This case study explores the understandings that seventh graders constructed with Gothic texts in a reading unit designed by the researcher. Gothic is a fictional genre defined by horror and mystery. The stories' protagonists are often marginalized individuals. The genre was selected due to its popularity with adolescents. Qualitative data were…

Much of the special education research on writing has focused on skill acquisition and remediation. However, a significant problem with this approach is that it does not account for the sociocultural nature of writing or the importance of culturally sustaining pedagogies in writing instruction. In this article, the author uses practitioner…

This case study narrative examines the circumstances underlying problems of residency in an affluent Midwest suburb experiencing an unexpected influx of working class African American students. Dilemmas engender a cultural mismatch between teachers and students and discomfort with African-American males. In a controversial climate where students…

Mathematics textbooks play a critical role in shaping instruction and the ways students and teachers use strategies. Math textbooks are written using language patterns that differ from the narrative patterns many elementary students typically read (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010; Moje et al., 2012). Mathematical texts rely on a large amount of…

Concerned about these statistics that only 31% of the eighth-grade students on the NAEP 2007 reading assessment performed on the proficient level or above, a university research team of educators conducted a multiple-case study, creating a collection of snapshots of adolescent students' literacy needs, and compared their needs to the instruction…