Middle school students' ability to think critically and comprehend complex text is often challenging. Students often need additional academic support in this area. Close reading text is an instructional strategy that involves analyzing and looking at a text critically. The purpose of the qualitative phenomenological study is to examine English…

The aims of this qualitative study were (1) to understand the experiences of two middle school English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) teachers as they planned and implemented critical literacy into a unit in their existing curriculum and (2) to understand the experiences of students as they engaged in a curriculum embedded with critical…

Literacy is an essential component of any elementary-school classroom. To address shifting understandings of literacy and how to teach it, Alberta has developed a new language-arts curriculum. This curriculum, however, was developed in a context where schools have a long history of not serving Indigenous children well, including not meeting their…

The following designed-based implementation research (DBIR) study explores the impacts of a research-practice partnership (RPP) on two fifth grade ELA teachers and the researcher as they engaged with the designing and implementation of two critical literacy pedagogy (CLP) units through the adaptation of mandated New York State Common Core (NYSCC)…

In this article, I critique a component of the highly structured Open Court Reading curriculum designed to teach elementary children "inquiry and higher-order thinking" skills. The intended outcome of this component is, I argue, the production of critically literate and informed consumers of information. However, both the critical…

As the new English Language Arts Common Core State Standards take hold across the United States, the need grows for pre-service and in-service teachers to be ready to develop curriculum and instruction that addresses their requirements. This timely, thoughtful, and comprehensive text directly meets this need. It delineates a literacy practices and…