This article explores how a queer-led online book club supported straight teachers in finding ways to enact Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Plus (LGBTQIA+)-inclusive literacy pedagogy. Data for the project came from recordings of book club sessions, interviews with individual participants at the end of each academic…

Considerable research indicates that high-stakes accountability policies have the capacity to influence language arts instruction, particularly in urban, high-needs schools where pressure to increase test scores tends to be most acute. This article utilizes Cultural Historical Activity Theory to critically examine the constraints and affordances…

In this research, two questions related to arts integration are studied: First, the extent to which sixth and seventh grade students' language arts and mathematics performance, as well as their engagement with school are positively impacted by classroom settings in which theater strategies are integrated into language arts instruction; and second,…

This article describes a project that studied 15 preservice teachers' perceptions of and reactions to responding to children's and young adult literature using a Ning blog. These perceptions and reactions provided insight into various practical aspects of using a social networking blog to facilitate literature response in a teacher education…

The Family Backpack Project provided 249 low-income, prekindergarten children and their families with opportunities to read and listen to audio recordings of 3 sets of books in their homes. Families received English or dual-language texts (English plus Spanish, Arabic, Kurdish, or Somali) matched to their home languages. Children and their…

Critiques "America Reads," a federal initiative (launched by President Clinton in 1996) to foster universal literacy by sending a million tutors into schools. Argues that the program fails to take into account much of what is known about best practices in literacy instruction, and that inexperienced or poorly trained tutors may present…

Suggests that the dangers and risks in whole language are real and irremedial, and educators' only recourse is to take responsibility for its shadow side and attempt to learn the lessons that even "monstrous examples" portend. (RS)

Notes that finding time for skills instruction without replacing literature discussion and writers' workshop requires a strong organizational framework for literacy instruction. Suggests that teachers need principled, conceptual frameworks to guide their thoughts and actions. Describes a framework, Book Club Plus, designed by a practitioner…

Describes a language arts program in a Brooklyn, New York, public school in which children are questioned about their writing and their interests and allowed the freedom to put any interest on paper. Discusses the problems children encounter with such writing freedom, as well as the program's effectiveness. (HTH)

Examines the shortcomings of prepackaged teaching programs for reading and writing instruction that are designed by those removed from the learning environment. (HTH)

Describes a British writing assessment project intended to discern age-specific characteristics of writing and the project's subsequent assessment model. Evaluates samples of two kinds of writing, autobiography and argument, using the model. (HTH)

Discusses findings from research with the South Brunswick, New Jersey, schools--where an Early Literacy Portfolio was in use across the district for over five years. Finds that instruction and assessment were more closely aligned than in the past and that teachers felt confident in their abilities to make sound instructional decisions and to…

Provides an overview of "ElectroText," a program to develop electronically enhanced versions of short stories for use in middle school language arts programs for at-risk students. Describes the setting and instructional context, the strategies used to gather information about what students did when they read in a hypertext environment,…

Takes the position that the organization and management of successful, progressive language arts programs play a role fundamentally different than the one they play in classrooms that might be called "traditional." Notes that in progressive classrooms, organization and management serve to promote and channel independent student movement, whereas…

Describes one rural school's development of a literacy program in which family members collaborate with educators to provide literature-based experiences and tutoring for struggling readers. Concludes that family literacy programs are more successful when they involve family members in working with children as they learn the literary strategies to…