In this article, I share some of the findings from a community-engaged research project based at Autores Fuertes, a community literacy center, located in urban Philadelphia. Using an engaged, ethnographic case study approach, I conducted observations and interviews at the center, as well as taught translanguaging writing workshops. The findings…

Children's writing development is a matter of concern for Australian and other education systems. Factors related to the nature of writing as a literate skill, school writing pedagogy, and diminishing role of writing in a screen-dominant environment may account for this educational concern. What happens in a child's writing when immigrant parents…

In this personal reflection, Sonia Nieto recounts the lessons she learned about language and literacy from learning to speak Spanish and then English; to reading and writing; and the impact of these lessons on her identity, teaching, research, and life; and, more broadly, on the fields of education and literacy.

There is difficulty in defining the profile of a Heritage Language Learner (HLL) due to the experiences with language that individuals face in their social and academic world. There are questions centered on whether a categorical distinction between the native speaker and the native user can be upheld; this is inherently problematic when there is…

Purpose: This paper aims to outline the misguided underpinnings of the "word gap" concept promoted by Hart and Risley (1995). This concept posits that a "30 million word gap" between children of poverty and those from affluent households accounts for widespread academic disparities. Based on this premise, there has been a…

The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to explore how critical pedagogy can foster writing competency and critical consciousness among adult basic writing students in a community college writing classroom. To this end, critical pedagogy and related critical discourses were used to theoretically frame this study. These theories…