Language and Literacy (Journal)
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Narrative Inquiry: Attending to the Art of Discourse
No full textAt least once a year, I teach a graduate course titled Narrative Inquiry. At the beginning of the course I always inform students that they will not likely learn how to do narrative inquiry in the narrative inquiry course. Instead they will interrogate the strategies, purposes, practices, and challenges of narrativeinquiry, and they will learn how complicated, even messy, the whole business of narrative inquiry really is. I organize the course around an investigation of three principal dynamics involved in narrative inquiry: story, interpretation, and discourse. I invite students to consider matters related to story and interpretation, but I encourage them especially to attend to the art of discourse
Poetry and New Media: In Conversation with Four Poets
No full textThrough an examination of digital poetry explorations created by the researcher based on conversations with four Canadian poets, this paper explores the convergence of poetry and new media and attempts to address what happens when the pedagogical ideals outlined by the poets are represented digitally. The poets and researcher discuss the affordances the digital poetry explorations might offer a potential reader or aspiring writer.
The Development of Exemplary Teaching Practices in Reading Instruction among Five Francophone Teachers
No full textEffective reading instruction is considered one the best means of preventing school failure. This study examines how effective teaching practices of reading are formed among five exemplary elementary school teachers. By using a life history protocol informed by phenomenology, these teachers describe their past and present experiences as readers and teachers, and then explain the meaning they make out of these experiences. Individual and comparative analysis reveal that, although these teachers exhibit different experiences and teaching strategies, they share many personal and contextual experiences, such as reading models and engagement, reflection on practice and the importance of sharing experiences
New Families, New Texts: An Exploration of Viewing, Text, and Schooling from the Perspective of Being an “Other Kind of Family”
No full textCanadian families are growing increasingly diverse, but the texts that children encounter in their worlds of home and school do not always reflect such changes. Using Carrington’s (2002) descriptions of new families, juxtaposed with autobiographical reflection and qualitative data from a survey of international adoptive families, I examine how texts of popular culture and school can include and exclude children of counternormative families, addressing how new literacies of the Internet have emerged to provide alternate locations for support, information, and representation for such families and children. This article concludes by exploring some ideas for providing more inclusive possibilities in schools
Sister to Sister: Becoming Literate in Relation
No full textThe interactions between siblings holds potential for creating and sustaining literacy learning (Goldfarb, 2000; Gregory, 2001; Volk, 1999). In this paper, we examine three literacy events that take place between a school-aged child and her younger sibling to reveal how the sisters’ interactions and relational practices support and extend the literacy abilities of both children. The findings reveal how the older sister, through her use of questions, her modeling of literacy strategies, and her support of her sibling’s growing literacy abilities, serves as a teacher to her sibling through her implicit and explicit modeling. The younger sister, through her use of questions and her engagement in the three events serves as a trigger to further her older sister’s understanding and use of authentic and emerging literacy skills and strategies. The findings also highlight how play provides a context that is mutually beneficial to and supportive of the sisters’ literacy development
Potential for the Role of School-Based Animal-Assisted Literacy Mentoring Programs
No full textoai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/9318This article explores how current research into school-based mentorship programs might inform the adult’s role as mentor in animal-assisted literacy programs and thereby offer children a unique and valuable form of support for learning. An examination of the goals and best practices of school-based mentorship programs alongside animal-assisted literacy mentorship programs opens space for an in-depth exploration into possibilities for how an animal might enhance the mentorship experience for children
Long-term Effects of Male Reading Tutors, Choice of Text and Computer-based Text on Boys’ Reading Achievement
No full textSixty-two inner-city Canadian boys identified as struggling readers participated in a 22-week intervention that examined the effects of male reading tutors, computer-based texts, and choice of reading materials. Immediately after the intervention, boys demonstrated between-group changes to reader self-perceptions and gendered views of reading but no between-group differences in achievement. Two years after the intervention’s completion, the boys’ reading comprehension achievement scores were again examined and compared to 62 non-participating boys matched at the time of the study’s onset. Results showed no significant differences between the two groups. Of the boys who participated in the intervention, working with male reading tutors and with computer-based texts did not result in higher achievement than working with female reading tutors or with print-based texts. However, boys who were not given a choice in their reading materials demonstrated reading achievement six months ahead of the boys who were given a choice.
Journey to Becoming a Writer: Review of Research about Children’s Identities as Writers
No full textThe beginning years of school are crucial to children’s early development as writers. As children learn to write, they transform themselves. This review of literature focuses on children’s journeys to becoming writers through a range of qualitative research studies. These studies identify how children who are beginning to write in extended ways and to construct their identities as writers are often constrained in classroom contexts, particularly within a larger climate of standardized assessment. The ways in which writing practices (including classroom relationships and assessment practices) contribute to children’s development as writers and possibilities for transformed practice are discussed
What is lost and what remains: an exploration of the pedagogical challenges of online discussions in two online teacher education learning communities
No full textOnline discussion has emerged as an increasingly common forum for conversation and professional reflection in teacher education. Across Canada, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, numerous universities have experimented with various forms of online discussion in teacher education programs. However, few scholars have explored the particular pedagogical challenges of creating meaningful discussions in online teacher education environments. In this paper, we examine some of these challenges and discuss how they might be met in the design of online courses in teacher education. Our intention is to provoke critical reflection on online teaching and contribute to the development of more robust online discussions in teacher education
Intersections between and understandings of literacy and disability in a B.Ed program: Discourses, tensions and curriculum
No full textThis study contributes to the growing body of research that seeks to destabilize dominant notions of literacy and disability. In particular, we explore teacher candidates’ understandings and constructions of literacy and children with “special needs”, or children identified as having a “learning disability”, before and after they complete their kindergarten-grade six teacher certification (B.Ed). We examine how dominant discourses of dis/ability present themselves in these teacher candidates’ initial and subsequent understandings, and how courses and a tutoring practicum can and cannot work to open up new ideas about literacy and dis/ability. Our intention is to add to the discussions of literacy education and curriculum informed by sociocultural and critical disability theory. This study highlights the connections between literacy and dis/ability as they intersect and are inextricably intertwined throughout the discourses and tensions seen in the data