Drawing on sociocultural approaches to literacy and literature on the communal spaces of teaching and learning of Latino/as, I share one Mexican border women's life story and analyze her literacies and ways of knowing in relation to the literacy event of giving "consejo." Using data gathered through individual interviews and…

The Family Backpack Project provided 249 low-income, prekindergarten children and their families with opportunities to read and listen to audio recordings of 3 sets of books in their homes. Families received English or dual-language texts (English plus Spanish, Arabic, Kurdish, or Somali) matched to their home languages. Children and their…

This article centers the stories of two eighth grade students in the context of a social action literacy project. Their teacher designed curriculum that scaffolded opportunities for them to address English language arts standards while speaking out for social change. The students' responses to the project reveal their civic literacy practices, as…

Writing is difficult for students who are learning English, as they often struggle to express what they really want to say. Writing is difficult for their teachers, too, who often struggle to respond in ways that are helpful. In this article, the authors offer an approach that looks at students' writing from a functional linguistics perspective,…

This article describes the author's efforts to engage teachers in language study in a graduate course involving graduate students in Literacy Studies and TESOL programs. In the course "Language, Culture, and Identity: Issues for Teachers and Children," teachers study language like linguists: looking closely at language in use through in-class…

O'Connor, an author of realistic fiction for children, shares her attempts to strike a balance between carefree, uncensored, authentic, realistic writing and age-appropriate writing. Of course, complicating that balancing act is the fact that what seems age-appropriate to her might not seem so to everyone. O'Connor suggests that while it may be…

Presents ten categories which illustrate the range of the uses of language, and discusses implications for instruction. (DD)

Focuses on the narrative function to show how children can build on another speaker's turns in conversation and can build on their own utterances as they speak. Analyzes children's dialogs and narratives to highlight the primacy of the oral language arts as they are enacted in daily conversation and play. (HTH)

Outlines some of the problems children encounter while developing communicative competency. Discusses ways to assess an individual child's communicative abilities and the ways that language development research can help teachers enhance those abilities. (HTH)

Examines children's progression in the use of humor in language from taking folktales seriously, to using humor for shock, to using humor to alter social environments. (HTH)

Contains an interview with journalist Edwin Newman in which Newman urges that students be taught to use language with greater precision, and a response to Newman by John S. Mayher and Rita S. Brause. (DD)

Reprint of an article published in the March 1937 issue of "The Elementary English Review" dealing with the decline of language. (DD)

Describes ERIC resources that present research on children's language usage and development and that suggest activities for the promotion of language development. (ET)

Uses both the findings of formal research studies and the observations of sensitive teachers to illustrate the power of language for helping children gain control over, and put their mark upon, their surroundings. (HTH)

Presents a variety of social contexts for verbal interaction between adult and child and between children. Discusses the variations in interaction caused by different contexts, as well as features that are consistent across contexts. (HTH)