According to Johnson and Freedman (2006, p. 16), "when teachers decide to embrace a critical pedagogy, they are deciding to bring a questioning stance into their classroom". Critical pedagogy advances the belief that all students should be taught the skills and strategies needed to acquire a critical/questioning attitude towards the texts and the…

Smith, Vogel, Madon, and Edwards' (2011) recent article tested dyadic power theory (DPT) by examining the use of touch as a compliance-gaining tactic in the conflicts of married couples. In this response, we raise a methodological issue about the touch behaviors examined by Smith et al. and also pose a theoretical critique that their test of DPT…

Each year junior high students around the country read S. E. Hinton's 50-year-old tale, "The Outsiders," about life as an adolescent, and devour its universal message of acceptance and stereotype as told through the vision of a teenage author. "The Outsiders" is so effective as a young adult novel because students immediately see the connection S.…

Theory has always possessed an elusive, intangible, and almost ethereal quality. Comprising nothing but ideas compressed into words, it is supposed to guide literacy interactions and transactions. Theory provides the "why" that underlies the "how to" of teaching. Yet the author, a teacher, has often struggled with the effort of translating theory…

Jane Roland Martin's later work, especially as represented in "The Schoolhome: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families," has been attacked as vague, essentialistic, and a formula for the (re)feminization of education. This paper does not attempt to defend Martin against these criticisms because such a defense seems impossible for…