Literacy & Learning

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11274/9561

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As easy as ABC? Teaching and learning about letters in early literacy
(International Literacy Association, 2018) Kaye, Elizabeth
Letter learning is nuanced, complex, and essential to the development of an effective literacy processing system. Forming and naming letters, rapidly differentiating between visually similar letters, and recognizing their sound correspondences are foundational to becoming a reader and writer. Indeed, control over letters affects monitoring, searching, and self‐correcting in reading and writing. The authors argue for (a) assessment that monitors evolving letter knowledge, (b) instruction that is focused and brief and capitalizes on students’ unique strengths and ways of knowing, and (c) isolated letter work that is balanced with the use of authentic texts. Transcripts of teacher–student interactions during reading and writing, personal alphabet books, magnetic letter sorts, and links to teacher resources illustrate how letter learning can be fostered in a variety of activity settings while ensuring student engagement and supporting overall literacy development.
Being a conduit and culprit of white language supremacy: A duo autohistoriateoría
(Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, University of Limoges, 2020) Caldera, Altheria; Babino, Ale Ruiz
In this manuscript, two normalistas-teachers, who are Women of Color in the United States, reflected on our experiences as educators. In a chronological narrative structure, we each told stories related to our experiences with languages and literacy. Using Anzaldúa’s autohistoria-teoría—a decolonial research methodology—we constructed situated knowledge based on our personal reflections of our experiences. More specifically, we uncovered ways we have been conduits of white language supremacy, interrogated how white language supremacy has impacted our teaching, and revealed our growth in our stance towards linguistic justice. Through the lens of raciolinguistics, we reveal our own victimization, internalized racist linguicism, and subsequent perpetuation of linguistic imperialism. Because of our professional successes as a result of English proficiency, we bought into the myth that acquiring Standard American English was necessary to ensure the success of students with racialized identities and failed to fully value language plurality. At this point in our professional journeys, however, we are committed to work characterized by 1) a recognition of the ways language and race are inextricably entwined, 2) evidenced appreciation for non-Western language varieties, 3) use of translanguaging as resistance, 4) culturally sustaining writing instruction (Woodard, Vaughan, & Machado, 2017), and 5) multimodal communication practices. Our manuscript is important because it models the kind of vulnerability, theorization, and critical reflection necessary for scholars whose work aims for decoloniality. It represents our commitment to decolonization of the self.
Bilingual education during a pandemic: Family engagement. La educación bilingüe durante una pandemia: Compromiso familiar
(Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2022) Lozada, Victor Antonio; Hansen-Thomas, Holly; Figueroa, Jorge; Stewart, Mary Amanda
During the COVID-19 global pandemic, teachers have had to be creative on how they engage with the families of emergent bilingual students. This content analysis of four teacher focus groups reveals ways in which teachers have worked to connect to their students over a distance. The purpose of this paper is to discover, from educators. effective teaching strategies that engage families and emergent bilinguals during the COVID-19 pandemic and online teaching. Resulting themes included technology in teaching, building relationships with families. and accessing the educational assets of emergent bilinguals and their families. Connections to cariño (Bartolomé, 2008), educación (Valenzuela, 1999), and using the term "emergent bilingual" (Garcia, 2009) are discussed.
Co-learning in the high school English class through translanguaging: Emergent bilingual newcomers and monolingual teachers
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Hansen-Thomas, Holly; Stewart, Mary Amanda; Flint, Patricia; Dollar, Tamra
There is a growing chasm between the instruction of secondary emergent bilinguals (EBs) and research illustrating the benefits of adolescent EBs using translanguaging practices for academic engagement and gains. Specifically, this qualitative study purposes to understand how monolingual teachers enact a translanguaging pedagogy in a high school classroom where English language acquisition is the focus. Findings indicate the primary resource the teachers used in their translanguaging pedagogy were the students themselves, and suggest that teachers’ willingness to participate as co-learners with adolescent EBs is crucial. Co-learning has been found to be an appropriate pedagogical tool with teachers of multilinguals due to the rich experiences it can foster and this study supports such literature. Additional study findings revealed tensions students and teachers felt through these practices, specifically in regards to translating, technology use, and students’ desire to learn the L2.
Co-learning, translanguaging and English language acquisition
(Research Outreach, 2020) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Hansen-Thomas, Holly
The US has the largest number of English-speakers in the world, but it is also multilingual: according to 2018 census data, 23% of children aged 5 to 17 speak another language at home. English language acquisition for those who speak English as a second language is therefore an important issue for educators. Mary Amanda Stewart and Holly Hansen-Thomas of Texas Woman’s University have been studying how ‘translanguaging’ and ‘co-learning’ can be used to help newcomer English language learners acquire greater fluency.
Critical, compelling, and linguistically scaffolded literature: Implementing text sets multilingually for social justice
(Texas Association for Literacy Education (TALE), 2019) Babino, Alexandra; Araujo, Juan J.; Maxwell, Marie L.
In most cases, the curriculum chosen for wide-use does not mirror or address the pressing needs of bi/multilingual learners, especially for those who are in middle and high school settings. In light of this and the increasingly negative national discourse surrounding minoritized students, our focusin this article is to offer in-service teachers a heuristic for compiling a multi-genre, multilingual text set to support bi/multilingual students’ positive identities and literacies practices. This text set is designed with the themes of identity and social justice in order to reflect the students’ struggle to fully participate in the American Dream. It also describes how teachers can purposely plan for linguistic support in students’ additional languages, language varieties, and English. Taken together, we believe that deeply exploring these compelling books from a critical perspective with linguistic scaffolds will allow teachers to foster robust multilingual literacy skills to address social justice in the classroom and beyond.
Descubriendo los recursos culturales de Estudiantes Indígenas Latinoamericanos a través de la literatura [Discovering the cultural resources of Latin American Indigenous students through literature]
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Núñez, Mariannella; Duran, Yismelle; Mojica, Zulma; Stewart, Mary Amanda
While educators and researchers make notable progress for Spanish speaking students in the United States, Latin American indigenous students are a growing, yet overlooked population with rich cultural resources, including additional languages, that often remain hidden. In this article, we share how culturally relevant literature facilitated a teacher’s discovery of a Guatemalan student’s unique linguistic and cultural strengths as a member of the Kaqchikel people. In order to help other educators develop an awareness of indigenous students’ often veiled cultural roots, we shed light on native people groups in Latin America and their growing presence in U.S. schools. Through this account of a teacher learning about the languages and literacies of her student, we explain how culturally relevant texts may be a key element in discovering indigenous students’ hidden cultural and linguistic strengths. The authors suggest other texts and resources to assist educators to identify and better serve students from various people groups in Latin America.
Emergent bilinguals’ emerging identities in a dual language school
(Texas Association for Bilingual Education, 2015) Babino, Alexandra; Stewart, Mary Amanda
The purpose of this study was to explore how emergent bilinguals’ emerging identities interact with their language attitudes and choices in various contexts to create their investment in English, Spanish, and bilingualism. Using a mixed method design, the researchers analyzed surveys and social networking maps of 63 Mexican-American, bilingual fifth-graders in a one-way dual language (DL) school and then the interviews of 10 of these students. Findings indicate that students’ identities and investments show a strong correlation to their language use and language of instruction. Specifically, students’ investment in their languages suggest that we might reconsider strict language separation in DL programs while overtly attending to students’ investment in the minority language, Spanish. Most significantly, the language we use formally and informally affects students’ attitudes toward that language. Thus, greater emphasis on developing bilingual investment is an indispensable goal of DL programs.
Empowered Teachers: Key to Reading Recovery
(2022-10-15) Kaye, Elizabeth L.
Generation gap between students' needs and teachers' use of technology in classrooms
(Journal of Literacy and Technology, 2016) Lisenbee, Peggy
In the 21st century, technology is a pervasive presence in the classroom. Unintended consequences of a technologically rich classroom learning environment emerge due to the dichotomy between 21st-century learners’ and teachers’ perceptions of the need to use technology. Several factors affecting the generation gap between teachers and students in classrooms are shared such as characteristics of 21st-century learners, teacher's perceptions of technology, student's ability to use technology independently, teacher training and the need to reshape pedagogy based on national education standards focused on technology use. The EMSCI Model provides teachers with a process to teach students how to use technology independently and suggests a pedagogical paradigm shift towards constructivist teaching to offset the generation gap.
Giving voice to Valeria's story: Support, value, and agency for immigrant adolescents
(International Reading Association, 2013) Stewart, Mary Amanda
The article presents the circumstances of a recent Salvadoran immigrant high school student who puts forth great effort to learn despite difficult circumstances caused by her immigration status, economic realities, and the educational system itself. The author issues a call to action for literacy educators to revolutionize their relationships with students, curriculum, and pedagogy. She discusses the need for teachers to give their immigrant students support through caring relationships, value of their lived experiences through relevant literature, and the agency they have lost through writing about their immigration stories.
Humanizing (multi)literacy teaching: a starter kit to renewed hope
(National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, 2018) Babino, Alexandra
Amidst standardized testing pressures, zero-tolerance discipline policies, and increasingly distressing news headlines, this article seeks to encourage teachers that want to be and feel more human in their work with students with practical, classroom tools. It’s a starter kit of sorts that has allowed the author to move beyond the inevitable institutional status quo and toward a renewed hope through “armed love” (Freire, 1998, p. 41). It begins with a brief exploration of humanizing literacy practices and continues with two deceptively simple but potentially transformative tools: naming students and expanding definitions of literacy.
Hurdling over language barriers: Building relationships with adolescent newcomers through literacy advancement
(Wiley Open Access, 2018) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Flint, Patricia; Dollar, Tamra
Adolescents who are newcomers in a country and beginning to acquire English as an additional language are often in secondary classrooms with teachers who do not speak their languages. Due to these communication obstacles, there is a great need for teachers to build relationships with their students while setting optimal conditions for literacy development across languages (e.g., English and Spanish) and domains (e.g., oral, written, and digital communication). Guided by tenets of culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy, the authors describe how two self‐identifying monolingual English‐speaking teachers formed relationships with high school newcomers during a summer literacy institute. The authors highlight three specific literacy activities that facilitated students’ oral, written, and digital literacy skills in both English and Spanish while also creating a space for caring relationships to form between students and teachers.
"I don't want to write for them" : An at-risk Latino youth's out-of-school literacy practices
(Taylor & Francis, 2014) Stewart, Mary Amanda
This single-case study demonstrates one bilingual Latino youth's out-of-school literacy practices and how he has learned to disconnect them from his academic work. Qualitative data taken from interviews, the participant's social networking sites, poetry journal, and observations of him in community organizations demonstrate the frequency and purposes of his out-of-school literacy practices of writing poetry, language brokering, reading, technology use, and activism. The findings suggest that the participant has many sophisticated and bilingual literacy practices that were never viewed as funds of knowledge in his subtractive schooling environment, leading to his educational failure.
The influences of teacher knowledge on qualitative writing assessment
(Department of Language & Literacy Education in the College of Education at The University of Georgia, 2022) Cato, Heather; Walker, Katie
Standardized testing and accountability are currently unavoidable components of Texas Public Education. Through years of push-back, parents and educators have demanded that Texas consider alternative testing options that would reduce the high-stakes testing burden on students and schools. In 2015, the State of Texas passed legislation requiring the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to undertake a study of authentic writing assessment. This paper draws on data from a larger qualitative study to illustrate the complexity of teacher decision-making in the assessment process, provides further consideration into the influences of scoring calibration such as teacher knowledge, and highlights the need for intentionally designed professional learning about scoring as a means to mitigate differences and ultimately improve inter-rater reliability.
Juxtaposing the immigrant and adolescent girl experiences: Literature for all readers
(National Council of Teachers of English, 2012) Stewart, Mary Amanda
The author encourages teachers to explore themes in literature that connect to experiences of young female immigrants and that eschew stereotypical representations. She discusses a list of recommended texts.
Language, literacy, and love: A critical framework for teaching adolescent emergent bilinguals
(Mary Frances Early College of Education at The University of Georgia, 2022) Anderson, Phyliciá; Stewart, Mary Amanda; Lozada, Victor Antonio
A high school English teacher/doctoral student and two university researchers share a three-part framework for educating emergent bilinguals across disciplines with these constructs: language, literacy, and love. Through long-term professional development, teachers at two high schools began to view language as translanguaging, literacy as multiliteracies, and love as the critical notion of armed love. Specifically, as educators recognized the value of students’ home languages, they understood how all languaging was useful to acquire English, access content, and develop confidence in disciplinary literacy. Building off an understanding of students’ languaging, educators then focused on multiliteracies in their disciplines, incorporating multilingual and multimodal literature in their curriculum that represented student diversity. Finally, teaching through a critical lens of armed love, educators began to examine societal, political, and economical constructs relevant to their emergent bilinguals’ lives. This framework is useful to effect sustainable changes for teaching and learning equity with students in the dynamic process of English language acquisition.
Look, think, act: Using critical action research to sustain reform in complex teaching/learning ecologies.
(Buffalo State, 2010) Stewart, Mary Amanda; Patterson, Leslie; Baldwin, Sheila; Araujo, Juan; Shearer, Ragina
This paper argues that educators interested in sustainability should look to complexity science for guiding principles. When we view our classrooms and campuses as living, dynamic ecologies, we can, as insiders, make sense of what might otherwise seem chaotic or meaningless. This perspective enables us not only to describe and explain what is happening around us, but also to use our findings to influence emerging patterns across our classrooms, campuses, or our larger communities. We suggest that educators use a Look, Think, Act cycle recommended by Ernie Stringer to encourage and support sustainable school reform.
Mentoring novice teachers to advance inclusive mathematics practices
(Whole Schooling Consortium, 2019) Lisenbee, Peggy; Tan, Paulo
We facilitate a year-long teacher induction program in the United States involving earlycareer teachers in urban elementary schools as a means to advance their inclusive mathematics practices. The participants in this program joined in professional learning experiences and discussions focused on advancing inclusive mathematics education with peers and university faculty and agreed to classroom observations. We report on the features of, challenges, and highlights that emerged during this year-long induction program by juxtaposing our experiences with two early-career, alternatively certified teachers within the larger context of teacher shortage. These snapshots alongside the issues discussed during this induction program provide a vivid account of the learning spaces and community created by, and for, early-career teachers. There is a need for the culture in schools to include more active mentoring for early-career teachers to develop their pedagogy, in general, and more specifically, to advance inclusive mathematics education.
Moving toward culturally sustaining language instruction that resists white language supremacy
(National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, 2020) Caldera, Altheria; Babino, Alexandra
In this manuscript, we argue that language is central to students’ cultural identities and, therefore, should be validated in middle school classrooms. Additionally, we problematize the idea of “standard” languages and analyze how existing language hierarchies marginalize Students of Color through White language supremacy. White language supremacy can be defined as a belief in the superiority of Standard American English. In pedagogy, it manifests as teachers rejecting students’ preferred or home languages and dialects, forcing them to adopt the languaging practices of the dominant culture. Most importantly, we provide practical strategies for teachers who aim to enact culturally sustaining language instruction that resists White language supremacy.

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