This study examines the ways pre-service English language arts teachers (PSTs) conceptualized activism and experimented with visual and multimodal approaches to composing about activism. Drawing on qualitative methods, we examined 22 PSTs' graphic narratives completed as part of their teacher preparation coursework, and center our discussion on…

English education stakeholders need ways of envisioning and advocating for transformative approaches to literacy teaching. In this inquiry, we consider the dynamic field of literary studies -- one of the scholarly fields most directly linked to English education. We conducted a content analysis of 404 articles recently published in literary…

Unlock the transformative potential of English language arts to redefine civic education in K-12 classrooms and beyond with this innovative series. This collection highlights how literacy, critical skills, and a strong commitment to civic engagement can inspire new possibilities for building a more equitable and inclusive future. The chapters in…

Literacy in the 21st century includes multiple modes of communication that include culturally and linguistic diverse representation. It also includes multimodal texts that use visual, audio, and technological elements to create meaning. The new changing technologies have expanded literacy to more than print and written forms. Literacy instruction…

In schools, literacy is often positioned as a fixed set of reading and writing skills. This can limit what counts as an academically acceptable literacy practice despite the complex and nuanced ways people communicate in their personal and social contexts. With this tension around conceptions of literacy in mind, I wondered how teachers thought…

The Civic Literacy series showcases how the knowledges, skills, and commitments of English language arts can explore traditional understandings of "civic education" and in its place offer creative possibilities for civic world-building in K--12 classrooms and communities. This, the third volume of the series, features contributions from…

In this study, we examine two teachers' talk about literacy as they describe literacy events and practices throughout multiple contexts. We draw the theoretical framework of discourse and literacy as a social practice to illustrate the potential ways these first-year English teachers talk and have talked about literacy during their time as English…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the characteristics of playful literacies in case study research examining digital games in secondary English classrooms. It analyzes how educators use play as a resource for meaning-making and the impacts of play on student learning. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a keyword search in relevant…

Across the body of rich, ethnographic research in New Literacy Studies, there is a consistent and insistent call: for curriculum, pedagogy, and policy to substantiate the plurality and complexity of young people's everyday literacy practices and identities. As youth have shared access to their sociomaterial, digital, and transcultural worlds,…

Background: The prevalence of mental health challenges among adolescents warrants innovative school-based approaches that support students' mental health literacy (MHL). Purpose: In this qualitative case study, we interrogated the experiences of three eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers and two of their school's social support staff…

In an era when education can extend far beyond traditional classrooms, this volume explores how young people engage with civic life and shape their futures through creative, critical, and collective action. This timely volume brings together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners who highlight the rich potential of out-of-school spaces,…

The digital is inextricably woven across people's everyday lives and literacy practices, and English educators are tasked with preparing students to be critical, ethical, and agentic inventors and consumers of digital text. What has crystallized for English educators is an awareness that facilitating "digital discourse"--or the multiple…

In this article, I note an observable social turn in languages arts curricula in Latin America. However, I argue that the effort to contextualize written language and bring everyday uses of writing into the classroom falls short of promoting a critical understanding of some key aspects of how literacies work. To do this, I analyze a recent…

Using a project-based learning approach, three teacher educators, teaching three different methodology courses, worked together to create, plan, and assess an arts-based assignment completed by preservice candidates. The preservice teachers created an animation project while applying curriculum expectations in three subject areas: visual arts,…

Purpose: This study took place in an elementary English language arts classroom during a comics writers workshop unit and focused on one fourth-grade author. This paper aims to explain how a fourth-grade student receiving special education services positions himself and is positioned by others as an expert during a unit on comics. When students'…