Integrated language arts and science & technology (ILS&T) instruction can make learning more meaningful and improve student learning outcomes for both subjects. Although the literature has stressed that such integrated instruction presents pedagogical challenges for elementary school teachers, little is yet known about the specific…

Elementary French immersion (FI) language arts teachers often organize instruction around small learning groups. Students rotate through learning stations/centres and work independently with their peers on L2 literacy skills. This study examined how principles of task-based language teaching (TBLT) can be used and/or adapted to further support…

Writing tasks are essential in students' academic literacy learning experience. An important factor for success with academic writing tasks is task representation, which refers to how students understand the assigned writing tasks. Second language (L2) writing research has taken interest in this topic. However, most research has focused on the…

Educators have long been advocating for the appropriation of students' interests into the classroom as a means of promoting participation and learning. However, little attention has been paid to the possible issues that interest-driven pedagogy might engender for both teachers and students through its blend of the personal and academic. This…

The present study investigated students' (N = 404) interpretations of the main message and use of modes in a persuasive multimodal video on vaccines. It also examined whether students' topic knowledge, language arts grades, and self-identified gender were associated with their interpretations. Students analyzed a YouTube video in which two…

Schools today face the challenge of preparing students to live, work, and prosper in a rapidly changing world. As a response to this global challenge, Norway has adopted a national curriculum focusing on the development of 21st-century skills. In this study, we investigate if and how the tasks in science and language arts textbooks in…

Small-group discussions in which teachers and students interact with text are common in language arts classrooms. As documented in the extant literature, teacher discourse moves affect how the discussion unfolds and the resulting quality of the talk. What is not present in the literature is a unified lexicon or taxonomy for defining and…

Small-group discussions in which teachers and students interact with text are common in language arts classrooms. As documented in the extant literature, teacher discourse moves affect how the discussion unfolds and the resulting quality of the talk. What is not present in the literature is a unified lexicon or taxonomy for defining and…

This study drew on observations of 40 secondary English language arts, history, and science lessons to describe variation in opportunities for students to engage in argumentation and possible implications for student engagement and learning. The authors focused their analysis on two broad dimensions of argumentation tasks: (1) "Instructional…

This study investigates the quality of the writing tasks assigned to native Spanish speakers in bilingual (Spanish-English) contexts, and the relationship between task quality and students' use of an academic register in their native language. Fifty-six language arts tasks were collected from 26 grade 4 and 5 teachers, and four student writing…

Teacher language and students' on-task behavior were examined in language arts lessons with and without classroom drama in two self-contained third grade classrooms for students with learning disabilities and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Language arts lessons that integrated classroom drama were associated with significantly higher…

Learning in general education contexts enhances access to general curriculum content for students with disabilities. However, few intervention studies focused on general education content have been conducted in general education settings. The current study provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of a literacy intervention using…

Lesson transitions are important units for analysis not only for establishing the presence of group/pair work but also for examining the contextual conditions for small-group learning. Scholars have suggested that the "open" or "closed" contextual conditions set up through the teacher's use of language to introduce group/pair…

The study presents a critical analysis of written expression curriculum-based measurement (WE-CBM) metrics derived from 3- and 10-min test lengths. Criterion validity and classification accuracy were examined for Total Words Written (TWW), Correct Writing Sequences (CWS), Percent Correct Writing Sequences (%CWS), and Correct Minus Incorrect…

Stance refers to a display of a socially recognized epistemic or affective attitude toward a referent or proposition (Ochs, 1993). Although this display of attitude can be performed linguistically, paralinguistically, and non-verbally (Du Bois, 2007), it has primarily been explored in terms of linguistic strategies (use of reference terms,…