Within the context of literacy instruction, the process of becoming focuses on students' literate identities, or the identities that learners take on and construct in the social and cultural context of learning to read and write (Wagner et al., 2024). In this article, the author explores identity with the purpose of using it as an organizing…

Conceptualizing literacy as multidimensional, this study explores the intersection between literacy integration and children's literacy engagement by investigating how a researcher's workshop guided practice in integrating literacy with social studies. A year-long qualitative case study approach was used to examine how children actively engaged…

Concerns for the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and the children of families who so self-identify suggest that teachers may need additional support in fostering classrooms that welcome all students. The field of children's literature has long-standing interests in multiple cultures and the literature…

This article offers a way of thinking about literacy instruction that critiques current reasoning, but also provides a space to dynamically think outside of prevalent practices. It presents a framework for both planning and studying literacy pedagogy that combines a practical everyday model of the reading process with Michel Foucault's (1988c)…

Roser discusses how both teachers and librarians, whom she calls the preservers of children's reading, should cling tightly to three essential practices to ensure that our children read more, read better, and read more widely. She argues we should: a) keep the classroom library viable; b) preserve, protect, and defend time for self-selected…

In this research, two questions related to arts integration are studied: First, the extent to which sixth and seventh grade students' language arts and mathematics performance, as well as their engagement with school are positively impacted by classroom settings in which theater strategies are integrated into language arts instruction; and second,…

Schools bring people together. Yet for many children there are major discontinuities between their lives in and out of school and such differences impact on literacy teaching and learning in both predictable and unpredictable ways. However if schools were reconceptualised as meeting places, where different people are thrown together (Massey, 2005)…

Low-income male students of color are among the populations experiencing the least amount of success in the current arrangements of school, described by some as part of the "the boy crisis" in education. This article draws on a year long ethnographic study of a single-sex, all-male classroom in a public middle school. It explores their experiences…

In Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Jaques offers the image of the world--or society--as a stage on which "one man in his time plays many parts." The question is: how does he (or she) know how to play those parts? Jaques seems to be suggesting that individuals are the creation of society, and the parts they play are written in…

What features of the physical environment in video game arcades lead kids to be so engaged? How can analysis of arcade space inform language arts teachers' decisions about designing classroom environments? This article presents an analysis of physical space in video game arcades and participants' positions therein to suggest how language arts…

This article focuses on the evolution of the classroom literacy block as a learning space where teachers and students renegotiated activities for independent vocabulary and word work within a high-stakes reform environment. When a second grade classroom teacher and literacy support specialist decided to co-teach, they invited all students in the…

Examines professional concerns related to improving children's knowledge of language, determining what knowledge children bring to a learning environment, and promoting children's joy of learning. (RL)

This article explores the ways three young students expressed their perceptions about literacy and investigates how their classroom identity shapes and is shaped by those perceptions. The ways in which positioning within a writing event and the classroom culture contributed to the development of writing voice and identity are examined. In…

Describes problem-based thematic instruction in an effort to give both students and teachers meaningful experiences. (MG)

Argues that "whole language" is a philosophy that places meaning making at the center of learning and instruction. Suggests that literature and a literature-based program play a critical role in the classroom and in developing student motivation. Suggests that the teacher is the critical facilitator for meaning making in an interactive…