”: Using Historical Graphic Novels to Develop Language Learners' Disciplinary Literacy.
  Jie Y. Park.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 06, 2016
  A growing body of work has contributed to the theorizing and practice of disciplinary literacy instruction at the secondary level. However, there has been relatively little attention paid to pedagogical supports—texts and practices—that can foster historical literacy development in English learners who begin their U.S. schooling in middle or high school. Using discourse data collected from an after‐school literacy program, the author shows how a historical graphic novel can foster disciplinary literacy by helping students approach history as an account. She posits that in order for students to ponder authorial choices, question representations, and grapple with considerations of truthfulness, they have to understand that what they are reading is an account of history—a person's interpretation and construction of the past. The study's findings have implications for practitioners and researchers interested in the intersections of English learners, graphic novels, and disciplinary literacy in history.

  April 06, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.521   open full text
• Complicating Understandings of Students' Multiliterate Practices With Practitioner Inquiry.
  Susan Sandretto, Jane Tilson.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 06, 2016
  This article presents findings from a research project into multiliteracies pedagogy in Aotearoa New Zealand. In one phase of the multilayered project, participating teachers conducted an investigation of the in‐ and out‐of‐school literacy practices of one of their students using an ethnographic approach. In this article, the authors share themes that the teachers identified after reflecting on the practitioner inquiries to critically consider the question, How can practitioner inquiry into the multiliterate practices of one student complicate understandings of literacy? The rich, co‐constructed portraits of students' multiliterate practices challenged (mis)conceptions about the role of traditional literacies and the assumption that all students are digital natives, complicated understandings of literacy, illustrated the potential to deficit theorize nontraditional literacy practices, and illuminated implications for literacy pedagogy. The authors argue that when shared, practitioner inquiry is a powerful means to challenge assumptions and extend our understandings of literacy.

  April 06, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.524   open full text
• “Seeing It From a Different Light”.
  Blaine E. Smith, Bridget Dalton.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. January 19, 2016
  Although research emphasizes the importance of reflection for productive learning, much of this work has focused on writing as the preferred mode. The goal of this study was to examine how two adolescent composers reflected on their multimodal visions and processes through multimodal means—in particular, how the students remixed research‐provided screen capture video, class observation video, and their multimodal products to each create a composer's cut video reflection. A multimodal matrix analytic approach was employed by integrating analyses of students’ composing processes, products, and perspectives to derive themes. Findings revealed that the students uniquely remixed modes and media to create their composer's cut videos. They leveraged the affordances of video, image, text, and sound to represent their creative process and artistic identities. Students gained new insights into their process and who they were as multimodal designers and recommended composer's cut as a useful tool for personal reflection and social media sharing.

  January 19, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.503   open full text
• Becoming “Eligible to Matter”.
  Julie E. Learned.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. January 18, 2016
  The practice of labeling readers persists in schools even though deficit labels can undermine literacy learning. To understand the literacy experiences of struggling readers, the author conducted a yearlong study in which she shadowed ninth graders across content area classes. This article examines times when youths appeared disengaged because they were experiencing high levels of stress due to, for example, homelessness or hunger. How teachers together with youths interpreted stress powerfully contributed to the construction of youths as struggling or capable readers and learners. When teachers saw stress as low motivation or work avoidance, it exacerbated deficit positioning. However, when teachers sought to understand the root causes of stress, teachers and youths jointly addressed obstacles in ways that bolstered youths' well‐being and literacy. Findings have implications for disrupting deficit notions about reading struggle and building positive student–teacher relationships through which students can grow as readers and young people.

  January 18, 2016   doi: 10.1002/jaal.499   open full text
• Translanguaging Practices and Perspectives of Four Multilingual Teens.
  Shannon M. Daniel, Mark B. Pacheco.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. December 12, 2015
  Increasingly, educational research suggests that translanguaging pedagogies can provide meaningful supports for English language learners. Yet, few studies examine how multilingual teens in English‐dominant settings independently translanguage to make sense of school and achieve their goals. In this study, we review definitions of translanguaging and shed light on the rich translanguaging practices of four transnational, multilingual teens in high school and middle school. Holding the view that pedagogical moves should be developed in response to particular groups of learners, we show teens' agentive use of translanguaging and connect these to implications for practice in secondary schools.

  December 12, 2015   doi: 10.1002/jaal.500   open full text
• Inverting Instruction in Literacy Methods Courses.
  Lisa M. Zawilinski, Kimberly A. Richard, Laurie A. Henry.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. December 11, 2015
  Three teacher educators who inverted/flipped instruction in their literacy courses describe their experience in this article. Inverted, or flipped, instruction is a blended learning approach that increases opportunities for active engagement in class by moving basic instructor demonstration and presentation outside of class. The authors provide a rationale for inverting instruction and include relevant research that supports it. They also include a sample literacy module before and after inverting it. In addition, both student and instructor benefits to and challenges of inverted instruction are shared. Inverted instruction seemed to allow students to personalize their learning outside of class and affords them greater opportunities to apply and synthesize information during class.

  December 11, 2015   doi: 10.1002/jaal.498   open full text
• A Question of Legitimacy.
  Robin A. Moeller.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. December 10, 2015
  Although the implementation of multimodalities in education is much lauded by education research, the educational value of such formats is uncertain for education stakeholders. This study relied on the use of focus group interviews and field notes to better understand how a group of middle school students felt about their graphic novel reading experience and the legitimacy of this format in an educational context. The researcher's findings suggest that the students enjoyed their graphic novel reading experience greatly; however, the participants did not consider graphic novel reading to be a valuable educational practice.

  December 10, 2015   doi: 10.1002/jaal.501   open full text
• Drawing on What We Do as Readers.
  Carol Gilles, Yang Wang, Danielle Johnson.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. October 03, 2015
  The debate between content area and disciplinary literacy continues. Should content teachers adopt more general strategies, as often suggested by language arts teachers, or learn more discipline‐specific strategies? Neither choice positions content teachers as expert. In this inquiry, a team of middle school teachers uncovered their reading strategies in their disciplines and embedded the most useful ones in their classrooms. In this descriptive case study, field notes of team meetings, classroom observations, interviews of teachers and students, and student work samples were collected and analyzed. Results indicated that teachers were metacognitive and used both discipline‐specific and general strategies in their teaching. Learning was most powerful when the entire team collaborated to work on content connections and to give students specific ways to overcome confusion. Implications point to rethinking the divide between discipline‐specific and general strategies and promoting authentic collaboration of content area and language arts teachers.

  October 03, 2015   doi: 10.1002/jaal.489   open full text
• A Counterstory of One's Own.
  Jeanne Dyches Bissonnette, Jocelyn Glazier.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. September 03, 2015
  Nationwide, virtually all secondary students interact with British literature, a traditionally Anglo, white, male canon. Yet, this revered curriculum provides few mirrors for students from historically marginalized populations to see their own cultures reflected. In this reflective practitioner piece, the authors first illustrate how counterstorytelling—a practice emerging from critical race theory—can break open the canon. Because counterstorytelling invites, values, and projects marginalized voices, when incorporated into the secondary English classroom, the practice helps engage students with the material while developing and honing their literacy skills. Second, the authors detail a lesson demonstrating that the canon and counterstorytelling can work synergistically. Throughout the article, the authors attend to the challenges of using an equity pedagogy to teach a canon that functions as the majoritarian story of the secondary literacy classroom—and society at large. Finally, the authors offer strategies for effectively incorporating counterstorytelling into the secondary English classroom.

  September 03, 2015   doi: 10.1002/jaal.486   open full text
• Gamified Vocabulary.
  Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Sara Walsh.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 27, 2014
  This article explores the ways “gamification” can play a role in adolescents' development of vocabulary. Gamification involves the application of game‐design thinking and play elements to non‐game activities, such as routine homework or classroom lessons. Drawing upon data from in‐school and after‐school settings, the authors examine how eleventh grade students' use of adaptive online resources helped to support differentiated learning and improved understanding of vocabulary in context. Not only did students enjoy the adaptive and independent practices associated with a gamified approach to learning vocabulary, they also became more aware of their own word knowledge and developed a nuanced understanding of language.

  May 27, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.315   open full text
• When the Subaltern Finally Speaks.
  Jyothi Bathina.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 27, 2014
  As a postcolonial Indian woman now living in the West, I managed to overcome my own circumstances by finding my voice and resisting the oppression of an abusive arranged marriage. Subsequently, as a teacher of at risk marginalized and immigrant youth in the inner cities of 21st century America, who continue to be “colonized” by a public education system which often dictates monolithic ways of knowing and being, it became my duty to help my students find their voices and speak their multiple truths, while simultaneously engaging them in mastering the academic and literacy skills needed to successfully navigate the world.This study describes a transformative personal narrative writing project implemented with 100 middle and high school students, resulting in two published anthologies of student writing in which students discover and express their newly found voices.

  May 27, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.317   open full text
• Using Disciplinary Literacies to Enhance Adolescents' Engineering Design Activity.
  Amy Alexandra Wilson, Emma Smith, Daniel L. Householder.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 28, 2014
  This comparative case study describes the literacy practices of two groups of adolescents as they sought to solve authentic problems through engineering design processes. Three types of data were collected as the groups addressed these problems: video‐ and audio‐recordings of their conversations; adolescent‐generated products; and pre‐ and post‐challenge interviews. The authors used existing coding schemes of engineering design activity to identify when the adolescents enacted different stages of engineering design, as well as a modified form of constant comparative analysis to identify the literacy practices that corresponded with each stage. The analysis indicates that applications of literacy practices at each stage of the engineering design process enhanced the adolescents' overall design activity, whereas the absence of literacy practices often impeded the viability of their final designs. The authors suggest implications for high school engineering and science teachers who seek to enhance their students' design activity through literacy instruction.

  April 28, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.302   open full text
• Korean and Korean American Adolescents' Responses to Literature.
  Eunhyun Kim.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 28, 2014
  How might Korean/Korean American youth cope with everyday life as a minority or a model minority if they had early and consistent exposure to literature depicting the mirrored experiences of Korean/Korean Americans? This study employed qualitative methods and an interpretive approach which enhance understanding of the life experiences, literary experiences, interpersonal interactions, and complex socio‐cultural contexts of Korean/Korean American adolescents. Data was collected through interviews, participant‐observations, and response journals. The findings revealed that the participants' exposure to the literature provided opportunities to reflect on their own experiences related to the stories, expand their worldviews, increase critical awareness of social issues, enhance understanding of issues and struggles of Korean/Korean Americans, and experience personal transformation. The interpretive community created spaces to deepen literary understanding by providing chances to share their viewpoints, grapple with alternative points of view, and add layers of meaning.

  April 28, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.304   open full text
• Teaching Adolescent ELs to Write Academic‐Style Persuasive Essays.
  Kathleen Ramos.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 28, 2014
  The wide adoption of the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the U.S. has increased expectations for all teachers to prepare all learners to read and write in academic ways. More knowledge is needed about instructional approaches that may lead adolescent English learners (ELs) to meet this goal. Developing academic literacy practices represents an acute challenge for adolescent ELs. This article describes an eight‐week instructional unit in a U.S. urban public high school that investigated the effectiveness of using the genre‐based Reading to Learn approach to support 20 adolescent ELs in learning to write academic‐style persuasive essays. Results indicated a statistically significant increase from pretest to posttest in the participants' effective use of the linguistic resources that function to create persuasion in an academic way. These findings suggest that the Reading to Learn approach may be one way to support adolescent ELs in developing academic literacy practices.

  April 28, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.303   open full text
• Character Journaling Through Social Networks.
  John Wesley White, Holly Hungerford‐Kresser.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 28, 2014
  Countering reactionary attempts to ban social media from schools is a strong research based rationale for bringing social media into the literacy classroom. When used as a medium to explore literature—or more specifically for interactive character journaling—this medium exemplifies how meaning is created by individuals' interactions with texts, by the prior knowledge they bring to their reading, and by the negotiation of meaning by participants in this digital “third space.” Used this way, social media can scaffold reading, promote critical discussions about texts, prompt basic sociohistorical research, and engage students in examining discourse, and provide an authentic venue for students to practice code‐switching. This study highlights that social media is anything but an educational distraction; rather, when used appropriately it can serve as an engaging and interactive foray into socially‐mediated literacy and constructivist learning.

  April 28, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.306   open full text
• Joy and the “Smart Kids”.
  Yolanda J. Majors.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. April 28, 2014
  Through a sharing of personal experience, this article aims to draw attention to the language of schooling— a language, both simple and sophisticated, that many schools, as institutions, devise to communicate with insiders and outsiders. The author argues that there is a mismatch between assumed best practices embedded in this language and the challenging demands of cultural, community‐based pedagogies. 
Institutional discourses, while appearing neutral, simultaneously cling to explicit and implicit colorblind discourses. Such discourses allow the institution of schooling, and the individual teacher, to evade critical examination, thereby sustaining a complex landscape in which consumers (students, parents, and stakeholders) engage producers (teachers, administrators) in stances relative to the expectations that each has of the other.

  April 28, 2014   doi: 10.1002/jaal.305   open full text
• Learning to Write in Middle School?
  Joshua Fahey Lawrence, Emily Phillips Galloway, Soobin Yim, Alex Lin.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. August 14, 2013
  Despite the emphasis on increasing the frequency with which students engage in analytic writing, we know very little about the ‘writing diet’ of adolescents. Student notebooks, used as a daily record of in‐class work, provide one source of evidence about the diversity of writing expectations that students face. Through careful examination of the notebooks written by four middle‐graders in 12 content area classrooms (290 texts), the present study help us to understand the ways in which these writers were acclimatized in one school year to the norms of writing in these diverse disciplinary contexts. In particular, results of this study suggest that adolescent writers may be afforded little opportunity to produce cognitively challenging genres, such as analytic essays. Notably, in content area classrooms, students engaged in very little extended writing.

  August 14, 2013   doi: 10.1002/jaal.219   open full text
• The Pedagogical Potential of Video Remix.
  Catherine Burwell.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. June 24, 2013
  Appropriation, transformation and remix are increasingly recognized as significant aspects of digital literacy. This article considers how one form of digital remix – the video remix – might be used in classrooms to introduce critical conversations about representation, appropriation, creativity and copyright. The first half of the article explores the opportunities that remix presents to reflect on mainstream media ideologies, emerging modes of collaborative creativity, and the complexities of intellectual property. The second half illustrates this potential by examining the use of one popular video remix, Buffy vs. Edward, in a secondary school English class and an undergraduate popular culture course. Throughout, the article argues that critical discussion of digital texts and practices opens up the possibilities for students to analyze their everyday lived media experience. This is an important undertaking in a context in which young people's identities and world views are increasingly shaped through digital texts and interactions.

  June 24, 2013   doi: 10.1002/jaal.205   open full text
• Writing “Voiced” Arguments About Science Topics.
  Mary Beth Monahan.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 15, 2013
  This teacher‐research study responds to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) call for an integrated model of literacy that simultaneously builds deep content knowledge and develops students' proficiency in writing arguments in science. The author notes that while argument is a cornerstone of the CCSS writing standards, little attention is paid to the issue of “voice.” Asserting that voice is often what makes arguments compelling, the author urges teachers to engage students in the formal study of “voice” while teaching opinion/argumentative writing. The author describes a “science sleuth” simulation unit she implemented to help students perform the production strategies necessary for composing “voiced” scientific arguments. Using grounded theory methodology, the author presents student writing samples to spotlight the challenges, benefits and potential pitfalls of encouraging sixth graders to write scientific arguments with voice—authority, conviction, commitment, and a command of the subject matter.

  May 15, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.204   open full text
• Adolescent Reading/Viewing of Advertisements.
  Deborah Begoray, Joan Wharf Higgins, Janie Harrison, Amy Collins‐Emery.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 13, 2013
  We examined middle years adolescents' (ages 12–13) responses to reading and viewing advertisements as part of integrated language arts and health education lessons. We report here on the qualitative results from student and teacher focus groups, and from student journals. Three regular classroom teachers co‐developed (with university researchers) and then delivered ten media literacy lessons to three classes of grade seven students. Findings include how students learned to analyze advertisements and think more critically by designed ads which satirized original ads. We saw also that students' informed decision making resulted in both acceptance and resistance of media messages. We conclude that transactional reading models and positioning theory may provide teachers with a valuable foundation upon which to base pedagogy designed to help adolescents' understanding and evaluation of advertisements.

  May 13, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.202   open full text
• Documenting Instructional Practices in a Literacy‐Infused Arts Program.
  Wanda Brooks, Michael W. Smith.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 13, 2013
  This study examines the instructional practices around literacy that characterized the work of a community based arts program designed for urban adolescents. Two primary sources of data were collected: field notes on approximately 35 hours of instruction spread across seven months and interviews with the program's staff and students. Four distinct instructional episodic structures were observed: explicit instruction, collaborative or individual construction that provided time for students to engage in creative literacy and artistic activity, serial performance in which teachers are on as equal a footing as possible as students, and scaffolded practice that is informed by a belief that all can succeed can foster deep engagement in literate activity.

  May 13, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.201   open full text
• Mapping Today's Literacy Landscapes.
  Terry Campbell, Michelann Parr.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 09, 2013
  It has been widely recognized for some time that the complexities involved in becoming literate and engaging in the processes of reading require models that go beyond decoding and encoding. Luke and Freebody, for example, offered a model describing four roles for readers, where literacy embraces families of practice; this model was later critiqued for being not sufficient to deal with the complexities of the digital world. Given contemporary views of literacy that embrace multi‐literacies and students' in‐school and out‐of‐school practices, it is useful to revision the four roles so that they reflect the demands of current literacy practices. This article presents three navigational practices in order to illustrate the complexities involved in becoming text interpreters and text creators in multiple contexts, for multiple purposes, in contemporary society.

  May 09, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.203   open full text
• Writing in the Wild: Writers’ Motivation in Fan‐Based Affinity Spaces.
  Jen Scott Curwood, Alecia Marie Magnifico, Jayne C. Lammers.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 02, 2013
  In order to understand the culture of the physical, virtual, and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we build on Gee's concept of affinity spaces. Drawing on our ethnographic research of adolescent literacies related to The Hunger Games novels, the Neopets online game, and The Sims videogames, this article explores the nature of interest‐driven writing in these spaces. We argue that fan‐based affinity spaces motivate young adults to write because they offer multiple modes of representation, diverse pathways to participation, and an authentic audience. As scholars and educators, we posit that these out‐of‐school spaces can offer youth new purposes, modes, and tools for their written work.

  May 02, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.192   open full text
• Critical Literacy and the Ethical Responsibilities of Student Media Production.
  Jessica K. Parker.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 02, 2013
  Today's complex literate environments require contemporary authors to focus on the ethical responsibilities of media creation. This study highlights 12th graders in California who produced a documentary on Latino immigration and chronicles the complex interactions between student‐generated media, critical literacy, and ethics. Findings highlight two interrelated ethical tensions related to the filmmaker–subject relationship: the intertwined issues related to reciprocity and relations of power and the personal and political representation of Latino immigration to the United States. An essential component of critical literacy is for students to develop meta‐awareness of the choices they make within media production: to reflect on one's choices and the potential impact of these choices on others. Educators should recognize the ethical responsibilities of media making such as students’ interpersonal relationships and potential sociopolitical issues of representation.

  May 02, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.194   open full text
• “What's the Catch?”: Providing Reading Choice in a High School Classroom.
  Denise N. Morgan, Christopher W. Wagner.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 02, 2013
  The idea of offering students choice in their reading materials is not new yet this is not occurring in many high school classrooms. Researchers have identified many academic and personal benefits when students are allowed to choose their own reading materials, including more engagement with reading. This article describes one high school teacher's experiences implementing a three‐week reading choice unit to his sophomore English classes. We highlight how he structured this experience and the instructional decisions he made while teaching students all of whom were reading a different book. In addition, we examine the students’ responses to this three week experience.

  May 02, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.193   open full text
• From Playbuilding to Devising in Literacy Education: Aesthetic and Pedagogical Approaches.
  Mia Perry, Anne Wessels, Amanda C. Wager.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 02, 2013
  The field of literacy education encompasses many different modalities of reading and writing the world, including those of drama, theatre, and performance practiced in both school and community settings. As contemporary theatre practices have broadened performance creation approaches available to literacy and arts educators working with youth and adults, playbuilding and devising offer two modes of creating student‐authored collective performance. Although the processes of playbuilding and devising overlap, they differ in both intention and practice. Both approaches include important frameworks and possibilities for work across literacy education. Following a discussion on the connections between literacy and drama in education, this paper introduces the forms of playbuilding and devising, followed by step‐by‐step illustrations of the practices at work in classrooms. This article, then, acts as an invitation to explore these two vehicles of performance creation in educational and literacy contexts.

  May 02, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.195   open full text
• Learning to Talk Like the Test: Guiding Speakers of African American Vernacular English.
  Douglas Fisher, Diane Lapp.
  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. May 02, 2013
  In this article, we focus on instructional support for 91 students who speak African American Vernacular English and who are at high risk for not passing the required state exams. We profile the instruction that was provided and the results from that instruction, providing examples of how students’ language was scaffolded such that they could code switch between test language (standard academic English) and the languages of their homes.

  May 02, 2013   doi: 10.1002/JAAL.198   open full text