In this practitioner research study, I explored how a pedagogy of multiliteracies supported the civic learning of eight middle and high school Indonesian American youth in a summer literacy program. Tracing how transnational youth face barriers to civic learning and engagement in times of rising inequality and xenophobia, I analyzed the ways in which program participants engaged with a curriculum featuring

Previous research has revealed that U.S. schools are hostile and unsafe for queer youth, yet school‐based supports, such as LGBTQ‐inclusive curriculum, are associated with more welcoming schools. Studies focusing on inclusive curriculum have implicitly characterized this curriculum didactically, in other words, as a direct intervention into the homophobia, transphobia, and ignorance of straight, cisgender

This article offers a way to leverage young adult literature in guiding students to consider the meanings of continuity and change within their own development. Borrowing theories of change from the evolutionary sciences, we developed a critical lens focusing on the role of technology in young adult literature. Based on a comprehensive review of Michael L. Printz Award and Honor titles and YALSA Teens’

Dear JAAL Readers, Dialogue is typically defined as a conversation between two or more people, often among characters in a novel or as an exchange of ideas on an issue, particularly political or religious ones, with an eye toward agreement. It is in the spirit of this last usage, which we see as embracing the others, that we selected the term dialogue to describe this issue’s content. In a contentious

As teachers of writing, we carry knowledge about the centrality of students’ experiences and the power of writing to provide culturally sustaining and supportive learning in uncertain times and unfamiliar teaching contexts.

Over the course of a year, student authors in the Juntos NC Writing Project participated in the Literary and Community Initiative to write, publish, and share their lived experiences and identities as Latinx immigrants and first‐generation high school students in North Carolina. Throughout the publication process of their collaborative bilingual book titled The Voices of Our People: Nuestras Verdades

Learning how to teach in a hybrid space, such as a museum, opens up possibilities for preservice teachers to expand their definitions of literacy and experience teaching and learning with adolescents in new ways. This two‐year study reports findings from a university‐museum partnership in which preservice teachers (N = 81) worked with sixth‐grade students each week in a museum setting. Findings suggest

In this study, I explored how a high school English class’s multimodal project broadened student and teacher participation. Previous research has established that multimodal composing expands the nature of classroom texts, opens opportunities for identity expression, and extends access to audiences. Less is known about how affordances work together to increase options for more students and teachers

In this article, the author describes utilizing Instagram as a reading response activity in an undergraduate English course to increase student engagement with challenging texts. Using a shared class account, students created a menu of prompts that they then chose from to create posts after reading fictional, theoretical, and philosophical texts; students’ choices of prompts are analyzed as well as

An African American teacher and students engaged in meaningful reading and writing that included African American literature. These literacy experiences allowed the development of cultural models through exploring identity, questioning dominant narratives, and building capacity for literary analysis. This study shows how meaningful literacy pedagogy for African American students can be implemented

Communication is the result of meaning making based on one’s frames of knowing. For students, those frames of knowing derive heavily from multimedia communication, including social networking sites, that allow them to be the makers of content. In this study, I followed an eighth‐grade student who fluidly negotiated a multitude of available social technologies, integrating them in unique and personal

In Japan, the workshop‐style approach for teaching reading has drawn recent attention. However, the obligation to use Ministry of Education–approved textbooks makes applying this method in classes difficult. In this study, we aimed to investigate the possibilities of incorporating workshop‐style lessons into a Japanese language arts class and its benefits for high school students. Based on findings

This department explores the concept of disciplinary literacy—the conceptual understandings and ways of reading, thinking, and writing involved in critiquing and constructing knowledge in a discipline—and its intersections with aspects of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Columns highlight high‐quality disciplinary literacy learning opportunities across subject areas that engage students in critically

Young people in literacy classes sometimes think their teachers are not listening to them. The practitioners featured in this column listen to questions posed by their students and respond to them, with the goal of enhancing English language arts instruction for a range of young people and educators.

Authors and columns in this department explicitly focus on adult literacy, addressing issues of research, policy, and practice relevant to a wide range of adult learners in different contexts.

Authors featured in this department share anthropological perspectives and qualitative insights to redefine community in adolescent and adult literacy practice.

Discussions about literacy assessment can often be polarizing for teachers, school administrators, and other stakeholders. Given the diverse and often charged perspectives on assessment within both the profession and the broader public discourse, it can be difficult to engage in productive dialogue about the role that literacy assessment plays in promoting or inhibiting effective models of literacy

This forum reviews youth literature from around the world to examine the diverse settings and social, historical, and political contexts that shape youth identities and experiences.

This forum reviews a mix of resources to inform pedagogy and related educational practices that foreground representations of youth and their literacy practices within and outside of school.

Drawing from Appadurai’s notion of mediascape, in which global cultural flows simultaneously construct local/global perspectives, I explored how youth and young adults across the globe make sense of digitally shared space, with a specific focus on the Webtoon reader discussion forum. Findings illustrated that the participants constructed the notion of care as standing up for others, raised awareness

In this article, we use a case study to provide suggestions and lessons for considering mathematical literacy instruction. Preservice teachers in the study were provided coursework and support in designing mathematical literacy instruction, and then they incorporated that instruction into a field‐based practicum experience. We then studied their perceptions to consider how teachers might be supported

Dear JAAL Readers, The word confluence is often used to refer to the gathering at a single point of several flowing bodies of water. We chose Confluence as the theme for this issue because it offers a collection of articles that merge streams of ideas to address adolescent and adult literacies. The ideas in this issue flow from various kinds of educator and student collaborations. These collaborations

Literacies researchers have long argued that the new literacies made possible by the internet facilitate global connectedness. However, much of the research about digital literacies has centered the experiences of participants and researchers from only certain parts of the world. The field needs to embrace a more inclusive understanding of global, acting intentionally to seek out, include, and learn

This department explores the concept of disciplinary literacy—the conceptual understandings and ways of reading, thinking, and writing involved in critiquing and constructing knowledge in a discipline—and its intersections with aspects of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Columns highlight high‐quality disciplinary literacy learning opportunities across subject areas that engage students in critically

Young people in literacy classes sometimes think their teachers are not listening to them. The practitioners featured in this column listen to questions posed by their students and respond to them, with the goal of enhancing English language arts instruction for a range of young people and educators.

Authors featured in this department share anthropological perspectives and qualitative insights to redefine community in adolescent and adult literacy practice.

This forum reviews youth literature from around the world to examine the diverse settings and social, historical, and political contexts that shape youth identities and experiences.

Parenting while transitioning out of incarceration, homelessness, or drug addiction has received inadequate attention despite the fact that these factors affect more and more of the U.S. population each day. This article is about a family literacy program implemented in a residential treatment facility where the fathers, most of whom were previously incarcerated and now receiving treatment for substance

The evolution of a pervasive negative view of immigrants and its role in classroom achievement in the United States is described in this paper; beginning in the crowded urban secondary classrooms of the 1800s, to IQ testing in the 1920s that identified many as morons, imbeciles, or idiots, and to an English‐only view that permeates public and political views of teaching and learning. It is argued that

Conducting Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is more than a methodology; it is an epistemology—a way of positioning adolescents as agents for critical civic praxis. Educators attempting to use YPAR in traditional spaces often must navigate tensions between this type of critical pedagogy and systems that limit the definition of citizenship to civic engagement and position adolescents as passive

This paper describes how the literacy achievement of low socioeconomic status 17 Black male middle school students in one classroom was influenced by culturally responsive teaching. The study employed a concurrent transformative mixed‐methods approach. Quantitative data consisted of pretest and posttest reading scores from the computer adaptive interim assessment, Measurement of Academic Progress during

Purposeful academic conversation engages students as active agents in the process of making meaning from text, negotiating perspectives, and achieving mutual understanding. However, educators often report difficulties in engaging students in talk‐based pedagogies. This concern can be partially addressed by ensuring that students and teachers have similar understandings regarding the purposes of academic

Although ubiquitous in academic discourse for over a decade, disciplinary literacy scholarship has only recently begun to explicitly interrogate critical literacy as a discipline‐dependent set of dispositions, discourses, skills, and practices. Drawing from critical disciplinary literacy (CDL) theory, this article presents findings from a mini‐unit co‐designed and co‐taught by an Iowa state district

Dear JAAL Readers, We write this introduction at a time when many people in the United States, where we are based, are participating in protests and other intense conversations about race, many of them sparked by ongoing policing of Black people and the disproportionate impact of COVID‐19 on communities of color. Although it remains to be seen whether lasting change will result from these conversations

In this commentary, we use the occasion of the proliferation of dual enrollment to examine the discursive construction of difference between high school and college literacies, and its effects on teachers and students. This discursive divide has real, material consequences. It informs (and constrains) literacy practices and pedagogies, becomes a barrier to access (particularly when operationalized

This department explores the concept of disciplinary literacy—the conceptual understandings and ways of reading, thinking, and writing involved in critiquing and constructing knowledge in a discipline—and its intersections with aspects of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Columns highlight high‐quality disciplinary literacy learning opportunities across subject areas that engage students in critically

Young people in literacy classes sometimes think their teachers are not listening to them. The practitioners featured in this column listen to questions posed by their students and respond to them, with the goal of enhancing English language arts instruction for a range of young people and educators.

Authors and columns in this department explicitly focus on adult literacy, addressing issues of research, policy, and practice relevant to a wide range of adult learners in different contexts.

Authors featured in this department share anthropological perspectives and qualitative insights to redefine community in adolescent and adult literacy practice.

Discussions about literacy assessment can often be polarizing for teachers, school administrators, and other stakeholders. Given the diverse and often charged perspectives on assessment within both the profession and the broader public discourse, it can be difficult to engage in productive dialogue about the role that literacy assessment plays in promoting or inhibiting effective models of literacy

This forum reviews a mix of resources to inform pedagogy and related educational practices that foreground representations of youth and their literacy practices within and outside of school.

The author describes how and why a team of literacy leaders fruitfully studied their own efforts to address the challenges they faced in supporting teacher colleagues’ learning and teaching. Actively resisting facilitation models that privilege facilitators’ power to fix colleagues’ dilemmas and consistent with their belief that professional learning is socially constructed, the facilitators adopted

In this case study, the author showcases a Mexican teen’s testimonios, crossing borders through poetry and art. The author grounds this work within Anzaldúa’s nepantla (in‐between space) and nepantlera border artist notions and draws from Sepúlveda’s pedagogy of acompañamiento (accompaniment). During a larger project, the author, a former teacher, reunited with former elementary students the summer

The genre of science fiction has often been hostile to readers who are not white, middle class, heterosexual men. Though the genre has historically ignored Dark Others; however, they are never completely omitted from the story, as they are often characterized as the creature, the alien, or the monster. In this way, the futuristic windows and mirrors available to Black women and girls are often cracked

Eye‐tracking studies have indicated that there are different kinds of silent reading. Simply having eyes on text does not always result in adequate comprehension. Understanding common eye‐tracking measures that distinguish productive reading behaviors can help teachers promote better reading habits among students. This research synthesis highlights the need to focus on reading goals and mindful reading

Students in the middle grades are expected to read complex texts to acquire content knowledge, particularly in social studies/history and science. Most students with disabilities are included in social studies/history and science classes yet read below grade level, requiring significant support with accessing text knowledge. Question generation is one high‐impact, evidence‐based practice that content

Multimodal composing using digital media has long emphasized forms of meaning making that extend beyond printed text to include a wider range of available semiotic resources. However, recent research has complicated this notion by highlighting how this availability does not follow inevitably from digital tools but arises from the interplay of their often invisible infrastructures (e.g., hardware, interfaces

Becoming literate is emotional work. From the time we are born, we engage in multiple literacies, constructing new knowledge and powerful ideas that, together, bridge new understandings. With those new understandings, we are constantly being challenged and provoked with new information. The authors, two educators who have taught many students lifelong literacy skills and did not experience traditional

Young people in literacy classes sometimes think their teachers are not listening to them. The practitioners featured in this column listen to questions posed by their students and respond to them, with the goal of enhancing English language arts instruction for a range of young people and educators.

Authors featured in this department share anthropological perspectives and qualitative insights to redefine community in adolescent and adult literacy practice.

Discussions about literacy assessment can often be polarizing for teachers, school administrators, and other stakeholders. Given the diverse and often charged perspectives on assessment within both the profession and the broader public discourse, it can be difficult to engage in productive dialogue about the role that literacy assessment plays in promoting or inhibiting effective models of literacy

This forum reviews youth literature from around the world to examine the diverse settings and social, historical, and political contexts that shape youth identities and experiences.

This forum reviews a mix of resources to inform pedagogy and related educational practices that foreground representations of youth and their literacy practices within and outside of school.

The author looked closely at students’ artifacts as a way to consider how students with disabilities engage in critical literacy to develop critical consciousness of their worlds and re‐create positive identities of themselves. Findings include how high school minoritized students with disabilities create counternarratives that reject dominant narratives of their identities as underachievers and academically

The authors examined how youth from the Northern Virginia region communicated their thoughts on significant social issues, school‐level policies, and individual stresses through collaboratively authored spoken word poetry. This poetry was written during a day of out‐of‐school arts‐based inquiry workshops planned by an intergenerational youth participatory action research collective that works to foster

We explored how a group of 105 diverse middle‐school students self‐assessed their work as readers and writers during a summer enrichment program. Findings from the study revealed hauntings related to youth perceptions of language and literacy, evidence of a ghostly presence of standard language ideology. In the self‐assessments, youth discussed speed and volume, in addition to surface features of language

Young people around the world are engaging in innovative literacy practices through their creation of, and engagement with, spoken word poetry. From community‐based slams to school‐based workshops to online videos, this genre has become increasingly popular with marginalized youth who have an opportunity to have their often‐silenced voices heard and receive instantaneous feedback on their creative

Young adult literature that features respectful representations of fictional characters with reading difficulties can play a role in building classroom communities and helping readers understand more about themselves and their worlds. Furthermore, language arts teachers and special education teachers can use texts that feature positive portrayals of characters with reading difficulties to build students’

Print‐based literacy is no longer sufficient for the global digital age. However, distribution of the resources needed to learn new literacies is unequal. The authors describe a qualitative case study conducted with teachers in Kenya who participated in a professional development series on new literacies and inquiry. The professional development involved an inquiry‐based literacy approach that is technology‐rich

The authors explored adolescents’ reasons for reading or not reading books. In individual interviews with 39 adolescents (ages 15 and 16) in the United Kingdom, they reported that reading books offered an opportunity to relax, learn, escape the real world, and become immersed; was exciting, developed their empathy skills, and provided a form of social capital. However, challenges to book reading included