Randy Bomer and Beth Maloch take a look at the Common Core Standards and the ways they are presently shaping the curriculum offered to young children in school. They suggest that the Common Core Standards in early literacy and early childhood classrooms represents a restricted image of college or academic literacy. Mainly, the standards' authors…

A professor and students in an undergraduate honors research seminar were inspired to playfully link old and contemporary literacy theories to a 2.0 media artifact, the popular YouTube video Kittens! Inspired by Kittens! (KIbK) starring 6 year-old Maddie. In this article KIbK is theorized drawing on frames of school-based reading instruction,…

This column posits enhancing professional development through uses of digital tools to create professional learning communities (PLCs) designed to support collective inquiry and action research leading to schoolwide improvement. These digital tools include a social networking/discussion forum for teacher collaboration; teachers' individual…

Language arts education has experienced enormous growth and change with the advent of multimodalities in new media, digital literacies, and technologies. In this paper, Hagood uses Deleuze and Guattari's (1980/1987) theoretical work of a rhizome, rhizoanalysis, and rhizomatic cartography to view the field and examine differently converging…

Looking at literacy teaching across classrooms at the urban Mill City Charter School provides an opportunity to explore the importance of coherence within a school. This work was informed by teachers' voices and classroom observations over several months. Findings suggest that when teachers and school leaders share a common theory and vision for…

This article demonstrates the potential for critical inquiry in twenty-first century primary classrooms. The authors (two university professors and a first grade teacher) present an overview of theory/practice relationships in Mary's (teacher) multiethnic classroom with an emphasis on critical literacy, technology and multimodal learning. Readers…

Educational practice has focused primarily upon a transmission model of education dealing with dominant, mainstream, western ideology. This model often alienates student learners due to the absence of cultural relevance. This article focuses on a theoretical framework teachers in Hawaii are using to become transformative practitioners who promote…

This article draws from the experiences of a European American classroom teacher, her African American teacher educator, the classroom teacher's interactions with an African American family, and her conversations with her African American aide. It answers the call to speak to the everyday experiences of teachers who seek to acknowledge and address…