This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional…

While the Common Core State Standards initiated the instructional shift that promoted technology to achieve a student-centered, process-oriented blended reading and writing classroom, the COVID-19 pandemic demanded innovative technology applications in K-12 public schools. This qualitative, phenomenological action research study explored the…

Reading is seen by many as an essential ingredient for learning to write. Is the relationship between reading and writing reciprocal? Does the path to better reading involve becoming a good writer? The answer to these questions presents a paradox. One does not have to learn to write in order to learn to read, as learning how to write or type words…

In spite of many recent defenses of the humanities, we are still lacking anything like an articulation of a 'logic of the humanities' comparable to what has been produced for the social sciences in various forms and at various points over the past 100 years. To articulate such a logic requires us to link practices and values -- the practices being…

Proficient writers spend substantial time planning for writing, and that planning begins with analyzing the writing task. They spend time considering the topic, the audience and its needs, and the genre and form of the writing. This rhetorical analysis helps them set goals, orient their attention, and get organized. Task analysis can also help…

First-grader students engaged in a guided historical inquiry about Abraham Lincoln. The teacher carefully intertwined historical content, close reading, critical thinking, and text-based writing during Reading, Writing, and Social Studies classes. Students scrutinized secondary sources, which were largely biographies of Lincoln, to build their…

The authors describe a process for building teachers' capacity to identify, develop, and engage in discipline-specific literacy instruction that supports both content and literacy aims. This process uses three questions to frame inquiry and guide discussions. Addressing these three questions can empower content-area teachers to incorporate…

Research shows that cognitively demanding text-based writing assignments increase students' reading comprehension skills and analytic writing competencies. In this article, we describe the steps that upper-elementary grade teachers can take to develop cognitively demanding assignments that build these higher-level literacy skills and put students…

When instructing reading and composition, teachers should have students write down dictated vocabulary, short phrases, simple sentences, etc., occasionally modifying these, in order to deepen their understanding of how "kana" (i.e., phonetic characters) and vocabulary are used. This can be broken down into the following four activities: (1)…

This study examined how K-5 general and special educators (N = 102) would choose to allocate time in a 2-h language arts block if they could do so as they wished, and how these choices related to their knowledge base for reading instruction. Preferences for time allocation were assessed through an open grid on which participants listed…

Recent considerations of threshold concepts in the rhetoric and writing studies discipline fail to consider the role that reading plays in the learning of student writers. This article reports results from a three-part, two-year, empirical study of seventy-five learners enrolled across four sections of a writing-intensive course. The course…

Widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the United States has resulted in an unprecedented set of national secondary school writing standards that shift responsibility for writing instruction across content areas. As secondary school teachers grapple with these new demands, this article proposes that WAC can serve as a key…

The purpose of this theoretical essay is to encourage critical reflection of the relationship of specific reading events to traditional conceptualizations of reader stance. While conventional models of reader stance are useful for considering many aspects of reading, there are reading events that engender stances that appear to lie outside of the…

This study examined the effectiveness of teaching methods used with a second language reading and writing unit. This investigation addressed discrepancies between assessment scores in the four communicative language skill areas of students in beginning-level Spanish classes at a suburban middle school. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to…

For a number of years, Rebecca Luce-Kapler and Dennis Sumara have been investigating the ways in which literary practices of close reading can help change how we think and how we remember. They have also considered how such practices might help make us more critical of normative representations of remembered experience. More recently, they have…