L. S. Vygotsky, the psychologist and teacher from Byelorussia who became a central figure in Soviet psychological and educational circles in the 1920s and 1930s, has become a frequent citation in 21st-century scholarship. He is most-often invoked to support some form of instructional scaffolding, based on his idea of the zone of proximal…

Low-income male students of color are among the populations experiencing the least amount of success in the current arrangements of school, described by some as part of the "the boy crisis" in education. This article draws on a year long ethnographic study of a single-sex, all-male classroom in a public middle school. It explores their experiences…

Teachers and preservice teachers offered initial assumptions about children and families from backgrounds different from their own, "Letting them speak Spanish in school will hinder their ability to learn English and also hold back the other children" and "His house will be messy and dirty." Through experiences in the children's homes and…

The research reported in this article invites educators to rethink their assumptions about students and families. Using data from a qualitative, longitudinal teacher-research study, the author presents seven lessons that she has learned from the families of her students and challenges other teachers to seek ways to learn about the families they…

In this article, we look closely at the way power circulates through school routines with ordinary texts in everyday moments. We address texts that support different types of achievement and how critical literacy helps us redefine achievement and examine what we're doing with texts and students in classrooms. We interrogate the notion of…

In this paper, the author looks at how she attempted to teach her students--preservice teachers--to engage in dialogic conversation about gay and lesbian identity using children's literature with gay and lesbian characters as a jumping off point. Through her analysis, the author has identified two requirements for dialogic conversation among…

Narrated by a "researcher"-teacher, drawing from an interactional ethnographic and sociolinguistics perspective, he re-examines his previous teaching practices as a teacher-researcher in order to build a conceptual model for communities-based learning. This article reveals the discursive ways that linguistically and culturally diverse…

This paper describes diverse language learners' use of dialogue journaling in an elementary school setting. The author, a teacher researcher, conducted a qualitative research study with eight participants, ranging from fourth to sixth grade; all were learners adding English to their language repertoire. Through an in-depth analysis of student…

What features of the physical environment in video game arcades lead kids to be so engaged? How can analysis of arcade space inform language arts teachers' decisions about designing classroom environments? This article presents an analysis of physical space in video game arcades and participants' positions therein to suggest how language arts…

Describes the author's recent out-of-classroom experience which got him thinking about teaching, about school literacy experiences, and about the way that truly skillful teachers are probably the best listeners, who recognize their own skillfulness and are able to share their expertise with their students. (SR)

Describes in storytelling fashion a teacher's reflections on herself, the teaching process, the children as learners and her relationship to them, the course of her reflections, and the growing pleasure she took in them. (SR)

Explores the writing process from a child's perspective. (MM)

Discusses how a teacher "assesses" students through "gift-poems" written with little or no revision in the midst of the end-of-year frenzy. Notes that sometimes "invisible" children suddenly became visible to the teacher after writing these poems. Includes eight such poems. (RS)

This article investigates the attitudes and feelings of United States public school teachers about those they often see as "others"--people unlike themselves. What does research tell us might be the consequences of teachers' attitudes and feelings towards students and their families? What can we learn about diversifying the teacher pool…

Offers a visual, graphic, and textual autobiographical montage that explores living a literate life that includes being a teacher and a teacher educator. (SR)