This article seeks to understand the role of drama pedagogy in second/additional language learning with data drawn from a school-based ethnographic study of English language learners taking a drama-English as a Second Language (ESL) course. Being aware that all drama teaching does not automatically lead into improvement in language learning, it…

This article explores multimodal literacy practices in a transforming multilingual context of an indigenous and endangered Sámi language classroom. Looking at literacy practices as embedded in a complex and shifting terrain of language ideologies, language norms, and individual experiences and attitudes, we examined how multilingual Sámi children…

"Plan, Save, Succeed!" is a new program aligned with Jumpstart Coalition National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance Education, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards, and Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice. "Plan, Save, Succeed!" is designed to help students understand key financial literacy topics including…

In this study, we draw on three interrelated concepts, i.e. placed resources, multiliteracies and the carnivalesque, to understand how information and communication technology (ICT) resources are taken up within the context of a print-based journalism club. Our research participants attend an under-resourced girls' residential secondary school in…

Literacy skills honed from reading books and writing papers has long been recognized as invaluable to building and sustaining intellect. Educators are charged with strengthening literacy programs, and they typically rely on conventional practices and increased time focusing on text-based media to do so, yet their efforts have not significantly…

Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. If students are to thrive in their academic and 21st century careers, then independent and creative thinking hold the highest currency. The authors explain in detail how to add these new components of literacy: (1) Solution Fluency; (2) Information Fluency; (3) Creativity…

In 2005, the author and several colleagues were awarded a five-year grant to create the Center of Excellence for the Advancement of New Literacies in Middle Grades at the College of Charleston. From 2006-2011, they have worked collaboratively with over 200 middle school teachers in underperforming local schools to assist them in stimulating their…

Graphic novels are "hot." They show up everywhere from book stores to TV shows. Educators, too, are discovering the possibilities for graphic novels across the curriculum. Among the possibilities, educators can explore the graphic novel as a bildungsroman, a coming of age story--an old genre in the literary canon appearing in a new medium. The…

The authors of the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy believe that college and career-ready students who meet the standards in that document exhibit a number of "capacities of the literate individual." One of these is the capacity "to understand other perspectives and cultures" through reading classic and…

Statistical literacy involves critically evaluating and questioning statistics encountered in everyday life. The purpose of this study was to evaluate students' questions (challenges) concerning statistics encountered in everyday life and how these challenges differed before and after taking an undergraduate statistics course, entitled Statistics…

It is widely acknowledged that multimodal digital texts support student engagement with ideas, knowledge and new forms of literate practice. With this in mind, an interdisciplinary team at The University of Melbourne collaborated to create a digital resource--"The Venom Patrol" website--to teach scientific concepts about Australia's…

This paper explores the construction of identity in an academic learning environment in Central Mexico, and shows how identity may be linked to non-language factors such as emotions or family. These issues are associated with elements of hybrid identity. To analyze this we draw on language choice as a tool used for the construction of identity and…

Two hundred years ago, literacy meant being able to read and write. Today people find themselves with many literacies in a nation that is considered ninety-nine percent literate. The plethora of literacies has just given birth to another term--transliteracy. Transliteracy is the ability to read, listen to, view, understand, synthesize, and apply…

Freire wrote that reading one's world is a necessary precursor to writing it, or conscienzation. The present dissertation, expanding on Kellner's concept of multiple literacies (1998; 2002a; 2005b; 2006a; 2008), explores what it means to read and write one's world in the context of globalization. Given the arrival of a new imaginary, with its…

From the original performances of Shakespeare's plays and the illustrated title page of his First Folios, to the current day use of YouTube, mobile phones and tablets, multimodal texts have been apparent across Western cultures. The rapid development over the last 20 years of technology has markedly increased access to a much broader array of…