This study explored the letter-writing practices of incarcerated adult students at a facility within the Los Angeles County jail system. The study sought to understand the role that letter writing plays in the lives of these individuals, their unique composition processes and products, their beliefs about themselves and their skills as writers,…

Family Literacy is an intergenerational program that brings parents and preschool- or elementary-age children to school together. It can provide a depth in education that allows learning opportunities for children and the adults in their lives. As relationships are built, learning becomes circular between parents, children, and teachers. This…

This article discusses the contributions of foreign-born TESOL instructors helping adult language learners develop literacy skills through a pen pal project, which lasted 10 weeks and consisted of writing letters back and forth weekly. The project provided adult immigrant learners with an opportunity to practice meaningful writing to support their…

In August 1922 a young woman was writing a letter to her comrade and colleague in a New York garment shop. The sender was Rose Pesotta, writing from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she had just completed a summer school for women workers. Short as it is, the letter brings together a cluster of themes, ideas, and practices that were…

This article reassesses the Fred Newton Scott and Joseph Villiers Denney collaborative textbook authorship by emphasizing Denney's generally overlooked contributions to that coauthorship and to the field of composition generally. Through an examination of Denney's scholarly work and his personal correspondence with Scott during the period marking…

Programmatic, multidisciplinary research provided converging brain, genetic, and developmental support for evidence-based diagnoses of three specific learning disabilities based on hallmark phenotypes (behavioral expression of underlying genotypes) with treatment relevance: dysgraphia (impaired legible automatic letter writing, orthographic…

This article seeks to explain the nature of the arguments the Iroquois presented to the US government in trying to prevent their removal. In the letters they wrote to the federal government from the 1830s to the 1850s they emphasized their own law as well as that of the United States. They drew on whatever perception of law they deemed was best…

This qualitative study reports the findings implementing a pen pal letter exchange project between adult English language learners and volunteer native English speakers. The pen pal project was implemented using a holistic and socio-cultural approach to English literacy development. This article presents pen pal writing as an authentic language…

Henri Lefebvre suggested that social researchers engage in "the concrete analysis of rhythms" in order to reveal the "pedagogy of appropriation (the appropriation of the body, as of spatial practice)". Lefebvre's spatial analysis has influenced educational researchers, while the idea of "pedagogy" has travelled beyond…

North Queens Community High School serves approximately 200 students, 16-20 years old, as they strive to reach their personal and academic goals. All students at North Queens have previously been enrolled in high school elsewhere and are over-age and undercredited. Small class sizes, student-centered support, and an accelerated credit acquisition…

In this exploratory study, reading, writing, and discussion were examined within the context of a pen pal intervention focusing on authentic literacy tasks. The study employed a mixed-method design with a triangulation-convergence model to explore the relationship between authentic literacy tasks and the literacy motivation of elementary students…

Many academics like to isolate a piece of the world to study: an important social issue, a central philosophical problem, a key moment in history. They know they're oversimplifying but they do it anyway--it's the only way to make progress, and what's more, their little worlds are often more beautiful than the real one. This paper shares a story of…

A parenting curriculum developed for incarcerated mothers was evaluated using a pretest, posttest, follow-up design with 57 women incarcerated in state prisons. Developmental psychologists delivered a 12-session curriculum focused on parenting issues unique to incarcerated parents. Each class met for 2 hours and followed a prepared curriculum that…

As a rhetorical figure, the example is constitutively split between the structural vocations of the Greek "paradeigma" (emphasizing illumination and belonging) and the Latin "exemplum" (emphasizing detachment and exclusion). This bifurcation enables the example to function as a strategic resource of ambiguity. Christine de…

Historically, letter reading and writing have been pervasive across human societies, cultures, and communities (Barton & Hall, 2000). Like all literate activities, it derives its meaning and significance from how it is situated within cultural beliefs, values, and practices. Despite its prevalence, however, little is known about the meanings…