Acknowledging that students are civic actors and that teaching and learning is always relevant to civic lives, this article addresses how imaginative spaces can be political and if the ways that educators dream and speculate with youth have civic implications. The author first considers how communities and nations are shaped by sociopolitical…

Literacy educators are troubled by the isolated nature of many contemporary reading programs. Too often in middle school classrooms, students read alone, take computerized tests, and do not engage in authentic dialogue with peers. In this article, the authors argue that reading texts individually, while necessary, is not sufficient, and through…