Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts [5 ed.] 1032369027, 9781032369020

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HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH

ON TEACHING THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE ARTS

Now in its fifth edition, the Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts—sponsored by the International Literacy Association and the National Council of Teachers of English—remains at the forefront in bringing together prominent scholars, researchers, and professional leaders to offer an integrated perspective on teaching the English language arts and a comprehensive overview of research in the field. Reflecting important developments since the publication of the fourth edition in 2017, this new edition is streamlined and completely restructured around “big ideas” in the field related to theoretical and research foundations, learners in context, and new literacies. Addressing all the language arts within a holistic perspective (speaking/listening, viewing, language, writing, reading), it covers new and important topics, such as online learning, multimodalities, culturally responsive learning, and more. Douglas Fisher  is Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University, USA. Diane Lapp is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Department of Teacher Education at San Diego State University, USA. Both Lapp and Fisher are teacher leaders at Health Sciences High and Middle College in San Diego, CA.

HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH

ON TEACHING THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE ARTS

Edited by Douglas Fisher and Diane Lapp

SPONSORED BY THE INTERNATIONAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION AND THE

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

First published 2024

by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

and by Routledge

4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Douglas Fisher and Diane Lapp; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Douglas Fisher and Diane Lapp to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-36902-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34804-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-33439-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392

Typeset in Bembo

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of Contributors Preface

vii xix

SECTION I

The Language Arts

1

1 An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Pelusa Orellana Garcia, John Perry, Ibrahim M. Karkouti, and Cristina Alfaro

3

2 The Power of Language Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

22

3 Reading Instruction Across Preschool Through Grade 12 Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski

45

4 Writing Instruction: Evidence-Based Practices and Critical Perspectives Zoi A. Traga Philippakos

71

5 Teaching Multimodal and Digital Literacies Marva Cappello and Alejandro Gonzalez Ojeda

96

6 Research in Children’s Literature Angie Zapata, Monica C. Kleekamp, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, and Thomas Crisp

116

7 Adolescent Literature Comes of Age Carol Jago

141

v

Contents SECTION II

Equity, Identity, and Belonging in the Classroom 8 Cultivating Equitable Language Arts Practices Marcelle M. Haddix, Elizabeth Years Stevens and Kathleen A. Hinchman 9 Multilingual Learners: Extending to “Multiculturating”: Enacting Complex Linguistically and Culturally Enriched Teaching Arnetha F. Ball, Tonya B. Perry, Joaquin Muñoz, Tracey T. Flores, and Teaira McMurtry

159 161

179

10 Literacy Development for Students with Disabilities Allison Breit and Laura Justice

204

11 Student Agency in the Adaptive Classroom Margaret Vaughn

222

12 Identity Safe Schools Vincent Pompei and Becki Cohn-Vargas

239

SECTION III

Influences on Learning the Language Arts

265

13 Roles of Motivation and Engagement in Teaching the English Language Arts John T. Guthrie and Allan Wigfield

267

14 Assessment in Language Arts Classrooms Hyoju Ahn and Peter Afflerbach

294

15 Self-Regulation and Executive Function in Language Arts Learning Kelly B. Cartwright, Ana Taboada Barber, Sharon K. Zumbrunn, and Nell K. Duke

312

Epilogue and New Directions: State of the Field: The Research We Have, The Research We Need Carol D. Lee, Lesley Mandel Morrow, Susan B. Neuman, and D. Ray Reutzel

333

Index

349

vi

CONTRIBUTORS

Editors Douglas Fisher, PhD, Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and teacher leader at Health Sciences High  & Middle College, is a former early intervention and elementary school educator. He is the recipient of the International Reading Association’s William S. Gray Citation of Merit, an Exemplary Leader award from the Conference on English Leadership of NCTE, and the Christa McAuliffe award for excellence in teacher education. He was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame in 2022. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, dif­ ferentiated instruction, and curriculum design, as well as books, such as The  Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading Comprehension, The Teaching Reading Playbook, Rigorous Reading, and Text Complexity. A past president of the International Literacy Association and a past board member of the Literacy Research Association, he is also a member of both the California and International Reading Halls of Fame. He can be reached at [email protected] Diane Lapp, EdD, Distinguished Professor of Education at San Diego State University at San Diego State University has taught in elementary, middle, and high schools. Currently an instructional coach at Health Sciences High and Middle College, her major areas of research and instruction continue to regard issues related to struggling readers and writers, their families, and their teachers. She has authored, coauthored, and edited numerous articles, columns, texts, handbooks, and classroom materi­ als on reading, language arts, and purposeful instruction. Her many educational awards include being named the Distinguished Research Lecturer from SDSU’s Graduate Division of Research, the Interna­ tional Reading Association’s Outstanding Teacher Educator of the Year, the John Manning Award for her work in public schools, and the Virginia Hamilton Essay Honor Awardee for the article Learning to Talk Like the Test: Guiding Speakers of African American Vernacular English, which appeared in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Dr. Lapp, who received the William S. Gray Award from the Inter­ national Literacy Association, is a member of both the California and International Reading Halls of Fame. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @lappsdsu.

vii

Contributors

Contributing Authors Peter Afflerbach, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Maryland at College Park. His research interests are individual differences in reading, factors influencing reading achieve­ ment, reading comprehension strategies, and reading assessment. Afflerbach has served on National Academy of Education and National Academy of Science committees related to literacy and literacy assessment. He is a member of the NAEP 2025 Reading Framework Development Committee. He was elected to the International Literacy Association’s Reading Hall of Fame in 2009 and is a Research Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Editor of the Handbook of Individual Differ­ ences in Reading: Reader, Text, and Context (2016), and co-editor of the Handbook of Reading Research, 4th Edition (2010) and 5th Edition (2020), he has published in numerous theoretical and practical jour­ nals, including Reading Research Quarterly and The Reading Teacher. Prior to his employment at Emory University and then the University of Maryland, Afflerbach served as an elementary school Chapter 1 remedial reading teacher, reading and writing teacher in middle school, and high school English teacher. He can be reached at [email protected] Hyoju Ahn, PhD candidate in the Literacy Education program at the University of Maryland, Col­ lege Park. Her research interests are online multimodal reading strategies and its instruction and assess­ ment for K-12 students. Based on her teaching experience at South Korean public elementary schools, her research aims to examine how online reading strategies support different levels of students’ reading comprehension and how readers use and apply online multimodal information. She can be reached at [email protected] Cristina Alfaro, PhD, is Associate Vice President for International Affairs at San Diego State Uni­ versity. She earned an M.A. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and is a graduate of the Claremont/SDSU Joint Doctoral Program, where she earned her Ph.D. in International Bilingual Teacher Preparation. Prior to her current role, she served as SDSU’s inaugural Provost Chair for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and as Chair of the Department of Dual Language and Eng­ lish Learner Education, in the College of Education, where she championed and led the model and largest bilingual teacher education program in the state of California. She can be reached at calfaro@ sdsu.edu Arnetha F. Ball, PhD, is Professor of Education at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. She is one of the nation’s leading scholars, conducting research on educational linguistics, urban education, and the preparation of teachers who have the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed to make a difference in the educational lives of poor, underachieving, and historically marginalized students in transnational contexts. She can be reached at [email protected] Allison Breit, PhD, is Associate Professor of Literacy in the Literacy and Second Language Studies program in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati (UC). A certified speech-language pathologist, Dr. Breit is an expert in clinical language disorders, reading and writing interventions, and effective treatment for speech-language impairments. Dr. Breit has authored and co-authored many peer-reviewed research articles on these topics. Currently, Dr. Breit is co-lab leader of the Learning by Design Lab in the Digital Futures Initiative within UC. The Learning by Design Lab is a transdis­ ciplinary cooperative of research laboratories dedicated to creating digital tools, educational curricula, children’s books, and language and literacy assessments to advance inclusive experiences in literacy and learning across the lifespan. Breit can be reached at [email protected]. viii

Contributors

Sonia Q. Cabell, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Teacher Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University. Before receiving her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, she worked as a second-grade teacher and literacy coach in Oklahoma and Virginia. Dr. Cabell’s research focuses on early language and literacy instruction, with a particular interest in pre­ venting reading difficulties in young children. She has authored over 70 publications, including peerreviewed articles, books, book chapters, and early childhood language and literacy curricula. She is the lead editor of the Handbook on the Science of Early Literacy from Guilford Press, and co-authored Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Key Practices for Educators from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. In 2021, Dr. Cabell, along with her colleague Dr. Tricia Zucker, was awarded the Diane Lapp & James Flood Professional Collaborator Award from the International Literacy Association. Dr. Cabell has served as Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on federally funded research projects totaling approximately $10 million dollars. She has been an advisor or consultant for a variety of national organizations and state departments of education. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on twitter @soniacabell. Marva Cappello, PhD, Professor of Literacy Education at San Diego State University, where she teaches masters courses in literacy as well as doctoral courses in qualitative research methods. Dr. Cap­ pello is the Director and Founder of the Center for Literacies (CVL), which focuses on visual-based methods as equitable and inclusive practice for literacy pedagogy and qualitative research. She is also the Director of the SDSU/CGU Joint Doctoral Program in Education, whose students are committed to research on social justice and equitable educational outcomes for all students. Recent publications of her visual-based research have been published in the Journal of Language and Literacy Education, English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts, Literacy Research: The­ ory Methods and Practice, Issues in Teacher Education, and The Reading Teacher, highlighting studies she has completed near the US/Mexico border, Samoa, and Belize. She can be reached at [email protected]. Kelly B. Cartwright, PhD, is Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Teacher Preparation at Christopher Newport University, where she directs the Reading, Executive function, And Develop­ ment Lab (READLab), and is a Research Scholar for the Center for Education Research and Policy. She is the recipient of numerous educational awards, including the 2023 State Council of Higher Edu­ cation in Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award. Her research, supported by grants from the US Depart­ ment of Education Institute of Education Sciences, explores neurocognitive and affective factors that underlie reading processes and difficulties across the lifespan. Widely published in national and interna­ tional scholarly outlets, her groundbreaking book, Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators, now in its second edition, is the first comprehensive text at this intersection. Kelly has served on the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association and as Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She regularly works with K-12 teachers throughout the US to understand and improve reading for struggling students, and these experiences inform her research. Kelly can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @KellyBCartwrig1 Becki Cohn-Vargas, EdD, spent over 35 years as a teacher, principal, curriculum director, and super­ intendent in rural, urban, and suburban school districts. In each setting, she focused on educational equity and effective strategies for diverse populations. She co-authored the best-selling book Identity Safe Classrooms K-5: Places to Belong and Learn. Subsequently, she co-authored Identity Safe Classrooms Grades 6–12: Pathways to Belonging and Learning and Belonging and Inclusion in Identity Safe Schools: A Guide for Educational Leaders. In addition, she authored chapters in the Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys and The International Handbook of Gender Beliefs, Stereotype Threat, And Teacher Expec­ tations (in press) and articles for Educational Leadership magazine, Language magazine, and the Illinois ix

Contributors

Reading Council. She produced Our Family, A Film About Family Diversity with a curriculum guide and the Guide to Bullying Prevention for Law Enforcement for the Department of Justice. She was hosted twice at the White House by President Obama’s education staff and has worked as a consultant in over 150 schools across the U.S. She can be reached through her website: http://beckicohnvargas.com. Thomas Crisp, PhD, is associate professor of literacy and children’s literature at Georgia State Uni­ versity. Thomas is a former president of the Children’s Literature Association, former co-editor of the Journal of Children’s Literature, and an Internationale Jugendbibliothek/International Youth Library Research Fellow. In addition to publishing book chapters and articles, Crisp is co-editor of Reading and Teaching with Diverse Nonfiction Children’s Books: Representations and Possibilities (NCTE, 2021). He can be reached at [email protected] Nell K. Duke, EdD, Executive Director, Center for Early Literacy Success, Stand for Children and Professor, Literacy, Language, and Culture and Combined Program in Education and Psychology, University of Michigan,  focuses on early literacy development, particularly among children living in economic poverty.  She has served as Co-Principal Investigator of projects funded by the  Insti­ tute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, and the  George Lucas Educational Foundation, among other organizations.  Duke has received the P. David Pearson Scholarly Influence Award from the Literacy Research Association, and the International Literacy Association’s William S. Gray Citation of Merit for outstanding contribu­ tions to research, theory, practice, and policy. Duke is (co)author and co-editor of numerous books, journal articles, and book chapters. Her most recent book is Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Key Practices for Educators. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twit­ ter handle @nellkduke. Tracey F. Flores, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy in the Department of Cur­ riculum and Instruction at The University of Texas, Austin and teaches Language Arts Methods and Community Literacies in the K-5 teacher education program. A former English Language Develop­ ment (ELD) and English Language Arts (ELA) teacher, she worked for eight years alongside culturally and linguistically diverse students, families, and communities in K-8 schools throughout Glendale and Phoenix, Arizona. Her research focuses on Latina mothers’ and daughters’ language and literacy prac­ tices, the teaching of young writers in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, and family and community literacies. Dr. Flores is the founder of Somos Escritoras/We Are Writers, a creative space for Latina girls (grades 6–12) that invites them to share and perform stories from their lived experiences using art, theater, and writing as a tool for reflection, examination, and critique of their worlds. She can be reached at [email protected] Nancy Frey, PhD, is Professor in Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a mem­ ber of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Nancy has published in The Reading Teacher, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Principal Leadership, Middle School Journal, and Educational Leadership. In 2008, she was given the Early Career Achievement Award by the Literacy Research Association and is a member of the California Reading Hall of Fame. She is a credentialed special educator, reading specialist, and administrator in California, and is a co-founder and administra­ tor at Health Sciences High and Middle College. She can be reached at [email protected] Pelusa Orellana Garcia, PhD, is a literacy researcher and professor at Universidad de los Andes, in Santiago, Chile. She teachers reading methods courses in undergraduate and graduate programs and is the academic director of CIIL (Centro de Investigación e Innovación en Lectura) at the university. She x

Contributors

has coauthored five books and written more than 10 book chapters and 34 peer-reviewed articles. In 2021, she and her colleague Dr. Carolina Melo, PhD., received the Avonni Award in education inno­ vation for the creation of Dialect, a Spanish online diagnostic reading platform. Her research interests include reading development, assessment and motivation, text complexity, and reading teacher educa­ tion. She can be reached at [email protected] John T. Guthrie, PhD, received a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois in 1998. John was the Research Director for the International Reading Association, 1974–1984. He was Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland College Park 1984–1991. John directed the National Reading Research Center from 1992–1997 focusing on the theme of motivation, engagement, and cognition in reading. In 2006, John was appointed as the Jean Mullan Professor of Literacy at the University of Maryland. In 1990, John was elected Fellow in the American Psychological Association and Fellow in the National Council of research in English in 1992. He received the National Research Conference Oscar S. Causey award and was elected to the International Reading Association Hall of Fame in 1994. He was selected to the National Academy of Education (NAEd) in 2011. John was awarded the Wil­ liam S. Gray Citation of Merit by the International Literacy Association in 2017. He can be reached at [email protected]. Marcelle M. Haddix, PhD, is Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Academic Affairs and Distinguished Dean’s Professor of Literacy, Race, and Justice at Syracuse University. Her work is featured in Research in the Teaching of English, Linguistics and Education, and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Her book,  Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me, received the 2018 Outstanding Book Award from the American Association of Col­ leges for Teacher Education. In 2021, she received the Divergent Award for Excellence in Literacy Advocacy from the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research. She is also past president of the Literacy Research Association. She can be reached at [email protected] Kathleen A. Hinchman, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at Syracuse University. She has taught and coached in elementary and secondary school, adult literacy, and undergraduate and graduate liter­ acy teacher education settings. She has published numerous articles and co-authored or edited such texts as  Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives, Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruc­ tion, and Teaching Adolescents Who Struggle with Reading. She has served as coeditor of the National Read­ ing Conference Annual Yearbook and the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Currently sitting on the Board of Directors of the New York State Reading Association and ProLiteracy, she has also served as President of the Central New York Reading Council, New York State Reading Association, and Lit­ eracy Research Association, formerly the National Reading Conference. Dr. Hinchman is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. She can be reached at [email protected]. Carol Jago, PhD, has taught English in middle and high school in public schools for 32 years and is the associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She served as the president of the National Council of Teachers of English and on the National Assessment Governing Board. She currently serves on the International Literacy Association’s Board of Directors. She has published many books with Heinemann, including The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis,  and published books on contemporary multicultural authors for NCTE. Carol has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Association of Teachers of English and was the recipient of the National Council of Teachers of English Squire Award, given to honor an individual xi

Contributors

who has had a transforming influence and has made a lasting intellectual contribution to the profession. She can be reached at [email protected] Laura Justice, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology at The Ohio State Univer­ sity, where she also serves as Executive Director of the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy. Justice is an expert in language and literacy development, language-specific disabilities, and educational interventions. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Early Childhood Research Quarterly, the premier scholarly journal focused on early childhood development and intervention. Justice has authored or co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed research articles, as well as numerous books, including Language Development Theory to Practice (Pearson). Justice can be reached at justice.57@osu. edu Ibrahim M. Karkouti, EdD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the American University in Cairo. An independent thinker, a young scholar, and a lifelong learner, his research focuses on diversity issues in higher education, educational technology, refugee education, and the types of social support teachers need to implement reform. He can be reached at ibrahim. [email protected] and followed on twitter @ibrahimkarkouti Monica C. Kleekamp, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Maryville University in St. Louis, MO. As a practitioner, Monica worked as a speech-language pathologist supporting secondary students with complex communication needs (CCN). As a literacy researcher, she works to unsettle deficit narratives of readers who have significant support needs and primarily access special education settings by reframing what is defined as literacy and who is defined as literate. Her scholarship has received a variety of awards from national organizations including the Literacy Research Association (LRA), National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and Ameri­ can Educational Research Association (AERA). Her current publications are available in a number of literacy journals including The Reading Teacher, Journal of Literacy Research, Research in the Teaching of English, and English: Practice and Critique. Monica can be reached at [email protected] Carol D. Lee, PhD, is the Edwina S. Tarry Professor Emerita in the School of Education and Social Policy and African-American Studies at Northwestern University. President of the National Academy of Education and past president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), she is a member of the National Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Reading Hall of Fame. Carol has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the National Council of Teachers of English, Scholars of Color Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association, The President’s Pacesetters Award from the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education, and an honorary doctorate from the Uni­ versity of Pretoria, South Africa. Author/editor of numerous journal articles, handbook chapters, and books, her research addresses cultural supports for learning that include a broad ecological focus, with attention to language and literacy and African-American youth. A former ELA teacher at the high school and community college levels, a primary grade teacher, and a university professor, she is a founder of four African-centered schools, including two charter schools under the umbrella of the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools, where she serves as chair of the Board of Directors. She can be reached at [email protected] Teaira McMurtry, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is a former high school English Language Arts teacher, literacy leader, and curriculum specialist for Milwaukee Public Schools. She was a 2018–20 fellow in the  National Council for Teachers of xii

Contributors

English’s (NCTE) Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color (CNV) program. She has pub­ lished articles on the promising outcomes of centering Black Language in curriculum and pedagogy in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and English Journal. She can be reached at mcmurtry@ uab.edu Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, PhD, is Professor in Literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. She has studied beginning reading materials, text difficulty, phonics, and struggling readers since 1999. Her research has appeared in Reading Research Quarterly, The Educational Researcher, Elementary School Journal,  and  Early Childhood Research Quarterly.  She has written and directed eight grants aimed at improving reading instruction in K-5 classrooms. Dr. Mesmer is the recent author of Alphabetics for Emerging Learners, as well as Letter Lessons and First Words: Phonics Foundations that Work, Teaching skills for complex text: Deepening reading in the classroom (Teachers College Press, 2016). She regularly consults with school districts, state departments of education, and publishers. Her research has been supported by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and an American Educational Research Association/Institute of Education Sciences grant. She is the recipient of the Outreach Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, and the Promis­ ing Scholar Award from the School of Education, Virginia Tech. She delivered the George Graham Lecture in Reading at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. She can be reached at [email protected] Lesley Mandel Morrow, PhD, is a distinguished professor of literacy and director of the Center for Literacy Development at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her research deals with early literacy development in diverse communities, with an emphasis on creating literacy-rich environments and communities of learning in the organization and management of the language arts program. Dr. Morrow has more than 500 publications appearing in journal articles, chapters in books, and books. She has received the Special Service Award, Outstanding Teacher Edu­ cator in Reading Award, and the William S. Gray Citation of Merit from the International Literacy Association, the Outstanding Alumnae Award from Fordham University, Teaching, Research and Ser­ vice Awards from Rutgers University, and the Oscar S. Causey Award for outstanding contributions to reading research from the Literacy Research Association (LRA). Dr. Morrow served on the Board of Directors of the LRA and as co-editor of their Journal. She is past president of the International Liter­ acy Association and the Reading Hall of Fame. She can be reached at [email protected]. Joaquin Muñoz, PhD (Pascua Yaqui Tribe | he/him/his), grew up on the Pascua Yaqui Indian Res­ ervation in Arizona, where he learned early on about the complicated issues of race, culture, history, and oppression. He is currently an assistant professor of Indigenous Education at the University of Brit­ ish Columbia, where his research on Indigenous Education and teacher education focuses on support­ ing teachers to be effective when working with diverse Indigenous populations, through Indigenous Knowledge, cultural awareness, critical pedagogy practices, and culturally relevant pedagogy. He can be reached at [email protected]. Susan B. Neuman, PhD, is a professor of teaching and learning at New York University specializing in childhood education and early literacy development. Previously, she has been a professor at the University of Michigan and has served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. In her role as Assistant Secretary, she established the Early Reading First program, the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program, and was responsible for all activities in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act. She has served on the IRA Board of Directors (2001–2003) and other numerous boards of non-profit organizations, and served as co-editor of Reading Research xiii

Contributors

Quarterly (2011–2018), ILA’s flagship research journal. Her research and teaching interests include early childhood policy, curriculum, and early reading instruction, pre-k-grade 3 for children who live in poverty. Neuman has received two lifetime achievement awards for research in literacy development, and is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. She has written over 100 articles and authored and edited 12 books. She can be reached at [email protected] Alejandro Gonzalez Ojeda, EdD, is an assistant professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and an instructional technology leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. Alejandro’s scholarly and practitioner work has focused on evidence-based practices that prioritize clear instructional purpose. Alejandro’s work has been published in practitioner books and peer-reviewed articles. He has led professional learning both nationally and internationally on school leadership, literacy instruction, and educational technology. Alejandro’s work in the field of literacy spans policy and practice analysis. His most recent contributions to the field have emphasized effective practices in resource adoption and comprehensive intervention practices. A passionate advocate for use of technol­ ogy for purpose, his work also features ways in which educators can harness technology purposefully rather than at surface level. Throughout his career he has led the design and implementation of blended and fully online learning programs at the K-12 and graduate levels, including developing capacity among staff. He can be reached at [email protected]. John Perry, MA, taught English in secondary schools across England for twenty-five years. He was a Head of Department as well as a secondary school principal. He moved into Higher Education in the late 2010s and currently leads the Initial Teacher Education programmes for secondary English at the University of Nottingham in England. John has published multiple articles and chapters in areas including metacognition, language acquisition, research, school leadership, and policy enactment. John is completing his EdD focusing on the place, purpose, and production of English in secondary schools. John can be reached at [email protected]. Tonya B. Perry, PhD, Professor and Vice Provost of Academic Affairs at Miles College, is a former English teacher and teacher educator. She was a full professor in teacher education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She is currently the vice president of the National Council of Teach­ ers of English, member of the Board of Directors for the National Writing Project, and a member of the National Board of Professional Teacher Standards Global DEI Committee. She is the co-author of Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters with Steve Zemelman and Katy Smith, which earned the 2022 Excellence in Equity award. She has published multiple articles on working with students from diverse populations, particularly students who are historically marginalized. She is the recipient of the NCTE Outstanding Educator Award (formerly Richard Halle Award). She was also the Alabama Teacher of the Year (2000) and National Finalist (2001). She can be reached at [email protected]. Zoi A. Traga Philippakos, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Tennessee (UT). Her research addresses writing and reading instruction in K-12 and postsecondary settings, strategy instruc­ tion with self-regulation, and professional development. Most recently she received the Early Career Achievement Award (Literacy Research Association), and the  Chancellor’s Award on Professional Promise in Research and Creative Achievement (UT). She is the codeveloper of Developing Strategic Learners (K to 8) and Supporting Strategic Writers (postsecondary) programs. Her recent coauthored books include Developing Strategic Young Writers Through Genre Instruction: Resources for Grades K to 2 and also for Grades 3 to 5; Differentiated Literacy Instruction in Grades 4 and 5, and her coedited books are Design-based research in education: Theory and applications and  Writing-Reading Connections: Bridging xiv

Contributors

Research and Practice. She has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and has presented her research at national and international conferences. She can be reached at [email protected] and fol­ lowed on Twitter @ZoiPhilippakos Vincent Pompei, EdD, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and education is a consultant on student mental wellness and creating LGBTQ+-inclusive schools. He is the author and co-author of numerous publications, articles, and educational policies covering mental health, bullying prevention, LGBTQ, and gender inclusion, among others. Before joining San Diego State, he served for nearly a decade as the National Director of the Youth Well-Being Pro­ gramming at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest civil rights organization dedicated to LGBTQ equality. His commitment to creating safe and affirming schools has been nationally recog­ nized, including being called to testify at a congressional hearing on school safety and an acknowledg­ ment from the U.S. Department of Education for developing a first-of-its-kind national convening on bullying and suicide prevention. He has also been acknowledged by the National Education Associa­ tion as a Classroom Superhero  and received honors from Advocate magazine, the California PTA, and Equality California for his dedication to the safety and inclusion of all students. He can be reached at [email protected] Timothy Rasinski, PhD, is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University, where he also holds the Rebecca Tolle and Burton W. Gorman Endowed Chair in Educational Leadership. Tim has written over 250 articles and has authored, co-authored, or edited over 50 books or curriculum pro­ grams on reading education. Tim’s scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study and read­ ers who struggle. His research on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly  and The Reading Teacher. Tim served as co­ editor of The Reading Teacher, the world’s most widely read journal of literacy education and co-editor of the Journal of Literacy Research. In 2010, Tim was elected to the International Reading Hall of Fame and he has been the recipient of the William S. Gray Citation of Merit from the International Literacy Association. Prior to coming to Kent State, Tim taught literacy education at the University of Georgia. He taught for several years as an elementary and middle school classroom and reading intervention teacher in Omaha, Nebraska. He can be reached at [email protected] D. Ray Reutzel, PhD, a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the School of the Future at Utah State University, is an emeritus faculty member and former Dean of the College of Education at the University of Wyoming. He held the Emma Eccles Jones Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education at Utah State University for 14 years. He is the author of more than 235 published works and has received more than 17+ million dollars in external funding. He is the past editor of Literacy Research and Instruction, The Reading Teacher, and is the current executive editor of the  Journal of Educational Research. He received the 1999 A.B. Herr Award, the 2013 ALER Laureate Award, and served as President of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers –ALER from 2006–2007. Ray was presented the John C. Manning Public School Service Award by the Interna­ tional Reading Association in 2007 and served as a member of its Board of Directors. He also served on the Literacy Researchers Association Board of Directors from 2012–2015. Dr. Reutzel is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame and served as its President from 2017–2019. He received the William S. Gray Citation of Merit from the International Literacy Association in 2019. He can be reached at ray. [email protected] Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Teacher Learning, Research, and Prac­ tice in the School of Education and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the xv

Contributors

University of Colorado Boulder, and is a former bilingual elementary teacher. She is the recipient of Early Career Awards from the Children’s Literature Assembly of the National Council for Teachers of English, the Research on the Education of Asian Pacific Americans Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, and the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies. Her research engages critical race frameworks to explore the pedagogical practices of teachers of color and the teaching of so-called difficult histories through children’s literature and primary sources. She has published many articles and book chapters and co­ authored Social Studies for a Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Approach for Elementary Educators with Katy Swalwell and Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms with Sohyun An and Esther Kim. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @NaseemRdz. Allison Skerrett, PhD, is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of Teacher Educa­ tion in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Skerrett’s research focuses on diverse adolescents’ literacy practices; secondary English education, particularly as it pertains to teacher preparation and practice for urban contexts; and the relationships among transnationalism, youth of color, and literacy. Her publications appear in journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education. Dr. Skerrett’s book, Teaching Transnational Youth: Literacy and Education in a Changing World (Teachers College Press 2015), is the first to examine the educational opportunities and challenges arising from increasing numbers of students living and attending school across different countries. Her latest book with Peter Smagorinsky, Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times: Identity, Inquiry, and Social Action at the Heart of Instruction (Corwin, 2022), considers how the sociopolitical and health challenges of recent times provide educators and youth unique and critical opportunities for literacy learning in school. Dr. Skerrett has received awards for her research including the Literacy Research Association’s Early Career Achievement Award and the Edward B. Fry Book Award. She is currently a co-editor for the Journal of Literacy Research and serves on educational advisory boards including the US National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Panel for Reading and Scotland’s International Council of Education Advisers (ICEA). She can be reached at [email protected] Elizabeth Years Stevens, PhD, Associate Professor in Teacher Education and Director of the Lit­ eracy MED Program at Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester, New York, is formerly a sixthgrade teacher. Her areas of instruction include literacy foundations, application of literacy strategies in childhood classrooms, and assessment-driven literacy instruction. Dr. Stevens’s areas of research include literacy teacher education, identity, and multiliteracies. Her most recent publications can be found in Action in Teacher Education, Teaching Education, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Journal of Literacy Innovation, and Studying Teacher Education. She is a member of many professional organizations, including the Literacy Research Association, where she currently serves as an E-Editor and formerly served as an Area Chair for Literacy Assessment, Evaluation, and Public Policy. She can be reached at [email protected] Ana Taboada Barber, PhD, is Professor and Associate Dean for Research, Innovation and Partner­ ships in the College of Education at the University of Maryland. Ana studies  reading comprehen­ sion and reading motivation in Emergent Bilingual (EB) students. Her work centers on studying the influence of specific motivational and cognitive factors on the literacy and language development of elementary and middle school students who are EBs and come from Spanish-speaking backgrounds. As a former English as a Second Language teacher, Ana’s work in reading comprehension develop­ ment is principally concentrated within the population of Spanish-speaking EBs in the United States and in South America. Ana has also turned her attention to the possible roles that executive function xvi

Contributors

skills play in the cognition of EB students in Language Immersion settings. She has received two Insti­ tute of Education Sciences (IES) Grants (2016–2024) to explore these relations in grades K to 5 in English-only and Spanish Immersion schools. Ana is also a standing review member of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) of the U.S. Department of Education. She can be reached at [email protected] Margaret Vaughn, PhD, professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Washington State University, is a former elementary school educator and advocate for developing equitable schools. As a literacy researcher and former classroom educator, she recognizes the valuable role of teacher input and decision-making in policy and practice and supports efforts to develop equity-focused learning environments. She is an advocate for student agency and works both nationally and internationally to discuss the role of student agency in learning environments. She is the recipient of several awards including the American Educational Research Association’s Review of Research Award as well as the Association of Teacher Educator’s Distinguished Research in Teacher Education and is a Ful­ bright Specialist. Her award-winning research addresses issues of teacher practice and contemporary educational issues where She has published numerous articles on developing agentic focused literacy practices, adaptive instruction, and teacher visioning as well as books such as, Teaching with Children’s Literature: Theory to Practice, Student Agency: Honoring Student Voice in the Curriculum, and Principles of Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades K-5. She can be reached at [email protected] and can be followed on Twitter @AgenticStudents. Allan Wigfield, PhD, is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Development and Quan­ titative Methodology and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland. He also is Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He studies the develop­ ment of motivation during childhood and adolescence and has conducted several long-term longitu­ dinal studies of the development of motivation during the elementary and secondary school years. He also has done numerous intervention studies to assess various ways to improve children’s motivation in STEM fields and in reading. He worked with Dr. John T. Guthrie on two projects designed to assess the effectiveness of Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) on children’s reading motivation and comprehension. Dr. Wigfield has authored more than 170 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the development of children’s motivation and how to improve it. He also has edited six scholarly books and seven special issues of numerous journals devoted to the understanding of students’ motivation. His work has been cited over 90,000 times. He is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. Dr. Wigfield has won numerous awards for his research, including most recently the 2019 Sylvia Scribner Award from Division C of the American Educational Research Association. He can be reached at [email protected] Thomas DeVere Wolsey, EdD, is a literacy education consultant who teaches graduate courses in research and literacy. He leads professional development for teachers in Guatemala, Egypt, Mex­ ico, China, on the Hopi Reservation, and throughout the United States, among other places. He is the author or co-author of eleven books for teachers and teacher educators with two more in develop­ ment. Dr. Wolsey has developed training materials for the California Department of Education, TextProject, San Diego State University, and North County (San Diego) Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program. His specialties include exploring intersections of literacy and technology, middle grades and secondary literacy practices, teacher preparation, and green school design. In addition, he owns an olive grove in Catalonia, Spain, where he produces olive oil. Contact him at TDWolsey@msn. com or follow him on Mastodon https://mstdn.social/@TDWolsey or Twitter @TDWolsey xvii

Contributors

Angie Zapata, PhD., Associate Professor of Language and Literacies Education at the University of Missouri, is a longtime teacher, teacher educator, and researcher. Through collaborative inquiry part­ nerships with practicing teachers, her numerous research publications highlight teacher and student interactions with picturebooks featuring diverse representation and how translingual and transmodal literacies are produced through those literature-based experiences. Her research and teaching contri­ butions have been recognized as a recipient of the Early Career Research Award from the National Council of Teachers of English Children’s Literature Assembly and as the Inaugural Recipient of the Dr. Lydia Walker Faculty Fellowship in Reading and Literacy from the University of Missouri. She can be reached at [email protected] Sharon K. Zumbrunn, PhD, is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Director of the Motivation in Context Research Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a former elementary school teacher, her broad research interests include understanding student learning and motivation, and the contexts that foster student success. Her work on writing motivation and self-regulation has been published in both national and international journals, including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Education, Educational Psychology Review, Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Reading Teacher. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @ SharonZumbrunn.

xviii

PREFACE

Who would ever have thought that as we compiled the 5th edition of the Handbook of Research on the Teaching of the English Language Arts, we would be fearful of the possibility of book censorship occur­ ring in American public schools and school libraries being stripped of texts that discuss topics support­ ive of critical race theory? Well, these fears have become our reality, with book challenges becoming common practice in 86 school districts across 26 states just between July  2021 and March  2022. According to PEN America (2022), these occurrences affected more than two million students. The 2022–23 school year has seen no decline in these numbers, with instances of 1,477 bans which affected 874 titles. We introduce this edition of the Handbook by focusing on book banning because this form of injustice highlights the inequities that can so quickly occur when a group organizes their efforts to dictate books that can be read and those that must be prohibited because they do not promote a certain perspective regarding race, religion, sexuality, or philosophy. Our intent in each edition of the Handbook has been to identify and promote research-supported ideas, issues, instruction, as well as next-step challenges that keep us growing as a free-thinking society. Unfortunately, this runs counter to what is promoted through book banning. It is well known that book banning in America has existed since the time of the colonies, with most of the early bans being spurred by religious leaders who identified books that did not support particu­ lar religious beliefs. Next, books that discussed the issue of human enslavement were outlawed by the 1850s, with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1851 publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin being widely condemned. So, with religion and slavery as two topics that have always been under siege, you are probably won­ dering, “What happened to books that made any reference to sex?” Wonder no more; by 1873, the passing of the Comstock Act made the sharing of books or printed material containing content about sexuality and birth control illegal. Where was this happening? The answer is everywhere, and by the 1920s, authors intentionally printed their books in Boston because book banning was so notorious there that the publicity boost from being banned made their books even more desirable. There has always been pushback against book banning, and in 1969, the Supreme Court got involved and ruled in favor of literacy freedom with the Tinker vs. Des Moines (1965) case, in which they ruled 7–2 that “neither teachers nor students shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Schoolbooks were again addressed by the Supreme Court in 1982 when a group of students sued the New York school board for the removal of books by several authors, including Langston Hughes

xix

Preface

and Kurt Vonnegut. Reasons for the removal included that they were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.” The Court ruling in favor of the students stated, “Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” Unfortunately, this ruling did not end attempts to ban or censor books, and as a result of continued book banning, librarians in 1982 created Banned Book Week as a way to focus attention on the attempts to limit one’s right to read, which is viewed as a challenge to our First Amendment freedoms, and directs attention toward the books and topics that are being banned somewhere for some reason (Board of Education, 1982). However, as we know, attempts to ban books continue with the focus on religion, sexuality, race and racism, and death and grief, but with an added focus on stories addressing LGBTQ+ issues or protagonists. Texas led the current charge against books with its 713 bans, nearly doubling bans in other states. There seems to be no current ceasing of book banning even though many of the targeted titles, including time-tested titles like Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn continue to sell widely and motivate people of all ages to read. At the same time that we see the continuance of book banning and worry about how to motivate readers to engage in book reading and book chats, the Nation’s Report Card has shared the news that as identified by The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), about 40% of fourth graders are reading below a basic level and scores for eighth graders are lower than any year since 1988. While this news is alarming, we must think about what students endured in the years during the recent pandemic. They were not in regular classrooms where they had time to share books, conversations, and ideas with their peers and teachers. They were isolated at home and taught via Zoom. Away from their teach­ ers and classrooms, they may have lost their motivation and stamina for learning, but they certainly didn’t forget how to read, how to write an effective essay, or how to calculate math problems. Teachers didn’t forget how to teach, either. Unfortunately, teachers have been bombarded with statistics about what students didn’t learn, which suggests that they have not done a good job of teaching. We pro­ pose through the excellent chapters in this edition of the Handbook that it’s time to move forward and believe in ourselves as educators, as we remember all that we know about teaching purposefully and effectively, and about motivating our students with books and ideas that cause them to think, to want to read, to converse, to question what they see and hear on social media, and to believe that they have the power to change the world. Those of us reading this edition of this Handbook are in the business of literacy education, either through the preparation of literacy teachers or working directly with students. We believe that as lit­ eracy educators we must promote the freedom to read and to communicate, debate, and investigate ideas. We believe educators are in the business of messaging. When one hears the term “messaging,” what is often visualized is the action of someone communicating through a spoken or written message with one or more individuals via a cellphone, computer, or other electronic device. Our goal for the 5th edition of the Handbook is to message you on several dimensions of the English Language Arts that we believe need to be given either new or refocused attention if we are to prepare teachers who open doors to students to develop their literacies.

Defining the Language Arts Before we explore the contents of this edition of the Handbook, let’s address the question of What Exactly are the Language Arts? In answering, let’s first think about these two words, language and arts. We’re all familiar with the concept of arts as being various ways or forms to communicate ideas. When language is added, the communication of the idea(s) is shared through some form of language, whether it be written or spoken. So, we can conclude that the term “language arts” is the xx

Preface

art of communicating ideas through various forms of language, including listening, speaking, writing, reading, and viewing. These are the forms of communication addressed in the chapters of this book.

The History of the Language Arts Handbook Our answer to the next question, What’s the Purpose and History of this Language Arts Hand­ book? begins in 1991, when the first volume testified to the need for the unification of language arts research and practice as a means to inform instruction by offering future educators and researchers a vision grounded in the belief that research on classroom practice must be seen by those who will be practicing in the classroom, or who will leading instructional practices. Through editions that have ranged in size, from 75 chapters to this current edition containing 15 chapters and a concluding Epilogue, our goal is to share a Handbook that can be studied in semester-long courses where future educators and administrators are being prepared to discuss, challenge, and advance considering ideas in literacy. The Handbook begins with the opening section titled “The Language Arts,” which provides a focus on each of the language arts. Chapter 1 offers an international focus of the language arts and literacy and explores the teaching of English as an international language with the point being made that, in a transnational context, perspectives and challenges of teaching English are not all that different. Chap­ ter 2 promotes the idea that a solid foundation in language begins by celebrating the language each child brings to school and then providing instruction to help them expand their language knowledge in ways that ensure they become proficient writers and readers as well as speakers. “Reading” is the title and focus of Chapter 3, which examines key issues in reading and reading instruction across the PK-12 span. Like reading, writing is viewed as a demanding and complex process for most learners across grades and stages of literacy development. Chapter 4 shares writing practices that are based on research findings, with the goal of eliminating the challenges that students face as writers. Engaging students in the language arts through multimodal and online literacies is the focus of Chapter 5. Chapters 6 and 7 support dialog related to book banning and address the powerful role played by the reading and discussing of children’s and adolescent literature. The focus of Section II of the Handbook is equity, identity, and belonging in the classroom. Chap­ ter 8 shares ideas to support educators cultivating equitable language arts practices for students from multiple cultures who speak languages other than English as their dominant language, while Chapter 9 builds on addressing equity for multicultural students by introducing the concept of multiculturating, challenging educators to foster a deeper understanding of the rich resources that historically minor­ itized students bring into the classroom. Chapter 10 provides frameworks and tools for teaching stu­ dents who have disabilities that, if not supported, can interfere with their learning. Such support is also reflected in ensuring that our classrooms foster student agency, the topic of Chapter 11. Students also deserve Identity Safe classrooms, learning environments that welcome, support, and value students from all backgrounds. Chapter 12 provides a detailed set of identity safe guiding principles and strate­ gies that ELA educators can incorporate in their classrooms. Section III, “Influences on Learning the Language Arts,” contains three chapters that address the impor­ tance of motivation, assessment, and self-regulation. Chapter 13 delves into the key reading motivation constructs of self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, valuing reading, social aspects of reading motivation, and reading engagement. So timely, this chapter ends with a focus on the social-emotional health of students in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors of Chapter 14 examine the con­ sequences of assessment and describe the nature of formative and summative assessment. They also examine advances in assessing students’ digital literacy, and consider the assessment of powerful influ­ ences on reading development and achievement, including motivation and engagement, self-efficacy, and metacognition. The authors conclude with an examination of students’ self-assessment, and how xxi

Preface

teachers can foster this essential strategy set. Chapter 15, the final chapter of this section, carves out a space in the field for a nuanced look at the multifaceted role of self-regulation in the language arts. After defining how self-regulation contributes to students’ abilities to manage their own learning and providing a historical backdrop tracing its roots to social and cognitive perspectives in psychology, social-cognitive theory, and environmental factors, the authors extend the definition to how students manage their own learning in reading and writing. The Handbook concludes with an epilogue that considers the research we have and the research we need. The authors outline various perspectives of the state of the language arts, and take an across-the­ disciplines approach to the “complex interactive system” where “learning unfolds.” Also emphasized is the importance of preparing teachers for their critical role in language comprehension and the tech­ niques for language comprehension instruction. As we send this 5th edition of the Handbook of Research on the Teaching of the English Language Arts to press, we want to acknowledge James Flood, Julie Jensen, and James Squire, three of the initial editors who in 1991 conceptualized the intent of the Handbook as being a testimony to the need for the unification of language arts research and practice and as a vehicle to provide research-supported evidence to inform teaching. This continues to be the primary goal of this Handbook. We realize that there are additional topics that could have been included, but because of page limitations we had to make choices. If you feel that there is a burning topic that must be included in the 6th edition, please let us know. Douglas Fisher and Diane Lapp, Editors

References Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 et  al. (1982). Petitioners, v. Steven A. PICO, by his next friend Frances Pico et  al., 457 U.S. 853. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/e-lessons/ island-trees-school-district-v-pico-1982 NAEP. (2022). The nation’s report card. NAEP. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ Pen America. (2022, April). Banned in the USA: Rising school book bans threaten free expression and stu­ dents’ first amendment rights. Pen America. Retrieved September  9, 2022, from https://pen.org/report/ banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/ Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1965). https://www.britannica. com/event/Tinker-v-Des-Moines-Independent-Community-School-District

xxii

SECTION I

The Language Arts

1

AN INTERNATIONAL FOCUS OF THE

LANGUAGE ARTS AND LITERACY

Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Pelusa Orellana Garcia, John Perry,

Ibrahim M. Karkouti, and Cristina Alfaro

While there are more native speakers of Chinese and Spanish than English speakers, English is spoken around the world more often than any other language, counting native speakers of English and speakers of English as an additional language. Due in part to England’s imperial ambitions (and later American imperial determinations), and because so many native languages are spoken in the world, English is often the lingua franca in business, law, diplomacy, and education (Eberhard et al., 2020). With the rise of English as a native language and lingua franca, the successes and challenges of teaching English to others have become important to many stakeholders around the world. In this chapter, the authors explore some of those successes and challenges, and the possibilities for further research in the pedagogies of teaching the language. In particular, they have focused the topics pri­ marily on how research might be translated into practice in various global and transnational contexts. Thus, they have foregrounded teacher preparation and professional development as conduits for effec­ tive practice (Wolsey, Scales, et al., 2022).

Methodology The possible scope of topics regarding research in teaching English around the world is staggering. To develop a series of topics that international English language educators might find useful, we used a modified Delphi procedure. Delphi is a research method originally designed by RAND (Dalkey, 1969). Its purpose was to forecast trends using the principle that n minds are better than one. The present chapter only applies some principles of Delphi while ignoring others due to time constraints, size of the author group, and so on. Our goal, then, was to identify specific areas of research in the teaching of English language arts from an international perspective. In Delphi, the respondents are anonymous, whereas in the present chapter, all of the authors except the first knew the others in the group by name only. The authors were selected based on their expertise and on the regions of the world they could represent. Also, in Delphi, feedback to the participants is vital to the success of the procedure. We did make available all results of the previous iterations as topic selection moved through two phases. Little time for discussion was provided due to the constraints noted earlier. While descriptive statistics did provide a mechanism that changed the original stance of the author group to a degree, the small size (five) is not statistically powerful. Given that the authors did not intend to forecast trends (cf. Elliott & Hodg­ son, 2021 for an example of Delphi to set a research agenda), opting instead for general agreement 3

DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-2

Wolsey et al.

about topics of importance, the modified process worked well. As a means of selecting topics for the chapter, (Okoli & Pawlowski, 2004), the authors believe the process achieved the desired outcome. It is now up to the reader to build on the work presented here and help develop future foci for interna­ tional study. The work proceeded in four phases. The first phase intended to select experts with varying exper­ tise from major regions of the world. Not all regions were included in this project. In phase two, the authors proposed possible topics that could be considered successes or challenges through the lens of teacher preparation from their perspectives (see Appendix). Authors then engaged in a ranking activity using a survey program that highlighted the identified challenges and successes (see More to Read). As we shall see, success and challenge are not mutually exclusive, and some topics were identified as examples of both. Our position in this regard is that challenges may lead to successes, and successes lead to new challenges. Phase three consisted of authors selecting the topic(s) they felt most qualified to address in the written work, with phase four being a review of all topics by all authors to refine, add detail, and smooth the chapter stylistically.

United Kingdom Perspective: John Perry Teacher educators should plan for effective oracy in the teacher preparation curriculum. Challenge Score 5 tied with one other Challenge topic.

In the English school system, the government is taking increasingly centralized control of teacher prep­ aration courses. While each teacher preparation course provider can determine their own curriculum model, there are several national documents published by the Department for Education (DfE) setting out what should be taught to trainee teachers. These include the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011), the National Curriculum (DfE, 2014), and the Core Content Framework (DfE, 2019). The foundation of teacher preparation courses in the English school system is the Teachers’ Stand­ ards (DfE, 2011). This document sets out the minimum expectations for every teacher in state-funded schools in England. Student teachers are assessed during their teacher preparation course as to whether they meet the Teachers’ Standards and are thus ready to be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), which is the certificate enabling individuals to teach in state-funded schools in England. There are eight standards in total, and Standard Three, titled “Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowl­ edge,” states that every teacher must “demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject” (DfE, 2011, p. 11). The Core Content Framework (DfE, 2019) is an evidence-informed document produced by the UK government for the English school system that sets out the minimum requirements for an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) curriculum and is tightly linked to the Teachers’ Standards. The section linked with Standard Three says that trainee teachers should “Learn that . . . Every teacher can improve pupils’ literacy skills by explicitly teaching reading, writing, and oral language skills specific to individ­ ual disciplines” (DfE, 2019, p. 14), as well as to “Learn how to . . . Model and require high-quality oral language, recognizing that spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing (e.g., requiring pupils to respond to questions in full sentences, making use of relevant technical vocabulary)” (DfE, 2019, p. 15). The NC is broken down into subjects and phases, with my keenest area of interest being second­ ary school English, known as Key Stage 3 (KS3) and Key Stage 4 (KS4). KS3 involves children aged

4

An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy

11–14, and KS4 is for ages 14–16. In KS3, the NC highlights that pupils should be taught to: speak confidently and effectively by: • using Standard English confidently in a range of formal and informal contexts (DfE, 2014, p. 6), and • improvising, rehearsing, and performing play scripts and poetry to generate language and discuss language use and meaning, using role, intonation, tone, volume, mood, silence, stillness, and action to add impact. (DfE, 2014, ibid.) By KS4, the requirements of the NC are a little more sophisticated. For example, the NC states that Pupils should be taught to: speak confidently, audibly, and effectively by: • using Standard English when the context and audience require it, • working effectively in groups of different sizes and taking on required roles, including leading and managing discussions, involving others productively, reviewing and summarizing, and contributing to meeting goals/deadlines, and • listening to and building on the contributions of others, asking questions to clarify and inform, and challenging courteously when necessary. (DfE, 2014, p. 7) Taken together, the emphasis on teachers speaking Standard English in the Teachers’ Standards, the emphasis on oracy as a tool for learning in the CCF, and the emphasis on speaking and listening skills should be enough to ensure that oracy has a central place in teacher preparation programs. Why, then, is this not always the case? One of the main reasons is how pupils are assessed in the English education system, and how the data from the assessments are used. All pupils are assessed at the end of KS2 with “end of Key Stage tests” in English and math, and with the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) at the end of KS4. Neither of these high-stakes tests directly assess oracy because, according to the body that monitors the quality of teaching in the English school system, oracy is “hard to assess reliably” (Ofsted, 2022, p. 5). At KS4, for example, almost every pupil will take a GCSE in English Language and another GCSE in English Literature when they are 16 years old; most pupils will also take a further seven or eight GCSEs in other subjects. These exams are not only vital for individual pupils, but they also act as a passport to further study and ultimately to employment. They are also vital for the way in which indi­ vidual schools are held to account by the government. Each year, the government publishes what is known as the Progress 8 (P8) score for every school (DfE, 2018), essentially a metric describing how effective the school has been in adding value to children’s academic performance over the first five years of secondary school education. Because of the algorithm used by P8, English Language and English Literature are more important than any subject other than mathematics. This is a very high-stakes metric for schools, as the publi­ cation of the P8 score has a major effect on institutional reputation, and if it is too low or does not improve over time, it can lead to schools being taken over and staff losing their jobs. Because of the central place that the English GCSEs have in the P8 metric (Perry, 2021), it is par­ ticularly important for all trainee teachers of English to be fully prepared to teach the GCSE examina­ tions. Teachers of English are trained during their teacher preparation year to work in both KS3 and KS4, ensuring that their pupils can succeed in their GCSE examinations above all else. It is here, with the primary focus on high stakes examinations, that the problem arises.

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In 2014, teachers in England began to teach new, reformed GCSE examinations in English Lan­ guage and English Literature. The UK government changed the format of the examinations so that any element of students’ coursework was removed, including any assessments related to speaking and lis­ tening. The aim was to make the GCSE qualification more rigorous, reflecting the ways in which the UK government of the day aligned education standards with other countries. The effect was to return pupils to an old-fashioned, 100% terminal, closed-book examination. While there are some advantages to this method, and my research has shown that many teachers have come to appreciate aspects of the new examinations (Perry, 2021, 2022), the removal of oracy from the assessment is problematic. In my research, heads of English departments are particularly scathing about the removal of oracy from high-stakes assessments, as they recognize the truth that what is assessed is what schools prioritize. In the case of English, what is tested has been reduced to a memory test of quotes with few opportuni­ ties for creativity or original thinking (Marsh, 2017; Stock, 2017). Because oracy is no longer assessed, its place in the curriculum has become marginalized to the point that it is rarely taught as an explicit set of skills. There are some influential voices who do not see this as a significant problem (e.g., Didau, 2015), and there are a growing number of schools in England where group work and discussion are discour­ aged. Coupled with the lack of assessment of oracy, this has led to a situation where trainee teachers do not always experience the direct teaching of oracy in the schools where they train. This makes it even more imperative that some of the 25% of the year that trainees spend in university or other ITE locations is spent considering the power and potential of oracy. There are multiple reasons for this, putting aside the policy considerations outlined here. First, it has long been known that oracy is a key component of how humans learn. Vygotsky (1978) made this apparent nearly a century ago, and almost all research into cognitive development as practiced in classrooms has reaffirmed this (Mercer & Littleton, 2007). It is almost impossible for children, or any human in fact, to learn without oracy skills, and it is encouraging that the UK government is now beginning to recognize the importance of oracy in the classroom, noting that, “Developing spoken language, including vocabulary, is essential for the academic progress of all children [and] is especially important for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are the most likely to be word-poor” (Ofsted, 2022, The importance of high-quality spoken language, para 2). It is well-known that chil­ dren’s metacognitive skills, key indicators of success, are improved with strong oracy skills (Perry et al., 2018), and that teaching strategies such as Reciprocal Teaching can be particularly effective, even in schools where oracy is not necessarily encouraged (Gilbert, 2022). At least as important as helping children develop their learning skills is the potential of oracy to help children make sense of their identities. Voice is one of the most personal traits on display in schools, in both children and teachers. In England, there is a policy emphasis on the use of Standard English in the classroom, the particular version of English that the National Curriculum identifies as a ”major world language” (DfE, 2013, p. 21) and is distinct from the various dialects spoken across the country. The emphasis on teaching Standard English has always been controversial, often framed as a way of embodying the behaviors and values of a particular social class at the expense of other social classes (e.g., Cushing & Pye, 2021). Yet it has also been recognized from the start of what we know today as English in schools, that while different accents and dialects are culturally vital (e.g., Newbolt, 1921), equipping pupils with command of Standard English is also vital to maximize their life chances (Mohamed, 2020). Thus, as teacher educators, it is critical for us to ensure that our trainees are clear and confident with their knowledge and skills of oracy. At the University of Nottingham in England, for example, we work with national charities such as Voice 21 (https://voice21.org, 2022) to ensure that our trainee teachers learn practical skills rooted in theory and social justice; we have also adapted our curriculum to encourage and model discussion between students, ensuring that our sessions are lively with learning. 6

An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy

This is for two main reasons that work against the realities experienced in many schools where oracy is not encouraged because it is not assessed or is seen as a threat to discipline. First, children require oracy skills to collaborate and learn together; this is not simply a fuzzy enjoinder to democratic values, crucial though these are, but is an essential element of how humans learn. Second, good oracy skills are an important element of social justice; as one of the world’s seminal authors says, “the word locked up inside cannot win an argument” (Thiong’o, 2020, p. 200).

Egypt Perspective: Thomas DeVere Wolsey Teacher educators should model and explain the use of feedback that is useful and helpful as students learn to read, write, listen, speak, and visualize. —Challenge Score 5.2

As with so many aspects of teaching and learning, it is quite one thing to understand general principles of pedagogy and another to implement those principles. Phenomena may be reduced to templates or checklists, but knowing the theoretical does not automatically translate to practice in the classroom. Feedback is one such construct. When applied to language learning and learning with and through language, feedback can be mediated by the skills of the learner, the variables of the content, and the ability of the teacher to recognize what students need. An inquiry into feedback as understood in various contexts requires a definitional starting point. Feedback is communication from any number of actors or environmental factors that provide infor­ mation regarding one’s performance of a given task. Actors include teachers, of course, but actors can also include peers, coaches, public respondents (consider ratings on social media), and self-assessment of one’s own performance (especially in the case of experts) (Stobart, 2018). Moreover, feedback is typically reliant on access to success criteria, classroom questioning, com­ ment and score marking, and formative use of summative data (cf. Wiliam, 2018). For feedback to be effective, teachers also need access to timely and relevant information about what students know and can do. Wolsey et al. (2020) have contended that feedback must be useful; that is, the student must be able to do something with the feedback information to move learning forward. Finally, teachers must consider whether indirect or direct feedback is likely to produce the most learning, all while avoiding feedback that could produce no effect, or worse, produce a negative effect (Hyland, 1990). In the realm of English language teaching, teacher knowledge that goes beyond a unitary construct that feedback is generally “good” must be emphasized in teacher preparation and in-service work (Wolsey et al., 2020). For example, students learning to decode text require feedback that varies from the very specific and corrective to the indirect and suggestive. Students learning the complexities of writing instruction need teachers who know when to move in with specific feedback and when to step back, providing only suggestions or reminders of earlier instruction. Teachers must also be aware of the types of mistakes and errors students might make to provide the most useful feedback.

The Egyptian Context Applying the concept of feedback in Egyptian schools requires a look at the teaching environment and what is called the “Egyptian Context.” Schools in Egypt rely heavily on recitation models of instruc­ tion, such as the input-response-evaluate (Mehan, 1979) model. Under this system, feedback is limited to what is correct or not correct, and students in turn look only to feedback that their work is correct 7

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or not correct. Additionally, teachers in the once-vaunted system are now demoralized and underpaid, reduced to complying with mandates from the Ministry of Education and Technical Education (MOE) as students struggle to pass a series of exams that culminate with a series of 12 exams spaced over the final three years of the secondary system, roughly equivalent to grades 9 to 12. Even the new “Educa­ tion 2.0” curricula and textbooks discourage meaningful comprehension (Wolsey, 2019), and lack a coherent structure under which teachers might help students to master letter-sound correspondences and knowledge of phonics, let alone comprehension in Arabic (Wolsey, Karkouti, et al., 2022). The same may be said of instruction in English, which is also mandated in the national system of schools (Mohamed et al., 2019), and English is often the principal language of instruction in the elite private schools that serve the upper eight percent of the population. However, students educated in English but without learning to read effectively also rebel against reading tasks. All of these elements combined have consequences beyond schooling. Data shows that the number of females who are not in school or working has increased steadily over the past five years (World Bank, 2022), and that males are once again having trouble finding work or staying in school. With this data, it might stand to reason that ministers, educators, and policymakers would take action to professional­ ize the teacher workforce, but that action is not forthcoming. It can be speculated that one reason is the insistence of educational leadership on what may be called “The Egyptian Context.” As a nation colonized by many, including the British, the Egyptian context is dominated by the colonial impact of the British education system, which favored the elites and not the lower echelons of the populace, a situation that remains to this day. Further, the Egyptian context refers to the confluences of Arab, Middle Eastern, and Islamic traditions that favor unequal power distribution, high regard (and fear) of managers, and low individualism and autonomy (e.g., El-Kot & Leat, 2005). Translated to the educa­ tion system, teachers are at the low end of the power structure, and the Ministry expects them to be slothful and uncaring in their profession, which impacts their self-efficacy in teaching. This dynamic also affects students, who view feedback from teachers in terms of right or wrong, and interaction with teachers and peers as unnecessary or even counterproductive.

A Textbook Case This inattention to the importance of teacher feedback has been further exacerbated with the Minis­ try of Education’s recent revision of curriculum that manifested in textbooks with a multidisciplinary approach designed to encourage reading (in addition to a text designed specifically for reading instruc­ tion). We set out to determine what, if any, theory of vocabulary development was in play in four of these texts, two for primary one, and two for primary two (grade levels). The texts are published in English and Arabic. Because the books tend to cluster vocabulary with no plan for vocabulary devel­ opment, students may encounter a word once or twice, then never again. At other times, words are clustered with great frequency, but then those words are not encountered again. Teacher feedback could help students master the vocabulary, but interactions such as these are not encouraged. Because teachers have no flexibility in adapting curriculum, and students are expected to proceed without teacher feedback, the vocabulary and comprehension of the text itself is difficult for students to grasp. Under this organization for text, students are unlikely to retain or recall new words (Wolsey, Karkouti, et al., 2022). For this reason, the textbook publisher simply tells teachers in training that they must read the book to the students; in other words, they are to master reading without doing the reading. The content is most important. If feedback is to be effective, teachers must know what the organizing principles of the curriculum are, and they must be able to adapt them when the organizing principles are inadequate. Moreover, they must be able to understand where the students are in terms of understanding vocabulary at the word level, and what they comprehend when the vocabulary is found in the context of connected 8

An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy

text. However, instruction is intended to be conducted with the entire class, and therefore only inputresponse-evaluate types of feedback are possible, making individual student feedback impossible.

Paradoxes Given the nature of learning to read and learning with and through language throughout one’s school years, feedback of the right type and in the right dosage is critical. It is one of the seven conditions for learning (Learning Sciences International, 2017), as identified in the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model. It has an effect size of .61, which translates to a percentile gain of 23 points on standardized assessments. However, if the Egyptian context, with its emphasis on respect for management and leadership, is seen as a problem to be overcome, providing teachers with the tools to use feedback appropriately might be attained. For change to happen, Egyptian Ministers must ask themselves the following serious questions: • What research has been done in the Egyptian system that is useful in informing practice? • Who owns the research and who will translate the research into ongoing practical knowledge Egyp­ tian teachers can use every day? • What feedback should teachers be expected to provide that will also help Egyptian children succeed with language learning tasks and that are compatible with the Egyptian context? • Which language goals are worthy of the Egyptian context, and which are not? Do these include criti­ cal thinking and higher levels of text comprehension? If so, what feedback models will help, if any? (cf. Smith, 2021) We argue that feedback in language (and other) learning situations is or can be fundamentally dem­ ocratic in nature; it is inclusive, and it is built on notions of equity. Here, the paradoxes of the Egyptian context and the democratic values of inclusivity and equity appear at odds with each other. Egypt’s challenge now is to reconcile its values with its educational goals for language learning. Variations on this phenomenon exist throughout the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. No MENA country is above the center point for international assessments, and most are at the bottom (UNICEF, n.d.). For nations in the Global North, the implications are serious given the investment in the region. More than 3 billion dollars (USAID, 2022) expended from the United States alone, and more from the European Union and other countries, have made very little progress in reversing this trend. Perhaps the case of the Egyptian context and national schools in Egypt provide a caution to oth­ ers, as well. Which policies are worth borrowing, and how do they differ from curricular decisions? (e.g., Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018) Answering such questions entails a thorough examination of local contexts and cultural norms to determine what possibilities and what limitations exist. They require reasoned responses to questions such as those here and how they relate to the policy and other educa­ tional goals to which the country or other political entity subscribe; for example, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 4 (Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all) (UNESCO, 2020).

Middle East Perspective: Ibrahim M. Karkouti Teacher educators should prepare teachers to recognize the problems with gendered language. Success Score 5; Challenge Score 3.6. Teacher educators should not use language to reinforce class and racism which disconnects language from social justice concerns. —Challenge Score 5-Tied 9

Wolsey et al.

Gender, race, language, and class are four interrelated and interconnected constructs that significantly affect individuals’ socioeconomic status, psychological wellbeing, and professional growth. These con­ structs define how disadvantaged communities are treated in society (Orelus, 2012). For the purposes of this chapter, the author mainly focuses on the power of language and how it impacts the working class, people of color, women, and linguistically and culturally diverse populations trying to navigate their success in a world that constantly marginalizes at-risk individuals and minority groups. Language is a basic tool for communication and expression that should instill confidence in people, breathe hope into all learners, and build trust among members of the community. Nevertheless, people in power, particularly privileged White men, still turn a blind eye to language-based inequalities (Ore­ lus, 2012). To avoid addressing bias, their narrative has always been, “I don’t see color, or everything can’t be about one’s color, social class, language, or gender” (Orelus, 2012, p. 36). This empty rheto­ ric adds insult to injury by justifying the deleterious effects of racism, sexism, and linguicism against historically disadvantaged communities. People in power often misunderstand and underestimate the importance of language that not only shapes how we think, but also defines teaching and learning in schools and institutions of higher learning. For example, language influences teaching practice, changes classroom dynamics, and shapes teacher-student and student-student relationships (Nieto & Bode, 2011). Language could easily distinguish people who receive good education from those who do not (Global Education Monitoring Report, 2016), determine the expectations teachers set for children based on their socioeconomic background (van der Jagt & Madison, 2006), recognize any unjust treat­ ment that female students may experience from their male instructors (Noguera, 2008), and identify the lens through which teachers adjust their practice inside the classroom (Orelus, 2012; Yazan, 2018). Orelus (2012) put it very clearly: “In schools and beyond, race, class, language, and gender determine who has access to certain resources and privileges; who is visible or viable; who gets promoted or does not; and who is genuinely trusted or not” (p. 37). Almost universally, gender disparities exist due to the use of masculine generics in many languages. For example, generic “he” is always used when gender is unknown (Sczesny et al., 2016). This means that generic masculine words refer to men and different gender groups whose gender is unspecified, making them invisible and/or nonexistent (Stahlberg et al., 2007). On the contrary, feminine forms are not generic because they refer to women only (Hellinger & Bußmann, 2001). Using masculine forms to represent all humans supports the traditional gender hierarchy that entitles men to more power and higher social class than women and other genders (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2014) conducted a content analysis study that examined 800,000 Reu­ ters news messages over a period of 11 years. The study found that male pronouns were used more frequently than female pronouns in news stories, and also appeared to be glorifying men in certain instances. The relationship between language and the gender hierarchy also appeared in a study that examined the ratio of male and female pronouns in written texts (Twenge et al., 2012). The study found a positive correlation between female pronouns and women’s status (e.g., when women’s status was high, the number of female pronouns used was higher). Gender disparities and differences exist in almost all languages, but they can be subtle, subject to the composition and characteristics of the language itself. According to Sczesny et al. (2016), there are three types of languages around the world: grammatical gender languages, natural gender languages, and genderless languages. Sczesny et al. explained: In grammatical gender languages (e.g., German, French, and Czech), every noun has a gram­ matical gender, and the gender of personal nouns tends to express the gender of the referent. . . . In natural gender languages (e.g., English or Swedish), personal nouns tend to be gender-neutral

10

An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy

(e.g., neighbor). . . . In genderless languages such as Finnish or Turkish, neither personal nouns nor pronouns signal gender. (p. 2) Mounting evidence suggests that using masculine generics induces male bias in language (Lindqvist et al., 2019), which in turn makes people directly think more of male figures being exemplars of spe­ cific occupations and professions (Stahlberg et al., 2007). The way gender is woven into language could also signal racial bias and social and gender inequality in certain countries or communities (Sczesny et al., 2016; Stahlberg et al., 2007). For example, according to Sczesny et al. (2016), “countries with grammatical gender languages were found to reach lower levels of social gender equality than countries with natural gender languages or genderless languages” (p. 2). To further discrimination and racism against minorities and historically disadvantaged people, the tech industry, which has always been dominated by wealthy White men, uses a technical language that continues to undermine, degrade, and compromise diversity and multiculturalism. For example, the terms “master” and “slave” are two programming terms that are used to the pre­ sent day in the computer industry. These terms support the oppression matrix by internalizing sym­ bolic violence, enshrining discrimination and colonialism, and idolizing one-way power and control dynamics. According to Lee (2020), connecting these terms “with slavery, normalizes inhumane prac­ tices, perpetuating the 465 years of institutionalized systemic oppression of Black Americans” (para. 6). Figure 1.1 shows the interaction between language and various components of the oppression matrix. The matrix of gender, race, class, and language oppression is static, favoring historically privi­ leged people and strengthening their control over universities and colleges (Orelus, 2012). This oppressive system alienates and antagonizes minority students and faculty of color and embraces White males who hold senior administrative positions ranging from presidents to chairs of their departments. They have the highest income and make important decisions about hiring new faculty, promotions, and tenure. Today, more than ever, language should be neutralized if schools and universities are to address the deleterious effects of racism, segregation, and sexism. Neutralizing any language starts when educators replace gendered terms with gender-neutral words and pronouns inside and outside their classroom. During the curriculum design stage, teachers should pay extra attention to language structure and eliminate all kinds of bias that offends minority students and denigrates people’s suffering. Finally, neutralizing language and creating inclusive learning environments necessitate senior lead­ ership commitment that communicates a clear message to all stakeholders that diversity is a priority and not brought to light only for public display. Transforming these espoused values into enacted ones cannot occur without raising social and political awareness among students and teachers who were deceived by a system they once thought was democratic and provided equal opportunity to all (Orelus, 2012).

Language

Race

Gender

Figure 1.1 Oppression Matrix

11

Class

Wolsey et al.

Teacher educators can model gender-neutral language and help new and in-service teachers learn how and why gendered language is a problem. They can also point to resources that help students in KG-12 and their teachers know when and why to use personal pronouns that do not erase any person’s identity.

Chile Perspective: Pelusa Orellana Garcia Teacher educators should guide new teachers to develop and use curricula for English language arts that are suf­ ficiently diversified. —Success score 5.4; Challenge score 6

In an increasingly globalized society, the need to be proficient in English has become a desired edu­ cational outcome, and Latin America is no exception. In Chile, rapid economic growth and cultural exchange have led to public policy adjustments and investment to promote English language instruc­ tion, curriculum development, and teaching preparation. Important efforts have been made to better prepare teachers, update the curriculum, increase the amount and quality of students’ exposure to the English language, and monitor student progress via standardized assessments. Despite these efforts, Chilean students have not made significant progress in their English as a second/ foreign language abilities (Walczak et al., 2017), and, given the structural characteristics of the educational system, there are huge performance differences between students who attend private and those who attend public schools (Yilorm Barrientos & Acosta Morales, 2016; Agencia de Calidad de la Educación, 2015, 2019; Libertad y Desarrollo, 2018). For example, low SES students who attend public schools typically begin English language instruction in fifth grade with roughly 2–3 hours a week, whereas high SES chil­ dren in private schools have full immersion programs or 8 hours a week of English from pre-kindergarten. Similarly, and although there is increased concern about the quality of English teacher education programs in Chile, not all programs reach the desired outcomes (Barahona, 2014), since an important number of preservice teachers complete their programs without sufficient linguistic and/or pedagogi­ cal preparation (Martin, 2016). To illustrate this, Martin examined the characteristics of 16 English language teaching programs in Chile to compare their methods and courses and found that many were still too focused on language and linguistic components rather than teaching strategies. Although the courses addressed the national curriculum, they did not cover topics such as EFL and ESL for children with special needs. The emphasis on receptive skills also prevails in many programs of studies, and there is almost no attention to inclusion or diversity in the classroom (Barahona, 2014, 2016). Although many courses are structured from a “reflective practitioner” perspective, there aren’t enough instances for preservice teachers to address cultural and contextual complexities of today’s classrooms (Martin, 2016). On the other hand, many preservice teachers enter these programs with low levels of language competence and, according to Walczak et al. (2017), of those who are in service in public schools (i.e., serving the low-income population), 17% had no initial training in English language instruction and a level of English that was B1 or less, as per the European Common Framework. This means that they are not fully prepared to teach a second or foreign language, and consequently, at least for preservice teachers, a considerable portion of the programs of studies must be allocated to remediation or leveling of basic language skills. This reduces the amount of time that can be devoted to language teaching and learning as well as evidence-based instructional strategies.

Characteristics of Chilean English Teacher Education Programs Chilean teacher education programs are a combination of three models typically used in second lan­ guage teacher education (SLTE) preparation: (a) the craft model, (b) the applied science model, and (c) 12

An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy

the reflective model (Barahona, 2014). The craft model focuses on imitating what an expert teacher does. In an applied science model, preservice teachers draw from theoretical knowledge to effectively teach their students. Finally, a reflective practice model posits that teacher candidates can become experts through careful reflection about their own practice (Bailey, 1997). From the perspective of lan­ guage competence, Chilean ELT programs have shifted from a grammar translation to a receptive skills focus, and more recently to a more balanced approach that includes expressive skills and vocabulary acquisition (Barahona, 2015). Thus, we can say that Chilean ELT models tackle teaching and learn­ ing with a hybrid approach that continues to lean strongly on the craft model more than on reflective teaching, and that they address language learning from a linguistic perspective rather than how to learn and teach the language.

The Need for a Pedagogical Content Knowledge Component in SLTE Programs In the late 1980s, Lee Shulman argued that teacher preparation mainly valued candidates’ procedural knowledge (i.e., knowing how to teach) rather than content that was taught (Shulman, 1986). His seven-component framework included three important knowledge domains: (a) content knowledge, (b) pedagogical knowledge, and (c) pedagogical content knowledge—in addition to curricular, learner, contextual, and educational goals knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge, a sort of intersection between what is taught and how it is taught (Wilkes, 1994; Shulman, 1987), requires the transformation of the teacher’s understanding of subject matter so that it can be learned by students. In the case of English language teaching, pedagogical content knowledge accounts not only for the preservice teacher’s lin­ guistic competence, but also their understanding of how to best teach each of the language compo­ nents to students. It implies understanding idioms, grammatical rules, phonetic pronunciation, cultural nuances, etc., but it also requires that teachers draw from evidence to determine the best ways to bridge that subject matter with instructional approaches that are more effective. As Wilkes (1994) argued, the dynamization of Shulman’s content knowledge takes place when teachers reflect and enact those transformations. We argue that Shulman’s notion of pedagogical content knowledge also constitutes a space for pre­ service and in-service teachers to examine and account for diversity in terms of learner characteristics and cultural and contextual features that experts (e.g., Gómez, 2021; Barahona, 2014; Martin, 2016) believe are still missing in Chilean English teacher education programs. For example, Gómez (2021) holds that there are four key areas of knowledge that must be included or updated in English teacher education programs in Chile: (a) fundamental pedagogical content, (b) English language theory and practice, (c) English teaching field experience, and (d) complementary learning. The same is prob­ ably true of other Latin American countries, and although Gómez acknowledged important advances such as the inclusion of technology in Uruguayan teacher education programs and contextualized EFL teaching in Chile (tourism) and Brazil (environmental protection) among other innovative changes, diversity remains uncharted territory for preservice and in-service teachers in our region. Pedagogical content knowledge is not strongly emphasized in SLTE programs in Chile, and although field experi­ ence has been highlighted in most programs, it does not prepare teachers to address the challenges of diverse students, contexts, purposes, and learning modes. In line with this observation, Ramos et al. (2021) contended that a key component of ELT prepa­ ration programs is social justice, particularly in contexts such as Chile, where huge inequality gaps prevail. Their study showed that preservice teachers engaged in a service-learning experience better understood social justice, even when conceptual knowledge and the role social justice can have in addressing the needs and contextual particularities of diverse learners was not present (Hastings  & Jacob, 2016; Peercy et al., 2017). Sleeter et al. (2016) asserted that when teachers can build on stu­ dents’ cultural and linguistic experiences as well as their identities, they can establish high academic 13

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expectations for their students. Yet, many preservice teachers voice their concern that, as they enter the classroom, they are faced with the dilemma of transforming knowledge so that students can learn (Shulman, 1987; Tagle, 2011).

Ongoing Challenges It continues to be a challenge for teacher education programs in Chile to find ways to guide new teachers in the development and use of curricula for English language arts that address the diversity and complexities they will encounter when they engage in professional practice. Research has shown that, for many years, SLTE programs in Chile have mainly been focused on linguistic and curricu­ lum components with increasing attention to sequential school experiences, but less examination of evidence-based practices (Díaz & Bastías, 2012; Montecinos et al., 2011; Tagle, 2011) or collaboration (Barahona, 2017). It is also true that the lack of language competence of many incoming candidates is still an issue. However, if universities continue to remediate this weakness, there will be less room for courses that address critical thinking, reflective practice, social justice, instructional transformations, or even the psychology and development of second/foreign language acquisition. Data from studies conducted in Chile emphasize the importance of these components in teacher preparation, but in practice, these adjustments are not being made or take too long to be implemented (e.g., Veliz & Veliz, 2018; Alvarado et al., 2019). Critical thinking and reflective practice are especially important if teachers are to become aware of classroom diversity and become change agents in their schools. They constitute the means through which Shulman’s transformation of content and pedagogical knowledge happen and make a favorable impact on students’ learning.

Mexico and United States Perspective: Cristina Alfaro At the beginning of the 20th century, President Porfirio Díaz formally established the Mexican educa­ tion system with the creation of the Secretaría de Instrucción Pública (SIP). During this time, only 10 percent of the Mexican population was literate. In 1921, at the end of the Mexican revolution, the SIP was renamed to what we know today as the Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP). The main goal during this period was to elevate Mexican society’s literacy skills. It was not until the 1970s that the SEP shifted their focus to critical thinking skills to improve learning goals and outcomes. In 1993, a second reform took place with the passage of the Acuerdo Nacional para la Modernización de la Edu­ cación Básica (ANMEB). The ANMEB agreement was signed by all 32 states in Mexico to provide a level of autonomy to individual states; however, the federal government maintained control over cur­ riculum, funding, and collective bargaining. A third and critical reform, Reforma Educativa, was enacted in 2013, which focused on teacher accountability and comprised educational areas from curriculum to school-based management. Today, Mexico has a national curriculum for first through ninth grade that all public schools are required to follow. The national curriculum (Planes y Programas de Estudio) is documented in Mexico’s Curriculum Standards. In contrast to the United States, the curriculum is not designed around stand­ ards but around broad themes and subject areas (Diaz-Barriga, 2005). It is important to note that for decades, Mexico has implemented intercultural and bilingual programs to address Mexico’s indigenous communities and their linguistic diversity. However, these long-standing programs have experienced serious implementation challenges, such as effective teacher preparation and scarce resources. Mexico also has an English as a Second Language (ESL) program for all public-school students; however, its implementation has proven to be inadequate. For the most part, Mexican teachers who teach ESL have a low level of English skills and many are incompetently prepared to teach ESL; in fact, 88 percent of 14

An International Focus of the Language Arts and Literacy

English teachers in Mexico scored below a seventh-grade level in a standardized English skills exam (O’Donoghue & Calderón Martín del Campo, 2015). As a result, a study by Mexicanos Primero found that 79 percent of ninth grade students who had received nine years of English placed at the lowest competency levels on an English skills test (O’Donoghue & Calderón Martín del Campo, 2015).

Addressing the Challenges and Assets of Transnationally Mobile Students Another challenge to educators on both sides of the border is the expeditious growth of transnation­ ally mobile students who live in Mexico and the U.S. throughout their educational trajectory. These are U.S.-born children and youth with Mexican parents who find themselves under circumstances that require them to move to and attend schools in Mexico. Transnational students from the U.S. have generally received an English-only education and enter the Mexican school system as Spanish language learners (SLLs). Contrary to the United States, when it comes to addressing the linguistic challenges of SLLs, Mexico does not have sheltered or immersion Spanish language programs or services geared toward developing Spanish fluency among SLLs to help them nurture their bilingualism or effectively transition to the mainstream curriculum. This is of great concern, given that over 600,000 students currently enrolled in schools in Mexico are U.S. citizens and many will return to U.S. schools through­ out their K-12 education (Alfaro & Gándara, 2021). This presents the greatest challenge and the unique opportunity to not only prepare teachers to teach linguistically diverse transnationally mobile students but to understand two different school sys­ tems with different languages, norms, values, and practices. Acquiring this essential knowledge and addressing these challenges requires what Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005) called “two-way pedagogy”—when teachers learn from students’ languages, cultures, and lives to bring the curriculum to the student and the student to the curriculum. The shared border (dis)connecting the United States and Mexico accounts for the nine million students we share on both sides of the border (Alfaro & Gándara, 2021). The current political con­ text suggests that this number will continue to increase, as many U.S.-born children move with their parents to Mexico, and others enter or return to the United States, where California is the principal destination. Romo and Chavez (2006) characterized the borderland as a hybrid space in which transnationally mobile students are constantly negotiating multiple languages and identities. They main­ tained that “the geopolitical border between Mexico and United States represents the beginnings, endings, and blending of languages, cultures, communities, and countries” (p. 142). In their work on border pedagogy, Cline and Necochea (2006) argued that teachers working in borderland communi­ ties require certain dispositions and skills to serve their students effectively. Whether transnationally mobile students are in Mexico or in the U.S., it is important for teachers to know what their prior schooling experiences have been. It is also important for them to understand the cultural and linguistic features associated with prior schooling experience (Alfaro & Gándara, 2021).

Transnational Teacher Preparation The time has come to intentionally prepare teachers to teach transnationally mobile students who experience their education in two distinct educational systems (Alfaro & Gándara, 2021). Teachers on both sides of the border must understand the complexity of language teaching and learning. Santos et al. (2012) outlined four critical components teachers must fully grasp to effectively teach language learners: 1. Language Progressions: how do students learn language, both in terms of general language acquisi­ tion and in terms of the acquisition of discipline-specific academic language? 15

Wolsey et al.

2. Language Demands: what kinds of linguistic expectations are embedded within specific texts and tasks with which students are being asked to engage? 3. Language Supports: how can classrooms and schools be organized to support students in continually building a deep understanding of language and content? 4. Language Scaffolds: what specific representations and instructional strategies can be used to help students gain access to the concepts as well as to the language they need to learn? Scaffolding and supporting instruction can include making language objectives clear and consistent by explicitly designing and implementing both designated and integrated language development teach­ ing and learning opportunities and safe spaces, modifying dense texts to make them comprehensible, or using the primary language to create comprehensible, relevant, and purposeful cognitive learning opportunities. In all cases, the teacher must be adept at eliciting language and creating an innovative language-rich classroom environment. Pedagogical knowledge, according to Santibañez and Snyder (2018), includes skills such as knowing how to teach content and language simultaneously. Across the globe, institutions of higher education, particularly colleges of education, typically pre­ pare preservice teachers with what are believed to be best teaching practices. These practices, for the most part, do not address the importance of teachers developing socio-political, cultural, and linguistic competence. Given our highly diverse cultural and linguistic transnational populations, I argue that it is imperative that teachers develop the knowledge, disposition, and skills necessary to efficaciously teach and learn with and from transnationally mobile students and their families (Alfaro, 2018). In Mexico and the United States, greater consideration must be given to the area of teacher prepa­ ration, with the readiness to teach a generation of transnationally mobile students who must be recog­ nized, educated, and valued as such. Designing and teaching instruction and assessments for students in transnational contexts raises challenges specific to the complex relationships between education, economics, politics, race, culture, and languages. The complex reality of transnational students in Mexico and the United States complex must be jointly addressed to create a sustainable infrastructure that prepares teachers to teach and learn from students and their families across different institutional systems, contexts, and across borders (Alfaro & Gándara, 2021).

Conclusion In this chapter, we identify important issues that researchers in the practice of teaching English may encounter. However, we recognize that there are many other areas or topics of practice that could bear further scrutiny. For example, we identified the following top three topics as successes, yet there are opportunities for further research and refinement: 1. Teacher educators should critically evaluate governmental and large-scale grants from foundations that may impose viewpoints that are unintended. Score 3.6 2. Teacher educators should emphasize the need for students to develop and maintain indigenous and endangered languages in addition to learning English. Score 4 3. Teacher educators should demonstrate how texts for instruction in literary traditions and in reading instruction might be decolonized. Score 5.8 In the future, the author team hopes to expand this Delphi study to include more participants from a greater number of countries and regions around the globe. Our goal is to improve the international dialog surrounding successes and challenges while expanding the conversation to ever more educators and teacher educators.

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More to Read The appendices and survey results can be found on MLA Commons at https://mla.hcommons.org/docs/ the-handbook-of-research-on-teaching-the-english-chapter-1-language-arts-international-focus/ Education Endowment Foundation. (2021). Feedback: Very high impact for very low cost based on extensive evidence. Teaching Learning Toolkit. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/ teaching-learning-toolkit/feedback Pronouns.org. (2022). Pronouns matter. https://pronouns.org/

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Appendix

THE HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH

ON TEACHING THE ENGLISH

CHAPTER 1 LANGUAGE ARTS:

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

For consistency with the statements, I used “Teacher educators should . . . ” but we could certainly reframe these from the teachers’ perspectives. Also, I intended to include preservice teachers in the teacher group, but I did not use that term just for the sake of brevity. • Teacher educators should emphasize the need to develop and maintain indigenous and endangered languages in addition to learning English. • Teacher educators should help teachers move from teacher preparation to service as novice teachers navigate the space between teacher preparation programs and the reality of language learning in school. • Teacher educators should prepare future teachers to serve their students’ literacy needs using the best available research. • Teacher educators should show novice teachers how cross-cultural perspectives in reading and writ­ ing instruction are critical to students as they become global citizens. • Teacher educators should critically evaluate governmental and large-scale grants from foundations that may impose viewpoints that are unintended. • Teacher educators should guide new teachers to develop and use curriculum for English language arts that is sufficiently diversified. ▪ Teacher educators should demonstrate how texts for instruction in literary traditions and in read­ ing instruction might be decolonized. • Teacher educators should prepare teachers how to negotiate performativity cultures while teaching in the English language arts in the best interests of their students. • Teacher educators should not use language to reinforce class and racism which disconnects language from social justice concerns. • Teacher educators should plan for effective oracy in the teacher preparation curriculum. • Teacher educators should model how translating research findings to action in classrooms is done smoothly and efficiently. • Teacher educators should model and explain the use of feedback that is useful and helpful as stu­ dents learn to read, write, listen, speak, and visualize. • Teacher educators should prepare teachers to recognize the problems with gendered language.

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2

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World and many other literary works, wrote, “Language has made possible man’s progress from animality to civilization” (1958, p. 167). In doing so, he effectively sum­ marized the importance of language in the lives of humans: it is through language that we are civilized. One could argue that nothing is more important to the human species than that. But Huxley wasn’t done there; he continued, explaining the value of language: Language permits its users to pay attention to things, persons and events, even when the things and persons are absent and the events are not taking place. Language gives definition to our memories and, by translating experiences into symbols, converts the immediacy of craving or abhorrence, or hatred or love, into fixed principles of feeling and conduct. (p. 168) Language, in other words, is how we think. It’s how humans process information and remember. It’s our operating system. And speech is the representation of that thinking. Vygotsky (1934/1986) provided the theoretical foundation for Huxley’s ideas, suggesting that thinking develops into words in a number of phases, moving from imaging to inner speech, and from inner speaking to speech. Tracing this idea backward, speech—talk—is the representation of thinking. Humans use language to communicate with one another through speech and writing, but how we do so is shaped by a variety of factors. Philosophers, theorists, and educational researchers have long sought to identify and explain the relative contributors to language, its acquisition, and its role in knowledge building. Not surprisingly, theorists have defined language somewhat differently from one another, but these definitions of language have played a role directly or indirectly in how language is developed and utilized in schooling. Kant, for instance, is representative of a set of 18th-century phi­ losophers who emphasized the mental faculties, such as imagination, emotion, and memory, necessary for “acts of understanding” (Forester, 2012, p. 489). In the 20th century, innatist theorists proposed that elements of language must be understood as being neurologically hardwired using a universal grammar held in common by humans (e.g., Chomsky, 1972). In the last several decades, language theorists and researchers oriented to learning have explored the linguistic, structural, and cognitive elements of language as a formal communication system, attending to the grammatical, syntactical, and semantic features present (e.g., Graesser, 2013; Tomasello, 2002). The field of sociolinguistics has furthered understanding of language as both influencing, and being DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-3

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The Power of Language

influenced by, the social networks of the user, including gender, class, and culture (e.g., Labov, 2002). However, among theorists and researchers in fields as different as neurolinguistics and sociocultural theory, there is a broad understanding that language development is a complex interaction between heredity and environment. A crucial focus of schooling is on knowledge building, and, as Vygotsky suggested, language is inexorably tied to thinking and learning. As such, it seems reasonable to suggest that classrooms would be filled with talk, given that we want them filled with thinking. We begin this chapter with an exami­ nation of language development in young children. Next, we discuss the linguistic and cognitive per­ spectives of listening skills, which are often overlooked in the language arts. We follow this with a close look at oral language development, communication, and discourse in the classroom. We then discuss elements of disciplinary content knowledge in school subjects as a function of language development. Knowledge is integral to both the acquisition and application of language, so we review studies that focus on the integration of knowledge and language. We close the chapter with an instructional frame­ work that situates language at the center. In a handbook about the teaching of the English Language Arts, curricular and instructional considerations are of central interest.

Language Development in Young Children Wilkinson (1965) introduced the term oracy as way for people to think about the role that oral lan­ guage plays in literacy development. The definition of oracy focused on “The ability to express oneself coherently and to communicate freely with others by word of mouth” (p. 12). Wilkinson noted that the development of oracy would lead to increased skill in reading and writing as users of the language became increasingly proficient. Or, as James Britton (1983) put it so eloquently, “reading and writing float on a sea of talk” (p. 11). In other words, talk, oracy, is the foundation of literacy. We have all observed young children listening and speaking well before they could read or write. Children learn to manipulate their envi­ ronment with spoken words well before they learn to do so with written words. It seems that this is developmental in nature and that our brains are wired for language. Young children learn that language is power and that they can use words to express their needs, wants and desires. From birth, infants are singularly engaged in communication with caregivers through touch, ges­ ture, shared attention and, later, spoken language (Keller, 2007). Prelinguistic development includes pointing and gestures to gain joint attention with another person: an important milestone in language development, as it is predictive of mental state language—the ability to discuss thoughts and perspec­ tives (Kristen et al., 2011). An infant’s interactions with caregivers, older siblings, and other people in their environments are crucial to this development, as language needs to be nurtured to thrive. Cam­ eron-Faulkner and colleagues (2021) noted that “parents [who] treat their young as worthy conver­ sational partners” provide a running narrative of the world during play and face-to-face interactions, allowing infants to acquire early linguistic skills (p. 274). In doing so, infants are not only apprenticed into oral language, but are also socialized (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). The processes of socialization through language, at one time narrowly described as “motherese” (now more accurately referred to as “parentese”) afford a particular brand of emotional infant-directed speech used to speak to babies that is marked by higher pitch and intonation, as well as vowel elongation, compared to regular adult speech (Fernald & Simon, 1984). Psychologist Michael Halliday (1978) noted that the acquisition of a series of language functions equips a very young child with the language needed to learn how to learn. He described language as being not only a tool of communication, but also a tool of the function it is intended to fulfill. Importantly, he saw these functions as being developmental in nature as young children gain more pro­ ficient use with spoken language. Halliday identified seven functions that occur in typically developing 23

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

children between six months to three years old, which are also useful to caregivers tracking and antici­ pating many of the developmental stages: • Instrumental function: language used to gain something by putting together sounds that repre­ sent concrete nouns (e.g., ba-ba for bottle). • Regulatory function: language used to control the actions of others and that is directed at a per­ son (e.g., “I want ___.”). • Interactional function: language  used to foster relationships with those around them, such as greetings or using a person’s name. • Personal function: language that signals they understand they are separate beings from others, such as giving an opinion (e.g., “I think . . .”). • Heuristic function: language used to learn and discover, such as asking, “What’s this?” or “Why?” • Imaginative function: language used to create imaginary stories and situations, such as playing peekaboo and other imaginative play. • Informative function: language used to provide information. This comes later in the develop­ mental growth of young children. For instance, a child who recounts something that occurred earlier in the day is applying the informative function. Our purpose in this brief discussion of language development in infants and toddlers is not to pro­ vide a thorough review of the subject, but rather to argue that the roots of what we do as educators can be found in the ways humans develop the language of babies. One dimension in education is in regard to interaction, a central tenet of language across the life span. A second dimension is that in teaching, we hold joint attention to concrete objects as well as to abstract concepts (like algebra). The third is that as adults we adjust our own language to foster the thinking of children and adolescents; in other words, we shift our language register as much as they shift theirs.

Registers of Spoken Language Sociolinguistic theorists highlight that language usage is influenced by social conditions that alter the way we speak to one another, a concept variously called registers, styles, or the tenor of the language. Joos (1961), a linguist, scaled these in terms of the relative formality of the language: • Fixed or frozen speech that never varies. In school, examples include reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and nursery rhymes. • Formal speech that is unidirectional, with no participation from others, and marked by the use of academic or technical vocabulary. A school example is delivering a presentation to the class. • Consultative speech is the register used most often at school. It is bidirectional and participatory and is commonly seen in teacher/student dialogue. Academic or technical vocabulary is used, but includes additional checks for understanding, questioning, and affirmations (e.g., “uh huh”). • Casual speech is the language of the playground and lunchroom. It is social in nature and marks the speech between friends as they use slang and incomplete sentences, interrupt one another, and use shorthand to reference shared experiences (e.g., “Do you remember what happened the last time we tried that?” followed by peals of laughter). • Intimate speech is not public and is reserved for family and close friends (“I love you, Dad”). With the exception of intimate speech, these registers are used throughout the school day. As teach­ ers, we spend the majority of our time engaged with students in a consultative register, adjusting our own language to align with the developmentally appropriate language of our students. It is the 24

The Power of Language

language of learning, and the language of thinking and cognition. Thus far, we have framed language in the context of spoken language. However, listening is an equally important, although somewhat less emphasized, aspect of learning.

Linguistic and Cognitive Perspectives of Listening Skills The four domains of literacy are reading, writing, speaking, and listening; however, listening receives far less attention compared to the other three domains. Considering that some studies have found that primary students spend between 50–75% of instructional time listening to the teacher, peers, or instructional media, it is dismaying that relatively little instruction is devoted to listening skills (Imhof, 2008; Sandall et al., 2003). In their systematic review of 27 studies on language listening skills, Bourdeaud’hui and colleagues (2018) wrote that this may be due to a perception that “listening has long been regarded as a passive and instinctive skill that develops naturally, resulting in little instruc­ tion time dedicated to teaching it” (p. 87). Other factors may influence the relatively little regard for listening in research and teaching. These may include a dearth of instructional and assessment materials for listening compared to the other literacy domains. Additionally, there is some disagreement in the field about what constitutes a framework of listening, and therefore how it should be measured. Is it a quantitative function that can be described by answering questions? Or is it a qualitative one that focuses on the interactions between two people? (Bourdeaud’hui et al., 2018).

HURIER Listening Model There are several theoretical models of listening; three commonalities exist among all of them: per­ ception, processing, and responding. Brownell (2006) developed the HURIER model of listening to convey the kinds of linguistic and cognitive listening demands required in classroom instruction. HURIER is an acronym to describe the components of Hearing, Understanding, Remembering, Interpreting, Evaluating, and Responding (Fisher & Frey, 2019, p. 769): Hearing is a physiological state and is related to acoustics and a functioning or augmented auditory system. Understanding refers to a person’s ability to analyze a spoken message. Remembering is the ability to store and retrieve a message using working and long-term memory. Interpreting requires integration of other cues such as intonation, facial expressions, and other visual information. • Evaluating, sometimes called critical listening, is the assessment of the message. • Responding refers to the actions taken by the listener. In classroom contexts, this is sometimes called interactive listening. • • • •

A shortcoming of listening skills instruction is that it often encompasses the linguistic features of language while neglecting the cognitive dimensions that are needed. Linguistic contributors to listen­ ing include vocabulary development, pronunciation, and syntactical knowledge. These are important contributors to the first two components of the HURIER model—hearing and understanding—but they do not fully address the cognitive demands needed to remember, interpret, evaluate, and respond.

Listening and Theory of Mind Kim and Phillips (2014) identified three cognitive skills that correlate to listening comprehension. Impor­ tantly, these three skills actively address the interactive nature of the HURIER model. The first is the abil­ ity to screen out distractions, which the researchers call inhibitory control. A learner’s ability to maintain 25

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

attention in light of classroom distractions such as noise and the movement of others in the environment is a form of self-regulation. The second mental skill is a theory of mind (ToM). This is the knowledge that the beliefs and motivations of others are unique to them and may not be the same as the listener. Theory of mind has gained prominence in the last decade as a contributor to reading comprehension and as a necessary facet of language development. This newer area of literacy research that suggests that readers need to develop an understanding of others’ mental states, such as beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, and knowledge, if they are to deeply understand the texts they read (e.g., Duke & Cartwright, 2021; LaRusso et al., 2016). In their theory-building paper, Dore and colleagues (2018) speculated that ToM was “a hidden factor in reading comprehension” (p. 1067). Children apply ToM when they delve into the inner workings of a character to describe the meaning of the character’s actions (Astington & Jenkins, 1999). An example of ToM in a story is when a child understands that Little Red Riding Hood mistakenly believes that it is her grandmother in the bed, rather than the Big Bad Wolf that the reader sees. In doing so, they consciously recognize that what they know to be true is different from that of the protagonist. Theory of mind appears to be both developmental as well as experiential and emerges around the age of 4 or 5. ToM is somewhat analogous to the functions of spoken language proposed by Halliday (1978). As one example, young children can follow the eye gaze of another to predict what the other person may want. These emerge in early childhood (Lowry, 2016, p. 3): • Understanding “wanting”: Different people want different things, and to get what they want, people act in different ways. • Understanding “thinking”: Different people have different, but potentially true, beliefs about the same thing. People’s actions are based on what they think is going to happen. • Understanding that “seeing leads to knowing”: If you haven’t seen something, you don’t necessarily know about it. If someone hasn’t seen something, they will need extra information to understand. • Understanding “false beliefs”: Sometimes people believe things that are not true, and they act according to their beliefs, not according to what is really true. • Understanding “hidden feelings”: People can feel a different emotion from the one they display. The third cognitive process named as a correlation to listening is comprehension monitoring, which is the ability to reflect on meaning of spoken language and detect when understanding is lost (e.g., Baker, 1984). Kim and Phillips (2014) stated that while students are taught more often to monitor their reading comprehension, they should be intentionally encouraged to monitor their listening, too. One technique is to use inconsistency detection (think of a Simon Says game as a simple example). Class­ room variations include pairing two slightly different spoken sentences together or asking whether two statements paired together make sense. To test their theory of cognitive contributors, Kim and Phillips (2014) studied the listening compre­ hension of 195 kindergarten and first grade students on measures of self-regulation of attention, theory of mind, and comprehension monitoring. They reported that these three cognitive skills explained 82% of the variance among the children, even when controlling for age and vocabulary skills. They cautioned that their findings were correlational, not causal, but recommended that students showing difficulty in listening comprehension receive further diagnostic assessment and intervention for these factors, in addition to those that measure a child’s auditory function and linguistic knowledge.

Listening and Learning The ability to listen is a function of the complex mental processing of the language so it can be com­ prehended. It remains an essential skill throughout a student’s school career, evolving from childhood 26

The Power of Language

through adolescence. Tighe and colleagues (2015) found that there was little existing research dedi­ cated to the predictive nature of listening on comprehension with students beyond the primary grades. In their study, they wanted to learn about the relative extent that known cognitive predictors of listen­ ing comprehension—fluency, reasoning, and working memory—contributed at third grade, seventh grade, and tenth grade. Fluency is the ability to accurately and smoothly understand a stream of speech, such as detecting word boundaries and decoding the spoken language. Most of us recognize the chal­ lenge of doing so when listening to a language we are not well-versed in. Often, we perceive that it is “too fast” or perhaps that the speaker is using words that are not familiar (Peterson, 2001). The second cognitive factor they examined was the contribution of verbal and nonverbal reasoning to listening comprehension. Verbal reasoning involves understanding concepts as they are framed in words, especially in terms of making inferences and understanding figurative language. If verbal reason­ ing is the ability to infer in order to find logical coherence, then theory of mind speaks to the social reasoning necessary to understand it (Fisher et al., 2022). Nonverbal reasoning includes the unspoken visual elements including expression and gestures. Finally, working memory, the third cognitive factor, is the ability to hold, store, and manipulate information in the moment (Tighe et al., 2015). Tighe et al. used dominance analysis to rank order each of these factors in students at the three different grade levels. They reported that among third graders, fluency and reasoning were the most predictive. How­ ever, among the seventh and ten grade participants, reasoning was by far the strongest predictor. Work­ ing memory, on the other hand, had a weak predictive quality at all three grade levels. Their findings suggest that at different points in their schooling, students benefit from listening fluency and reasoning in the early grades, with growing emphasis on reasoning skills at the intermediate and secondary levels. In sum, language skills are evidenced through production of oral language and through receptive listening of the language produced by others. These skills are developmental but also situational, in the sense that instruction and interaction with caregivers, peers, and teachers fosters further growth. The domains of speaking and listening are integral to classroom learning and together are used to foster oral language development, yet they are sometimes crowded out as students progress beyond the first years of schooling and reading and writing instruction dominate. However, oral language development is crucial for knowledge building and knowledge generation, as it provides students with access to aca­ demic discourse across their schooling career (e.g., Ricketts et al., 2020; Scarborough, 2001). It is of particular importance to sustain oral language development for students learning additional languages.

Oral Language Development The speaking and listening domains of English are evidenced in the oral language that students use in the classroom. The components of oral language bridge many of the conceptual and skill-based dimen­ sions of reading and writing and are therefore often viewed as precursors to early literacy development. Moats (2020) defined oral language as comprising six elements: • Phonological skills: the structures and patterns of the language, especially the use and application of the smallest units of sound, called phonemes. This includes awareness of phonemes and related sounds, and the ability to manipulate them (blending, counting, segmenting, and rhyming). • Morphological skills: involve the smallest units of meaning, and include the prefixes, roots, and affixes that are combined to build words. The word “oranges,” for instance, requires two mor­ phemes: /orange/ and /s/, which signifies a plural. • Semantics: the meaning of words and how they relate to one another. For example, the phrase text message involves two words that separately have their own meaning. Taken together, they represent a third meaning. Lexical semantics include vocabulary, but also the understanding that word relations are essential, too. 27

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

• Syntax: the order of the words in a sentence. The book is on the floor makes sense, while the floor is on the book would draw a puzzled look. • Discourse: how text is organized, such as the conventions used to tell a story or explain a process. Discourse also includes the back-and-forth nature of dialogue. • Pragmatics: the influences of the sociocultural context and how the context in turn shapes the meaning. A teacher who says, “Are you finished?” to a chattering student is implying that it is time for the student to stop talking. A note about phonological skills, as this is a point of departure in the research literature. Many research­ ers do not include phonological awareness in a list of oral language skills. Of course, phonology is needed for spoken language development, and the American Speech-Language Association (ASHA) defines language broadly in terms of speaking and listening and note the synergy of spoken and writ­ ten language. However, phonological awareness is often described among other researchers as a coderelated skill and not a meaning-related one (Scarborough, 2001; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002) because it relates most closely to decoding but not language comprehension per the simple view of reading (Hoover & Gough, 1990; see Nation, 2019 for further discussion). Each of these dimensions of oral language has implications for fostering code-based and text-based skills. Knowledge of phonology, morphology, and syntax in oral language contribute to the development of decoding and encoding skills in reading, writing, and spelling (e.g., Kruk & Bergman, 2013; MelbyLervåg et al., 2012; Northey et al., 2016). The semantic and pragmatic features of spoken language set the stage for comprehension in reading (e.g., Nation & Norbury, 2005; Swart et al., 2017). Proficiency in the discourse needed for oral language communication is viewed as a pathway for comprehending challenging texts for older readers (e.g., Barak & Lefstein, 2022; Thompson & Kleine, 2016). The oral language skills of children in the early grades are associated concurrently with codebased literacy skills and are precursors to later skilled reading (Storch  & Whitehurst, 2002). Storch and Whitehurst (2002) followed 626 children from preschool through fourth grade to examine the links between oral language skills and reading comprehension over time. Children were assessed using measures of receptive and expressive language skills, code-related skills (e.g., phonological awareness, print principles, alphabet knowledge) and reading measures. The findings indicated that oral language skills were strongly related to code-based literacy skills in preschool, exhibited continuity over time, and made their greatest contribution to reading comprehension later on when children were in third and fourth grades. Building on these findings, the Language and Reading Research Consortium (Lan­ guage and Reading Research Consortium, 2015) found that oral language skills, specifically listen­ ing comprehension, make a stronger contribution to reading comprehension than decoding skills by second grade. The significant relationship between oral language skills and code-based skills in preschool indicates that oral language skills are important for early code-based literacy skills to take root (see also Kendeou et al., 2009). One likely pathway is through the effect of the development of vocabulary on the emer­ gence of phonological awareness (Metsala & Walley, 1998). The more words that young children know, the more the brain can store these words into increasingly fine-grained phonological representations. For example, the words book, hook, and look are distinguished from one another by a single phoneme. Eventually, children become meta-linguistically aware of these distinctions and can apply them in reading and writing words. In addition to vocabulary helping with the emergence of phonological awareness, strong vocabulary knowledge comes into play when children are decoding words, because they draw upon their existing vocabulary knowledge to match the pronunciation to the right word (Duke & Cartwright, 2021). Griffin et al. (2004) sought to explore the relationship between specific aspects of oral language and their influence on literacy. They followed 35 children from the ages of 5 to 8 to examine specific 28

The Power of Language

elements of language development. The researchers noted in their literature review that some elements of oral language, such as conversation with peers, have a weaker connection to literacy, albeit impor­ tant for social growth. Instead, they measured student language skills in oral and written discourse, narrowing in on their narrative ability to relay events, elaborate on themes, and provide information central to the story. Five-year-olds accomplished this by narrating a story using a picture prompt; when they were 8 years old, they wrote stories using a three-sequence picture prompt. The compara­ tive analysis of the results found that “discourse abilities developed in the preschool period may be an important support for school success” (Griffin et al., 2004, p. 144).

Developmental Language Disorder The role of oral language development in school success, particularly in literacy, is significant across a student’s academic career. Conversely, those who struggle with oral language can experience long­ term negative academic and social impacts. Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) possess average intelligence but struggle with receptive and expressive language. Estimates range that somewhere between 6% to 9% of school-aged children experience DLD (Hendricks et  al., 2019). Early and protracted reading difficulties are also associated with DLD (Catts et  al., 2002), which can trigger an avalanche of other problems that carry into adulthood, including reduced educational achievement, unemployment, and social difficulties (Conti et al., 2018). To be sure, not all children who have underdeveloped oral language skills have DLD. Researchers have reported that a substantial proportion of preschoolers living in poverty experience language difficulties (Lonigan & Phillips, 2016; Zucker et al., 2021). Due to the importance of oral language to later literacy ability, these difficulties can lead to long-term challenges that extend far beyond the early grades.

Teacher Knowledge of Oral Language Development As noted earlier, oral language is often perceived as a byproduct of, rather than a target for, intentional instruction. Yet, oral language instruction is critically important throughout schooling for students to develop the academic language increasingly required to be a literate, productive citizen in society. While children naturally develop spoken language to enable them to participate in conversations, aca­ demic language consists of the formal language structures found in written language and is important to teach (Foorman et al., 2016). Indeed, the words that we speak with a conversational partner even as adults include words and syntax that is far less formal than even a simple book we read aloud to young children (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998). Consider these sentences from an abridged version of the popular children’s book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis, 2000): Now, none of the children knew who Aslan was, but at his name each of them felt something jump inside. Peter felt brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if beautiful music had just floated by. . . . But Edmund felt only mysterious horror. (p. 68) The words (such as horror and adventurous) and the syntax of the sentences are usually only encoun­ tered in written text rather than in spoken conversation. Therefore, understanding the language of text from the earliest grade level is critical to later read­ ing proficiency. However, studies reveal that educators need support to improve their subject matter content knowledge about the role of oral language in literacy acquisition (Cunningham et al., 2023). Teachers tend to overestimate their knowledge, perceiving that they know more about the subject matter than they actually do (Cunningham et al., 2004, 2009). This lack of knowledge calibration is concerning because teachers’ content knowledge can affect their oral language instruction (Schachter 29

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

et al., 2016) and is related to students’ oral language development (Cash et al., 2015). Therefore, it is important for professional development efforts to measure and address teachers’ existing knowledge. (For more information on the dynamic relationship among teacher knowledge, instruction, and stu­ dent learning, see Cunningham et al. [2023].) Not only do teachers benefit from deep subject matter content knowledge, they also require knowledge about how to provide instructional support (i.e., pedagogical content knowledge) (Cun­ ningham et al., 2023). That is, they not only need to understand how oral language skills matter for proficient reading and writing; they also need to know how to effectively teach these skills to stu­ dents. Interestingly, how much teachers already know about how to teach oral language may affect how well they are able to put into practice what they learn from professional development (Mathers et al., 2021).

Oral Language Development for Multilingual Learners The growth of multilingual learners has been well-documented in policy reports and demographic research. The 2019 National Center for Educational Statistics report showed that the number of mul­ tilingual learners in grades K-12 had grown from 9.2%, or 4.5 million students, in 2010 to 10.4%, or 5.1 million students, in 2022 (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2023). In the U.S., multilingual learners hail from all over the world. The majority (75.9%) speak Spanish as a first lan­ guage (NCES, 2023). However, the second most common language in fall 2019 was Arabic (NCES, 2023). Although this is the last year of data reporting available at the time of publication, it is a safe assumption that these numbers will continue to grow. Language instruction for multilingual learners rests primarily on the major theoretical construct of cognitive theory. Cognitive theory for multilingual learners draws on the importance of direct instruc­ tion about the syntax and grammar of the target language. However, in practice, if not skillfully taught, this could result in a message that one language (usually standard English) is valued while the child’s first language is devalued. A method for avoiding this is contrastive grammar analysis, which seeks to address this risk by showing multilingual learners and students who speak in different dialects how grammar rules exist for all languages (Wheeler & Swords, 2006). Oral language is a strong factor in the acquisition of reading comprehension for multilingual learn­ ers. The linguistic elements of listening comprehension and reading comprehension are crucial and directly moderated by a student’s vocabulary knowledge. Zhang and Zhang (2022) conducted a metaanalysis of 126 studies to examine the interaction between vocabulary knowledge and listening and reading comprehension in a second language. They found that vocabulary knowledge correlated at 0.56 with listening comprehension and 0.57 with reading comprehension, suggesting a strong relation­ ship to both. Instructionally, the oral language skills of multilingual learners should be developed in conjunc­ tion with print. Historically, teachers did not introduce multilingual learners to print until they had developed their speaking skills due to the incorrect belief that students need to learn to speak a new language before they learn to read and write in it, rather than ensuring that speaking, listening, read­ ing, and writing instruction are interwoven. This was a misguided approach that did not take into account the fact that multilingual learners, who have already developed their primary language, have already learned much about language, including the role that language plays in interacting with others. Unlike toddlers learning a first language, these students come with knowledge of how language works, even though they haven’t yet acquired a subsequent language. At the other end of the spectrum of instructional practice, some teachers fail to provide any oral language instruction and overly focus on code-related instruction because they believe that their students need to develop reading proficiency (and make adequate yearly progress) as soon as possible. 30

The Power of Language

Instead of this either/or approach, multilingual learners need access to instruction that recognizes the symbiotic relationship among the four domains of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writ­ ing. Clearly, students must reach high levels of proficiency in reading and writing to be successful in school, at university, and in virtually any career they may choose. We know that it takes time to reach those levels. We know that opportunities for students to talk in class also take time. So, given the little instructional time we have with them, how can we justify devoting a significant amount of that time to talk? We would argue—how can we not provide that time to talk? Telling students what you want them to know is certainly a faster way of addressing learning expectations. But telling does not necessarily equate to learning. If indeed “reading and writing float on a sea of talk,” it follows that the time students spend engaged in academic conversations with their classmates is time well spent in developing not only oracy, but precisely the high level of literacy that is our goal. Consider the following exchange from a third-grade class. As you read it, think about how much academic language was used. Note ways in which multilingual learners produced language. Teacher: Malik: Teacher: Jesse: Teacher: Miriam: Teacher: Adrian: Teacher: Joe: Teacher:

Mariah: Teacher:

I was thinking about the life cycle of an insect. Do you remember the life cycle we stud­ ied? Malik? Yes. What was the first stage in the life cycle? Jesse? They was born? Yes, things are born, but think about the life cycle of insects. Let’s try to be more specific in our thinking. What is the first stage in the insect life cycle? Miriam? Eggs. Yes, insects start as eggs. Then they change and develop. They become larva after eggs, right? And then what? What happens to them after they are larva? Adrian? They are adults. They do eventually become adults, but there is a step missing. What is the step between larva and adults? What is that stage of the life cycle called? Joe? Mature larva? Yes, there are two kinds of larva in the life cycle of some insects. But what I  was thinking about was what happened to them after the larva before they become adults. Mariah? Nymph? Now we’re talking about the three-stage cycle for some insects. Do the insects that change into nymphs come from larva? Let’s look at our two posters again. Remember these? There is a three-stage process and a four-stage process. Let’s study these again.

Let’s spend a few minutes analyzing this classroom exchange. First, it’s not unlike many of the whole-class interactions we’ve seen, especially in a classroom where the students are obviously having a difficult time with the content. One student at a time is talking while the others listen or ignore the class. Second, the teacher is clearly using a lot of academic language, which is great. We know that teachers themselves have to use academic discourse if their students are ever going to have a chance to learn. Third, the balance of talk in this classroom is heavily weighted toward the teacher. If we count the number of words used, minus the student names, the teacher used 188 words whereas the students used 11. That means that 94% of the words used in the classroom during this 5-minute segment were spoken by the teacher. In addition, if we analyze the types of words used, half of the words spoken by the students were not academic in nature. That’s not so great. Students need more time to talk and this structure of asking them to do so one at a time will not significantly change the balance of talk in the classroom. 31

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

Thus far in this chapter, we have reviewed elements of language development and the extensive research that underpins its linguistic and cognitive theoretical constructs. We have presented considera­ tions about language development, including its essential relationship to listening, communication, read­ ing and writing. In the next portion of this chapter, we seek to extend our review to examine the role of discourse and communication in learning. As we have noted, language doesn’t exist in a vacuum, separate from the other domains of the language arts. Language is woven into every aspect of the learning day.

Discourse and Communication Dewey (1916) noted: There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. . . . Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your expe­ rience changing. (pp. 5–6) Dewey’s elegant description of the power of discourse—reasoning through conversation, argument, or explanation—describes a phenomenon we have all lived: the clarification of one’s understanding in the midst of sharing an idea with another. Students in classrooms alive with the rich talk of learning also experience this as they communicate with one another. All living things communicate. Biologically speaking, communication is the way in which one organism acts upon another. In the living world around us, we witness communication daily as we hear birds sing, watch two dogs greet one another in an elaborate sniffing ceremony, or see fish in an aquarium change colors as they warily approach one another. As humans, we possess similar commu­ nication skills to announce our presence, to greet one another, or to warn someone away. Although all living things communicate, humans possess unique abilities as they relate to verbal and written forms. We use extended verbal and written messages to reason with other humans. These sophis­ ticated messages, called discourse, are further characterized by their form and content. Forms of discourse include explanation, elaboration, evaluation, argument, and questioning. Graff and Birkenstein (2006) called this “entering a conversation of ideas” (p. ix) and it remains a challenge in any classroom, at any level. None of these can exist without the presence of and interaction with another human. Explanation is purposeless if there is no one in need of the information; evaluation is pointless if there isn’t someone else who will agree and disagree. Stated simply, a student cannot learn cognitive structures of thought without opportunities to apply them with others. We are reminded of Bakhtin’s (1981) realization: The world in language is half someone else’s. It becomes ‘one’s own’ only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. (pp. 293–294) The academic discourse of the classroom, both verbal and written, is the conduit for learning. Written discourse is formalized through the rhetorical writing structures so many of us remember from college: • Ethos: a written appeal based on the character of the author. • Pathos: a written persuasion based on emotion. • Logos: a written appeal based on logical argument and reasoning. 32

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We don’t teach younger students using this formalized language, but we do instruct them on the com­ mon forms of writing, including personal narrative, description, persuasive, and expository writing, and the rhetorical styles and devices typically used in each of those genres. In much the same way, students should be instructed on the accompanying verbal academic dis­ course and rhetorical styles needed to engage with learning in the content areas. In the best learning environments, this happens through dialogic instruction (Nystrand, 1997), that is, through a teachermediated exchange of ideas among learners. Unfortunately, in too many classrooms, academic dis­ course is stifled by the teacher’s own practices. In one well-known study about the lack of discourse, students experienced an average of 50 seconds of open exchange of ideas in eighth grade English classrooms, and an even more dismal 15 seconds in ninth grade (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991), leading the researchers to label this as “monologic instruction.” Telling isn’t teaching, and students must be actively engaged in the academic discourse of the classroom if they are to understand the content. Because learning isn’t a passive experience but one that is innately social, effective classrooms require that a “sea” of conversation occur through­ out the day. Students simply cannot learn through listening alone; they need lots of opportunities to try new knowledge on for size if they are to take possession of the concepts and apply them to novel situations. However, their relative ability to do so is influenced by their command of four aspects of academic discourse: the functions, forms, registers, and vocabulary needed in the classroom. The conditions of communication—a sender, a message, and a receiver—are factors in aca­ demic discourse, both expressively (the sender) and receptively (the receiver). The likelihood that a message will be clearly expressed and understood depends on each participant’s ability to under­ stand the function of the message (to inform, question, command), the comprehensibility of the structure of the message (form), the relative level of formality used (register), and the precision of the vocabulary employed. In reality, these don’t always stand apart from one another. If a student says to a science teacher, “Gimme the thingy!” he has made errors across three of the four dimen­ sions. First, he has chosen the wrong function by commanding his teacher to give him the item he needs. He has definitely chosen the wrong register, since his tone is an inappropriate one for a student speaking to a teacher. Finally, his inability to choose more precise vocabulary (“thingy”) makes his message incomprehensible. In this case, he has used a grammatically correct, if simple, form. We have already explored language function and registers, so we will now turn our attention to form and vocabulary.

Language Form Traditional approaches to language teaching fall into two major categories: approaches with a heavy emphasis on teaching grammar, and those that assume students will learn standard grammatical structures simply through using the language. Certainly students must, at the very least, approxi­ mate standard vocabulary, morphology, and syntax in order to be understood. And as the context of the communication becomes increasingly formal, accuracy becomes increasingly important. In addition to the basic rules of subject-verb agreement and word order, each of the language func­ tions described here utilizes certain grammatical forms that facilitate understanding and accom­ plish the intended purpose. There are acceptable forms of language used to interact with others. For instance, “You give me yesterday notes” can elicit a very different response from a teacher or a classmate than “I missed class yesterday. Can I borrow your notes?” When reporting on a news item about a threat to national security, a person of interest takes on a very different meaning from an interested person. Likewise, students need to use the correct language form in order to make their message clear. 33

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

Academic Vocabulary The assumption of an appropriate rhetorical style and language register are for naught if the accompa­ nying vocabulary does not accurately represent the content (Fisher & Frey, 2023). In this section, we focus on oral vocabulary and note that other chapters in this volume focus on print vocabulary. The ability of a speaker to choose the right word over the almost-right word influences the likeli­ hood that the message will be understood. However, vocabulary instruction is typically conducted in an artificial and constricted manner by focusing on individual words at the expense of their role in the overall message. This approach to teaching vocabulary ultimately limits learning. Several misconcep­ tions about vocabulary instruction permeate classrooms. Perhaps the most commonly misunderstood aspect of vocabulary is that it is not bound to the word level. Vocabulary necessarily exists within the larger context of the phrase and sentence. Therefore, knowl­ edge of a word cannot be examined without considering how it is used in a larger context. While pajamas can be defined as a label for clothing worn for sleeping, the cat’s pajamas takes on another meaning as 1920s slang for something stylish. If stated by a character in an H. L. Mencken novel, it connotes a worldly air. The use of the same phrase in a novel set in this century would represent a person who is hopelessly out of date. Likewise, it would be developmentally appropriate for a four-year-old to say, “Where’s my jammies?” while most would do a double take upon hearing a 40-year-old man say the same thing. Vocabulary doesn’t exist in isolation—it has denotative and connotative meanings that reflect on the message and the speaker. A second myth of vocabulary is that one either knows or does not know a word (Beck et al., 2013). In truth, there are several dimensions to knowing a word, and our shared knowledge of a word is likely to be harmonious but not identical to one another. For example, we all have some vocabulary that we would recognize if we saw it but would be hard-pressed to tell you what it meant. In other cases, we know the characteristics the word represents, but can’t provide a formal definition. How often have you answered a query about a word or phrase by giving an example instead? There are words we are comfortable with using in writing, but not in spoken language (notwithstanding just doesn’t get used much in verbal language). The reverse is true as well—teachers might refer to kids when speaking of them, but in writing we are more likely to call them students or learners. Finally, there are words and phrases we know at the definitional level, and these are the vocabulary words that seem to be taught most often in school. We teach rhombus and alimentary canal, onomatopoeia and Alexander the Great. Unfortunately, many students fill out endless worksheets with definitional labels, but rarely use them in the academic discourse of the classroom. This limits their ability to know the word beyond the definitional level, as they have little opportunity to apply it in context. A final common vocabulary myth is that students will learn a word simply by hearing the teacher use it. This isn’t far removed from the “telling is teaching” myth, but one witnessed in classrooms every day. In dominating the sheer number of minutes devoted to talk, teachers also diminish the ways in which students might use, practice, and gain control of their nascent vocabulary. Much of the vocabu­ lary development in many classrooms amounts to little more than labeling. While the teacher uses the vocabulary in rich and varied ways, student responses are limited to furnishing the correct label for a concept or idea. Consider this example: Teacher:

Joe:

There’s an interesting kind of volcano that is recognizable because there are a lot of loose rocks from previous eruptions that build up over time into a steep vent. What kind of volcano am I describing? A cinder cone?

The problem with this kind of vocabulary instruction is that Joe doesn’t get a chance to take his label-level knowledge to another level by comparing it to other types of volcanoes, or to apply his 34

The Power of Language

categorical knowledge to examples of cinder cone volcanoes around the world. More often than not, it is the teacher, not the student, who will make these more sophisticated connections. While myths about vocabulary continue to persist, there is also a growing agreement on the condi­ tions that best support acquisition. Blachowicz and Fisher (2000) described four principles of effective vocabulary instruction. Students should: • • • •

be active in developing their understanding of words and ways to learn them personalize word learning be immersed in words build on multiple sources of information to learn words through repeated exposure. (p. 504)

The commonality among these instructional principles is that it places the student at the center of the learning. Vocabulary, then, is not something that is done to students, but rather with them. Stu­ dents’ active participation and engagement is crucial to vocabulary acquisition, and the challenge in classrooms is to create an environment that allows them to use terms in speech and writing. Again, academic discourse becomes the ideal vehicle to learn new vocabulary. Language functions, forms, registers, and vocabulary do not stand apart from academic discourse; they are elemental to the discourse. In addition to these four components, there are variances in the academic language styles associated with specific disciplines or content areas. In the next section, we will discuss these academic discourse patterns across the curriculum.

Oral Language Across Academic Disciplines Oral language is closely related to content knowledge, knowledge of the social and natural world (i.e., social studies and science instruction). Together, these are critically important for understanding what we are reading or what is being read aloud to us. Scholars have noted that how much someone knows about the topic they are reading about is the chief determinant of their understanding of a given pas­ sage (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). For example, it would be difficult to understand a passage about tornadoes without having at least some background knowledge about weather. Without knowledge, it becomes hard to “read between the lines” and make inferences about what we are reading (Ozuru et al., 2009). Learning new information from reading also becomes difficult if we don’t really have a schema, or an organizational structure, for it. Skilled readers not only understand what is literally writ­ ten on the page (i.e., text surface), but they also integrate the text with their background knowledge to create a mental model (i.e., situation model; Kintsch, 1998). According to the knowledge hypothesis, vocabulary represents the tip of the iceberg of a person’s con­ ceptual knowledge more broadly (Anderson & Freebody, 1981). A student who knows about a given topic (e.g., plants) would know words associated with that topic (e.g., stems, leaves). When someone knows more words related around a given topic, they have stronger networks of knowledge from which to draw upon when they read texts (Willingham, 2006). Most educators acknowledge that mastery of a content area entails, in part, the ability to “talk the math” or “talk the science.” Consider times when you have been at a large social gathering such as a wedding, filled with lots of people you don’t know. How is it that you manage to find the other edu­ cators in the crowd? Was there something in their discourse that let you know they were a classroom teacher, or an administrator, or a non-instructional employee? Perhaps you overheard the use of some terminology that suggested they were involved with schools, or they disclosed specific content knowl­ edge that only an employee of the district would know. Maybe it was something as simple as one adult turning to another and stating, “You need to . . .” (a sure tipoff!). The discourse patterns are subtle, but 35

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

they are sure signs that a person can “talk the talk.” Likewise, our students need to understand the types of discourse needed across their schooling day. This is especially important for English language learn­ ers who, as they learn a new language, may not yet possess the flexibility of language that facilitates adaptation to the discourse styles of different content areas.

Academic Discourse in English Language Arts Given the content emphasis on fiction, creative writing, and the like, it comes as no surprise that a common academic discourse pattern is around narrative structures. This begins in the earliest grades, when children are asked to share personal anecdotes and later, to make personal connections to what they have read (Kantor et  al., 1992). These academic discourses become more complicated as stu­ dents enter middle school, when they are expected to clarify their understanding of a text and utilize problem-solving techniques (heuristics) to support their comprehension when they lose meaning. Even more complex are the skills required to write expository text, such as organizing information for a research report. Classroom practices that provide opportunities for students to talk about what they are learning can scaffold both reading and writing. According to Palincsar and Brown (1984), recipro­ cal teaching for discussion of texts is ideal. This framework assigns roles to each of the four members of a peer-led discussion group: summarizer, questioner, clarifier, and predictor. As will be explored in greater detail in Chapter 4, students can use this instructional routine to incorporate academic lan­ guage into their group discussions.

Academic Discourse in Mathematics Unlike the English Language Arts classroom, narrative structures are of less value in mathematics. Hicks (1995) points out that of the six standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, three involve discourse as it applies to the roles of the teacher and the students, as well as tools that support these conversations. She further describes the expectation that “students become young mathematicians, engaging in verbal conjecturing that is subject to public questioning” (p. 79). In fact, the interest in lesson study, a well-known approach to mathematics teaching developed in Japan, has been considered revolutionary because it causes teachers to shift their focus from presenting content to listening and observing how students are learning (Fernandez et al., 1992).

Academic Discourse in Science Although closely related to mathematics discourse, science is unique in its emphasis on inquiry as the basis for learning. The field of science education has been steadily moving away from the processskills approach of the 1970s, which focused on learning the steps, toward a curriculum that encour­ ages students to construct their own problems and apply scientific reasoning to solve them (Palincsar et al., 1993). In particular, this means that students must know how to ask questions, form hypotheses, interpret findings, and collaborate with others in this pursuit. Colley and Windschitl (2016) call this “discourse-intensive work” noting that students must “develop and revise models, create explanations, and argue with evidence while simultaneously learning and using conceptual content in these prac­ tices” (p. 1009). Clearly, science places a high value not only on the use of the technical vocabulary of the content, but also on one’s ability to embed an explanation within an inquiry. Consider this exchange between three students in a high school biology class as they attempt to understand the findings of a lab experi­ ment they initiated three days earlier. The students had collected saliva samples from their mouths

36

The Power of Language

and had grown them in Agar dishes. Other dishes contained samples swabbed from other areas of the school. They are now examining the results. Jake: Kelly: Jake: Maria: Kelly: Jake: Kelly: Maria: Jake: Kelly: Maria: Jake: Kelly: Jake:

Man, that’s gross! Look at all this crud in my mouth! [points to dish] I’ve got the same thing. There’s stuff all over it. Bacteria. Exactly. Look, you can trace the swab marks. But compare it to the room samples we collected. There’s way less bacteria on the room sample collection plates. So what does that say about the comparison? Well, our mouths are way more disgusting than our classroom. Yeah, but is that really the conclusion? We have to write it up in the lab report. Nah, it’s more than that. We can say that based on our samples, there was more bacteria present in human mouths than on classroom surfaces. But we can’t comment on whether the bacteria from our mouths or the classroom are harmful. ‘Cuz we don’t know that yet. Well, that’s what I want to know. There might be less bacteria on the classroom surfaces, but what if it’s more harmful? How could we find that out? You know what Mr. Walsh [teacher] will want. We gotta write up a hypothesis. Yeah, but it would be cool! Let’s find out how we can test these samples for dangerous bacteria.

Notice that the academic discourse utilized by these students contained very little of the narrative discourse used in language arts, and instead focused on drawing conclusions and analyzing for miss­ ing information. By the end of the experiment, they have already shifted their thinking to acquisition of new information to answer their questions. In addition, they used technical vocabulary (bacteria, hypothesis) and the language of the science laboratory (samples, harmful, surfaces) in their discussion.

Academic Discourse in History The discourse style valued in history classrooms focuses on analysis and interpretation. Because history itself is not static but evolves through the emergence of new sources of information and deepening understanding of the influence of events, history students must question sources, challenge assump­ tions, and consider various viewpoints. Therefore, argumentation, persuasion, and analysis are neces­ sary in classroom discourse. Point of view analysis is an important tool to the historian, as it allows for critical interpretations of source material. Wineburg (1991) reported on the results of a comparative study of historians and high school history seniors to determine the ways in which they approached materials differently. He found that the most significant difference was in checking the source of the information to consider the point of view of the author, and thus determine the veracity of the information. While the high school participants were all considered to be good students, their passive acceptance of the viewpoints presented in the documents suggested that they had not taken on the tools of analysis necessary for understanding history. A common method for teaching point of view in the history classroom is through the use of debates, mock trials, and Socratic seminars. These arrangements all place a high demand on the aca­ demic discourse skills of the participants. Many teachers offer guidelines for successful participation in

37

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

these exchanges and create rubrics for students to use to assess themselves. Guidelines are some variant on the following: • • • • •

Listen as an ally. Make connections to the comments of others. Pass if you don’t have something to offer at that moment. Use accurate information to support your claims. Accept the questions of others in the spirit of learning.

The discourse demands of these instructional activities press the linguistic resources, both social and academic, of students. To a far greater extent than other content discourses, students must draw upon interactional, personal, and representative functions of language while maintaining a collaborative lan­ guage register. Students who possess strong content knowledge but lack the social language skills to participate positively will struggle with these activities. Another necessary discourse of the history classroom is analysis and interpretation of bias. Closely related to point of view, it also requires that students consider the source of information. Biased infor­ mation in history can consist of obvious pieces of propaganda, but most are much more subtle. There­ fore, inductive reasoning through questioning, that is, open-ended queries that are likely to go initially unanswered, is used to analyze information. The answers to questions emerge as more questions are asked. For example, students examining an artifact for bias need to be able to pose questions like these: • • • • •

Where did this artifact come from? What do we know about the person or organization that created this artifact? Did this artifact result in harm to an individual or group of people? Do we think that harm was intentional? What might have been the reaction of the person or group who was the subject of this?

Integrating Oral Language and Content Knowledge In typical literacy instruction, knowledge is generally activated but not necessarily built (Paige et al., 2021). Scholars are increasingly arguing for the role of building knowledge in reading instruction (Knowledge Matters Campaign Scientific Advisory Committee, 2022). Due to the interrelated nature of oral language and content knowledge, it follows that integrating oral language and content knowl­ edge instruction may confer a synergistic benefit on children’s literacy learning. In a meta-analysis of 35 experimental or quasi-experimental studies in grades K-5, Hwang et al. (2022) reported that integrated approaches had significant and positive effects on vocabulary, comprehension, and content knowledge when compared with traditional elementary English Language Arts instruction. In content-rich English Language Arts (ELA) instruction, emphasis is placed simultaneously on fostering oral language skills and building science and/or social studies knowledge during literacy instruction, while taking advantage of the mutually enhancing relations between them (Dickinson & Young, 1998; Stoddart et al., 2002). Content-rich ELA instruction employs the reading of texts, dis­ cussion, vocabulary, and writing with the goal of improving not only vocabulary and comprehension, but also science and social studies knowledge (Hwang et al., 2021). Among the pool of primary-grade content-rich ELA studies that have demonstrated evidence for efficacy, there are common features (Cabell & Hwang, 2020; Connor et al., 2017; Kim, Burkhauser, et al., 2021; Kim, Relyea, et al., 2021; Neuman & Kaefer, 2018; Vitale & Romance, 2012): (a) planning with a focus on building content knowledge, (b) using coherent text sets focused to build knowledge, (c) employing discussion and 38

The Power of Language

writing focused on building knowledge, and (d) teaching vocabulary in networks. Taken together, they represent dimensions of support that provide children with the language, knowledge, and opportuni­ ties to talk.

Instructional Design to Promote Language Usage and Development We’ve divided the opportunities for talk into four major categories. These categories are consistent with a gradual release of responsibility model of instruction, which acknowledges that students must assume increasing responsibility if they are to learn (e.g., Fisher & Frey, 2021). This does not mean that students are supposed to become independent learners in the absence of the teacher, but rather that classrooms are structured in such a way that students are introduced to ideas and then have opportuni­ ties to work with these ideas before being expected to complete tasks independently.

Teacher Modeling and Direct Instruction During whole-class instruction, teachers model and teach behaviors, skills, and strategies that they expect to see from their students. This instruction is based on an established purpose and provides students with a mental model for completing tasks they will complete in another phase of instruc­ tion. Naturally, questioning can be used during teacher modeling, but teachers can also activate their students’ background knowledge during this time. For example, a 10th grade biology teacher asks stu­ dents to talk with a partner about cell life before the explanation of cell division is provided to them. In addition, teachers model the use of academic language as they engage in think alouds, shared readings, read alouds, lectures, and other whole-class events. After modeling, students can reflect on what they learned through both writing independently and talking with a partner.

Guided Instruction During guided instructional events, teachers use talk to determine what students know and what they still need to know. This is an opportunity for the teacher to use questions, prompts, and cues to help students complete tasks. While guided instruction is teacher-led, this does not mean that students are not talking. They use talk to ask questions—of the teacher, of peers, and of themselves. They use language to clarify understanding, provide feedback to a partner, and reflect once more on their learning. There are a number of ways for teachers to use talk during guided instruction. For example, an art teacher meets with a small group of students who have difficulty with perspective in their drawings and asks them to compare and contrast several drawings from his collections of books, and then has them give one-word explanations of the differences. The students use words such as proportion, line, and shading. Through talk, this art teacher is able to facilitate increased understanding for his students.

Collaborative Tasks In this phase of instruction, students are provided an opportunity to work together, with the teacher monitoring and supporting as needed. Talk becomes critical when students discuss tasks or ideas and question one another, negotiate meaning, clarify their own understanding, and make their ideas com­ prehensible to their partners. It is during collaborative tasks that students must use academic language if they are to focus on the content. Here again, their understanding grows as they talk with their partners to reflect on their learning. There are a number of classroom structures such as reciprocal teaching, literature circles, partner discussions, and so on, that require students to talk together. 39

Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell

Independent Activities

It might seem strange to suggest that talk plays a critical role during independent activities. But think about the self-talk you engage in which you complete independent tasks. Some of this self-talk (inner speaking) occurs in your mind while some is vocalized. Again, thinking occurs as we use language, and this type of talk is an important aspect to learning. As students work independently, they may also use talk to receive input on their work and give feedback to others. Reporting out after independent work may require a more formal register of language than that used during collaborative activities. As an example of this type of instruction in which talk permeates the learning environment, we will peek inside a fifth grade classroom as they read and discuss Hattie Big Sky (Larson, 2006). The teacher has just finished reading a chapter aloud. In doing so, she regularly paused to provide context clues for vocabulary words. For example, when she came to the word skyscraper, she paused and commented, What a great word, I know from the context that it’s a type of building, but I can really see this in my mind. The big tall buildings in Chicago must have seemed to really scrape the sky. Have you seen buildings like that? Describe a skyscraper to your partner. At that moment, the classroom bursts into talk. Teresa leans over to Javier and says, “Like totally cov­ ered in glass, you know, all shiny so that you can see yourself. It’s so big, you could see the ocean when you’re up there.” After the reading and think aloud, the teacher asks students to think about the differences in life in San Diego today and Montana in 1918. She says, There are two things on my mind that we should talk about. There are differences and similari­ ties between San Diego and the town she lives in: Vida, Montana. And there are also differ­ ences and similarities between today and 1918. Choose one of those topics to discuss with your partner. Pedro turns to Alex and says, “They had nice people and mean people, just like we do. But they got bad weather, and we don’t.” Alex responds, “Yeah, and they have farms and we don’t, but they have chores like we do.” Following the whole-class and partner discussions, students moved to their collaborative learning groups. The teacher had purposefully organized the membership in these groups such that students at the beginning levels of English proficiency had access to language brokers who could support their participation. She also focused on creating groups with diverse interests and skill levels so that the group would become interdependent as they processed information. One of the collaborative learning tasks required students to create a Readers’ Theatre script based on the chapter they had read. Their teacher knows that students will reread the text, talk about the text, practice reading the scripts, and provide one another feedback on their speaking parts as a com­ ponent of this task. A few lines from the script written by Alex’s group highlight the ways in which language and talk are used to facilitate learning. Hattie: Narrator: Hattie: Mr. Whiskers:

I gotta get my chores done but I’m so cold. What will I do? I don’t want to freeze to death. I put on all of my clothes at once, every stitch. That will help me face the extreme cold. I’m not going outside with you—you’re crazy! But there might be milk. I guess I’ll go. 40

The Power of Language

Narrator: Rooster Jim: Hattie:

The cow was waiting so Hattie braved the weather. Howdy neighbor. Oh, hello. Do you want some coffee? I’m almost done and could use some company.

The class continued with their productive group work and all of the talk associated with it. Reflect­ ing on this slice of classroom life leaves us with a different picture. In this classroom, the teacher and her students share the responsibility for talking. Importantly, not just one student talks at a time. Dur­ ing partner conversations, 50% of the students are talking at a time. The important thing to remember is that this talk has to be purposeful; it can’t just be social if we are going to see improvements in achievement.

Conclusion Oral language is the foundation of literacy and as such requires focused attention. Oral language devel­ ops over time and with intentional instruction and practice. One important instructional implication from the evidence on oral language development is altering the ratio of teacher to student talk. Simply said, students need to talk more, and they need support and scaffolding to do so. In addition, teachers must be clear in understanding exactly what academic oral discourse is. The complexities of academic discourse, oral and written, in the classroom, must be considered for educators to appropriately sup­ port students’ development in this area of the language arts.

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Nancy Frey and Sonia Q. Cabell Cash, A. H., Cabell, S. Q., Hamre, B. K., DeCoster, J., & Pianta, R. C. (2015). Relating prekindergarten teacher beliefs and knowledge to children’s language and literacy development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 48, 97–105. Catts, H. W., Fey, M. E., Tomblin, J. B., & Zhang, X. (2002). A longitudinal investigation of reading outcomes in children with language impairments. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 1142–1157. Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Colley, C., & Windschitl, M. (2016). Rigor in elementary science students’ discourse: The role of responsiveness and supportive conditions for talk. Science Education, 100(6), 1009–1038. Connor, C. M. D., Dombek, J., Crowe, E. C., Spencer, M., Tighe, E. L., Coffinger, S., Zargar, E., Wood, T., & Petscher, Y. (2017). 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3

READING INSTRUCTION

ACROSS PRESCHOOL

THROUGH GRADE 12

Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski

Reading in the Emergent and Beginning Years (PK-Grade 2) The early years of literacy are the “learning to read” years and are pivotal to the trajectory of students throughout their school careers. The majority of young children arrive at the doors of the school with more competence in oral communication but less skill in the ability to recognize words and compre­ hend text. During the first three to four years of schooling, they will develop the building blocks for traditional literacy and then apply these building blocks to become skilled in reading. We ground this section in The Simple View (TSV) (Hoover & Gough, 1990) and the related expansions and revisions, including the Reading Rope (Scarborough, 2001) and the Active View (Duke & Cartwright, 2021). There are many legitimate critiques of TSV, but from our perspective, the frame is useful in discussing early reading. TSV identifies word recognition and language comprehension as foundational to reading. Word recognition is the ability to see a printed word and identify its spoken (or silently recognized) match. Language comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of words individually as well as collectively. Both word recognition and language comprehension are essential for reading. If a per­ son could not independently recognize words, we would not call that reading; it might be listening comprehension but not reading. Conversely, if a person could recognize words but not recount the meaning, content, or big ideas, we would not call that reading, either. The act of reading requires competence with both word recognition and understanding meaning. If either part is missing, “read­ ing” is not taking place. Children in preschool through grade two proceed through at least two stages of reading, the Emer­ gent Stage, called “Stage 0” and Beginning Reading, called “Stage 1” (Chall, 1983). In the Emergent Stage, children are gaining skills that they will need to become literate. Emergent readers are acquiring oral language through their involvement in their speech communities. They are adding new words to their lexicons, arriving in kindergarten knowing the meanings of over 5,000 words, although this number may vary due to language exposure. Once in school or with support from their homes, emergent readers acquire the building blocks for word recognition, including phoneme awareness, letter-sounds (grapheme-phoneme correspondences or GPCs), and insights about print. They also build their capacity for comprehension through the development of vocabulary, language, structures, background knowledge, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge (Scarborough, 2001).

45

DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-4

Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski

Traditionally in grade 1, and now more commonly in mid-kindergarten, children enter Stage 1, Beginning Reading, in which they learn to decode words using GPCs, moving from the less-complex patterns with one-to-one correspondences (e.g., tin, trip) to more complex multi-letter units (e.g., boat, chore, seat). The key achievement during this stage is mastering decoding and, for this reason, the stage has been called “Glued to the print,” because readers must dedicate serious attention to blending words.

Historical Framing The early reading years tend to attract a great deal of attention in popular press and have been known to “swing” wildly between code- and meaning-centric approaches. In 2023, we sit in the middle of a code-centric era. This recent focus was prompted by Hanford’s (2018) Hard words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read? report critiquing leveled texts, guided reading, and the three cueing systems. In many ways, the current trends reflect patterns that have reverberated across reading instruction history for decades. Around 2000, the National Reading Panel Report called attention to Scientifically Based Reading Research (SBRR) and the importance of code instruction. Fifty years prior, Chall called attention to the importance of code instruction in Learning to Read: The Great Debate (Chall, 1967).

Recent Findings in Emergent and Beginning Literacy The groundwork for the current era came from the National Reading Panel (NRP) (2000) and National Early Literacy Panel Reports (Lonigan & Shanahan, 2009). The NRP report conducted a meta-analysis in the areas that contribute to skilled reading: Alphabetics (Phonological Awareness and Phonics), Fluency, and Comprehension (including vocabulary). In terms of emergent literacy, the report found strong evidence for alphabetic skills (e.g., naming letters, knowing letter-sounds) and phonological awareness (e.g., manipulating various sound units in the language). In 2004, the NELP meta-analysis found that the following skills had high levels of correlation with later abilities: alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness skills, name writing, and rapid automized naming of alphanumeric symbols and objectives. Moderate correlations were found in the follow­ ing areas: print concepts/knowledge, oral language, visual discrimination, and reading readiness (e.g., composite score of alphabet knowledge, concepts of print, vocabulary, memory, and phonological awareness). The translation of both NRP and NELP findings was reflected in the foundational skills section of Common Core State Standards for the English Language Arts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2012), as well as the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework: Ages birth to five (Office of Head Start, 2022).

Alphabet Development One of the best predictors of later literacy is letter naming, but alphabet development includes at least five layers: (a) naming letters; (b) visually discriminating letters; (c) writing letters; (d) con­ necting phonemes to graphemes; and (e) knowing how to use letters in decoding or spelling. Within the last 15 years, there have been many advances in alphabet instruction research, but here we identify four. First, a series of studies have suggested that “letter-of-the-week” approaches are not research-based. They are too slow, with children taking at least 67% of the year to learn letters. A study conducted by Sunde et al. (2020) found that students who were taught more letters per week rather than less made

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Reading Instruction Across Preschool Through Grade 12

more progress. Work by Vadasy and Sanders (2020) suggested that about three letters per week, with cyclical review, was appropriate. In fact, a cyclical approach of presenting letters, reviewing them, and then reassessing in letter cycles is highly effective (Jones & Reutzel, 2012). Letter-of-the-week is a one-size-fits-all-approach, but instruction should be differentiated and assessment-guided because children enter kindergarten with between 0 and 52 known letters (Piasta & Wagner, 2010). Further, not all letters present the same level of difficulty to children and thus do not need the same amount of time (Drouin et al., 2012; Evans et al., 2006). Second, studies converge on a series of lesson features that are causally tied to learning. Letter teaching should include both letter names and letter sounds (Piasta et  al., 2010). Because many names have the target sound in the beginning (e.g., Bb, Kk) or at the end (e.g., Ff, Ss), children can use letter name information to learn letter sounds, if they possess some phonemic awareness (Ellefson et al., 2009; Share, 2004; Treiman et al., 2008). Teaching routines should present letters in isolation, instead of within the context of words, where there are other letters that could visually distract. This allows children to analyze specific letter features (Roberts, 2021). Other researchtested elements include asking children to name items that start with the letter-sound and locate examples of the letter in their environment, and practicing air-writing or handwriting the letter (Jones & Reutzel, 2012). A third area of research that has informed letter instruction is teaching children the articulatory gestures or “mouth moves” for sounds. This adds value, especially for English learners (Boyer & Ehri, 2011; Castiglioni-Spalten & Ehri, 2003). A fourth area of new work has helped to identify the degree to which mnemonics, such as animals or items embedded in letter presentations, support learning (e.g., an “Aa” with an apple drawn around the letter). Two studies show that mnemonic-embedded letters do help children learn sounds and names as long as the letter itself is the most salient element of the graphic (Shmidman & Ehri, 2010).

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Development Phonological awareness is the ability to hear units of sound within a language (e.g., rimes, syllables, phonemes) and to manipulate them orally and aurally (e.g., blend, segment, delete, add). Phonemic awareness, a subskill of phonological awareness, is the insight that words can be broken down into individual speech sounds (cat = /k/ /a/ /t/). Phonemic awareness (PA) is essential to acquiring an alphabetic language because visual symbols (e.g., graphemes made up of letters) code phonemes. Pho­ nemic awareness instruction should focus on one or two skills, occur in small, differentiated groups, and last 10–20 minutes. Few journals are publishing basic findings in PA, but researchers are examining the longitudinal power of PA interventions, earlier expressions of phonological deficits, the neurobio­ logical roots of PA, the most important PA skills, and whether or not PA instruction should always be paired with letters. In 2016, Suggate et al., conducted a meta-analysis of the long-term benefits of different types of interventions on later reading (e.g., comprehension, fluency, phonics, phonemic awareness). In the short term, phonics and phonemic awareness performed similarly, but after 11 months, phonological awareness interventions had significantly higher effect sizes than phonics (.29 vs. .07). Other longitu­ dinal models also reinforce the impact of phonemic awareness skills on later reading (Caravolas et al., 2019; Clayton et al., 2020). New explanations suggest that the phonological awareness deficits detected in relation to literacy may be pointing to phonologically-based elements of early speech production, articulation, and word finding. As Share (2021) wrote, “PA is often the product of “deeper” spoken-language phonological weaknesses that predate literacy acquisition [28] and, indeed, go right back to birth ” (p. 2).

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Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski

Similarly, researchers are delving into the neurobiological associations between PA and regions of the brain. We are reminded, however, that these are associations only, and that we cannot infer that brain differences are driving various levels of PA. In fact, assuming neuroplasticity, it is possible that PA instruction would strengthen and activate underutilized areas of the brain (Share, 2021). The PA literature has always suggested that children gain awareness of larger units of sound prior to smaller units in the following progression: words, syllables, onset-rime to phoneme (Anthony et al., 2002). This developmental trajectory has been translated into a scope and sequence, with instruction focusing on larger units before phonemes. However, many note that the phoneme is the most impor­ tant unit as the basis of the alphabet. There is now evidence that teachers can introduce phonemic awareness tasks without waiting until larger units have been mastered (Ukrainetz et al., 2011), and that even toddlers can become aware of phonemes (Kenner et al., 2017). Rhyming, which gets a great deal of instructional attention, is not as strongly tied to literacy as other phonemic skills (Lonigan & Shanahan, 2009). Lastly, there has been a great deal of discussion about the role of letters during phonemic aware­ ness instruction. The following quote appears often in the literature: “PA instruction may be most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes with letters” (National Reading Panel (U.S.), National Institute of Child Health, & Human Development (U.S.), 2000, pp. 2–6). Many have interpreted this to mean that PA instruction should always use letters—that “oral only” PA instruction with non-letter tokens or motions is not research-based (e.g., counters, tapping, clapping, pictures). Of course, letters would eventually come into play, but it is possible, and at times preferable, to use nonletter tokens. For example, early phonological awareness instruction, often coming before or in the very early stages of alphabet instruction, focuses on larger units such as syllables and rhymes as a way to build capacity for awareness of smaller units, specifically phonemes. When developing oral awareness of syllables or rimes, letters are not typically used because spelling out a full syllable or rime would be inappropriate for learners who do not know the requisite letters. The question comes when teachers are supporting initial sounds, a skill that builds capacity for GPCs. In the early stages, oral PA on beginning sounds builds capacity for children to attach visual referents (Kilpatrick, 2015). Often teachers will stretch sounds (e.g., “Ssssssssip. What do you hear?”) or use pictures (e.g., “Which one sounds like mmmmilk? [moon, star, bat].”). When teachers focus solely on the phoneme and not the grapheme too, they are magnifying and strengthening the most difficult, least intuitive part of the GPC: the phoneme. If you do not have the insight that ball has three sound parts, then you don’t really understand the system, and you cannot attach a visual symbol to one of the sound parts, /b/. You hear the entire word “ball,” not its parts. After some brief PA work, instruction should immediately (as in within minutes or seconds) pivot to the connection between the letter and phoneme (Mesmer & Kambach, 2022). In fact, in a review of over 40 PA studies of interventions for students sus­ pected of having a reading disability, almost all interventions included letters along with the PA compo­ nent (Rehfeld et al., 2022). Also, oral work with phonemes should directly reflect the GPCs children are learning. It makes no sense to orally probe a sound for which children have not been taught the letter.

Print Concepts In 1991, Clay made the literacy community aware of print concepts, including finding the cover of a book, knowing that print carries meaning (not pictures), understanding directionality, and understand­ ing how words work. These understandings were operationalized in an assessment and have made their way into the Head Start and Common Core standards. The most important print concept, the concept of word in print, was also heavily researched (Ehri & Sweet, 1991; Mesmer & Williams, 2015). Early work established that children only naturally focused on words, letters, and sentences about 10% of the

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Reading Instruction Across Preschool Through Grade 12

time (Evans & Saint-Aubin, 2005). As the field of emergent literacy developed, educators began to explicitly teach print concepts using large (12x18) “Big Books” that afforded children the opportunity to see the print and watch a teacher model the reading process. Recent research has solidified earlier findings around children’s attention, but most importantly has informed the teaching of print concepts. In three experiments, Farry-Thorn and Treiman (2022) examined children’s understandings about who can read (animals/humans) and what part of the book people read (e.g., words vs. pictures). The findings were paradoxical. Children could find letters and words on pages, but when asked to “point to the page I can read,” many pointed to pictures rather than words. They did not understand that words rather than pictures are what humans “read” from a traditional literacy perspective. The findings suggested that explicit instruction in the mechanics of print is needed. This gap has been filled with a line of robust applied research to guide practice (Justice et al., 2008; Nevo & Nus­ baum, 2018). Essentially, a series of explicit “print referencing” actions (e.g., pointing, pausing) and questions do advance children’s understandings of print concepts. They have significantly advanced the field from vague “concepts of print” read alouds to clear, research-based practices known to affect children’s insights.

Decoding Within the last 15 years, two research-driven insights have advanced our knowledge: research inform­ ing how to help readers “sound out” words, and the nature of orthographic mapping in irregular words. The process of teaching students how to sound out words has not been given much instruc­ tional attention. Often it seemed as though teachers would assume that, armed with GPCs, a student would easily blend words together with little instructional attention. Frequently, teachers modeled decoding without giving students strategies (e.g., “Here’s a word [leg] /l/ /e/ /g/. leg!”). In addition, teachers rarely knew how to help students approach words with multi-letter units (e.g., choose, soap). To decode a word with simple one-to-one letter-sounds (e.g., tip, sad), researchers suggest two approaches. The first is called extended phonation (Gonzalez-Frey & Ehri, 2021), and the second is body-coda decoding (Murray et al., 2008). For extended phonation decoding, start with words that begin with continuant consonants, or those that can be stretched (e.g., r, l, n, m, s). Then the word is sounded out by saying the sounds of the word without pausing between sounds (e.g., ssssaaaaat vs. /s/ /a/ /t/). After days of practice with words that have continuants, students can handle words with stops at the beginning (e.g., top). Sometimes students have difficulty and will not “blend” the word together (e.g., “sssaaaat at”). In this case, a body/coda approach can be used (Murray et al., 2008). The first consonant(s) and the vowel, the body (e.g., “sssa”), are blended and then the ending is added (“t”). When a word has vowel teams (e.g. couch, show), decoding requires the reader to group multi-let­ ter units. Research supports coaching students to try different pronunciations in what is called “vowel flexing,” “vowel alert,” or TOTO: Try one, try the other (Lovett et al., 2000). In these approaches, students are trained to stop when they see more than one vowel and try different sounds that they know until they reach a meaningful word. A second area of advance in decoding is a series of investigations about how readers map what are often called “irregular” words (e.g., the, enough, of). Of course, English is an alphabetic language, and although there are words that have less regular/predictable components, few words are fully “irregular.” Recently, there has been a great deal of focus on teaching “sight words,” even to children in preschool. The approach relies on visual memorization and rote learning. This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, the term “sight” word refers to any word that a reader accesses automatically without decoding, including words that are regular and those that are less regular (Ehri, 2005). Consider how

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many words in this chapter, for example, a mature reader would “sound out” or decode. Second, the process by which a word becomes a sight word is through orthographic mapping—matching the phonemes in the word to the graphemes representing those patterns. In two studies, the student level factors that predicted irregular word reading were decoding, spelling, and vocabulary knowledge, sug­ gesting that orthographic information is foundational to irregular word reading (Steacy et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2013).

Texts of Beginning Reading Throughout the history of literacy education in the U.S., the texts used for beginning readers have often been a point of great concern. The goal with beginning reading texts is to provide some sort of support to help readers recognize words. Approaches have ranged from texts that simply repeat highfrequency words (e.g., Look-Say), to those that repeat predictable syntax (e.g., leveled texts), to those that constrain words to those with GPC patterns that the reader has been taught (e.g., decodables). In many ways, the debates follow the patterns of emphasizing code or meaning. Mesmer et al. (2012) synthesized the research on beginning reading materials, organizing around the text variables at the word, syntax, and discourse levels. In the area of words, the synthesis noted that both word frequency (familiarity) and decodability (structural complexity) were supported as integral to the development of texts. That is, what supports a reader in recognizing words is the degree to which they are familiar with a word and the degree to which they can decode it. Another point of support for word recognition is syntax. In beginning reading texts, sentence length was identified as influential on word length mostly because it reduces cognitive load. The review suggested that great attention could be given to text cohesion in beginning texts, which is the overlap and repetition of words and ideas within and across sentences to maintain the thread of comprehension. Decodabilty in particular has attracted a great deal of attention recently, and yet little new research has been produced. Although defined in a number of ways, generally, decodable text contains words with GPCs that the reader has been taught. A recent research synthesis suggested that students who read text with some level of decodabilty apply letter-sounds more, both within a particular text and as a strategy that is transferred to other contexts (Cheatham & Allor, 2012). This is also true for English learners (Chu & Chen, 2014). A series of studies analyzing the words presented in the texts of beginning reading suggest that in many ways, texts are becoming more challenging for young readers (Fitzgerald et al., 2016; Foorman et al., 2004: Kearns & Hiebert, 2022). In addition to the increases in single-occurring words in texts, researchers found that between the 1960s and 2010, first graders were encountering many more words in their reading textbooks that were not likely to be in their oral vocabularies (Fitzgerald et al., 2016). The review also noted the lack of repetition of words within and across texts and the fact that 50–70% of words in first grade materials were never repeated (Foorman et al., 2004). Lastly, over 40% of words in first grade texts were polysyllabic, and over 10% had more than one morpheme (Kearns & Hiebert, 2022).

The Role of Knowledge Development in Emergent Comprehension Although the beginning reading years have traditionally focused heavily on decoding, developing chil­ dren’s language comprehension is essential to their future achievement. Important work, especially in knowledge development, has shifted how comprehension is viewed in primary classrooms. In the same way that Hanford’s exposé brought attention to code instruction, author Wexler’s (2020) book, The knowledge gap: The hidden cause of America’s broken education system—And how to fix it, brought attention to background knowledge and developing it.

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No text can be completely explicit and self-explanatory; all texts must assume some sort of back­ ground knowledge on the part of the reader or else books would be endless strings of explanation. Thus, readers must use what they know about the world, relevant to a particular text, and integrate that knowl­ edge with what they are reading. As they comprehend, readers are actively interacting with the text by making inferences—joining information from two different places: their background and the text. Recent research has shifted the focus around background knowledge from the idea of “activating” it to creating it, noting that many children are missing the knowledge foundations that they need to comprehend (Duke et al., 2021; Gonzalez et al., 2011; Hwang et al., 2022; Neuman, 2019). For exam­ ple, if a story being read to a group of first graders is set in an amusement park, then the story assumes some knowledge of what an amusement park is. In earlier eras, the approach might have been to help students “activate” their knowledge about an amusement park (e.g., standing in line, roller coasters, crowds). But what if students have little or no background knowledge to activate? What if they have not yet been to an amusement park? Then knowledge must be developed, particularly in the areas of science and social studies. As Neuman (2019) summarizes: We have ignored the factor that most powerfully predicts it [comprehension]: knowledge. Instead, we have fallen prey to quick fixes, a wish fulfillment that some sort of monitoring, acti­ vation, or strategy might repair what has been lacking in background knowledge. (p. 16) Increasingly, through a variety of means, content development in science and social studies is tak­ ing place during integrated literacy lessons. A  recent meta-analysis of 35 studies showed that such content-developing instruction impacted vocabulary (ES = .91) and standardized comprehension (ES =.25) (Hwang et al., 2022). Another approach, project-based learning, has also shown great promise. Project-based learning integrates social studies, science, and literacy standards into instructional units driven by authentic purposes (e.g., lobbying city council to improve a playground). In a randomized controlled trial of project-based learning in social studies, there were robust effects on both the infor­ mational text reading and social studies knowledge of students in low-socioeconomic status districts (Duke et al., 2020). At the preschool level, a similar experiment tested the integration of social studies and science vocabulary instruction within a shared book reading with low-income preschoolers. The approach, called Words of Oral Reading and Language Development (WORLD), impacted receptive and expressive vocabulary (Gonzalez et al., 2011). Essentially, the field is ramping up the development of comprehension in primary grades by enhancing the knowledge development of students.

Summary Emergent and beginning reading instruction has always garnered a great deal of attention from educa­ tional researchers. Code-related skills do tend to dominate, mostly because emergent and beginning read­ ers so desperately need them, but in recent years, the development of knowledge for comprehension has also attracted attention. On the code side of the TSV reading equation, new findings related to alphabet instruction, phonemic awareness, print concepts, and texts have emerged. Findings in alphabet instruction suggest that letter names help students learn sounds and that teaching students articulatory gestures adds value to learning, especially for English learners. Phonemic awareness instruction continues to be under­ stood as highly impactful in the long term. Recently, phonemic awareness itself has been suggested to be an indicator of deeper language issues occurring earlier in the developmental chain. Although some edu­ cators believe that children will naturally acquire print concepts through exposure, research has suggested that they will not, and that explicit instruction is needed to help them bring into focus the mechanics

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of print. As has always been the case, a great deal of attention is still being given to texts for beginning reading, with intense focus on decodabilty. However, analyses suggest that beginning reading texts have many single-occurring words and lack basic repetition to support learning. Finally, instruction has been bolstered by attention to developing children’s knowledge as a pivotal component of comprehension.

Beyond Word Decoding: Fluency and Vocabulary (Grades 3–6) Grades 3 through 6 in Chall’s stages of reading development include “Confirmation and Fluency” and “Reading for Learning the New.” During this grade span, readers consolidate and automatize their foundational word decoding skills and become more independent in using their developing literacy for learning new words and new content—essentially transitioning from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Two key competencies that are a focus of this age span are development of reading fluency and vocabulary or word knowledge. In the earlier age span, a primary instructional focus is on developing proficiency in word decoding. In this next stage, the primary instructional tasks shift to expanding understanding of the words stu­ dents are able to decode, developing automaticity in recognizing words that can be decoded accurately, and reading text orally (and silently) with a level of prosody (expression) that reflects the meaning of the text. Of course, it is recognized that instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness must continue during this grade span as needed. Similarly, instruction in and development of reading and language comprehension, critical reading, reading stamina, and motivation for reading are integral parts of read­ ing instruction during these grades and beyond.

Reading Fluency The history of reading fluency instruction in the United States is rooted in oral reading. Early accounts of reading fluency were largely related to elocution and proper pronunciation during oral reading. Oral reading had been an integral part of reading instruction in America since colonial times and dominated classroom instruction until around 1925, with the emphasis on students reading aloud accurately and with good expression through drill, practice, and correction (Hyatt, 1943). Because of the limited sup­ ply of reading material available and that often only one person in the home could read, oral reading was seen primarily as a form of entertainment (Rupley et al., 2020). The development of “eloquent oral reading” became the focus of reading instruction prior to the mid-1920s and was represented in most of the published reading programs of this time (Rasinski & Hoffman, 2003). Until the early part of the 20th century, schools typically used a form of oral recitation that focused on elocution as the preferred method and goal of reading instruction (Hoffman & Segel, 1983; Hoff­ man, 1987). The recitation lesson usually involved the teacher orally reading a text followed by stu­ dents orally practicing the passage on their own, and, after a period of practice, orally reading or reciting the passage for the teacher and classmates. Students’ reading was judged by the teacher on the quality of their oral reading and their recall of what they had read. Oral reading was such an ingrained and necessary part of American education that philosopher William James (1892) indicated that “the teacher’s success or failure in teaching reading is based, so far as the public estimate is concerned, upon the oral reading method” (p. 422). Toward the end of the 19th and through most of the 20th century, the dominant role of oral read­ ing as the primary mode of instruction in reading was challenged. Educational scholars argued that oral reading instruction gave priority to elocutionary matters such as “pronunciation, emphasis, inflec­ tion, and force” (Hyatt, 1943, p. 27) over reading for understanding. Horace Mann (1891, cited in

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Hoffman & Segel, 1983) claimed that “more than eleven-twelfths of all the children in reading classes do not understand the meaning for the words they read” (p. 4). Literacy scholars such as Edmund Huey (1908) noted that oral reading had become an activity that was found primarily in schools. The focus on abstracting meaning from text over oral production of the text began to take hold. Spurred by the work of Thorndike (1917), comprehension of text became a more important focal point of instruction than the oral interpretation of text. Silent reading was seen as the more logical path to good comprehension and therefore a more worthy goal for reading instruction than oral reading proficiency. During this period, then, silent reading began to replace oral reading not only as a goal for reading, but as the preferred mode of reading for instruction as well. Scholars felt that silent reading was a more authentic form of reading—for most readers in the real world, silent reading predominated over oral reading. Moreover, in oral recitation reading activities, only one student read at a time, the remaining students served as an audience for the reader. Reading volume was also necessarily limited by oral reading. Silent reading, conversely, could be carried on by several students simultaneously. Thus, the Indianapolis Public Schools Course of Study for 1902 (as cited in Hyatt, 1943) advocated silent reading as the preferred mode of instruction: Reading . . . fundamentally is not oral expression. Children should do as much silent reading and be called upon to state the salient features of such reading in order to know how far they have grasped the thought. Silent reading is too much neglected in schools. . . . Pupils should be taught how to read silently with the greatest economy of time and with the least conscious effort. (p. 21) Oral reading and reading fluency began to reemerge into the educational scene in the late 1970s and early 80s. In a seminal piece, Allington (1983) wrote that reading fluency is a “neglected goal” of the reading curriculum. He posited that fluency is essential for proficient reading, that it is readily observed in oral reading, and even when difficulties in oral reading fluency are observed, they are seldom treated through instruction. Since then, fluency has been identified by literacy scholars and practitioners as an essential compe­ tency for reading success. Indeed, the National Reading Panel (2000) identified fluency as one of the five critical components of effective reading curricula.

Teaching Reading Fluency Fluency in reading, as well as fluency in any human endeavor, is developed through guided and inde­ pendent practice (Rasinski, 2010; Rasinski et al., 2011). This practice includes the following forms: 1) model fluent reading for students; 2) assisted reading; 3) deep or repeated reading; and 4) wide reading.

Model Fluent Reading In addition to many other benefits that it provides, reading aloud to students provides students with models of fluent, engaging, and meaningful reading. When teachers (or others) read to students, they provide them with examples of how expressive and meaningful reading is performed. As a guided fluency practice, read alouds should not end with the reading of text. Often, teachers will discuss the content of what was read with students for a few minutes after the reading. However, this is also a time for teachers to discuss with students the nature of the oral reading—helping students notice how the text was read with expression that reflected the meaning and tone of the passage. Teachers might direct students’ attention to specific parts of the oral reading to help them see how changes in prosody

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impacted meaning. Regular read aloud and discussion in this way will help students develop a metacognitive model of how they should approach their own reading—fluent, expressive, and meaningful.

Assisted Reading When modeling fluent reading, students are usually listening and not reading themselves, unless they have a copy of the text in front of them. For fluency to develop, students need to actually read. Assisted reading is a bridge between a student listening to the reading of a fluent reader and the student read­ ing independently with fluency. In assisted reading, the student(s) reads a text while simultaneously listening to an oral rendering of the same text by a more fluent reader (Rasinski, 2010). A number of studies have demonstrated that assisted reading can lead to marked improvements in fluency and overall reading proficiency (Rasinski et al., 2011). Assisted reading can take a variety of forms to meet a variety of different reading opportunities, texts, and objectives. Perhaps the most common form of assisted reading in the elementary grades is choral reading, in which groups of students read a text together. The more fluent readers in the group, including the teacher, provide assistance or scaffolding that allows the less fluent readers to read with fluency. The essential requirement for choral reading is for students to track the text visually as they read. However, in choral reading, it is easy for students to get lost in the group and not engage in actual reading and text tracking. Regular reminders for students to “look at the words” help keep students’ attention focused where it needs to be. Paired (alternatively called duolog) reading is a form of choral reading done with two readers—one more fluent and the other developing in fluency. In Topping’s (1987) formulation of paired reading, the developing reader and partner (often a teacher or parent) sit side by side and together orally read the same book or other text for about 10 minutes. The student is asked to point to the text during the reading to keep a visual focus on the words. Should the student feel sufficient confidence to read independently, a nonverbal signal can be given to the partner to stop reading aloud and allow the stu­ dent to read solo. However, if the student begins to develop some difficulty in the reading, the partner immediately returns to oral reading with the student. There is no stopping at the point of difficulty, as the goal is to complete the reading as fluently and authentically as possible. Topping has reported that doing paired reading on a regular basis can result in an acceleration of progress in fluency and reading proficiency by a factor of 3 to 5. Young and colleagues (Young et al., 2015, 2016) reported similar gains in reading achievement with variations of paired reading. Audio-assisted reading is another form of assisted reading, but rather than reading with a partner or a group, the student reads with an audio-recorded oral reading of the text. In a seminal study involving audio-assisted reading, Chomsky (1976) found that students who were still making insufficient progress in reading after phonics instruction alone responded well to her audio-assisted approach. Chomsky noted that having students read (while listening to) grade-appropriate texts provided the students with the experience of real reading before they had actually achieved that ability. In an intervention lasting slightly less than four months, her students made eight months’ worth of progress in their reading. The progress wasn’t simply in reading achievement. Chomsky noted, “I felt that the children had been given an access to reading that they had not managed to provide for themselves earlier in the game; . . . They had a feel­ ing of success right from the start” (p. 294). Other studies have found similar results with various iterations of audio-assisted reading (Pluck, 1995; Rasinski, 2010; Rasinski et al., 2011; Stevens et al., 2017).

Deep (Repeated) Reading While the ultimate goal of fluency instruction is independent and wide reading, for readers just emerg­ ing into fluency and for those who struggle in developing fluency, the repeated reading or practice of 54

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a text is necessary in order to achieve a level of fluency in the reading. This is the essence of repeated readings. In another seminal study, Samuels (1979) found that when students read a text multiple times, not only did they improve on the text that they read, but there were also improvements detected on new texts that had not been previously read. In other words, the benefits of repeated readings gen­ eralized beyond the passages practiced. Subsequent research has found that repeated readings lead to improvement in word recognition accuracy, fluency, and comprehension, as well as students’ motiva­ tion for reading (Rasinski et al., 2011). Moreover, when students become aware that they can improve their reading in this way, their motivation for reading increases (Martinez et al., 1999–2000). Although repeated or deep reading is relatively simple to implement on the surface, one chal­ lenge is to make the activity authentic for students. Under normal circumstances, people do not read a text multiple times. One exception, however, is performance. Knowing that a text will be performed (read aloud) for an audience will naturally require the reader to rehearse the text in advance. Rehearsal is another name for repeated reading. Moreover, the rehearsal is aimed at read­ ing a text with appropriate automaticity and prosody so that it will be meaningful and satisfying for a listening audience. One instructional and performance activity that has gained popularity is called Readers Theater. Groups of students rehearse and perform texts for an audience. Often these texts are adaptations of children’s literature, poetry, songs, or even nonfiction texts. Typically, teachers use a weekly format (see Young & Rasinski, 2009, 2018) where students select their scripts or other passages at the beginning of the week, rehearse throughout the week, and perform on the last day. Each week, students choose new scripts for their end-of-the-week performance. Teachers who have implemented Readers Theater consistently for a semester or longer often see significant improvement in reading fluency, reading comprehension, and overall reading achievement (Griffith  & Rasinski, 2004; Young et  al., 2019). Making repeated reading authentic in this way gives students engaged in repeated reading purpose and motivation to read and rehearse.

Wide Reading As previously mentioned, the way to become fluent in any endeavor is to practice. One of the most common forms of practice in reading is wide reading. This is the kind of reading that is done by flu­ ent adult readers—one text after another. A growing body of correlational and experimental research has demonstrated the impact of wide reading on students’ reading achievement (Allington & McGillFranzen, 2021; Lindsay, 2018; Samuels & Wu, 2004). Certain characteristics of wide reading are essential, we feel, for it to be successful. These include: (a) making wide reading a regular and intentional part of the school and home curriculum; (b) having teachers, parents, and other significant others model independent reading in school and at home; (c) making a wide variety of materials available for students; (d) creating an environment in the classroom (and home) that is conducive to independent and wide reading; and (e) making independent read­ ing a social activity in which students are allowed and encouraged to interact with others about their reading. The goal of supported wide reading is to make it a part and parcel of students’ everyday lives. When this occurs, students will be on a trajectory to independence in their fluency development.

Vocabulary Although vocabulary development occurs throughout all stages of literacy development, it is after stu­ dents develop some degree of proficiency in word decoding that vocabulary or word meaning becomes a primary focus of word study in the classroom. The connection between readers’ vocabularies and their reading comprehension has a long history (Blachowicz et al., 2006; Davis, 1944, 1968; Terman, 55

Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski

1916). It makes good sense that if readers understand the words in the texts they read, they are more likely to have an understanding of the full text. From the 1950s through the early 1970s, research into vocabulary instruction was limited at best. However, in the mid- to late 1970s and to the present day, research into vocabulary instruction has become a topic of greater focus in the literacy community. Several key understandings about vocabu­ lary and school and reading success have emerged over this period (Blachowicz et al., 2006). Becker (1977) and others (Coyne et al., 2004) have suggested that limited vocabularies were a significant fac­ tor in school failure of children from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. Vocabulary knowledge is an important factor in school success for English language learners (Carlo et al., 2005), with extent of English vocabularies being one of the major differences between Native English speakers and ELL students (Goldenberg et al., 2005). Researchers have also found that vocabulary knowledge has a dif­ ferential effect depending on the type of reading being done. Academic vocabulary found in informa­ tional and disciplinary texts are significant challenges for students (Blachowicz et al., 2006). In a review of relatively recent research into vocabulary instruction in the elementary grades, Hair­ rell et  al. (2011) reported findings that corroborate the finding of previous reviews—that vocabu­ lary instruction has a positive impact on learning, and that students receiving vocabulary instruction outperformed those who did not. The three most reported vocabulary instructions were contextual analysis, semantic strategies, and repeated exposure. The review also noted that a significant amount of vocabulary is acquired through incidental and repeated exposure to words in varied contexts.

Teaching Vocabulary With these understandings, it is clear that instruction in vocabulary for readers is a worthwhile endeavor at all grade levels, and especially once students emerge from the development of foundational read­ ing competencies. Thorndike’s (1921) The Teacher’s Word Book, a ranking of words by frequency of occurrence, was an early move toward research into vocabulary instruction. Still, traditional vocabulary instruction has been marked by lists of words given to students at the beginning of the week to be learned and tested on by week’s end (Blachowicz et al., 2006), as well as teacher-led discussions of key words done before the reading of a passage. These types of activities suggest a lack of recognition or awareness of the rich research into productive vocabulary instruction, especially in the upper elemen­ tary grades (Blachowicz et al., 2011). Blachowicz et al. (2006) argued for a comprehensive approach to vocabulary instruction and iden­ tified three components of such a vocabulary curriculum. First, a language- and word-rich environ­ ment should be developed in the classroom where students develop a sense of word consciousness (Graves, 2006). Such vocabulary-rich environments include opportunities for wide reading (Cun­ ningham & Stanovich, 1998; Herman et al., 1987) and discussion (Stahl & Vancil, 1986; Snow, 1991), where word learning occurs through incidental exposure to words in rich contextual environments. Reading, writing, and talk should occur in an environment where the teacher provides scaffolding, feedback, and opportunities for students to encounter and use rich vocabulary (Blachowicz et  al., 2011). Other word learning opportunities for developing word awareness include developing interest in word origins as well as word play and game-like opportunities to explore words and their meanings (Scott et al., 1996, 1997). A second element of a comprehensive approach to vocabulary instruction involves instruction in generative and meaningful (morphological) elements of words, such as word roots and affixes. The development of more explicit awareness of morphology begins in third and fourth grades (Goodwin et al., 2012). By the end of third grade, 60 to 80% of words students encounter in reading are derived from morphemes (Nagy  & Anderson, 1984). Reviews of research on morphological vocabulary

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instruction suggest that children receiving such instruction perform better on multiple measures of lit­ eracy achievement than students not receiving such instruction (Bowers et al., 2010; Goodwin & Ahn, 2010, 2013). Morphology instruction can take the form of teachers leading students in identifying morphological word families and words belonging to those word families. Instruction can also involve exploring morphological elements, as they can be combined in various ways to make words and allow readers to infer the meaning of new, previously unknown words by decomposing them by morphemic elements (Blachowicz et al., 2011; Goodwin et al., 2012; Graves & Hammon, 1980). Third, a comprehensive vocabulary program includes the development of intentional, direct, and deep instruction of selected words from literacy and disciplinary materials as well as from current events, definitionally and contextually, literally and figuratively. In such instruction, students are pro­ vided with repeated exposure to words and opportunities for using words in their own oral and written language and are actively involved in exploring words, integrating new words with existing knowledge, and categorizing words semantically (Bransford et al., 1999). And, of course, instruction in the use of word-related references such as dictionaries and thesauruses (Beck & McKeon, 1991) is an important part of vocabulary instruction, especially as it applies to independent word learning. The use of emerg­ ing instructional technologies may also be included in such instruction. Given the large English lexicon, the question of which words to teach is an important one. Beck et al. (2013) suggested a system of three tiers of importance. Tier 1 refers to basic common words such as school, dog, baby. Tier 2 consists of high-frequency words that occur across a variety of domains and are used in mature language situations, such as literature and adult talk. Tier 2 words often contain multiple meanings and are used across a variety of language environments. Tier 2 words are the most important words for direct instruction because they are essential for reading comprehension, contributors to writ­ ing proficiency, and are good indicators of students’ progress through school. Examples of tier 2 words are: fortunate, industrious, measure, and benevolent. Tier 3 words are low-frequency content-related words that are specific to disciplinary learning. Instruction in these words should occur when a particular aca­ demic area is a focus of instruction and may require additional time and instructional emphasis. Clearly, once students are able to decode grade-appropriate words accurately, understand the words they encounter in their reading materials, and read the words in texts with fluency, they will be well prepared to engage in reading and understanding of increasingly sophisticated material in the middle and secondary grades. Although fluency and vocabulary instruction and support need to be part of instruction at all levels of literacy instruction, they are, without a doubt, keys for instruction in the upper elementary and lower middle grades.

Reading in Middle and Secondary School Reading instruction for adolescent (youth) readers historically focused on the reading and analysis of literary texts (Applebee, 1972). That emphasis, in this sense, approximates the wide reading that adults do, discussed earlier in the chapter. This tradition continues into the present in the form of disciplinary reading instruction in English literature (Lee, 2007). Historically, and in keeping with the emphasis on the relationship between reading and literature, the texts selected for middle and secondary school readers were those believed to hold literary merit. Literary merit often translated to texts of Eurowestern origin or more ancient works, such as Greek mythology, although the historic literatures of all civilizations, such as African societies, were not widely adopted for formal study in schools. Schools sometimes sponsored extracurricular spaces for young people to read contemporary literature or other works of interest to them with their peers for leisure and pleasure—what Applebee (1972) called a non-academic tradition of literature study. Such works were not included in the formal literature cur­ riculum. In current times, the literature curriculum in many educational contexts has been including

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more contemporary works that appeal to young people as part of the formal curriculum. However, a critique remains that such texts are often considered of lesser intellectual or literary value than texts that have been historically included in the literature curriculum (Skerrett & Warrington, 2018). Young people have been expected to enter secondary classrooms already possessing the reading knowledge and skills required to train them to engage with literature as literary scholars—applying schools of thought such as the New Criticism to meritorious literary works. Before the advent of compulsory schooling, secondary-age students were typically those with economically advantaged backgrounds who were expected to acquire such formal education. Given the relationship between race and social class, these students were primarily White. With the advent of compulsory educa­ tion, schools were no longer educating the homogenous student population for whom schooling was originally designed, and there followed greater diversity in the reading outcomes of secondary-age students. Scholarship that followed theorized about mismatches between the reading curriculum and the life experiences and cultures of a more diverse student population, leading to greater attainment for students whose cultures and backgrounds were better represented in the texts studied in school. Reading instruction that accounts for the sociocultural backgrounds and experiences of students continues to be an active strand of inquiry today (Skerrett, 2020). Research and practice in reading instruction has also recognized the need to continue developing both foundational and specialized reading knowledge and skills in secondary-aged readers. For young people who are still developing foundational aspects of reading, research and practice have identified the importance of investigat­ ing into students’ reading identities along with instruction that builds comprehension and fluency, as discussed earlier in the section on reading in the upper elementary grades. These students also need to be building abilities to read within the academic disciplines, beyond the study of literature. Given the landscape of secondary reading, three areas of reading research and instruction relevant to reading in the middle and secondary grades will be addressed in this section: reading and identity, disciplinary reading, and critical literacy/reading instruction. We include critical literacy instruction because as young people participate in the world around them, they continue to develop their awareness and questioning of social and political phenomena. It becomes increasingly important at this stage for read­ ing instruction to build students’ critical reading skills to support their productive participation in their local and global communities.

Reading and Identity Identity is central to how people learn (Lee, 2017). In working with secondary-aged readers, it is especially important to consider the reading histories, identities, knowledge, and skills young people possess. Beginning from this standpoint that recognizes the already-existing strengths youth have are essential to supporting adolescents’ continued reading development. More than any age group of readers, young people in middle and secondary classrooms possess a wealth of knowledge and skills pertaining to reading. They have already had several years of formal reading instruction in schools and have been participating in reading communities beyond school for many years as well—in their fami­ lies, interest groups, and places of work and worship. Young people have already developed reading identities and behaviors, and many are metacognitively aware of their reading interests, strengths, and challenges. Some young people have developed positive relationships with reading and strong reading repertoires within and across a range of genres, disciplines, and contexts (e.g., reading online for pleas­ ure, reading in social studies, or in English language arts classrooms). Others have more fluid reading identities and repertoires. For example, some youth may identify as strong and passionate readers in particular academic disciplines and in particular interest groups, but feel challenged when reading in other academic disciplines (Tatum, 2014; Skerrett, 2020). Tatum focuses on African American boys

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and reading, finding that engaging African American boys with texts and purposes that relate to Afri­ can American history, culture, and topics of relevance are significant levers for African American males finding and enacting their powerful reading identities. Research continues to support the relationship between the identities students hold as readers and their reading behaviors and achievement (Ginsberg, 2020; Glenn et  al., 2018; Hall, 2016; Learned et al., 2019; Skerrett, 2012; Skerrett & Vlach, 2022; Tatum, 2014). Students who identify as strong readers and have histories of being recognized by others as such feel greater self-efficacy in their reading, persist with sense-making of texts when they experience challenges, develop and sustain motivation and engagement, and experience reading as an enjoyable activity. Students who have fewer experiences of feeling capable and successful with reading tasks, over time, can develop strained relationships with reading, or with reading in a particular context or environment. Research confirms that students who have not had positive experiences with reading in school may view themselves, and may be viewed by their teachers, as poor readers. However, these same students, in other contexts, may have active and positive relationships with texts (Glenn et al., 2018; Learned et al., 2019; Skerrett, 2020) They may read self-selected texts for leisure or as part of other activities that are important to them—hob­ bies, work, or functional purposes for self and family. In a problematic phenomenon, school labels of “struggling reader” often preempt these students’ efforts and practices of successful experiences with texts. For example, Learned and colleagues (2019) showed how students deemed proficient readers by teachers received affirmation from their teachers for their work on reading tasks while students deemed struggling had their efforts discounted by their teachers, even when they enacted behaviors similar to those of students deemed proficient readers. Inquiry into reading identity is one aspect of reading instruction that is particularly valuable for secondary-age students. Because identities are not static, it is important to provide opportunities for young people to take stock of who they believe they are as readers—to identify when and what they do well as readers and when and why they struggle—in order to foster stronger reading identities and associated practices. Glenn et al. (2018) studied adolescent students who had been labeled as struggling readers in school and were aware of their challenges, but also aspired to positive reading identities. Their study found that the youth combated family, peer, and school influences that consistently reinscribed the students’ negative associations with reading. The young people reported greater success with combating the challenges to a positive reading identity that came from peer influences and family environment than from school sources. The institutional label of struggling reader, which led to read­ ing instruction that failed to affirm, motivate, and engage the youth, continued to be the biggest threat to the young people’s development of a more stable and positive reading identity. In her study, Hall (2016) noticed the stronghold that the concept of reading level had on some students’ definitions of their reader identities and their enacted reading practices (e.g., choosing leveled books). Hall (2016) worked with a teacher in an eighth-grade language arts classroom in which most of the students were labeled as underperformers in reading to provide instruction that strengthened students’ reading identities and skills. The instructional design included (a) making identity explicit, (b) developing and refining reading identities, and (c) connecting reading instruction and assignments to students’ goals as readers (Hall, 2016, p. 60). Hall found that most students identified as particular kinds of readers (very good, average, or poor), regardless of their reading assessment scores. Students also had particular goals for themselves as readers, such as becoming faster readers and gaining more complex vocabulary. Hall (2016) detailed how the teacher navigated students’ (often narrow) goals for reading development with reading instruction that helped with students’ acquisition of more robust reading competencies. With students regularly reflecting on their reading identities and learning pro­ cesses across the year, they began claiming more positive reading identities, articulating more substan­ tive goals as readers, and growing in their reading skills and practices. Most students, reported Hall

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(2016), came to recognize and exercise their own agency and role in accomplishing their reading goals and contested the idea that their reading level on standardized tests was the definitive marker of their reading identity or ability. Reading instruction aimed at strengthening students’ reading identities and capabilities works best when teachers, with students, select texts that reflect students’ interests and social and cultural worlds and that present an appropriate range of readability (Lee, 2007). For example, Spence and Walker (2021) described how an African American teacher engaged their African American students in a rural community in reading African American literature. Reading culturally relevant literature facili­ tated inquiry into identity as well as instruction in literary analysis. In text selection, it is important to note that readers with knowledge of, and interest in, a topic can read with success texts that might be calculated as beyond the “reading level” a given student is presumed to possess. With such texts, students can be taught to become metacognitively aware of their sense-making while reading in order to understand when they are having difficulties and to select from a range of strategies to overcome difficulties. High-leverage strategies frequently taught in secondary language arts/reading classrooms include envisioning, listening to the text, making autobiographical connections, and calling other texts to mind (Bomer, 2011). Teachers instruct students by modeling these strategies and providing students with opportunities to regularly apply and eventually take ownership of these strategies and apply them in their reading.

Reading in the Disciplines Students’ identities as readers can vary across academic disciplines. This issue is important as the demands of reading in the disciplines increase as students progress through the middle and secondary grades. As such, disciplinary reading is a key element of reading instruction for older readers. Disciplinary read­ ing builds upon the foundation of reading skills that students are expected to acquire by the time they complete elementary schooling. However, it is important to acknowledge that reading instruction in the secondary grades must continue to build up the total repertoire of readers’ skills and abilities, albeit within the context of disciplinary and other reading experiences appropriate to the social devel­ opmental phase of adolescents. Today, disciplinary reading instruction has expanded to account for the multiple disciplines that young people engage in as part of formal schooling (Lee, 2014). Beyond vocabulary instruction in the specialized academic traditions, disciplinary reading instruction accounts for the identities, traditions, genres, and ways of knowing and doing in a given discipline (Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). The high-leverage reading practices noted here serve young people well as they read texts in a range of genres, contexts, and disciplines. However, students need to be supported in continuing to build reading skills that can be applied across texts and disciplines as well as those skills specific to different disciplines (Dobbs et al., 2016; Fagella-Luby et al., 2012; Houseal et al., 2016). Dobbs et al. (2016), based on their work with social studies teachers and their students, found that instruction in both inter­ mediate and disciplinary literacy skills was necessary to support students’ reading success in social stud­ ies classrooms. Scholars of disciplinary literacy also acknowledge the identity components of reading in the disciplines, noting that students can take on the identities of novice literary scholars, scientists, historians, and mathematicians to promote their success in these areas (Lee, 2017; Neugebauer & Blair, 2020). A robust body of research identifies the unique reading demands associated with the different disciplines and instructional approaches for supporting secondary students with developing disciplinary reading abilities. A larger amount of disciplinary reading research has occurred in the fields of history and English literature (De La Paz et al., 2017; Hillman, 2014; Learned, 2018; Lee, 2007; Lee & Gold­ man, 2015; Monte-Sano et al., 2014; Moje, 2008; Park, 2016; Reynolds et al., 2020; Rainey, 2017),

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with fewer studies at present in mathematics (Hillman, 2014; Ippolito et al., 2017; Locke & Tailby, 2016) and science (Castek & Beach, 2013; Houseal et al., 2016; Larson, 2014; Rainey et al., 2018). Knowledge of how professionals read in their disciplines has been generated by working closely with disciplinarians to uncover the practices, perspectives, purposes, and ideologies they work with as they read (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; Shanahan et al., 2011; Rainey, 2017). Shanahan et al. (2011) worked with mathematicians, historians, chemists, and teachers and teacher educators in those disciplines, to understand ways of reading and sense making in these domains. Analyzing data generated from think-aloud protocols and focus group discussions uncovered discipline-specific reading practices that differed across the disciplines. Reading practices included sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, close reading and rereading, critical response to text, and attending to textual features such as graphics. Using semi-structured interviews and verbal protocols with literary fiction, Rainey (2017) studied the reading practices of 10 literary scholars to help identify disciplinary literacy practices to foster in English language arts classrooms. Rainey presented six literacy practices shared among these scholars: seeking patterns; identifying strangeness, confusion, or surprise; articulating an interpretive puzzle; recursively considering interpretive possibilities; considering histories of use and other contexts; and making original claims. Importantly, the scholars’ reading practices occurred within a shared under­ standing of the values of their disciplines, including what their community considered legitimate ways of knowing. Disciplinary reading instruction is often described as engaging students in an apprenticeship (Dyches & Gunderson, 2021; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). In some research studies, literacy schol­ ars have partnered with professionals and teachers in a discipline to develop instruction to support students’ development of disciplinary literacies. For example, Dyches and Gunderson reported on a partnership with a local judge and a literacy professor who engaged students of history in reading legal opinions of the Supreme Court. By experiencing models of how lawyers bring their professional iden­ tities, training, and knowledge of their professional community and its norms to their reading, students were able to better understand these specific disciplinary reading practices. De La Paz and colleagues (2017) implemented an intervention in which teachers were trained, and then subsequently taught their students, strategies for reading and writing in history as a means to build students’ historical argument writing. The researchers noted significant growth in students’ reading and writing skills in history, and these improvements were noted for all readers, including those considered to be at “basic” reading levels. In the area of science, Castek and Beach (2013) identified the notetaking and annotating practices that scientists use as a high-leverage reading practice for adolescents in science classrooms. Larson (2014) studied the effects of an intervention intended to increase adoles­ cents’ engagement and interest in science to support their conceptual understanding. Over 220 ninthgrade biology students experienced a weeklong unit in which the “Engagement Model of Academic Literacy for Learning (EngageALL)” intervention was delivered, an intervention that included a central focus on vocabulary. Students who received the intervention were found to perform at significantly higher levels of conceptual understanding of biology content, engagement, motivational factors, and academic language/vocabulary use compared to students who experienced typical science instruction. In the context of a New Zealand classroom, a mathematics teacher worked with his students to use oral and written language to express their understanding of algebra (Locke & Tailby, 2016). Pre- and post-intervention assessments revealed substantial growth in students’ confidence in algebra and their willingness to engage in algebraic discourse in the course of teaching and learning. As such, students’ skills as well as identities as mathematicians were positively affected by this effort to attend to language and meaning in this discipline. In the English language arts, Reynolds et al. (2020) developed a heu­ ristic for teaching disciplinary literacy involving practices of generating, weaving, and curating their thoughts about texts to move students from comprehension to their own robust interpretations.

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Criticality and perspective taking occur in reading across the disciplines. Disciplinarians approach texts considering issues such as their knowledge of the author and the author’s perspective on the topic at hand. Disciplinarians also consider their own purposes and perspectives for reading. They are aware of their own stances and how these influence their interpretations of texts. While this issue has been discussed primarily in the context of literary scholars and historians, all disciplinarians take a critical and questioning approach to texts they read. Accordingly, disciplinary reading provides added opportunities for students to develop critical reading skills or critical literacy (Dyches & Gunderson, 2021).

Critical Literacy/Reading Instruction Increasing emphasis has been placed on critical literacy instruction in research and practice across the elementary through secondary grades. Even very young children demonstrate a readiness and need for such instruction (Gardner-Neblett et al., 2023). In addition, reading from a critical stance occurs across disciplines, and reading critically can have different meanings. For example, in literature, various schools of literary thought require readers to question an author’s stance, purposes, and literary choices to consider what effects the author might hope to have on a reader and that reader’s response to the text. In critical reading, authors and events in a text are regularly situated within the social, cultural, and political milieu of their times to support a reader in arriving at interpretations of a text that go beyond the meanings offered within the text itself. Readers of literature are often encouraged to read from feminist, racial, Marxist, and other perspectives (Lee & Goldman, 2015; Thomas, 2015). The area of critical literacy instruction is thus both distinct from and connected to disciplinary reading. Critical literacy instruction includes reading from a stance that asks questions about groups, power, equity and fairness (Bomer, 2011). In literature classrooms, teachers may engage students with texts to investigate racism and racial discrimination (Thomas, 2015) or gender bias and inequity (Hayik, 2016). Students are also taught to explore phenomena from a variety of perspectives. As such, reading multiple texts on a topic written by people differently involved in and affected by a phenomenon is a key practice. Researching authors and their worldviews and actions is as essential to meaning making as reading the texts these authors have composed. In critical literacy instruction, it becomes ever more important for readers to exercise agency in setting their own purposes for reading. Often, these purposes are oriented toward understanding a social problem with an eye toward taking productive social action to affect change (Skerrett & Smagorinsky, 2022). Researchers have reported on adolescents reading about issues such as immigration and border crossing (de los Ríos, 2018; Rice & Stevens, 2021), racism (Skerrett & Smagorinsky, 2022), LGBTQ+ issues (Leent & Mills, 2018), gender and health issues, including the Coronavirus pandemic (Begoray et al., 2015; Yoon, 2020), and wars and political unrest (Tynes et al., 2021), to name a few persistent and contemporary social issues. Researchers have also shown that youth who are members of marginalized groups especially benefit from critical literacy instruction, but that such instruction is essential for all students (Tynes et al., 2021; Skerrett & Smagorinsky, 2022). As an action-oriented pedagogy, critical literacy instruction emphasizes readers “doing” something based on the meanings they have generated from their texts. These social actions can take many forms, including writing for social change or a reader taking a more informed perspective about a particular issue (de los Ríos, 2018; Skerrett & Smagorinsky, 2022). de los Ríos (2018) demonstrated how a transnational youth drew from his reading and lived experience of racism experienced by Mexican and Mexican American people related to immigration and border crossing to compose Corridos, Mexican ballads written in Spanish. These compositions served as a form of political writing and activism by the youth. Additionally, in an increasingly digital age, critical literacy instruction must continue to address how to search for texts and engage in online reading with an understanding of the role of the media, increased authorship

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opportunities, internet algorithms, and disinformation (Rice  & Stevens, 2021; Tynes et  al., 2021; Yoon, 2020). Hayik’s (2016) study illustrated a number of dimensions of critical literacy instruction. Secondaryaged students explored the traditional positioning of females (based on the Cinderella fairy tale) in literature, the media, and pop culture through various texts. Hayik reported that female students in particular demonstrated critical awareness of gender bias and a desire to take social action. One of these actions involved writing letters of critique to an author of one of the texts they read. Rice and Stevens (2021) reported on a study that engaged adolescents with multiple online texts pertaining to immigra­ tion to build students’ abilities to engage with multiple perspectives, including their own. Three prac­ tices were identified that supported the youths’ meaning making: clarifying collective understandings in small groups, confirming or contrasting using personal experiences, and holding conclusions against an array of conceptual understandings about immigrants and immigration. Skerrett and Smagorinsky (2022) elaborated on a teacher’s instruction in an English language arts classroom in which the teacher implemented a unit to strengthen students’ racial literacies—knowl­ edge and abilities to recognize the ways in which race functions as a tool for understanding, analysis, and critique. The teacher incorporated a range of texts into the unit including literary works, letters, and speeches from the Civil Rights movement, contemporary Hip Hop music and news reports, and digital media treating topics of race and racism in the U.S. Students read and discussed these texts with anchoring questions such as “who has power?” One outcome of this instruction was the actions of a student who identified as Mexican American. The student decided to create miniature versions of the Mexican flag that she then began distributing at school and also affixing to a project she had done in another class. The flag drawing included the phrase “Who built your house?”, serving as a political cri­ tique of anti-Mexican immigration sentiment that disrespects the significant contributions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to U.S. society.

Conclusion: Directions for Future Research We have reviewed a number of areas we know to be essential to attend to in reading and reading instruc­ tion across PK-12. We conclude our chapter by noting areas in need of additional research in each of the grade bands we have addressed. Although projections about new areas of inquiry are always a subjective matter, from our perspective, emergent and beginning literacy seems ripe for development of research in three areas. Interestingly, all these areas interrogate classical views of what young children can and cannot do and honor their intellectual capacity. Typically, critical literacy, what Chall defined as the ability to inte­ grate multiple authorial viewpoints and question the agendas of authors, has been relegated to secondary students. However, new curricula for young children, such as Great First Eight, concentrates on teaching even the youngest learners to use literacy for justice (Duke, 2022). The curriculum for infants to grade 3 uses project-based units to empower youngest learners for emancipatory and social justice purposes. The second area in which there might be greater focus and attention is what we call “emergent comprehension” instruction. In the preliteracy years, research and instruction have given a great deal of attention to code precursors, alphabetic, phonemic awareness, and print concepts. There has also been some attention to developing vocabulary through read alouds. Yet, the other parts of the Reading Rope (Scarborough, 2001), verbal reasoning, language structures, and background knowledge, have gotten less explicit instruction. We believe that focused attention to developing future unconstrained skills including verbal reasoning skills such as inferencing, using words to problem solve, or analyze verbally, is sorely needed in preschools and kindergartens. Third, we believe that systematic instruc­ tion in decoding multisyllabic and multimorphemic words is needed in the beginning years. Typically, phonics instruction in kindergarten and first grade has focused on decoding single-syllable words and

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yet, over 40% of words in first grade texts have more than one syllable. The curricula of explicit, sys­ tematic phonics instruction must be invigorated with morphological instruction. Beginning readers should be introduced to the concept of morphemes or meaningful word parts as early as possible, as English is morphophonemic. Upper elementary age students are increasingly exploring the disciplines as discrete subjects; we argue that research should pay more attention to disciplinary reading and instruction in these years. This work should occur in tandem with continuing to build the body of disciplinary reading as it per­ tains to the middle and secondary grades. As we noted, there is less research on disciplinary reading in science and mathematics, and we believe it is necessary to add to the knowledge base in these areas. Just as we have argued for young children, additional research on critical literacy instruction is also needed for students in the upper elementary through secondary grades. Given the explosion in online reading and authorship and the increasing availability of digital technologies to young people, we think it is especially important to study practices of critical reading in online spaces. Young people have always been invested in social justice concerns such as racism, gender and gender identity bias and discrimina­ tion, and contemporary social causes. The heightened visibility of injustices created by increased access to digital technologies, and the multiplicity of voices weighing in on social topics, demand that young people be equipped to read critically in today’s world.

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Prereaders’ knowledge about the nature of book reading. Reading and Writing, 35, 1933–1953. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10270-w Fitzgerald, J., Elmore, J., Relyea, J. E., Hiebert, E. H., & Stenner, A. J. (2016). Has first-grade core reading pro­ gram text complexity changed across six decades? Reading Research Quarterly, 51(1), 7–28.

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Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Davidson, K. C., Harm, M. W., & Griffin, J. (2004). Variability in text features in six grade 1 basal reading programs. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8(2), 167–197. Gardner-Neblett, N., Addie, A., Eddie, A. L., Chapman, S. K., Duke, N. K., & Vallotton, C. D. (2023). Bias starts early. Let’s start now: Developing an anti-racist, anti-bias book collection for infants and toddlers. The Reading Teacher, 76(4), 505–510. Ginsberg, R. (2020). Dueling narratives of a reader labeled as struggling: Positioning, emotion, and power within four differing English course contexts. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 25(1), 1–27. Glenn, W., Ginsberg, R., & King-Watkins, D. (2018). Resisting and persisting: Identity stability among adolescent readers labeled as struggling. Journal of Adolescent Research, 33(3), 306–331. Goldenberg, C., Rezaei, A., & Fletcher, J. (2005, May). Home use of English and Spanish and Spanish-speaking chil­ dren’s oral language and literacy achievement [Paper presentation]. Annual convention of the International Reading Association, San Antonio, TX. Gonzalez, J. E., Pollard-Durodola, S., Simmons, D. C., Taylor, A. B., Davis, M. J., Kim, M.,  & Simmons, L. (2011). Developing low-income preschoolers’ social studies and science vocabulary knowledge through content-focused shared book reading. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 4, 25–52. Gonzalez-Frey, S. M., & Ehri, L. C. (2021). Connected phonation is more effective than segmented phonation for teaching beginning readers to decode unfamiliar words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 25(3), 272–285. Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2010). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: Effects on literacy achieve­ ment of children with literacy difficulties.  Annals of Dyslexia, 60, 183–208. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11881-010-0041-x Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2013). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions in English: Effects on literacy outcomes for school-age children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17(4), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/1088 8438.2012.689791 Goodwin, A., Lipsky, M., & Ahn, S. (2012). Word detectives: Using units of meaning to support literacy. The Reading Teacher, 65, 461–470. Graves, M. (2006). The vocabulary book. Teachers College Press. Graves, M. F., & Hammond, H. K. (1980). A validated procedure for teaching prefixes and its effect on students’ ability to assign meaning to novel words. In M. L. Kamil & A. V. Moe (Eds.), Perspectives on reading research and instruction. National Reading Conference. Griffith, L. W., & Rasinski, T. V. (2004). A focus on fluency: How one teacher incorporated fluency with her reading curriculum. The Reading Teacher, 58, 126–137. Hairrell, A., Rupley, W., & Simmons, D. (2011). The state of vocabulary research. Literacy Research and Instruction, 50, 253–271. Hall, L. A. (2016). The role of identity in reading comprehension development. Reading  & Writing Quarterly, 32(1), 56–80. Hanford, E. (2018). Hard words why aren’t kids being taught to read? https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2018/09/10/ hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read Hayik, R. (2016). What does this story say about females? Challenging gender-biased texts in the Englishlanguage classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(4), 409–419. Herman, P. A., Anderson, R. C., Pearson, P. D., & Nagy, W. E. (1987). Incidental acquisition of word meaning from expositions with varied text features. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 263–284. Hillman, A. M. (2014). A literature review on disciplinary literacy: How do secondary teachers apprentice stu­ dents into mathematical literacy? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(5), 397–406. Hoffman, J. V. (1987). Rethinking the role of oral reading in basal instruction. Elementary School Journal, 87, 367–373. Hoffman, J. V., & Segel, K. (1983, May). Oral reading instruction: A century of controversy (1880–1980) [Paper pres­ entation] (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED239237). Annual meeting of the International Reading Association, Anaheim, CA. Hoover, W. A., & Gough, P. B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and writing, 2(2), 127–160. Houseal, A., Gillis, V., Helmsing, M., & Hutchison, L. (2016). Disciplinary literacy through the lens of the next generation science standards. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59(4), 377–384. Huey, E. B. (1908). The psychology and pedagogy of reading. MIT Press. Hwang, H., Cabell, S. Q., & Joyner, R. E. (2022). Effects of integrated literacy and content-area instruction on vocabulary and comprehension in the elementary years: A meta-analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 26(3), 223–249. Hyatt, A. V. (1943). The place of oral reading in the school program: Its history and development from 1880–1941. Teach­ ers College Press.

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Reading Instruction Across Preschool Through Grade 12 Ippolito, J., Dobbs, C. L., & Charner-Laird, M. (2017). What literacy means in math class: Teacher team explores ways to remake instruction to develop students’ skills. Learning Professional, 38(2), 66–70. James, W. (1892). Psychology. Holt. Jones, C. D., & Reutzel, D. R. (2012). Enhanced alphabet knowledge instruction: Exploring a change of fre­ quency, focus, and distributed cycles of review. Reading Psychology, 33(5), 448–464. Justice, L. M., Pullen, P. C., & Pence, K. (2008). Influence of verbal and nonverbal references to print on pre­ schoolers’ visual attention to print during storybook reading. Developmental Psychology, 44(3), 855. Kearns, D. M., & Hiebert, E. H. (2022). The word complexity of primary-level texts: Differences between first and third grade in widely used curricula. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(1), 255–285. Kenner, B. B., Terry, N. P., Friehling, A. H., & Namy, L. L. (2017). Phonemic awareness development in 2.5­ and 3.5-year-old children: An examination of emergent, receptive, knowledge and skills. Reading and Writ­ ing, 30(7), 1575–1594. Kilpatrick, D. A. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. John Wiley & Sons. Larson, S. C. (2014). Exploring the roles of the generative vocabulary matrix and academic literacy engagement of ninth grade biology students. Literacy Research and Instruction, 53(4), 287–325. Learned, J. E. (2018). Doing history: A study of disciplinary literacy and readers labeled as struggling. Journal of Literacy Research, 50(2), 190–216. Learned, J. E., Morgan, M. J., & Lui, A. M. (2019). “Everyone’s voices are to be heard”: A comparison of strug­ gling and proficient readers’ perspectives in one urban high school. Education and Urban Society, 51(2), 195–221. Lee, C. D. (2007). Culture, literacy and learning: Taking bloom in the midst of the whirlwind. Teachers College Press. Lee, C. D. (2014). The multi-dimensional demands of reading in the disciplines.  Journal of Adolescent  & Adult Literacy, 58(1), 9–15. Lee, C. D. (2017). Expanding visions of how people learn: The centrality of identity repertoires. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 26(3), 517–524. Lee, C. D., & Goldman, S. R. (2015). Assessing literary reasoning: Text and task complexities. Theory into Practice, 54(3), 213–227. Leent, L., & Mills, K. (2018). A queer critical media literacies framework in a digital age. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(4), 401–411. Lindsay, J. J. (2018). Interventions that increase children’s access to print material and improve their reading pro­ ficiencies. In  R. L. Allington  &  A. M. McGill-Franzen  (Eds.),  Summer reading: Closing the rich/poor reading achievement gap (2nd ed., pp. 41–58). Teachers College Press. Locke, T., & Tailby, S. (2016). Developing algebraic understanding through talk and writing: A pilot study. Waikato Journal of Education, 21(1), 149–165. Lonigan, C. J., & Shanahan, T. (2009). Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Executive Summary. A Scientific Synthesis of Early Literacy Development and Implications for Intervention. National Institute for Literacy. Lovett, M., Lacerenza, W. L., & Borden, S. L. (2000). Putting struggling readers on the PHAST track: A program to integrate phonological and strategy-based remedial reading instruction and maximize outcomes. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33(5), 458–476. Martinez, M., Roser, N., & Strecker, S. (1999). “I never thought I could be a star”: A readers theatre ticket to reading fluency. The Reading Teacher, 52, 326–334. Mesmer, H. A., Cunningham, J. W., & Hiebert, E. H. (2012). Toward a theoretical model of text complexity for the early grades: Learning from the past, anticipating the future. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(3), 235–258. Mesmer, H. A., & Kambach, A. (2022). Beyond labels and agendas: Research teachers need to know about phon­ ics and phonological awareness. The Reading Teacher, 76(1), 62–72. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2102 Mesmer, H. A., & Williams, T. O. (2015). Examining the role of syllable awareness in a model of concept of word: Findings from preschoolers. Reading Research Quarterly, 50(4), 483–497. Moje, E. B. (2008). Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96–107. Monte-Sano, C., De La Paz, S., & Felton, M. (2014). Implementing a disciplinary-literacy curriculum for U.S. history: Learning from expert middle school teachers in diverse classrooms. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(4), 540–575. Murray, B. A., Brabham, E. G., Villaume, S. K., & Veal, M. (2008). The Cluella study: Optimal segmentation and voicing for oral blending. Journal of Literacy Research, 40(4), 395–421. Nagy, W., & Anderson, R. (1984). The number of words in printed school English. Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304–330.

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Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards in the English language arts. Author. National Reading Panel (U.S.), National Institute of Child Health, & Human Development (U.S.). (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. Neugebauer, S. R., & Blair, E. E. (2020). “I know how to read and all, but . . .”: Disciplinary reading constructions of middle school students of color. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(3), 316–340. Neuman, S. B. (2019). Comprehension in disguise: The role of knowledge in children’s learning. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 45(3), 12–16. Nevo, E., & Vaknin-Nusbaum, V. (2018). Enhancing language and print-concept skills by using interactive storybook reading in kindergarten. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(4), 545–569. Office of Head Start. (2022, December 13). Interactive Head Start early learning outcomes framework: Ages birth to five. Head Start. https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/interactive-head-start-early-learning-outcomes-frameworkages-birth-five Park, J. Y. (2016). “He didn’t add more evidence”: Using historical graphic novels to develop language learners’ disciplinary literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(1), 35–43. Piasta, S. B., Purpura, D. J., & Wagner, R. K. (2010). Fostering alphabet knowledge development: A comparison of two instructional approaches. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23(6), 607–626. http://dx.doi. org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1007/s11145-009-9174-x Piasta, S. B., & Wagner, R. K. (2010). 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R., Chard, D., & Linan-Thompson, S. (2011). Reading fluency. In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, E. B. Moje, & P. P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, volume IV (pp. 286–319). Routledge. Rehfeld, D. M., Kirkpatrick, M., O’Guinn, N., & Renbarger, R. (2022). A meta-analysis of phonemic awareness instruction provided to children suspected of having a reading disability. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(4), 1177–1201. Reynolds, T., Rush, L. S., Lampi, J. P., & Holschuh, J. P. (2020). English disciplinary literacy: Enhancing students’ literary interpretive moves. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(2), 201–209. Rice, M. F., & Stevens, M. (2021). Adolescents’ use of online texts about U.S. immigration: Recognizing deeply personal meaning-making. Literacy, 55(2), 91–101. Roberts, T. A. (2021). Learning letters: Evidence and questions from a science-of-reading perspective. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S171–S192. Rupley, W. H., Nichols, W. 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Reading Instruction Across Preschool Through Grade 12 Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area lit­ eracy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. Share, D. L. (2004). Knowing letter names and learning letter sounds: A causal connection. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 88(3), 213–233. Share, D. L. (2021). Common misconceptions about the phonological deficit theory of dyslexia.  Brain Sci­ ences, 11(11), 1510. Shmidman, A., & Ehri, L. (2010). Embedded picture mnemonics to learn letters. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14(2), 159–182. Skerrett, A. (2012). “We hatched in this class”: Repositioning of identity in and beyond a reading classroom. The High School Journal, 95(3), 62–75. Skerrett, A. (2020). Social and cultural differences in reading development: Instructional approaches, learning gains, and challenges. In E. B. Moje, P. Afflerbach, P. Enciso, & N. Lesaux (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 5 (pp. 328–344). Routledge. Skerrett, A., & Smagorinsky, P. (2022). Teaching literacy in troubled times: Identity, inquiry, and social action at the heart of instruction. Corwin Press. Skerrett, A., & Vlach, S. (2022). Advancing a sociocultural approach toward decolonizing literacy education: Les­ sons from a youth in a “postcolonial” Caribbean geography. Research in the Teaching of English, 57(1), 67–88. Skerrett A., & Warrington, A. (2018). Language arts instruction in middle and high school classrooms. In D. Lapp & D. Fisher (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (4th ed., pp. 410–435). Routledge. Snow, C. (1991). The theoretical basis of the home-school study of language and literacy development. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6, 5–10. Spence, L. K., & Walker, R. M. (2021). Grappling with ideas: Adolescent writers in a rural African American community. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(5), 543–552. Stahl, S., & Vancil, S. (1986). Discussion is what makes se-mantic maps work in vocabulary instruction. The Read­ ing Teacher, 40, 62–69. Steacy, L. M., Kearns, D. M., Gilbert, J. K., Compton, D. L., Cho, E., Lindstrom, E. R., & Collins, A. A. (2017). Exploring individual differences in irregular word recognition among children with early-emerging and lateemerging word reading difficulty. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(1), 51. Stevens, E., Walker, M., & Vaughn, S. (2017). The effects of fluency interventions on the reading fluency and reading comprehension performance of elementary students with learning disabilities: A  synthesis of the research from 2001–2014. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 50, 576–590. Suggate, S. P. (2016). A meta-analysis of the long-term effects of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and read­ ing comprehension interventions. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(1), 77–96. Sunde, K., Furnes, B., & Lundetræ, K. (2020). Does introducing the letters faster boost the development of chil­ dren’s letter knowledge, word reading and spelling in the first year of school? Scientific Studies of Reading, 24(2), 141–158. Tatum, A. W. (2014). Orienting African American male adolescents toward meaningful literacy exchanges with texts. Journal of Education, 194(1), 35–47. Terman, L. M. (1916). The measurement of intelligence. Houghton Mifflin. Thomas, E. E. (2015). “We always talk about race”: Navigating race talk dilemmas in the teaching of literature. Research in the Teaching of English, 50(2), 154–175. Thorndike, E. L. (1917). Reading as reasoning: A study of mistakes in paragraph reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 8(6), 323–332.  https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075325 Thorndike, E. L. (1921). The teacher’s word book. Teachers College. Topping, K. (1987). Paired reading: A powerful technique for parent use. The Reading Teacher, 40, 604–614. Treiman, R., Pennington, B. F., Shriberg, L. D., & Boada, R. (2008). Which children benefit from letter names in learning letter sounds? Cognition, 106(3), 1322–1338. Tynes, B. M., Stewart, A., Hamilton, M., & Willis, H. A. (2021). From Google searches to Russian disinforma­ tion: Adolescent critical race digital literacy needs and skills. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 23(1), 110–130. Ukrainetz, T. A., Nuspl, J. J., Wilkerson, K., & Beddes, S. R. (2011). The effects of syllable instruction on pho­ nemic awareness in preschoolers. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26(1), 50–60. Vadasy, P. F., & Sanders, E. A. (2020). Introducing grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs): Exploring rate and complexity in phonics instruction for kindergarteners with limited literacy skills. Reading and Writing, 34, 109–138.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10064-y Wang, H. C., Nickels, L., Nation, K., & Castles, A. (2013). Predictors of orthographic learning of regular and irregular words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17(5), 369–384.

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Allison Skerrett, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Timothy Rasinski Wexler, N. (2020). The Knowledge Gap: The hidden cause of America’s broken education system–and how to fix it. Penguin. Yoon, B. (2020). The global pandemic as learning opportunities about the world: Extending school curriculum. Middle Grades Review, 6(2), Article 7. Young, C., Durham, P., Miller, M., Rasinski, T., & Lane, F. (2019). Improving reading comprehension with read­ ers theater. Journal of Educational Research, 112(5), 615–626. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2019.1649240 Young,  C.,  Mohr,  K. A. J., &  Rasinski,  T.  (2015).  Reading together: A  successful reading fluency interven­ tion. Literacy Research and Instruction, 54(1), 67–81. Young, C., & Rasinski, T. (2009). Implementing readers theatre as an approach to classroom fluency instruction. The Reading Teacher, 63(1), 4–13. Young, C., & Rasinski, T. (2018). Readers theatre: Effects on word recognition automaticity and reading prosody. Journal of Research in Reading, 41, 475–485. Young, C., Rasinski, C., & Mohr, K. A. J. (2016). Read two impress: An intervention for disfluent readers. Read­ ing Teacher, 69, 633–636.

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4

WRITING INSTRUCTION

Evidence-Based Practices and Critical Perspectives

Zoi A. Traga Philippakos

Writing is a demanding and complex process for most learners across grades and stages of literacy development (Harris & Graham, 2016; MacArthur, 2011). At the same time, it is a necessary tool and skill both for academic and professional advancement (e.g., Business Roundtable, 2009; Johnson & Garvin, 2017; Mikulecky, 1998). When engaging in writing, learners negotiate the rules of orthogra­ phy, syntax, and mechanics while they also focus on organization, purposes for writing, and targeted goals to compose a coherent message for readers (MacArthur & Graham, 2016; Traga Philippakos, 2021). All these demands make the process of writing a process of juggling constraints that writers need to complete to effectively communicate with readers. Across time, concerns have been raised about learners’ writing performance (e.g., National Center of Educational Statistics, 2012) and on the preparation of youth to be effective writers. For instance, the National Commission on Writing Report (2003) expressed concerns about the performance of student-writers and their level of literacy, stating that writing was the neglected R; a “neglect” that was connected with time devoted to writ­ ing, assessment measures, use of technology, and instructional procedures that could effectively support learners’ writing growth. While educational policies have targeted literacy improvements, they have tended to emphasize reading (e.g., No Child Left Behind; Race to the Top), and consequently, instructional attention shifted to reading, especially because reading was assessed and accountability was connected with its application. In 2010, attention to writing increased with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI, 2010), which addressed writing standards and expectations for learners across grades K to 12 and pointed out the need for writing across the curriculum, calling for integration of writing and reading.

Writing: A Cognitive and Social Activity Writing is both a cognitive (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Frear & Bitchener, 2015; Hayes & Flower, 1980; MacArthur & Graham, 2016; Olive, 2011) and a social task (Freedman et al., 2016; Hull & Schultz, 2001; Shaughnessy, 1977; Schultz  & Fecho, 2000). It is cognitive as it involves cognitive processes, and it is social because it draws from and is influenced by social contexts while it supports communication with readers. In an effort to understand how the brain works and to gain access to the thinking pathways writ­ ers undertake, Hayes and Flower (1980) utilized verbal, or thinking-aloud, methods. The study of the 71

DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-5

Zoi A. Traga Philippakos

process or processes employed while writing was not possible because they were not observable, and behavioral science did not have an interest in cognitive processes that occurred in a learner’s brain while writing. Hayes and Flower (1980) first asked expert writers to verbalize their thoughts while writing to understand the problem-solving aspect of writing. They then analyzed these thoughts, the writer’s notes, drafts, and their final text to create a single model composed of ordered sub-processes representing the thinking process and decision making of the writers during a writing task. Such knowledge of the processes that these expert writers followed while writing gave a window into the processes that novice writers could learn to follow. Hayes and Flower (1980) represented those think­ ing activities with flow charts containing boxes that indicated processes and sub-processes, and arrows that showed the flow of information between them. According to Hayes and Flower’s 1980 model, writing consists of three major elements: (a) the writer’s long-term memory, (b) the task environment, and (c) the writing process. The writer’s long­ term memory refers to the writer’s stored knowledge about the topic or relevant information, expec­ tations of the audience(s), and genre-specific expectations. The writer’s task environment involves everything outside the writer and may relate to the topic or specific assignment, the audience or audi­ ences (Schriver, 1992), as well as the delivery of the assignment, which may affect the writer’s motiva­ tion. The main components of the writing process are planning, translating, and reviewing. Planning is the process in which writers “form an internal representation of the knowledge that will be used in writing” (Flower & Hayes, 1981, p. 372), and consists of generating, organizing, and goalsetting. Generating is the process of retrieving relevant topic information from long-term memory or generating new ideas relating to the topic, which may be recorded as brief notes. In the process of generating ideas, the writer may use information they know about the topic and the audience and begin developing ideas through association. In the process of developing ideas, the writer may retrieve irrelevant information; in that case, the associative chain may be broken and a new search begins (Hayes & Flower, 1980). The generated ideas are later organized into a plan of what to write. During the organize component, the most useful and relevant information from generating ideas is selected and organized using a structured plan. This structure may take the form of hierarchical representation, such as an outline or a graphic display. Goal setting refers to specific criteria that relate to the topic or audience or purpose and are set by the writer. For example, if the writer has as a goal to address the needs of specific stakeholders, the writing will reflect the stakeholder’s needs through the writer’s tone, the vocabulary, and descriptions. Goal setting, generating ideas, and organizing can be recursive processes, and the writer may work across all three as they plan. In translating, the second component of the writing process, the writer translates ideas into sen­ tences by retrieving structures related to the orthography of language and using the notes generated during the organize stage. At this stage, the writer relies on knowledge of writing conventions such as spelling, capitalization, sentence structure, and syntax to transform phrases from the organize stage into sentences. In the third component, the reviewing process, the writer evaluates their written work. Reviewing consists of reviewing and editing, which Hayes and Flower (1980) described as “two distinct modes of behavior” (p. 18). According to their model, editing is activated automatically and takes place at any time during the writing process, interrupting other sub-processes. However, reviewing is not an automatically occurring process that interrupts the others. During the process of planning, translating, and reviewing, the writer employs what Hayes and Flower call a cognitive monitor, which is “a writing strategy that coordinates the transition from one process to the next” (Flower & Hayes, 1981, p. 374). The monitor allows the interruption of the three processes, which is determined by individual differences. For example, one writer may show persis­ tence on a specific goal, such as generating ideas (planning), before proceeding to translation, genera­ tion of text, and reviewing. Another writer may spend less time with idea generation and proceed with 72

Writing Instruction

translation. The goals writers set, as well as their writing styles and habits, influence the time spent during each process and the decision to transition from one process to the next. Thus, a writer may go through the stages of planning, translating, and reviewing in a sentence-by-sentence format, producing one sentence that is excellent before moving to the next. A different writer may plan all ideas before transitioning to translation and reviewing. Hayes and Flower’s 1980 model did not acknowledge the importance of motivation as a factor affecting the performance of the writer and the writing process. Further, it did not give adequate attention to working memory (McCutchen, 2006). In 1996, Hayes, in a revision of the 1980 model, emphasized the importance of working memory in storing information and controlling and complet­ ing cognitive processes. In the 1996 revision, Hayes also addressed motivation. Specifically, he stressed the complexity of writing and how it could inhibit learners’ ability to view themselves as competent writers, affect their self-efficacy beliefs, and influence their motivation to engage across all processes of planning, translating, and reviewing. Reading is also central in Hayes’ 1996 model as it relates to revision. Earlier, Hayes et al. (1987) identified reading as a central act of evaluation and defined the act as reading to comprehend, reading to evaluate, and reading to define problems. These three modes of reading have a different influence on the reader, writer, and reviser. When reading to comprehend, the reader reads with the purpose of building a representation of the meaning of the text, and problems may be present and detected but ignored if they do not affect the meaning. There is a clear distinction then between reading to com­ prehend and reading to evaluate. When writers read to evaluate a text, they still try to comprehend the meaning, but they also have the goal of detecting text problems and finding solutions, through which they can discover new ways to improve the text’s meaning, something that would not take place if reading only with the goal to comprehend. Finally, when reading to define problems, the reader is looking for solutions identified in the evaluation stage. Revision in this model can not only lead the reader to the detection of problems but also to the discovery of new opportunities for improving the comprehension of the text (Hayes, 2004). For exam­ ple, in searching for appropriate tone, the reader/evaluator may discover a new voice for the intended audience (Hayes et al., 1987). In addition to reading to revise, Flower’s and Hayes’ 1996 model also focused on writers’ reading of source text and reading to define tasks. Hayes (1996) explained how, when reading source texts, writers develop three different types of text representations: (a) a representation of the topic, (b) a representa­ tion of the writer’s persona, and (c) a representation of the text as a spatial display. A representation of the topic refers to content related to the topic. Representation of the writer’s persona refers to the personality traits of the author as attributed by the reader, which may influence how they respond to the text. For example, a reader’s acceptance of an author’s argument may be influenced by how the writer comes across to the reader, and not on the quality of the argument. Representation of text as a spatial display refers to spatial features that are present in text and can affect a writer’s memory and ability to recall information or paraphrase information that is later used in their writing. Such spatial features may include the inclusion of paragraphs (vs. uniformed text), the use of graphs, the proportion of text to images, etc. Reading to define and understand the writing task is also included in the model; misinterpreting the writing task can lead the writer to write in response to a different genre than the one described in the writing task. For example, when asked to analyze an argument presented in an article, writers may misinterpret the task of analysis and write a summary only, or may confuse writing purposes and genres, resulting in a mismatch between what the writing task asks and what they produce. Reading has a central role in this revised model and in the writing process. While Hayes and Flower studied the writing processes of proficient writers, including motivation, working memory, reading, and revision, Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) developed a cognitive model 73

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to explain the development of writing. According to their model, beginning writers seem to engage in a knowledge telling process, while expert writers engage in the knowledge transforming model. According to Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987), in knowledge telling, the writer uses the topic and genre as cues for memory search and retrieval to construct a representation of the assignment. The writer is occupied in writing what comes to mind, without considering aspects that are connected to task demands such as goals, audience, and processes. However, in the knowledge transforming model, the writer is a selfregulated, motivated, and engaged problem solver who actively engages with the text and its produc­ tion, from the conception of the ideas to the formation of sentences and paragraphs. In this model, the writer continually revisits their text for additions or changes, and in the process of evaluating how well their text communicates with an audience, the writer may come up with new ideas and increase their own understanding and knowledge. The ability to revisit the text requires the self-regulatory practice of the writer acting as a reader to identify the areas that are unclear to readers, and to delete, add, or change information. Both Hayes and Flower’s and Bereiter and Scardamalia’s models of writing show the pertinence of self-regulation in the process of composing. Students’ enactment of self-regulation is not seen as just what the individual brings to the context of learning (Butler, 2002; Zimmerman & Risemberg, 1997; Zimmerman & Schunk, 1989; Zimmer­ man et al., 2017); efforts to self-regulate are also influenced by environmental and behavioral events that interact in a reciprocal mode (Zimmerman & Schunk, 1989; Zimmerman, 2000). Environmental events or factors may involve teacher feedback or explanation of strategies or inclusion of tools and strategies for learners to manage a task and their own behavior while working to complete that task (Zimmerman  & Kitsantas, 2002). Other theorists describe these events as social aspects of writing (Bazerman, 2016, 2015; Bazerman et al., 2017; Nystrand & Himley, 1984; Prior, 2006). The argu­ ment for the social view of writing is that writing is not a task that develops only within the mind of the writer, but that also has the purpose of striving for purposeful and meaningful communication with others, and it may be shaped by social interactions that take place within a discourse community (Cole & Engestrom, 1993). According to Bazerman, writers never compose alone, even when they work in private (Bazerman, 2010); rather, they compose for readers, and they read the words and work of authors. According to Zimmerman and Risemberg (1997), “Writing is a social cognitive process wherein writers must be aware of readers’ expectations and must be willing to devote the personal time and effort necessary to revise text drafts until they communicate effectively” (p. 76). Readers read to understand the ideas presented by authors, and writers write using the information of other authors, borrowing linguistic structures and ideas from other texts and writings. Further, writers use culturally developed tools such as spoken language, written language, paper, pencil, and computers, as well as established practices such as genres, to communicate with readers (Martin & Rose, 2012). Writing, then, is a complex network of interaction, invention, and knowledge transformation (Rish, 2015) that is socially mediated within cultural contexts (also see Rish et al., 2015). Social contexts also shape how the authors produce their work and the content of the writing. As Linda Flower suggested in her book, The construction of negotiated meaning: A social cognitive theory of writing (Flower, 1994), writing is not just the product of mental processes but rather a process of nego­ tiation of meaning through social participation (see also Englert, 1992) and within a community that shapes it and is shaped by it (Graham, 2018a). Graham’s Writer(s)-Within Community model (2018a) focuses on the social and cognitive aspects of writing. The author acknowledges the complexity of writing, which is shaped by the characteristics, capacity, and variability of the individuals who produce it and of the communities where it takes place. Thus, writing is not one-dimensional but essentially a dynamic process that is bound and transformed by individuals and social contexts of discourse. Accord­ ing to Graham, writing takes place within communities, and it is simultaneously negotiated and trans­ formed by the context, by the nature of participation, by the individuals and their capacity to write. 74

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The relationship between cognition and social context is restricted and expanded as the capacity and variability of the writers and of the writing tasks the community engages in and completes. Through these models, the following conclusions can be reached: First, writing is in critical ways a cognitive and social process. Writing shapes its environment, and writing is shaped and transformed by the environment. Second, writing requires the critical ability for the writer to determine the audi­ ence’s needs and expectations, the writing purpose, the ability to reread and review their work, and to share it as intended with their audience. Teaching students how to navigate these sociocognitive writing skills requires strong teacher pedagogical content knowledge and efficacy, and the ability to teach writing as a standalone activity and as a comprehensive, authentic, and reflective task that is found across disciplines.

Learners’ Challenges with Writing The Common Core State Standards have specific writing expectations for K to 12 learners (CCSSI, 2010; Shanahan, 2015). Based on those expectations, students are expected to learn how to write to persuade, inform, or entertain; conduct research to collect relevant information on a topic; evaluate the credibility, accuracy, and relevance of the information collected; and to include the information in their writing without plagiarizing. Finally, student writing should include both short and longer responses, such as a paragraph responding to a question about text or a longer research paper requiring time devoted to research, reflection, and revision. While these writing expectations seem to be clear-cut, the process of learning about writing and how to write poses many cognitive and metacognitive challenges for school-age learners (MacArthur & Graham, 2016). At the beginning stages of learning how to write, youngsters experience challenges with encoding as they learn about the language system, develop word awareness, learn about sounds, connect sounds with letters (Bahr et al., 2012) and develop fine motor skills to record letters and express their ideas (Berninger  & Winn, 2006). Gradually, they transition from drawing and using letters to represent pictures to using words and sentences to compose messages for different purposes. As learners progress through schooling, they face the challenge of planning, drafting, and revising papers produced for different purposes and audiences (Graham et al., 2012). Finally, writing about what learners read requires the ability to take notes, develop plans, and synthesize ideas, which presents new challenges as writers need to comprehend and critically evaluate what they read and connect ideas within readings to create new knowledge (MacArthur, 2022; Harris & Mason, 2022; Nelson, 2008; Spivey, 1992). Taken together, these writing tasks place demands on the cognitive abilities and working memory of student writers (Berninger et al., 1996; Berninger & Swanson, 1994; McCutchen, 2000; Hayes, 1996). Flower and Hayes (1980) described three types of constraints: knowledge, written speech, and the rhetorical problem. Different types of writing require different types of knowledge; for example, when a writer works on an argumentative paper, knowing how to develop convincing reasons, how to acknowledge the opposing position, and how to provide a rebuttal are vital for the clarity and quality of the composition. Knowledge of planning and revision strategies across different kinds of writing is also essential. While knowledge about content is crucial for the generation of ideas and for the clarity of the composition. Further, the demands of the written speech and writing code pose an obstacle to writers who may find challenging the application of rules of usage, resulting in writers repeating words, or not composing their sentences with clarity. The lack of clear handwriting and accurate spelling can also affect the quality of composition (Berninger et al., 1997, 2015; Herbert et al., 2018). Finally, the rhetorical problem requires the writer to consider the writing purpose, the audience and its demands, and the writer’s “projected selves or imagined roles” (Flower & Hayes, 1980, p. 40). The latter refers to the writer’s ability to view the produced text objectively and to be able to consider whether it satisfies the purpose and the audience requirements. Furthermore, when writers are asked 75

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to respond to writing prompts with no environmental input, they need to draw from the current knowledge base to produce relevant information. If learners lack background knowledge or have limited knowledge on a topic, they may provide inaccurate information or produce brief responses that do not satisfy readers’ needs for understanding. Novice or inexperienced writers may retrieve information not relevant to the writing purpose and discourse and perform what Bereiter and Scarda­ malia called knowledge-telling (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987), sharing with the reader everything they know about the topic without addressing the needs of the genre. Also, to complete the writing task, writers need to consume energy and keep their effort intact. Feelings of disengagement will result in dropping the writing task or performing to the minimum of their ability. Moreover, the solitary nature of writing without immediate feedback (received only after the completion of the task after some period of time) also makes the writing task demanding and challenging for young writers. Overall, the complexity of the activity can inhibit the way learners view themselves as competent writers, affect their self-efficacy beliefs, and influence their motivation to write (Hayes, 1996; Hidi & Boscolo, 2006; MacArthur et al., 2016). With this information in mind, we could consider that challenges learners face have a cognitive origin and require the learner to coordinate a number of operations for achieving specific writing goals (Berninger & Winn, 2006). Writing as a task requires audience awareness, consideration of genre and writing purposes (Englert et al., 1991), application of strategies, motivation, and self-regulation (Graham et al., 2015). These demands may be difficult for novice or inexperienced writers to coordi­ nate (MacArthur & Graham, 2016). An additional challenge may be classroom teachers who may lack preparation and resources to provide writing instruction (Cutler & Graham, 2008; Traga Philippakos et al., 2022; Traga Philippakos, Voggt, et al., 2022; Troia & Graham, 2016). As a consequence, the quality and content of the provided instruction may vary across classrooms, with attention given only to the development of foundational skills or to grammar and mechanics instead of on text composition with meaningful purposes. In other instances, teachers may follow the writing process, but may pay little attention to teaching writing strategies, as there is an underlying assumption that students will eventually develop as writers over time (Hsiang & Graham, 2016) as they engage with reading. Factors other than the writer will be examined toward the end of the chapter.

Instructional Approaches and Evidence-Based Practices Substantial research has examined the effects of specific instructional approaches on learners’ writ­ ing performance, confidence, and overall literacy outcomes. The What Works Clearinghouse of the Institute of Education Sciences (www.ies.gov) publishes practice guides with researchers identifying effective practices that could result in student achievement. The elementary practice guide (Graham et al., 2012), titled Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, and the secondary practice guide (Graham et  al., 2016), titled Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively, identify Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) that have positive effects on learners’ writing performance and teachers’ writing instruction. The guides rate the research evidence for practices as strong, moderate, or minimal. For instance, in the elementary practice guide, a rating of “strong” indicates consistent and generalizable evidence that a specific recommended practice results in positive student outcomes. A rating of “mod­ erate” indicates studies that may be generalizable but may not have clear causal pathways, may not have been replicated to have strong generalizable implications, or may not be related to a specific outcome even though that outcome may be related. Finally, a rating of “minimal” evidence does not suggest that the practice is not significant or important; rather, it may suggest that there was not a sufficient body of research to support the recommendation or that the practices may not be as feasible to study experimentally. I should also note that extensive research on writing instruction, meta-analytic reviews

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on practices that effectively support writers, and summaries of relevant studies have been conducted across decades by several researchers. In the following section, I draw from the recommendations of the elementary and secondary practice guides, meta-analytic reviews conducted since the publication of the practice guides across those grade levels, and from research studies to identify practices that can sup­ port elementary and secondary learners’ writing performance and overall ability to respond to readers.

Recommendations for Elementary Learners The elementary practice guide includes five recommendations related to writing for elementary learn­ ers. This section describes each recommendation in detail.

Recommendation 1: Including Daily Time for Students to Write This recommendation was rated as having minimal evidence. To support learners as writers, the guide recommended an hour of writing instruction daily, with teachers teaching for 30 minutes and students writing for 30 minutes (see also Philippakos & Graham, 2022). This writing practice is meant to sup­ port students’ application of taught skills and strategies and should not be limited to the writing-ELA block time but should take place across the content areas. Thus, learners may be asked to write about information they read and write before, during, and after their reading tasks; further, writing may occur in social studies and science, where students have the opportunity to address a specific type of writing and genre, such as procedural writing. Thus, the goal is for writing not to be only within a “blocked” writing time but applied across learning experiences in an instructional day.

Recommendation 2: Teaching Writing Process and Writing Purpose This recommendation, rated as having strong evidence, consists of two sub-recommendations: (a) teach students the writing process and (b) teach students to write for a variety of purposes. According to the practice guide, teaching students the writing process is to be carried out using the following suggestions: (a) teach students strategies for the various components of the writing process; (b) gradu­ ally release writing responsibility from the teacher to the student; (c) guide students to select and use appropriate writing strategies; and (d) encourage students to be flexible in their use of the components of the writing process. Recommendations for teaching students to write for a variety of purposes include (a) helping students understand the different purposes of writing; (b) expanding students’ concept of audience; (c) teaching students to emulate the features of good writing; and (d) teaching students techniques to write effectively for different purposes. This recommendation brings to light the recursive and dynamic nature of writing (Silva, 2022). Indeed, writing is a process, and as discussed earlier, it is a cognitive and a social one. When compos­ ing, learners apply strategies and skills to plan, and translate their plan to sentences to present a clear message to intended readers. They then reread their message to critically review it to make revisions and edit their work for mechanics and conventions of standard English. However, the process is not linear; rather, it is recursive, and learners should be supported in its flexible application. Thus, the goal would not be for learners to complete the process as a daily step that concludes at the end of a week; instead, the goal would be to help them cognitively navigate through the steps, allocating time, atten­ tion, and effort based on the assignment’s goals, the readers’ expectations, and the genre’s criteria. For learners to engage in such planning and writing, it is critical that they have a wealth of strategies and knowledge that allows them to respond to different types of writing and compose in different genres (e.g., informative, persuasive).

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A strategy is a conscious process a learner may use to complete a task. Strategies for writing would be tools and steps the writer may complete across the process of planning, drafting, and revising. For instance, when working on editing, writers may use COPS, which is a mnemonic that reminds learn­ ers to review their work and ask questions regarding capitalization, the overall appearance of the paper, the use of punctuation, and the use of spelling (see Graham et al., 2012). The questions the writer would ask according to this strategy are: • • • •

Did I Capitalize the first word in sentences and proper names? How is the Overall appearance of my paper? Did I use commas and end of sentence Punctuation? Did I Spell each word correctly?

Similarly, when working on planning, writers may use POW, which is a mnemonic that guides learn­ ers’ attention and effort to Pick their ideas, Organize their notes, and Write and say more (Harris et al., 2002). The Self-Regulated Strategy Development model of instruction (SRSD) is one of the most evalu­ ated models of strategy instruction and has consistently been found to improve learners’ writing perfor­ mance. Several of the strategies identified in this recommendation were drawn from extensive research on SRSD (Graham, Harris et al., 2016; Graham et al., 2012; Harris et al., 2003). SRSD has received extensive validation in studies with students in regular education (Harris et al., 2006, 2015) and stu­ dents who have learning disabilities (Graham & Harris, 2003). Understanding the expectations of the reader is also essential. Because writing is a social con­ struct (Bazerman, 2008, 2010, 2016), the ability to compose a message that clearly communicates the intended meaning of the writer to a reader is imperative. When working on a writing assignment, it is important for students not only to consider the audience of the class (fellow students and the teacher), but the intended audience that is mentioned in the assignment, such as the local paper’s opinion editor or Congressional representative. Understanding the intended audience can have implications on the syntactic composition of a written message as well as on vocabulary use and even on the organization of a paper. However, learners will not develop such knowledge without systematic instruction and explanations on what different audiences are and what their expectations are (for content, linguistics, and syntax). Further, learners should be given opportunities to share their work outside of the walls of a class, which could be connected with feedback received by extended audiences. The latter also relates to the ability of learners to write for authentic and meaningful purposes that connect with responsive audiences. For instance, when students write papers attempting to convince their principal on an issue or when they are making a request (e.g., for a specific field trip or a dress-down day), a response by the principal on the specific topic commenting on the papers’ persuasiveness and use of convincing reasons would add to students’ understanding on the meaning of “writing to persuade” and on the need to include convincing reasons for the audience. For learners to become independent and effective writers, the application of writing strategies should be scaffolded, with a gradual exposure to strategies and processes supporting their confidence and knowledge. One such step in the scaffolding process is observing teachers who model writing practices. Such modeling is conducted live and includes thinking out loud to plan, draft, evaluate to revise, and edit (Graham, 2006; Philippakos et al., 2015). Teachers use the coping model to not only model the use of the strategies but also how to problem solve, so when learners apply the strategies, they are also equipped with metacognitive thinking to overcome confusion, progress monitor their use of strategies, and continue even when the task becomes too difficult (Traga Philippakos, 2021). 78

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Recommendation 3: Teach Basic Writing Skills

This recommendation, which has moderate evidence, refers to teaching students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing. As skills become automatic, students can focus more on developing and communicating their ideas. Writers need to understand that readers have trouble understanding if there are many errors. The recommendation is carried out by: • • • •

teaching very young writers how to hold a pencil correctly and form letters fluently and efficiently, teaching students to spell words correctly, teaching students to construct sentences for fluency, meaning, and style, teaching students to type fluently and how to use a word processor to compose.

Handwriting fluency is essential in supporting writing quality and developing effective pencil grip. Handwriting instruction can support writing habits and minimize learners’ frustration with letter formation. It is possible that as learners develop and experiment with holding a pencil, they will alter their grip, but it is important that they are guided on how to hold their pencil so it rests on the middle finger while held by the thumb and their forefinger, and on how to produce letters in connected strokes. Such sessions on handwriting, though, should be short and provide practice in isolation (to also support memory of letter production) and opportunities for students to prac­ tice in the context of writing a message for a real purpose. Typing fluency can also affect students’ productivity; thus, from as early as first grade, students should be introduced to typing, and such practice should continue in a consistent manner in second and third grade so that students have similar fluency with writing using a pencil. Instruction on typing also engages learners in the use of computers and other such devices, which students should be able to use with relevant ease by the end of second grade. Sufficient and efficient communication in writing requires that spelling of words is appropriate to the orthographic principles of a language and that the sentences are constructed in a manner that clearly communicates a message to readers. Thus, even though learners at the beginning stages may use invented spelling and primarily rely on letter-name representation of sounds (R for word ARE or U for YOU), explicit and systematic instruction on phonemic awareness and phonics supports the connection between phonemes and graphemes, and continuous instruction promotes understanding of patterns, syllables, prefixes, and suffixes. This instruction should be systematic and involve students learning strategies for spelling such as analogy, where students use a pattern and a word they know to generate a word they wish to spell (I know dress, and I can spell press). Learning what a sentence is and how sentences are formed should be explicitly taught, and young learners from as early as Kindergarten should engage in understanding how to write a sentence with correct punctuation and capitalization. Engaging students in rereading their written work and reading it out loud can help with editing and spelling corrections as well as sentence revisions. As learners progress across grades, they engage in identifying and revising run-ons as they work on sentence expansion, sentence combining, and how to include sentence frames in their writing (e.g., Norwell et al., 2018). The latter can be connected with different genres and text structures (e.g., Saddler, 2005; Traga Philippakos, 2020).

Recommendation 4. Creating an Engaged Community of Writers This recommendation has minimal evidence. For this recommendation to be carried out: (a) teach­ ers should participate as members of the community by writing and sharing their writing; (b) give students writing choices; (c) encourage students to collaborate as writers; (d) provide students with 79

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opportunities to give and receive feedback throughout the writing process; (e) publish students’ writing and extend the community beyond the classroom. Indeed, writing serves the purpose to communicate with readers and for such communication to occur, the classroom should function as a space that models a community of learning and writing (Baz­ erman & Prior, 2004). Thus, the teacher’s role is to not only be the grader, but also an active author who participates in the writing tasks and models how the writing tasks and processes are engaging and valued. Another way of motivating learners is to give them choices on topics and even encourage them to revise topics so they can write for different purposes and for different disciplines. Further, learn­ ers should have the opportunity to collaborate with others at all stages of the writing process (Cho & Cho, 2011) and not only receive feedback but also engage in giving feedback, as this has the potential to extend their ability to critically reread their own writing and support their ability to self-evaluate and revise their work (Cho & MacArthur, 2011; Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016). Finally, students should have the opportunity to see their work reach readers and view themselves as writers who write for readers (Couzijn & Rijlaarsdam, 2004). Thus, students may display their work in hallways or other spaces so students across the school community can read their work and share their comments. Con­ sidering digital affordances for sharing and displaying writers’ work, more opportunities can be made to safely publish learners’ work (i.e., school newspaper, a local newspaper, blogs, wikis, voicethread (www.voicethread.com)).

Recommendations for Secondary Learners The secondary practice guide (Graham et  al., 2016) includes three recommendations and specific practices to support secondary learners’ writing and literacy development.

Recommendation 1: Explicitly Teach Appropriate Writing Strategies Using a Model-Practice-

Reflect Instructional Cycle

Specifically, the recommendation includes two sub-recommendations: (a) explicit instruction of appro­ priate writing strategies, and (b) using a Model-Practice-Reflect instructional cycle to teach writing strategies. The expectation is that learners will learn strategies that allow them to navigate through the writing tasks and also develop strategic thinking. For this first sub-recommendation to be carried out, teachers need to explicitly teach strategies for planning and goal setting, drafting, evaluating, revising, and editing, and instruct students on how to choose and apply strategies appropriate for the audience and purpose. Considering that writing is a cognitive process, writers engage in learning writing purposes, select­ ing and applying specific strategies, and flexibly using them. Throughout their student career, students may be taught several different strategies for the different parts of the writing process and the purpose of using a genre-specific writing strategy. When working on writing assignments, learners analyze the prompts to better understand and identify the expectations of the assignment and the writing goals. Based on this understanding and their knowledge of strategies for a specific genre, they proceed with planning, drafting, and evaluating through rereading to identify areas requiring clarification, and revis­ ing for clarity. Using a Model-Practice-Reflect instructional cycle calls for teacher modeling, learn­ ers’ practice, and students’ reflection. The modeling or “I do” part of the cycle includes the teacher providing a verbal explanation of the strategies and thinking processes that the learners should follow to complete the writing task. Learners are then given the opportunity to proceed with the “We do” component of the model, where they apply the strategy with the teacher or peers. Finally, they proceed with the “You Do” step, where they reflect on their use of the strategies and evaluate their writing.

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Recommendation 2: Identify the Connection Between Reading and Writing

This recommendation calls for instruction that integrates writing and reading to emphasize key writing features. For this recommendation to be carried out, teachers are asked to teach students to understand that both writers and readers use similar strategies, knowledge, and skills to create meaning, and to use a variety of written exemplars to highlight the key features of texts. Writing and reading may be taught as separate subjects but are interconnected, as writers are authors for readers and writers read the work of authors. Understanding writing purposes, genres, text structures, and sentence structures that relate to genre in reading can support learners’ understanding; similarly, understanding specific text structures and genre strategies for planning, drafting, and evaluating supports writers’ ability to compose clearly for readers.

Recommendation 3: Use Assessments of Student Writing to Inform Instruction and Feedback This recommendation comes with minimal evidence, and for it to occur in classrooms, teachers must: (a) assess students’ strengths and areas for improvement before teaching a new strategy or skill; (b) integrate writing and reading to emphasize key writing features; and (c) regularly monitor students’ progress while teaching writing strategies and skills. The function of formative assessments and their value for instructional purposes and for students’ learning are at the core of this recommendation (see Graham et al., 2015; Traga Philippakos & Moore, 2019). Teachers need to analyze student data such as writing samples prior to instruction to determine instructional needs and monitor students’ per­ formance to make instructional revisions and modifications. This analysis of written samples can lead to instructional decisions for whole-group and small-group instruction. Short responses, exit tickets, and error analysis can lead to additional targeted instructional practices for students. Throughout the learning process providing specific feedback that retains a balance between positive comments, critical comments, and guiding suggestions can lead to student improvement. Commenting on what reads well, what is not yet clear, and what constitutes a goal for revision and learning for the student can be a way to scaffold feedback. Further, it is important to offer feedback not only on the outcome (clarity of writing), but also on the appropriate use of tools and strategies that the learner employs (Philippakos & MacArthur, 2020).

Core Recommendations Reading across the practice guides and evidence-based recommendations that stem from them as well as later studies make evident a continuity in learning expectations and applications from early grades to grade 12. This continuity makes it necessary to address concepts of writing efficacy and readingwriting connections early on in schooling for learners to be successful writers and thinkers who can write for readers and read the work of authors to improve as writers. There are common threads across the guidelines that I summarize and present as Core Recommendations.

Classroom Instruction Should Provide Systematic Instruction of the Writing Process and Strategies As shared earlier, a strategy is a set of conscious actions that are taken to complete a challenging task. Writing is a challenging task. Strategy instruction is an instructional approach that has consist­ ently yielded positive effects on students’ writing performance across grades within the K to 12 range (Graham, 2006; Graham & Harris, 2018) and beyond with postsecondary learners (e.g., MacArthur et al., 2022). In strategy instruction, learners are systematically taught how to complete strategies for

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planning, drafting, evaluating to revise, and editing across genres (e.g., Graham, 2022a; Harris et al., 2008; Traga Philippakos & MacArthur, 2020). Overall, there is a gradual release of responsibility from the knowledgeable other (the teacher) to the learner (the student), who develops an understanding about the writing strategy and gains independence through the experience of writing. Thus, strat­ egy instruction requires teacher modeling (I do), student practice (We do), potentially additional practice with scaffolded support by teacher and peers (You do), and independent practice (You do independently). In the SRSD model, students learn strategies for the writing process through teacher modeling, practice, and scaffolded support as they develop their independence, as SRSD is mastery-based and not time-based. Further, SRSD explicitly teaches learners self-regulation strategies such a goal setting, monitoring, and self-reinforcement. Most strategy instruction addresses genres. For instance, strategies in SRSD address planning for opinion writing using the POW + TREE (Topic sentence, Reasons, Ending, Examine) technique (Graham et al., 2012). In Developing Strategic Writers (Philippakos et al., 2015; Traga Philippakos, 2019; Traga Philippakos & MacArthur, 2020), learners are taught strategies for planning, drafting, and evaluating to revise for different genres and use techniques and tools that are appropriate for specific genres. For instance, when working to compose an opinion paper, learners would first plan by reading the assignment and analyzing the writing topic using the acronym FTAAP to determine the Form they are asked to develop (e.g., a paragraph, an essay), the specific Topic they are addressing, the Audience/reader, their perspective as Author, and the writing Purpose (Philip­ pakos, 2018). Then for idea generation, they brainstorm and develop ideas in favor and against the topic to determine the “side” they would support. Then they proceed with a graphic organizer, which is an outline with the elements of the genre. When they work on drafting, they use that outline and sentence frames relevant to the genre. Finally, when they evaluate to revise, they use the elements of the genre as evaluation criteria (Philippakos, 2017; Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016).

Students’ Writing and Independence Should Be Supported via a Gradual Release of

Responsibility from the Teacher to the Student

When working on the implementation of strategies for writing, learners should be explicitly and sys­ tematically supported to navigate through it and problem-solve. This navigation occurs through the transition of responsibility from the teacher to the learner (Fisher & Frey, 2003; Graham et al., 2012; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). As shared earlier, teachers should model the specific writing practices, skills, and strategies they want students to apply. This modeling should not be at a mastery level that leads to immediate student application (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007; Zimmerman & Risemberg, 1997). Rather, teacher modeling should include think-alouds with coping (e.g., Harris & Graham, 2009; Traga Philippakos, 2021), which refers to the application of problem-solving strategies so stu­ dents know how to overcome challenges utilizing specific approaches (Pajares et al., 2007; Pajares & Valiante, 2006). Further, modeling should not only be at the planning and drafting stage but should address the entire writing process. After modeling, students should have opportunities to practice before they are expected to apply this knowledge to their own writing. Teacher modeling should also be followed by collaborative practice that supports students’ application of taught skills as a group without the pressure to apply skills and strategies alone. This is also the time that teachers can scaffold the use of the taught strategies and guide students’ thinking processes and behaviors, and when students can apply the taught strategies and be given feedback by the teacher (and knowledgeable others) on their strategy use and on their written production. Guided practice can take the form of small-group application or individual application. Independent practice is the ultimate goal of instruction. Students should be given opportunities to complete several responses on a type of writing to develop confidence and expertise in the application of a specific genre. 82

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Writing and Reading Need Not Be in Silos Writing and reading should involve learning from the work of authors, writing in response to questions about readings, and composing synthesizing information across readings. Research find­ ings point out that writing interventions benefit reading (Graham & Hebert, 2011). Specifically, instruction that engages students in writing about information they read improves students’ reading comprehension. Moreover, research on reading has demonstrated positive effects on overall writing quality, words written, and spelling (Graham et al., 2018; Kim, 2022). Practices such as note-taking, summarizing, extended writing, and answering and generating questions were found to be effec­ tive in improving reading comprehension. Teaching spelling and sentence combining were found to improve reading fluency for learners across first to seventh grades, while spelling improved word reading of learners in the elementary grades. Furthermore, reading interventions benefit writing growth (Graham, 2019). Instruction on phonological awareness, phonics, and reading comprehen­ sion improve writing performance. Even though writing and reading are not identical, there is evidence of a bidirectional relationship between the two (Shanahan, 2016, 2018, 2022; Tierney & Shanahan, 1991). Now may be the time to break the divide in programs between writing and reading and identify ways to support their flexible integration in classrooms, especially when the goal is for writing to be a vehicle for understanding and inquiry across the curriculum. However, for this to take place, teachers should have time to provide instruction on writing, to support students’ responses to read­ ing (extended and short responses), and allow them to reflect on their own learning and goal setting (as readers and writers) (Traga Philippakos, 2020a). Teachers need to have the time and flexibility to use materials that make connections between writing and reading beyond the application of scripted programs. Students should be given opportunities to write about information they read in structured assignments that derive from readings and should also be taught and be encouraged to develop and answer questions about information they read. Furthermore, students should be provided with opportunities to read and write in different genres. Texts that incorporate structures and linguistic components that students can emulate could be used as exemplars for students’ writing applica­ tion (Graham et al., 2012; Koster et al., 2015; Philippakos et al., 2015). These texts could be used to support students’ understanding about a specific writing purpose (e.g., to entertain), a specific genre (e.g., mystery), a specific format (e.g., a letter or encyclopedia entry), or specific language learning objectives (e.g., use of adjectives, use of sentences, use of vocabulary, and use of organi­ zational structure). Instruction should include interaction among participants to promote listening and speaking skills in addition to the application of cognitive strategies. Through such interactions, students can develop necessary vocabulary, an understanding about the genre and writing purposes, the writing process, and the discourse. Dialogic argumentation, collaborative reasoning, and debate can also support students’ understand­ ing about the genre of opinion writing and argumentation prior to receiving instruction on how to write an argument (e.g., Kuhn et al., 2022; Kuhn & Udell, 2003; Traga Philippakos & MacArthur, 2020; Traga Philippakos et al., 2018). In these interactions, instruction should support and promote the use of oral language for writing (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986; Kuhn et al., 2022; Shanahan, 2006). Oral language, speaking, and listening can also support students’ development of ideas and even sentence construction prior to writing (Traga Philippakos, 2019). It can also help students better anticipate how their work will be received by an audience. Supported discussion on the statement of position and reasons during oral language interactions can help students transition to writing with a better under­ standing about how to form arguments for readers. 83

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Learners Should Engage in Goal-Setting Practices and Learn How to Be Strategic in Applying

Strategies and Work Independently

Learners should identify their goals in relation to an assignment and to the strategies they could use to help them successfully complete those assignments. This process of goal setting should be continuous, and learners should receive specific feedback not only on the outcome, but on their use of strategies so they are guided in critical reflection to set new learning and writing improvement goals (Philippakos & MacArthur, 2020). Self-regulation is important for students to manage behavior and tasks and to be able to set their own goals and transfer knowledge across tasks (Graham & Harris, 2000; Harris & Graham, 1992, 2009; Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007; Zimmerman, 2001). Students should also be given oppor­ tunities to apply best practices in goal setting, progress monitoring, and reflection across the curriculum and especially in writing. As shared earlier, writing is a challenging task that can lead to cognitive over­ load and frustration. Students need to have the skills and strategies to identify ways to support their pace, leading to independence and success. Teachers should model the application of self-regulation during their modeling of planning, drafting, evaluating to revise, and editing (see Harris & Graham, 2009). They could also model how they manage the navigation across the writing lesson by crossing out the tasks they had set as a goal to complete in their lesson, making visible for students the process of progress monitoring. Teachers can also model for students how they reflect on their instruction at the end of the lesson and discuss instructional goals that could lead to future mini-lessons (as students may struggle with specific concepts) or repetition of information and practice (e.g., Traga Philippakos, 2020b).

Formative Assessment Should Guide Instruction for Learning Assessment should address the instructional needs of learners; thus, a cycle of assessment, instruction, progress monitoring, and revisions of instructional goals should be present and applicable across grades. Writing assessment is not as formal and standardized as reading assessment (Philippakos & FitzPatrick, 2018). However, to have common expectations and a common language within and across grades, it is important that teachers use rubrics and anchor papers that represent the goals for the grade. Rubrics could be used among teachers to clearly communicate the standards, expectations, and goals for instruction for the school year (Andrade & Boulay, 2003). Rubrics could also be used with students to support the review and evaluation process. When such rubrics are used, they should include clear guidelines for evaluation and meaningful criteria so students can understand, internalize, and apply those criteria and guidelines to self-evaluate their work and to later peer review. Formative assessment should provide students with feedback on how they use taught strategies, what they have successfully applied, and how they can improve their writing and develop their strengths as writers. Overall, formative assessment practices reveal positive effect sizes for the provision of adult feedback (d  = 0.87), peer feedback (d  = 0.58), self-feedback (d  = 0.62), computerized feed­ back (d = 0.38), and text response (d = 0.36) (see Graham, 2018b for a review). Additionally, the use of genre-specific criteria can support students’ writing, evaluation, peer review, and self-evaluation (Koster et al., 2015; MacArthur, 2016; Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016). Such cri­ teria refer to the organizational elements of a genre: for example, an argument should have a beginning or introduction that addresses the issue or controversy and the author’s position; a middle with reasons and explanations/evidence that connect with the writer’s position; an opposing position and reasons for it; and a rebuttal. Finally, the argument should include an end or conclusion that restates the position and includes a message urging the reader to take action or further think about the issue. These elements as well as additional linguistic or syntactic expectations could guide the reviewers’ reading and evalua­ tion. Teachers can provide students with feedback on the quality and accuracy of their ideas, and offer verbal feedback on writing quality, with suggestions that inform revisions, guide students to provide peer 84

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feedback to one another through peer meetings and discussions on the clarity of written work (Hol­ liway & McCutchen, 2004; Rijlaarsdam & Couzijn, 2000; Rijlaarsdam et al., 2004). It is important to note that in all cases, feedback should not only be on the writing product, but on the process used and strategies that students applied. Feedback should be timely and support students in the application of taught skills and goal setting for the application of taught skills (Graham et al., 2012; Koster et al., 2015). Students should also be given opportunities to practice how to give feedback, as doing so can prepare them for peer review and self-evaluation. Peer review includes both giving and receiving feedback (Rollinson, 2005). There is the assumption that receiving feedback is most important and helpful to writers, but several studies have shown that giving feedback helps students to improve their own writing (Cho & MacArthur, 2011; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009; Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016). Studies that have examined the effects of supporting learners to evaluate written work by taking the perspective of the reader suggest that it can help writers to revisit and review their own texts (Hol­ liway & McCutchen, 2004; Traxler & Gernsbacher, 1992, 1993). When writers are given the oppor­ tunity to read the work of others, they better understand how to communicate with their audience, and may even be able to consider some of the ideas in their own writing. More importantly, though, by commenting on the work of others, they may be able to develop evaluation criteria for revision (Rijlaarsdam & Couzijn, 2000). This practice can be especially supportive of second language-learners’ reviewing abilities (Prater & Bermudez, 1993; Rollinson, 2005).

Writing Should Promote the Use of 21st-Century Tools Teaching students how to use digital tools to write and collaborate should be part of instruction and classroom application. It is important for learners to know how to use the computer, how to type their work fluently, and how to edit it. For this, instruction on typing should begin early and engage students on the use of the tools they are expected to use under testing conditions. Thus, if students are expected to read texts and type their responses on a computer, those practices should be part of classroom expectations. Furthermore, learners should be supported in learning how to use the internet, how to evaluate sources, and how to utilize sources in their writing (Freedman et al., 2016). The process of access­ ing information has become significantly easier (Braasch et al., 2009), and there is an assumption that learners who have experience with digital tools and are digital natives are more likely to be more flexible and effective on tasks that require their use. However, research shows that it is challenging for them to access and evaluate sources for their usefulness and accuracy (Barzilai & Zohar, 2012). Thus, instruction should guide students on how to evaluate sources’ trustworthiness and how to integrate them in writing (Bråten et al., 2019; Sonia et al., 2022). Additionally, collaborations in digital spaces such as Google Docs need not be limited to evalua­ tion and revision or drafting alone: translating ideas into sentences while drafting could be multimodal through the use of 21st-century digital writing tools (New London Group, 1996). When working on revisions, students could practice reading and rereading the work of peers on shared spaces (e.g., Google Docs), and offer comments and feedback using checklists and even chart their progress. Con­ sidering that change in writing technologies requires time, that new technologies are not leading to the absolute removal of previous ones (Graham, 2022b), and that learners may use multiple tools to compose, additional research on use of multiple modalities on composition quality may be necessary.

Instruction Should Address Sentence Construction Skills For writers to clearly communicate ideas with readers, they should be able to effectively construct syntactically clear sentences. In addition, their written expression should have sentence variety for 85

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writing to be of quality and to allow the reader to access the voice of the writer. Sentence combining is an instructional approach that has consistently been found to support learners’ sentence production (Graham & Hiebert, 2011; Saddler et al., 2018). The principle of the approach is to connect simple sentences into complex ones using cues or through open combinations. For example, in response to the two sentences, “Sarah has a violin. Martha has a violin” the writer would produce the sentence, “Both Sarah and Martha have a violin” or “Both Sarah and Martha have violins.” Sentence combining can include more complex sentences and cues may be provided to guide writers, as in the following example: “Thomas completed his report. He put it in his backpack. (when).” Appropriate combinations include “When Thomas completed his report, he put it in his backpack.” Or “Thomas put his report in his backpack when he completed it.” Students learn how to practice sentence combining with teaching modeling and opportunities to practice before they work on their own papers. Thus, prior to editing, teachers may model live by thinking out loud how to combine two simple sentences and develop a compound sentence, commenting on the meaning of the produced sentence and on its syntactic com­ plexity and effect on the reader who does not have to read two sentences with repeating ideas. Then, students should practice the process of combining sentences to develop compound ones. This practice may even include actual paragraph rewriting instead of sentence-by-sentence edits before students are asked to work on their own papers. The goal of sentence combining is in essence the production of sentences that clearly communicate the writer’s intended meaning to readers and that address the expectations of the writing purpose and genre.

Students and Teachers Need to Form an Engaged Community of Learners Engagement and collaboration are essential aspects of writing. Writing as a cognitive task seems like a solitary activity (the writers and their ideas), but it is social by nature as writers write for readers. Students should have the opportunity to see the reaction of the reader across the stages of the writ­ ing process (Bandura, 1986; Dyson, 1989; Graham et al., 2012). Therefore, they should collaborate with peers at the brainstorm stage and even prior to drafting their ideas to examine the clarity of their organization (Graham et al., 2012, 2016; Koster et al., 2015). Finally, learners should collaborate at the revision stage and practice reviewing prior to meeting for peer review (e.g., MacArthur et  al., 1991; Peterson, 2003; Stoddard & MacArthur, 1993). In this writing community, the teacher is also an engaged member who is a writer (Cutler & Graham, 2008); therefore, the teacher should write and should share their writing with the community, modeling how to apply the taught strategies, how to manage the challenging aspects of writing, and how to set goals for improvement. For writing to be engaging, motivating, and meaningful, it should be based on authentic tasks. For example, students may learn about oil spills and write a paper about the effects or causes of oil spills to learn more about the topic. They may then work on persuasive papers urging the public to take action (e.g., Philippakos & MacArthur, 2020). Overall, learning in science, social studies, and language arts should be integrated in meaningful and authentic ways that promote transfer of knowledge and of strategies across the instructional day.

Classroom Implementation and Professional Development National surveys shed light on the instructional approaches that teachers of different grade levels use, their preparation to teach writing, as well as their related confidence. The findings from surveys conducted in the United States and across Europe, Asia, and South America reveal that despite the recognized importance of writing as a literacy task, writing is not emphasized. Further, even though evidence-based practices have been identified as integral to teaching writing, these practices are not evident in classrooms (Graham, 2018, 2022a). Teachers consistently report that their college programs 86

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did not prepare them to teach writing (e.g., Gilbert & Graham, 2010; Traga Philippakos et al., 2022). For example, in a nationwide survey with 103 teachers in grades 4 to 6, Gilbert and Graham (2010) found that two out of three teachers reported being ill-prepared to teach writing. A more recent survey conducted during the pandemic with 228 K-5 teachers in the United States revealed that participants were slightly to moderately confident about teaching writing (M = 4.55, SD = .75; measures on a sixpoint scale), and that 18% were not at all prepared to teach writing (Traga Philippakos, Voggt, et al., 2022). An additional study toward what we consider to be the end of the pandemic (Traga Philippakos, Voggt, & Blake, 2022), with 343 K-5 teachers across 46 states and 100 K-5 teachers from a large dis­ trict of 95 elementary schools, revealed that teachers from the national pool and the large district were slightly to moderately confident about teaching writing (M= 4.4; SD = 0.74; measures on a six-point scale; M = 4.6, SD = 0.64; measures on a six-point scale, respectively). Overall, a high percentage of teachers reported not being well-prepared to teach writing (20% in the national sample and 15% in the sample of 95 elementary schools). These challenges are not only relevant to the United States. A sur­ vey conducted in Norway with 1,049 teachers (Graham et al., 2021) found that 60% of the teachers received minimal or no preparation to teach writing. A study by Hsiang and colleagues (2018) with 1,313 grade 7 to 9 Chinese Language Arts teachers in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei also showed that 13% received no preparation to teach writing, and 62% received minimal preparation to teach writing. These findings reveal a common issue: lack of teacher preparation. This may be due to an overemphasis on reading instruction (Philippakos & Moore, 2017) and a continuous focus on teach­ ing writing separately from reading (Philippakos, 2021), or even a belief that writing will improve once reading improves (Hsiang & Graham, 2016). Similar patterns are revealed regarding the amount of time teachers devote to teaching writing in United States classrooms and in other countries. A 2008 survey by Cutler and Graham revealed that primary grade teachers spent an average of 20 to 25 minutes weekly teaching writing. A later survey of secondary learners by Gilbert and Graham (2010) in the United States found that teachers taught writ­ ing an hour and a quarter weekly. The Applebee and Langer (2011) study of middle and high school teachers revealed the minimal time spent on extended writing activities when compared to fill-in-the­ gap and short responses. Across the subject areas of math, science, social studies, and English Language Arts, only 7.7% of the time was devoted to writing a paragraph or more. Bañales et al. (2020), in a study of 254 Chilean teachers from grades 4 to 6 found that 42% of them taught writing two or less hours a week. The Hsiang et al. (2018) study found the average class time devoted to writing was one hour, but there was great variation on the frequency of writing instruction. Similarly, an Australian survey of 310 teachers in grades one to six (de Abreu Malpique et al., 2022) also showed wide variation on the frequency of instruction, ranging from 15 minutes to seven and a half hours a week. Challenges with writing instruction may stem from the lack of instructional attention and educa­ tional policies emphasizing the importance of writing in a curriculum, teacher preparation to teach writing, and in-class opportunities for students to learn how to write and practice writing. There is a need to examine ways that teachers—both at the preservice and at in-service settings—are prepared and supported to implement evidence-based writing approaches and integrate writing with reading for students to learn critical and strategic thinking skills. Writing is a demanding and complex process, and learning how to apply evidence-based practices requires opportunities for teachers to learn about such evidence-based practices. Further, it is necessary for teachers to be supported in the implementa­ tion of such practices when working with their students. Thus, professional development in writing instruction may need to be systematic, with duration, and support the implementation of evidencebased practices (e.g., Harris et al., 2012; Traga Philippakos, 2020c, 2021). Desimone (2009) identified core features of effective professional development in evidence-based writing practices as content focus, active learning of participants, coherence, duration, and active participation. Such features can lead to improved knowledge and skills for teachers, but most importantly can help teachers scaffold the 87

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implementation of evidence-based practices and lead to improvements in student writing. The argu­ ment proposed is that writing practices change and evidence-based practices are implemented when evidence-based practices are at the core of professional development, when teachers are supported in their implementation, and when teachers can see changes in students’ writing (e.g., Traga Philip­ pakos & Voggt, 2021; Traga Philippakos, 2020c). This latter change feeds into teachers’ continuous implementation of such practices. Overall, placing writing at “the center of the school agenda” (National Commission on Writing Report, 2003, p. 3) is a message that has been heard for approximately 20 years now, but it still seems that writing has not moved from the margins. Thus, the goals set by the National Commission on Writing in 2003 for 1) increased time for writing, 2) fair and authentic assessment, 3) integration of technology in the instruction and assessment of writing, and 4) professional development of classroom instructors should be at the forefront for practitioners, policy agents, and researchers.

Conclusion Writing instruction is challenging and demanding because the construct of writing is complex (Hayes, 2012). Writing is challenging to teach and support the needs of all learners, it is challenging to evalu­ ate, and it is challenging to learn how to be an effective writer. Attention is required in the continuity of principles of effective instruction across grades so students’ knowledge builds across time, allowing them to grow in their understanding about writing purposes, genres, audience, and strategies for the writing process. Further, it is essential that assessment connects with instruction and that instruction is not in a vacuum; thus, progress monitoring data should be collected to examine students’ responses to writing instruction and to determine the need for differentiated support offered to individuals and groups. Also, writing and reading should not be treated as independent literacy goals but as connected constructs that influence and promote one another (Graham, 2020). It would be expected that they both receive equal attention in schools and are taught in conjunction. However, this is not the case in many classrooms across the U.S. For years, reading and writing have been taught and treated as separate subject areas, without authentic connections made between them (Nelson & Calfee, 1998). For stu­ dents to grow as writers and readers, writing and reading should be taught together, and with several opportunities for writers to be readers and for readers to write in response to the reading they do. The research community should conduct further studies that integrate reading and writing and provide teachers with clear procedures and tasks that benefit the growth of both and support students’ critical thinking. Potentially examining strategies that could support both reading comprehension and written production would allow learners’ flexible use of strategies. Finally, supporting teachers’ implementation of evidence-based instructional practices with ongo­ ing support and coaching should become the norm; the latter, though, connects with policy issues, as writing should be treated as a vital literacy goal for academic and professional growth and not as the stepsibling of reading.

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Zoi A. Traga Philippakos Saddler, B. (2005). Sentence combining: A sentence-level writing intervention. The Reading Teacher, 58(5), 468– 471. https://doi.org/10.1598/RT.58.5.6 Saddler, B., Ellis-Robinson, T., & Asaro-Saddler, K. (2018). Using sentence combining instruction to enhance the writing skills of children with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities, 16(2), 191–202. Schriver, K. A. (1992). Teaching writers to anticipate readers’ needs: A  classroom-evaluated pedagogy. Written Communication, 9(2), 179–208. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088392009002001 Schultz, K., & Fecho, B. (2000). Society’s child: Social context and writing development. Educational Psychologist, 35(1), 51–62. Schunk, D. H., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2007). Influencing children’s self-efficacy and self-regulation of reading and writing through modeling. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 23(1), 7–25. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10573560600837578 Shanahan, T. (2006). Relations among oral language, reading, and writing development. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 171–183). Guilford Press. Shanahan, T. (2015). Common Core State Standards: A new role for writing. Elementary School Journal, 115(4), 464–479. Shanahan, T. (2016). Relationships between reading and writing development. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 194–207). Guilford Press. Shanahan, T. (2018). Reading-writing connections. In S. Graham., C. A. MacArthur, & M. Hebert (Eds.), Best practices in writing instruction (3rd ed., pp. 309–332). The Guilford Press. Shanahan, T. (2022). The history of writing – reading connections In Z. A. Philippakos & S. Graham (Eds.), Writ­ ing and reading connections: Bridging research and practice (pp. 3–24). Guilford Press. Shaughnessy, M. P. (1977). Errors and expectations. Oxford University Press. Silva, B. (2022). The writing cycle and cognitive processes that may affect learning. In B. Silva (Ed.), Writ­ ing to learn academic words. Second language learning and teaching (pp.  45–62). Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-031-06505-7_3 Sonia, A., Allen, L., & Crossley, S. A. (2022). Writing and reading connections in the digital world. In Z. A. Philippakos  & S. Graham (Eds.), Writing and reading connections: Bridging research and practice (pp.  163–180). Guilford Press. Spivey, N. N. (1992). Discourse synthesis: Creating texts from texts. In J. R. Hayes, R. E. Young, M. Match­ ett, M. McCaffrey, C. Cochran, & T. Hajduk (Eds.), Reading empirical research studies: The rhetoric of research (pp. 469–512). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Stoddard, B., & MacArthur, C. (1993). A peer editor strategy: Guiding learning disabled students in response and revision. Research in the Teaching of English, 27, 76–103. Tierney, R. J., & Shanahan, T. (1991). Research on the reading–writing relationship: Interactions, transactions, and outcomes. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 2 (pp. 246–280). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Traga Philippakos, Z. A. (2019). Effects of strategy instruction with an emphasis on oral language and dramatiza­ tion on the quality of first graders’ procedural writing. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 35(5), 409–426. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2018.1547233 Traga Philippakos, Z. A. (2020a). Developing strategic learners: Supporting self-efficacy through goal setting and reflection. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 30(1), 1–24. Traga Philippakos, Z. A. (2020b). Supporting students’ and teachers’ goal setting to develop self-regulated, strategic learners. American Reading Forum, 41(1), 42–57. Traga Philippakos, Z. A. (2020c). A yearlong, professional development model on genre-based strategy instruc­ tion on writing. The Journal of Educational Research, 113(3), 177–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.20 20.1767531 Traga Philippakos, Z. A. (2021). Think aloud modeling: Expert and coping models in writing instruction and literacy pedagogy. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 31(1), 1–28. https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/ lls/vol31/iss1/1 Traga Philippakos, Z. A., & Fitzpatrick, E. (2018). A proposed tiered model of assessment in writing instruction: Supporting all student-writers. Insights into Learning Disabilities: From Prevailing Theories to Validated Approaches, 55(2), 149–174. Traga Philippakos, Z. A., & Graham, S. (2020). Research advisory: Teaching writing to improve reading skills. Interna­ tional Literacy Association (ILA). Paper completed as part of a writing task charge with the contribution of Assaf, L., Beck, S., Fitzpatrick, E., MacArthur, C., Machado, E., & Pennycuff, K. www.literacyworldwide. org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-teaching-writing-to-improve-reading-skills.pdf

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5

TEACHING MULTIMODAL AND

DIGITAL LITERACIES

Marva Cappello and Alejandro Gonzalez Ojeda

Multimodality, the concurrent use of multiple communication modes, and the roles of visual texts in our literacy curriculum are not a new idea. In 1996, the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association outlined the six language arts as: reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing. The idea of multimodality was woven throughout the Standards for the Language Arts, where it is acknowledged that “nonprint texts are also an essential part of students’ reading experience” and that “opportunities to study and create visual texts—including narra­ tive and documentary films, television, advertisements, maps, illustrations, multimedia/CD resources, and other graphic displays—are also crucial” (IRA/NCTE, 1996, p. 20). Further, at the time of pub­ lication, this was perceived as a timely idea, as “graphic and visual messages influence contemporary society powerfully, and students need to learn how the elements of visual language communicate ideas and shape thought and action” (p. 20). This focus on multimodality points to the ever-increasing need for multimodal pedagogies as teach­ ers respond to an overwhelming visual and multimodal world that our students must learn to navigate. Many teachers ignore all modes of communication in their classrooms other than reading/writing because they are traditionally held in school culture as the most esteemed means to transmit knowl­ edge. Further, reading and writing are most frequently assessed, and students need proficient reading and writing skills to achieve a high score on content area assessments as well. In addition, teachers report that they feel unprepared to create and teach multimodal curriculum (Li, 2020; Tan et  al., 2020). To counter this, Li (2020) suggested that “the need for teacher education programs to prepare pre-service [and in-service] teachers to bridge the gap between the traditional literacy and multilitera­ cies will be continuously intensified in the years to come” (p. 1). In this chapter, we will share current trends in multimodal pedagogies that focus on classroom instruc­ tion. We begin with key definitions and an exploration of the evolution of the field as seen through the changing landscape described in the Routledge Handbook of Research on Teaching English Language Arts to situate us in our current context. The following questions help guide our writing of this chapter: • What do people mean by multimodal and digital literacies? • How have prior editions of Routledge Handbook of Research on Teaching English Language Arts repre­ sented these concepts? • What are the key trends in multimodal and digital literacies pedagogies research? • What are the current pedagogical opportunities? DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-6

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Definitions of Multiliteracies and Multimodal Literacies Multiliteracies was coined by the New London Group (1996) as a broader and more inclusive perspec­ tive on literacy that accounts for the growing diversity of our world and “overcomes the limitations of traditional approaches by emphasizing how negotiating the multiple linguistic and cultural differences in our society is central to the pragmatics of the working, civic, and private lives of students” (p. 60). More expansive definitions of literacy are critically important in schools because they provide more accommodating and flexible pathways to access and express curricular understandings (Ranker, 2014). Multimodal literacies emerged as an inclusive perspective that is accommodated by the New London Group’s broader understanding of literacy. Multiliteracies and multimodal approaches are related, and “proponents of New London Group use multimodal literacies interchangeably with multiliteracies in their work” (Tan et al., 2020, p. 98). Although perspectives with different emphases on multimodality have varied over the years, the def­ inition of multimodality has remained relatively consistent. With roots in New Literacies Studies (Gee, 2015) and social semiotics (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Kress, 2003), multimodality can be defined as the combination of different communication modes including linguistic (i.e.: speech and written), aural (i.e.: sound, tone, accent, silence), spatial (i.e.: layout, physical arrangements), gestural (i.e.: move­ ment, facial expressions), and visual (i.e.: images of all kinds). Multimodal theory, then, “draws on a social semiotic view of meaning making, where texts are understood as part of broader socio-cultural contexts” (Callow, 2020, p. 116). Indeed, to understand multimodal theory we must recognize that “undergirding this work is a sociocultural view of literacies, whereby meaning making practices are seen as diverse, multiple, situated and ideological rather than autonomous or universal” (De Jaynes & Curmi-Hall, 2019, p. 299). Based on these definitions, multimodal literacies transact with more than one mode to make situated meaning. We use the plural literacies intentionally to be inclusive of the many combinations of modes possible for effective production (creation of artifacts) and reception (viewing and analyzing) of information. The term literacies has also come to include the viewer/reader in the meaning-making process and thus the complexities of race, gender, class, ability, etc. Multiliteracies and multimodal literacies pedagogies offer many benefits, including providing addi­ tional pathways for students to gain access to the curriculum as well as to demonstrate learning in ways not tied to linguistic communication. The many benefits of multimodal literacies and pedagogies are explicitly explored later in this chapter. For the purposes of this exploration, we will focus on the combination of linguistic and visual texts, because while multimodal pedagogies include a wide array of modes, “the combination of the visual and verbal modes is arguably the most common multimodal text form used in classroom contexts from posters, charts and information texts to picture books and graphic novels” (Callow, 2020, p. 115). Digital literacies make the production of multimodal texts more accessible. Defining digital literacy requires that we consider the multiple dimensions of information as well as skills required of learners to effectively engage across various types of digital platforms. Pangrazio and Sefton-Green (2021) noted that defining digital literacy has been complicated, as the notion of digital literacy has evolved over time from knowledge assembly and assimilation of information toward a more general sense of the use of electronic media. The American Library Association (ALA) defines digital literacy as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate informa­ tion, requiring both cognitive and technical skills” (ALA, n.d.). Researchers have noted that literacy development is ongoing (Forzani et al., 2021), signaling the importance for practitioners to recognize the evolving nature of the mediums through which literacy is present, the skills necessary to make meaning of the information conveyed, and the instructional practices needed to support development of such skills in young learners. While changes in our field can seem constant—new theories, new mediums, new initiatives, or new social norms, such as those 97

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we’ve become accustomed to in our return to in-person learning, for instance—with these changes come new perspectives and challenges in the ways educators conceptualize and implement instruction. One way to facilitate understanding of new literacy concepts is by defining the parameters and context in which to facilitate meaning-making through instruction, which can help create relational connec­ tions with what is known from evidence-based practices, and what may be a new consideration or shift to make in order to understand a new concept in literacy. While technology tends to be seen as an accelerator of change, new technological advancements can also be seen as disruptors to the status quo of educational practices as we know it. Take for instance the introduction of personal computers in the 1980s and the internet in the 1990s, which facilitated the need for internet search engines to help users navigate information online, the boom in access to ever-evolving online social media networks, and the increase of access to mobile technologies through smart phones. These advances, which were initially perceived as concerning in the field of education, have given rise to new opportunities in the way we find, use, create, and share information for key functions of literacy (Frey et al., 2010). Along the trajectory in the evolution of literacies, the need to adapt to new literacy skills has pre­ sented educators with opportunities within the context of learning environments. For example, to support learning continuity during the initial in-person learning restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools moved rather quickly to online synchronous video conferencing plat­ forms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. This move required all stakeholders to adapt existing skills and adopt new skills to facilitate teaching, learning, classroom management, and student engagement in a fully online setting. Teachers and students needed to learn technical skills, from how to log on, to managing their video and audio settings, to engaging in conversation with little video squares or static avatar photos representing their peers.

Evolution of the Field The ideas of multimodality and digital literacies first appeared in the second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Research on Teaching English Language Arts (2002) in three separate chapters that addressed expanding perceptions of literacy and progressive language arts pedagogy. In DiPardo’s chapter (2002), we first see the term multiple literacies, which is placed within quotes and couched in a chapter that focuses on teacher professionalism. This chapter also challenged the expectation of a unified and specialized knowledge base for our field with more complex understandings of literacies that include critical considerations of gender, culture, and class. DiPardo argued that “an ability to decode for literal meaning is no longer enough” because “research into reading and writing practices both in and out of school has revealed a more textured landscape, suggesting that ‘literacy’ is best imagined in the plural” (p. 146). Literacies is a social constructivist idea that includes students in the co-creation of knowledge, but no mention is made of a world beyond linguistic definitions. In their chapter, Kinzer and Leander (2002) provided a glimpse into how educators have reconcep­ tualized the physical resources and spaces in classrooms in response to technology, and how educators could look beyond physical considerations toward evaluating the purpose of technology for teaching and improving reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. In a trend that follows the evolution of how literacy is defined, Kinzer and Leander further proposed that as a response to the evolving landscape of instruction and technological advances, the interaction between the reader and the text should be considered. This perspective gives way to a sense of understanding the diverse ways in which read­ ers engage, utilize, and communicate information. Kinzer and Leander further posited that as new communication mediums become available, “comprehension and decoding process must be learned and taught so that these changes can be reflected in readers’ and authors’ strategies for comprehension and response” (p. 547). In sum, the authors suggested that given the change in resources and media 98

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types, definitions of literacy move beyond being solely situated in paper-printed media—a notion that increasingly has become reality with the proliferation in the access to technologies since publication of the second education of this Handbook. In the second edition of the Routledge Handbook, Bruce and Levin (2002) presented their observa­ tion that advances in the prevalence of technologies in Language Arts classrooms has moved the field from considering earlier definitions of technologies and concepts of their use in Language Arts, to the broader impacts of technologies on every aspect of pedagogy. They stated, “we must understand more about how pedagogical goals are realized in new media” (p. 650). The accelerated pace at which information and communication mediums were digitized into daily life influenced the need to recon­ ceptualize implications for practice. Bruce and Levin proposed three areas of inquiry to analyze the use of new technologies in Language Arts (Bruce & Levin, 2002): 1. How are new technologies developing and what are their features? 2. Characterize the diverse and rapidly evolving integration of new technologies into daily and literacy practices. 3. Conceptualize the diverse goals of language arts instruction to productively consider how new media are used to address these goals. In addition, informed by Dewey’s four “natural impulses” (1956), Bruce and Levin (1997, 2002) presented a taxonomy of their own to guide educators in understanding the application of new media in language arts: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Media for communication Media for expression Media for inquiry Media for construction

With the understanding that specific technologies, their features, and uses evolve, the purpose of the taxonomy is to understand the typical applications of technologies in relation to Language Arts instruc­ tion. Though many of the digital technologies we now see as part of everyday life (Google’s produc­ tivity suite, YouTube, or Zoom, for example) were either in their infancy or not yet available at the time of publication of the second edition of the Handbook, these guidance considerations can resonate as educators evaluate tools and the pedagogical implications as part of the development of their craft. By the time the third Handbook was published (2011), there was an entire section devoted to the Many Facets of Text, which included seven chapters because there had been an “explosion of multimodal texts and engagement and participation with them across a wide range of sociocultural contexts” (Rowsell & Pahl, 2011, p. 175). Like our current Handbook 5th edition, this section weaves together research on digital literacies and multimodal literacies, all which continue to situate literacy as a social practice enacted in context. We also see nuanced and overt challenges to the seminal texts grounding our field and the coalescence of complementary perspectives such as New Literacy Studies and mul­ timodality (Rowsell & Pahl, 2011) as well as social semiotics and critical literacy (Albers et al., 2011). The authors in this section are unanimous in their understanding “that we can no longer focus on alphabetic print as the unit of study in literacy education” (Rowsell & Pahl, 2011, p. 179) and that the ubiquitous nature of multimodal communication forces us to move beyond a traditional concept of literacy that focuses on the written word. Rowsell and Pahl (2011) suggested that multimodal texts may help bridge the sometimes-competing discourses of home and school. While these chapters cer­ tainly target literacy researchers, they offer some suggestions for classroom practices. Indeed, Albers et al. (2011) spent many years designing and teaching multimodal curriculum and focusing on the 99

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analysis of varied multimodal texts situated within everyday literacy practices. Rowsell described her teenage participants’ multimodal responses to literature in which students created Facebook profiles for novel characters and as the context for the multimodal artifacts under study. One major theme among these chapters is that multimodal opportunities advance critical perspectives that may lead to a greater and perhaps more subtle understanding of self. Rowsell and Pahl (2011) suggested that a multimodal and artifactual pedagogy may result in benefits beyond curriculum as a “more critical and nuanced understanding emerges of the relationship between literacy and identity in relation to social practice” (p. 180). Further, “this encourages a critical perspective, one which helps with the identification of political and social injustices and how social communities condone such inequalities” (Albers et al., 2011, p. 197). The third edition of the Handbook also included several chapters that further signaled the central role that digital literacies were taking in language arts instruction. Beach et al.’s (2011) chapter empha­ sized how various Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and social media networks helped students move beyond passive consumption of information towards constructive creation. The authors also observed the criti­ cal impact that Web 2.0 tools had in facilitating how students communicate across multiple audiences within and beyond their classrooms, further helping them construct and share their ideas and empower their sense of engagement and agency (Beach et al., 2011). The acknowledgment of the impact Web 2.0 tools had on students and the need to foster digital literacy skills is key in the authors’ call for educators to reconceptualize conventional perceptions of learning technologies and digital literacies beyond the emphasis of tools, and towards a mindset that recognizes them as ways for new patterns of knowledge construction, communication, and identity formation to emerge. Levy and Marsh’s (2011) work in the third edition focused on three key areas in furthering the field’s understanding of digital literacies in children ranging from birth to eight years. Their chapter addressed digital literacy practices at home, how pedagogical practices are informed by new technologies, and the variance in digital literacy practices across the home and school settings. In home settings, Levy and Marsh identified social media and virtual worlds as popular mediums among younger students to connect with other students and engage in interactive play. In schools, Levy and Marsh asserted that the key to understanding the relationship between newer technologies and literacy instruction is under­ standing how and to what extent teachers are effectively utilizing digital media. A suggestion from their review is for schools to integrate opportunities to connect the use of digital media with everyday experiences as part of young students’ development of literacy skills. Finally, Levy and Marsh (2011) addressed creating connections between home and school literacy practices, noting that at-home use of technology may not always transfer into confidence in traditional print-based literacy skills assessed at school, and that curriculum should also include screen-based texts to evaluate student literacy skills and build student confidence in the skills necessary to access texts through diverse mediums. In their chapter in the third edition of the Handbook, Wohlwend and Lewis (2011) furthered the notion that critical literacy skills and access to digital tools are key in fostering critical engagement. The authors proposed that much attention should be paid to the affordances and challenges of multimodal­ ity to understand the dynamic and layered depths of interactions learners may encounter with a variety of media formats both in and out of school settings. They present two dimensions with the intent to further understand how students engage with digital literacies: convergence and embodiment. Con­ vergence considers the collision and merging of old and new media as well as corporate media—TV or online ads, for example—and user-driven media such as content created in social media spaces like TikTok or YouTube by individuals rather than by a company. Embodiment is the immersion of bod­ ies and emotions in digital spaces as well as the ways in which bodies and emotions are represented in and shaped by digital spaces. Take for example how online gamers create custom characters or avatars that are representative of their identity in online spaces. The user’s choice in the visual characteristics of their character represents the embodiment of their identity within the digital space. Wohlwend and 100

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Lewis argue that embodiment is a key part of critical engagement—where the physicality, emotions, and sensations are present in bodies of text as a manner of representation. For educators, recognizing that digital spaces can serve as platforms to advocate for student identity is valuable in fostering engage­ ment. At the center is seeking where and how students move between being consumers of information and producers of information. In the fourth edition of the Handbook, Zapata et al. (2017) build upon the argument made in the third edition by both Rowsell and Pahl (2011) and Albers et al. (2011) that multimodal and visual texts inspire and nurture a critical perspective that may lead to an examination of one’s beliefs and identities. Zapata et al. (2017) advance these perspectives in significant ways. First, they situate their argument in the context of an increasingly diverse yet standards-based classroom environment that is constrained by mandates but at the same time requires expanded definitions of literacy(ies) for a more inclusive classroom. Indeed, they state that “by appropriating this broader vision of Language Arts [to include multimodal literacies], educators can create more robust connections to academic goals while also preparing young children for twenty-first century literacies in culturally sustaining ways” (p. 359). The authors understand that multimodal pedagogies “value students’ cultural and linguistic resources” (p. 366) and thus become a culturally sustaining pedagogy. Characterized by collaboration, culturally sustaining pedagogies capitalize on social, cultural, and linguistic resources “not as an ethnic additive but as viable and integral resources for Language Arts learning” (p. 377). For the first time in the Hand­ book, we see dedicated space for multimodal multilingualism; in our opinion, an important asset that we also leverage in our current pedagogies. This chapter also discussed the potential of multimodal pedagogies to create classroom contexts for constructing and demonstrating identities. As Zapata et al. reviewed the research, they offered many pedagogical examples. Our goals for this chapter include this offering as well. By the fourth edition of the Handbook, it became very clear that experts in the field of reading instruction called for digital literacy to be considered just as important to the development of learn­ ers as traditional print-based literacies (Kervin et al., 2017). Citing the growing body of research that acknowledged the opportunities that could potentially be missed by ignoring digital literacies, Kervin et al. (2017) proposed that online reading should be central in curriculum and policy considerations to help students prepare to enter the workforce. Increasing student access to internet-connected devices and screen time requires that Language Arts educators strategize instruction to assess student compre­ hension and application of skills necessary to effectively navigate complex and often layered digital texts. More specifically, Kervin et al. (2017) proposed that teachers examine and reflect on their own practices so they can use them as examples and model them in their instruction. Specifically, teach­ ers can promote proper navigation of online reading by modeling for students how they engage with online texts for learning and leisure, evaluate information for authenticity and usefulness, synthesize information for production of knowledge, and use a critical lens as a reader and an author.

Context of Our Review Perceptions of multiliteracies have evolved during the last five years since the last Handbook was pub­ lished. Some ideas remain steadfast, including a focus on expansive literacy practices and critical per­ spectives that have the potential for identity work (Albers et al., 2011; Rowsell & Pahl, 2011; Zapata et al., 2017). However, the field has made some subtle (and not so subtle) shifts as more and more educators recognize the overwhelming presence of other modes, especially visual, used in combina­ tion with linguistic texts (traditionally upheld as the most valued mode) in classrooms and in students’ worlds beyond school. Teachers and learners now come to school with a wide range of experiences viewing and visually representing ideas through multiple modes of expression. There is a mispercep­ tion that simply being exposed to multimodal texts means that students know how to navigate them. 101

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As such, this makes pedagogies for effectively teaching multimodal literacy even more necessary as interactions with multimodal literacies become increasingly prevalent in our everyday lives. In addi­ tion to the ubiquity of multimodal texts beyond our schools, our classrooms continue to grow more linguistically and culturally diverse, and thus we need more accommodating paths that lead to learning. Indeed, school literacies can no longer be conceptualized as linguistic alone, and broadened definitions of what counts as literacy and learning are urgently needed. In today’s practice, “the concept of multiliteracies attempts to address both the definition of literacy and the implications of the practices needed for the many and diverse contexts of 21st-century life” (Hong & Hua, 2020, p. 43).

Key Trends in Multimodal and Digital Pedagogies Our review of the literature identified several distinct and not so distinct updates and trends in recent multimodal and digital pedagogies research. We found expanded and more critical perspectives fram­ ing studies that move beyond a grounding in social semiotics, typical of the foundational studies in the field of multiliteracies. Relatedly, key trends in multimodal pedagogy included several aspects of equity including providing access to curriculum accommodating linguistic diversity, and identity develop­ ment. We also identified a new trend in the literature, a focus on multimodal assessments of both students’ and published texts.

Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks Beginning with Halliday’s (1978) work, social semiotics has long been the default perspective for research (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, 2006, 2020) and pedagogy (Callow, 2013; New London Group, 1996; Unsworth, 2001, 2006) for multimodal literacies. Social semiotics contextualizes meaningmaking in social and cultural contexts, but with a strong focus on understanding texts through visual grammar (composition, design, typography). In 2015, Frank Serafini shared a tripartite framework for multimodal literacy that was grounded in social semiotics, but more accommodating to multiple ideological viewpoints. The first two analytical perspectives in the framework consider visual grammar. The Perceptual Analytic Perspective focuses on the literal design features (what), and the Structural Analytic Perspective addresses the underlying visual grammar (how). However, it is the third com­ ponent, the Ideological Analytical Dimension that “extends the interpretive process to [explicitly] include the sociocultural, historical, and political contexts of the production and reception of texts during particular reading events” (p. 414). Indeed, multiliteracies must be grounded in sociocultural perspectives because they specifically help teachers and researchers situate practice in social and cultural learning contexts. A review of recent literature on multimodal pedagogies (publications from 2017 to 2023) revealed a continued theoretical shift to more critical perspectives across literacies, including multimodal and digital literacies. Indeed, new and updated frameworks, including critical multiliteracies (Hong & Hua, 2020; Mirra et al., 2018) and specifically critical multimodal perspectives (Campano et al., 2020; Cap­ pello et al., 2019), create spaces and provide opportunities to challenge dominant narratives about what counts as valued texts in our classrooms. Hong and Hua’s (2020) review of multiliteracies and multimodal pedagogies focused on the critical framing of technology-based engagements. They encouraged teachers to require students to “remake texts and recreate meaning” (p. 44) in ways that help them negotiate their present and future identities. They also recommended that critical multimodal pedagogies draw upon students’ multiple and intersectional classroom identities. Similarly, Mirra et al. (2018) proposed a “critical theory of multiliteracies that advocates moving beyond simply teaching students how to consume various media and extends into teaching students how to produce, distribute, and even invent new 102

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media forms themselves” (p. 13). Indeed, their theory includes a trajectory of four types of digital engagement: (a) critical digital consumption, (b) critical digital production, (c) critical distribution, and (d) critical digital invention. They opened with an illustrative example of how the young people in their study engaged in critical digital consumption of a local map. The participants’ critical analy­ sis of the existing map motivated them to move along the trajectory and engage in critical digital production and creation of an alternate electronic map that examined gentrification. Ultimately, the students “innovated an existing multimodal tool to their own expressive and civic purposes” (p. 13). This theory calls for both teachers and students to understand criticality with a focus on students’ possible futures. Cappello et al. (2019) not only focused on the use of multimodal tools for communicating and learning; they also offered four dimensions in their critical multimodal literacy framework for cri­ tiquing relationships and roles in the classroom: (a) communicating and learning with multimodal tools; (b) restorying, representing, and redesigning; (c) acknowledging and shifting power relation­ ships; and (d) leveraging multimodal resources to critique and transform sociopolitical realities. Campano et al. (2020) called for research on multimodality in education to “directly address issues of race and legacies of colonialism in the lives and learning of youth” (p. 138) in ways that chal­ lenge historic hegemony. Critical multimodal and digital pedagogies provide additional pathways for students to question and critique long-held mainstream narratives found within and across the curriculum in school and beyond. This critical orientation, one that also examines information left out of our classroom texts and procedures, requires new pedagogies and thus updated teacher preparation so educators can properly prepare students for contemporary literacies in the worlds outside of school.

Equity Pedagogy Expanded definitions of literacy provide more opportunities for inclusivity, including perspectives that see differences as assets that should be celebrated and capitalized upon rather than deficits that set students apart in negative ways. Broader definitions are essential for all educators, but especially for teachers who work in linguistically and culturally diverse school settings where standards and standard­ ized assessments continue to narrow ideas of what counts as literacy in school. When we maximize the potential of multimodal texts in classrooms, multimodal literacies strategies can become an equity pedagogy. Equity pedagogies reduce obstacles to classroom learning while maintaining high learning standards and prioritize access to the curriculum while embracing and building upon the cultural and linguistic diversity in our classrooms. In addition, the shift from using predominantly receptive (viewing, reading, analyzing) multimodal strategies in curricula to adding productive strategies where students make photographs, create drawings, etc., provides students with alternative ways to demon­ strate their understanding of academic content. This is especially critical for students whose home and cultural literacies are distinct from White-dominated traditional ways of demonstrating literacy in school (Cappello & Walker, 2021). While the common perception of a digital divide is often stated as a comparison between those who have access and those who do not, it’s important to also consider the ways in which students utilize digital tools for personal and academic communication and production of information. There may be variance in access and usage practices across student demographic groups that are unique to their respective cultural and socioeconomic status. Tichavakunda and Tierney (2018) highlighted key findings in their review of literature focusing on what scholarly research existed in relation between Black youth and their uses and experiences with digital literacy. Their review surfaced key considerations to help frame the use of technology by Black youth—for example, higher rates of mobile device access vs. conventional desktop computers, and usage of social media and types of 103

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media accessed online—and leverage these interests and skills through academic opportunities that consider a cultural integrity lens.

Access to Curriculum One hallmark of equity education is providing multiple ways to access and demonstrate the cur­ riculum, as a diverse student population requires a range of strategies. Different modes offer different access points. For example, visual modes of communication have different potential than linguistic texts, thus visual texts are simply better suited to communicate certain kinds of information. For example, an image of a family tree is more effective for describing relationships than several written paragraphs. In their case study of a year-six student, Drewry et al. (2019) examined ways “to facilitate meaningful literacy learning for students challenged in a print dominated classroom” (pp. 72–73). In their case study, the student demonstrated that she was able to better access the curriculum when she “experienced opportunities to create meaning in multiple ways” (p. 70) and had multiple modes and tools to make meaning. Similarly, Cappello and Walker (2019) suggested that multimodal pedagogies “expand students’ literacy toolkits, providing choices that enable them to more fully participate in the classroom culture [and curriculum]” (p. 16). Further, multimodal and visual texts can be important scaffolds when working with the increasingly complex and informational texts required across cur­ riculum areas and in accompanying state-sanctioned textbooks and readers. These texts often contain unfamiliar topics, unique text structures, academic vocabulary, and other specific literacy requirements of the particular discipline. Additionally, visual and multimodal texts, especially those that support a culturally sustaining view of literacy, can create classroom environments where students feel a “welcomeness to engage” (Wood & Harris, 2016, p. 25). Beyond simple definitions of student engagement including atten­ tion and interest in learning, multiple studies have found that a “welcomeness to engage” can be developed in supportive and encouraging classroom environments that plan for academic and social risk-taking opportunities (Cappello, 2019; Cappello & Walker, 2016; Fatmawati et al., 2022; Hao & Brown, 2022). The upper elementary teachers at the heart of Cappello and Walker’s (2016) study agreed that adding visual-based strategies to their lessons created safe spaces for student participation, as evidenced by observed interactions. One teacher observed that “there were some kids that never share, ever, and just felt comfortable to say what they were thinking and didn’t care because they . . . felt safe” (p. 7). Another reflected on the change in one of her sixth graders, stating, “normally, he sat silently in class, but the lesson inspired new classroom behaviors” (p. 7). Students appear to be more willing to engage with multimodal texts even when they are unsure they have the correct answers. With fewer school norms and standards, the use of visual texts may make academic uncer­ tainty more welcome in classrooms as students can focus on the assignments without the pressure of standardized expectations. Academic risk taking may lead to social gains in classroom settings as well, as students who may struggle with the most highly valued school literacies such as read­ ing and writing have a chance to demonstrate what they know without linguistic limitations. In interviews with kindergarteners, Fatmawati et al. (2022) found that adding multimodal text-based literacy activities “increased the comfort of the learner’s learning environment” (p.  5127). The authors created and validated a guidebook of activities that included simple environmental changes (e.g.: displaying multimodal posters, creating a reading corner) to impact student interaction with text and improve literacy outcomes. The increase in access to digital technologies in schools, such as online learning, one-to-one laptop initiatives, educational technology tools such as learning management systems, and online productivity

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tools has also prompted educators to consider how to integrate the use of such technologies in Lan­ guage Arts instruction and beyond. Blended learning is an instructional delivery approach that schools have referred to for guidance on how to organize and deliver lessons in-person, fully online, or a blending of the two. Staker and Horn (2012) defined blended learning as: a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home. (p. 3) Within blended learning, four primary categories of instructional models have been identified (Staker & Horn, 2012): the rotation model, flex model, self-blended model, and the enriched virtual model. In a rotation model, students rotate through learning modalities on a schedule designed by and coordinated by the teacher. The rotation model includes four sub-models: station rotation, lab rotation, flippedclassroom, and individual rotation. Rotations may include small group instruction, collaborative tasks, or self-directed independent work that may be facilitated by technology. In the flex model, students primarily learn through online instruction, with face-to-face support provided by the teacher on an as-needed basis through small group instruction or individual tutoring. In the self-blended model, students may supplement one or more of their courses fully online on a case-by-case basis, while still taking other courses face-to-face. The enriched virtual model is a whole-school approach in which all students receive instruction through online modalities, with some limited face-to-face experiences (Staker & Horn, 2012). From a pedagogical approach, practitioners have shared strategies that work well in aligning instructional purpose and technology use in blended learning settings. Dr. Catlin Tucker (2018), an expert in the field of blended learning, has written about her experiences in implementing var­ ious models that allow teachers to maximize their instructional time in supporting diverse students and their needs. For example, Tucker highlighted three blended learning rotation models that help to prioritize in-class writing: whole group rotation, station rotation, and the flipped-classroom model. Tucker argued that implementing a whole group rotation in class allows the teacher to create opportunities for writing to take place with support, rather than assigning what may be complex writing to be done at home. In the station rotation model, teachers create online and offline opportunities within the classroom, such as having students rotate through a technologyfacilitated activity like watching an interactive video lesson, a teacher-led modeling or feedback activity, and independent writing work. In the flipped-classroom model, teachers can leverage valuable in-class time by prioritizing just-in-time instruction or targeted feedback rather than whole-group instruction by pre-recording short instructional clips. For example, a teacher could record how to use sentence frames, or model writing formatting a body paragraph—thus allowing students to review instructional content at their own pace as many times as needed on their own outside of class time (Tucker, 2018). Blended learning and supporting models aim to expand access to learning on multiple fronts, providing teachers with opportunities to leverage in and out of class time for instruction and assess­ ing student learning. From the student perspective, they are able to engage in learning modalities that place them at the center of engaging with learning tasks and responsibilities carefully curated by the teacher, and with the opportunity for choice and when to engage. There’s both a responsibility and potential in strategically using rotation models of instruction with purposeful use of technol­ ogy to help students move from passive consumers of information toward informed producers of information.

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Linguistic Diversity

Multimodal pedagogies are important for supporting the academic and social development of the diverse language learners in our classrooms, and multimodal texts are additional linguistic resources that should be added to all of our language repertoires. With increasing linguistic diversity in our class­ rooms, we cannot subscribe to pedagogies that overly rely on language as the only source of informa­ tion. Multimodal pedagogies can also help students demonstrate their understanding when language is limiting. “In other words, we must allow spaces for the full linguistic repertoires of children regardless of form” (Hao & Brown, 2022, p. 97). Further, we must incorporate multimodal pedagogies in our linguistically diverse classrooms because “many of the English learners in our classrooms have devel­ oped rich skills for viewing and visually representing ideas as a way to negotiate their still developing linguistic skills” (Cappello & Barton, 2022, p. 5). One example of the use of multimodal pedagogies was presented in a study by Hao and Brown (2022). Students participated in virtual book clubs as part of a Chinese Heritage School and drew on their linguistic and cultural resources to create multimodal texts. The book club engagements in this voluntary online setting created opportunities for translanguaging, not only between Man­ darin and English, but also with multiple modes of communication (i.e.: drawing, constructing). Because the authors understood “translanguaging as a multimodal process . . . they understood children’s meaning making processes better” (p. 105). Further, they found that “the combination of modes, talking and drawing, adds layers of depth that do not exist when each mode is exam­ ined separately” (p. 98). Clark-Gareca and Meyer (2022) found many benefits of leveraging mul­ timodal pedagogies for English learners. Specifically, Visual Thinking Strategies, a visual-based questioning strategy described in detail later in this chapter, offered ways to capitalize on students’ funds of knowledge, including valuing home languages. The lessons created opportunities for oral language development and specific comprehension skills such as interpretation, explanation, and inferencing as students “engage in speculative conversations and develop their capacities for nuanced understanding” (p.  6). In addition, the multimodal lessons provided opportunities for vocabulary development through multiple representations and repetitions. The authors attributed these gains to affective benefits including a low-stakes learning environment and a setting for natural language acquisition. Cappello and Barton (2022) also found that multimodal pedagogies provided many affordances for English learners in U.S. classrooms on the Mexican border. The elementary students in their study used multimodal resources and created drawings that challenged the deficit labels attributed to them as English learners. The drawings demonstrated successful learning that elevated their status among their peers and in the eyes of their teachers. Indeed, the authors found that multimodal pedagogies have “the potential to create authorial spaces where the voices of English learners, who are too often marginal­ ized in our educational systems, can be better understood” (p. 13). Digital pedagogies can offer opportunities for Language Arts educators to support literacy develop­ ment of students from diverse cultural and language backgrounds by providing students with creative ways to express their knowledge. Digital storytelling is one example of a digital pedagogy, in which teachers use technology such as a social media tool, narration and images in a video, or podcasts for students to tell stories. In their case study focusing on refugee students who were not native English speakers, Kendrick et al. (2022) observed that when the teachers engaged in digital storytelling, they could more easily assess students’ progress in composition and production through the digital artifacts the students created. For example, students created vignettes representing each part of their story by using presentation slides with images and short captions. The students in Kendrick’s case study each developed a story that expressed their experience as a refugee, ranging from what they remember about their country of origin to initial experiences in the United States. More specifically, they found 106

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that digital literacy pedagogy, in this case through digital storytelling, “enabled more autonomous lan­ guage learning, investment, and identity affirmation” in the students observed (p. 979). Digital story­ telling can create opportunities for students who may otherwise not be able to access learning through traditional print-based texts to access information, facilitate meaning-making, produce information, and represent their knowledge.

Assessment Broadened definitions of literacy necessitate expanded ways to evaluate students’ work. Teachers and teacher educators must create assessments that explore both students’ multimodal meaningmaking abilities and capture new content learning represented in their multimodal artifacts. When we embed productive multimodal pedagogies into our curriculum, the lesson outcomes/products themselves provide evidence of learning that helps teachers and students monitor progress to learn­ ing goals. For example, in their study of fourth graders’ responses to a visual-based curriculum on rocks and minerals, Cappello and Lafferty (2015) found that photography “provided another way for students to express important understandings about geology and scientific thinking” (p. 290). In this way, students’ multimodal texts (the mineral photo booklets they created at the end of the unit of study), were used to assess content knowledge. In another study, four fourth graders who were labeled “at risk” by traditional linguistic-based classroom standards demonstrated their understand­ ing of a human rights unit through painted narratives, sketches on torn dictionary pages, and other visual-based multimodal artifacts. These alternative classroom texts were added to each student’s portfolio, which were later used as an assessment tool (Lawrence  & Mathis, 2020). The authors found that the “multimodal assessments opened a space for students to express ideas, feelings, and narratives, taking on a critical stance . . . and provided expressive outlets that speech and written language alone could not” (p. 146). Further, these assessments challenged the misleading narratives about students labeled “at risk” by standardized assessments. According to Lawrence and Mathis (2020), multimodal pedagogies provided a more complex and insightful narrative of “these children as literate beings” (p. 140). Teachers must also have a wide range of ways to evaluate students’ multimodal work to better understand their intentions. Callow (2018, 2020) offered key principles and strategies to ground assess­ ment of students’ understanding of multimodal texts, whether they be their own or those found within the curriculum. One recommendation included assessment through discussion strategies built on care­ fully selected questions that not only address a student’s understanding of the visual and verbal modes in multimodal texts, but also the combined meanings derived from the visual and verbal intersections intended to “help students see the connection between image and text, allowing them to demonstrate their own interpretation of possible meanings” (p. 17). Although “assessment of students’ understand­ ing of visual and verbal modes as well as their combined meanings is a growing area of literacy research” (Callow, 2020, p. 117), much is to be learned in this area. Indeed, in their critical review of multimodal assessments, Tan et al. (2020) highlighted the “dis­ juncture between multimodal productions and assessment practices” (p. 105). The authors attribute the use of rubrics, checklists, and other “language dominant” assessments to teachers’ lack of under­ standing of multimodal literacies, making them too reliant on adapted traditional writing assess­ ments as a way to legitimize multimodal compositions in their classrooms. In addition, their review found that these linguistic-based assessments did little to improve students’ compositions. Instead, the authors and others (Lawrence & Mathis, 2020) suggest contextualizing multimodal compositions in sociocultural contexts, creating collaborative assessment criteria, and relying less on a discrete set of skills for evaluation.

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Identity Development In addition to multimodal assessments, another trend we found was a focus on multimodal pedagogies as a tool for identity development. Several recent studies have built on the findings shared by Zapata et al. (2017) in the last Handbook, which suggested that “multimodal and multilingual literacies are sali­ ent for the identity development and agency of immigrant and other linguistically diverse youth but are beneficial for all young learners” (p. 377). More recently, Li (2020) found similar results, stating that “ESL students improve multiliteracy skills, negotiate their identities, and enhance learning motivation and autonomy through multimodal practices” (p. 1). In their case study of a 14-year-old English learner, Vorobel et al. (2020) described the transforma­ tion in the student’s classroom status as she expressed herself and her identity through multiliteracy practices designed for self-reflection that included “identifying and missing her homeland and family” as well as her “resistance to negative representation of ELs in the high school” (p. 332). In addition to finding that multimodal pedagogies allowed the students in their study to challenge the deficit labels attributed to them as English learners, Cappello and Barton (2022) found that critical multimodal pedagogies were a way for these students to assert themselves into and beyond the assigned curriculum. The students created counternarratives using multiple modes of communication including illustrations to demonstrate their success at understanding the content lessons, which elevated their social status in the academic classroom. Teacher education can also capitalize on multimodal pedagogies for identity reflection and devel­ opment. As part of a university partnership, Cappello (2019) explored digital stories created by her Samoan Masters students as part of a class called Innovations in Instruction. The assignment goal was to create a story, using any accessible digital tool, that expressed standards-based content knowledge. The digital stories were viewed through a multimodal conversational frame that united the maker/viewer/ content to better understand participants’ identities. The Samoan students (teachers and administra­ tors) “used multimodal communication to display and reflect their social and cultural identities and expressed identity through demonstrations of power and status within their social relationships” (p. 14). Students also “asserted and built upon their social and cultural identities while using images to target curricular understandings” (p.  18). When we understand identity as flexible rather than something steady and unchanging (Zapata et al., 2017), we can better understand the potential of multimodal pedagogies to guide students as they “construct and re-construct” their multiple identities (p. 364).

Digital Literacy Standards, Application, and Assessment For educators, it is important to make decisions regarding the design of instructional approaches that are informed by evidence-based practices grounded in relevant standards. Relevancy and instructional purpose are vital in teaching students the skills required to successfully engage with digital information. There are prominent voices that recognize the importance of teaching students digital literacy skills by providing guidance for school leaders, instructional coaches, teachers, and students. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) (2016) has developed standards to help educators deepen their instructional practice to empower students in leveraging technology throughout their learning. This is promoted by the notion that students are using digital technologies at an increasing rate. The ISTE standards for students promote building capacity at the individual learner level by focusing on fostering students’ identity and responsibility in constructing knowledge, making meaning, communi­ cating, and collaborating (ISTE, 2016). While ISTE’s standards offer guidance, they are not mandated standards other than by school dis­ tricts and sites that adopt them as part of their instructional methods and assign accountability for their application. The Common Core State Standards, adopted and implemented in all but nine states, are 108

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the measure for student competency across English Language Arts and math subjects. The Common Core State Standards recognize the relevancy and importance of media and technology in relation to preparing students for college and careers. Evidence of the intent to guide educators in the integration of digital literacy into standards-based pedagogy can be found in writing and reading anchor standards. References to the use of technology in student learning ranges from using it to produce knowledge, to higher-level thinking necessary for students to effectively navigate and evaluate information online (Leu et al., 2017). It is important to note that the Common Core Standards provide opportunities for digital literacies, but do not provide much guidance. There is room for interpretation by educators to navigate variances between media, usage, and student competency. In addition to ISTE’s advocacy and the introduction of digital literacies in the Common Core State Standards, there is also recognition at the national level about the importance of digital literacy from another assessment authority. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), considered “the nation’s report card,” has developed an interactive assessment that utilizes scenario-based tasks aimed at helping measure the extent to which students are able to apply technology and engineering skills in real-life scenarios (NAEP, 2022). The initial assessment was administered in 2014, and most recently in 2018 to 15,400 eighth graders from about 600 schools. The 2018 results indicated that 46% of students assessed performed at or above the proficient level (NAEP, 2022). These numbers help gauge the readiness of young learners as it pertains to their ability to implement technological skills as part of their daily life functions. The ISTE standards aim to help students learn and apply technological skills, an approach that instructional leaders have also identified as key to shift the role of students from passive consumers of digital tools and media to informed producers and contributors of information (Fisher et al., 2014).

Implications As our world becomes increasingly diverse, we need expansive language and literacy practices to sup­ port students’ learning. Our overwhelmingly visual world demands a shift from conceptualizing lit­ eracy as purely linguistic; written text now seems unfinished without images, particularly in the digital context. Multimodal pedagogies offer a wide range of strategies and tools for students to access and demonstrate their knowledge of the curriculum. Accordingly, we must prepare teachers to meet the needs of our 21st-century learners. We need “flexible approaches to literacy education and a reinvig­ oration of initial teacher preparation programs to support diversity and inclusion in literacy education” (Drewry et al., 2019, p. 61). There are many voices calling for an integration of multimodal pedagogies into teacher preparation and education programs. Yi and Angay-Crowder (2016) argued that “teacher education classrooms should be reconceptualized as semiotic spaces that allow learners to use a wide range of linguistic and multimodal resources for teaching and learning” (p. 995). Adding to this call, Hong and Hua (2020) suggested that the field: needs to consider how to design pedagogic activities that can engage adolescents in higher levels of thinking about the nature of multimodal texts. To achieve this pedagogic goal, teachers will have to become more insightful about multimodal learning by looking at literacy in a new light. (p. 47) Others recommend that teacher educators integrate multimodal modes in their assignments and coursework to model the potential of multimodal pedagogies for their students (Cappello, 2019). Unfortunately, many studies reveal that many new and seasoned teachers alike feel that they lack the preparation and skills needed to create and deliver a multimodal curriculum (Li, 2020; Tan et al., 2020; Veliz  & Hossein, 2020). Sadly, multimodal pedagogies are frequently left out of teacher education 109

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programs dominated by print-centric perspectives. Veliz and Hossein (2020) recently examined teach­ ers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the Australian English as an Additional Language (ELA) teacher training programs in preparing them for multimodal pedagogy. Findings indicated a perceived differ­ ence between what was learned in teacher preparation coursework and current classroom pedagogical practices. Teacher participants shared challenges of meeting students’ needs for using information and communication technologies (ICT) in the context of culturally responsive pedagogies. For example, one language teacher addressed the pushback she received when trying to incorporate social aspects of literacy learning through social media outlets such as posting on Facebook and Twitter. Li (2020) conducted semi-structured interviews with pre- and in-service teachers in one innovative Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher education program where multimodal peda­ gogies were embedded. The teachers articulated both successes and challenges in designing projects for English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) students. While there were many perceived benefits to celebrate (e.g., motivating content learning, enhancing digital learning, reflecting on one’s own teaching context), participants offered suggestions based on their perceived constraints including the desire to challenge themselves with new technologies and the need for more peer interaction in developing their lessons. From a pedagogical standpoint, the developments and availability of technologies that present new mediums through which information can be consumed and created present educators with a wide range of opportunities as well as challenges for literacy instruction. “New” does not automatically sig­ nal a need to change instructional models, but rather a chance to look for ways in which new mediums may situate learning for students, and how evidence-based literacy instruction can be leveraged with the purpose to guide students in sense- and meaning-making, as well as developing and communicat­ ing their own identity. At times, the unknown can pose a challenge for educators, leading us to wonder: what are the ben­ efits and what are the threats of these technologies in our instruction? Recently, a new tool has entered the arena of technological advances that is prompting educators to ponder the challenges or oppor­ tunities of using it for literacy instruction. The tool, ChatGPT, is a generative artificial intelligence tool developed by the company OpenAI and is currently in version 4 as of this writing. This product, which has been made available to the public through a beta release as of late 2022, allows users to sub­ mit inquiry requests through the ChatGPT web interface, which then produces a response generated by the artificial intelligence engine. Requests range from asking ChatGPT to write specific computer code or analyze a piece of submitted computer code for efficiency, to writing Shakespearean poetry or taking the bar exam. The tool can also be used to write a paper based on a prompt with parameters such as word length, supporting sources with citations, tone, or writing style. This has raised some eye­ brows in the education field, leading many to wonder what role this tool will have within education. Conversations centered around how this technology is being used and what educators should consider are taking place across the country in K-12 and higher-ed settings. While initial reactions revolved around addressing plagiarism, there has been dialogue arguing that the tool is here to stay; rather than resisting it, educators should approach it with thoughtful conversations that are productive rather than restrictive in how to use it for knowledge creation and communication. As we have discussed in this review, the field evolves as new knowledge is gained and new tools are developed. Language Arts instruction serves as a key component to enhance our understanding of how to best prepare students to be informed and empowered contributors.

Where to Start We recommend designing and practicing multimodal pedagogies with a core set of foundational strat­ egies that are grounded in critical perspectives. One of the most accessible engagements is Visual 110

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Thinking Strategies (VTS) (Housen, 2007; Yenawine, 2013). VTS is an adaptable and versatile entry point when considering multimodal pedagogical approaches across the curriculum. It is flexible enough to be used in multiple academic settings and grade levels, as well as with a wide range of content across the curriculum. Although VTS was originally developed for museum education and aesthetic development, it has been widely adapted for use in elementary schools (Cappello & Walker, 2016; Cappello & Lafferty, 2015), middle and high schools (Dawson, 2018; Zapata et al., 2017) and at universities (Yenawine & Miller, 2014) for use across the curriculum and in English and English learner classrooms. At the heart of VTS is a three-question protocol that empowers interpretation, connects textural evidence, and invites multiple interpretations (Dawson, 2018). After presenting an image, the teacher poses the following three carefully worded questions that serve supportive but separate intentions: 1. “What’s going on in this picture?” 2. “What do you see that makes you say that?” and 3. “What more can you find?” After students have time to skim and scan the image, the first question launches the multimodal strat­ egy. Note that the question does not ask for viewers to say what they see, as that would simply yield a visual accounting of objects. Rather, by asking “what’s going on?” viewers are required to interpret images and draw conclusions about what is represented by visual text. The second question asks for evidence to justify claims about the image. The third question extends interpretations. The teacher paraphrases students’ contributions but makes no corrections or remarks of validation. VTS captures many benefits of multimodal pedagogies. It provides access to the curriculum in ways that are not tied to language ability. The use of visual texts along with the protocol help students negotiate complex and critical (Zapata et al., 2017) content, and provides tiered instruction through multiple analytical engagements ((Cappello & Lafferty, 2015; Zapata et al., 2017). Clark-Gareca and Meyer (2022) suggested that VTS leads to natural scaffolding, and that the protocol “provided students with cognitive practice and models to build on in subsequent activities” (p. 6). This is another reason why VTS is a strong foundational strategy. Another way VTS provides access is by creating a safe environment for risk taking (Cappello & Walker, 2016; Dawson, 2018). Because there are no articulated standards for classroom participation, students might be more willing to speculate and participate when they are not sure they have a “cor­ rect” answer. Cappello and Walker (2016) opined that “perhaps the social nature of VTS, students’ ability to address the topic through visually gained knowledge, and the teachers’ neutrality to responses supported by evidence may all add to students’ willingness to participate in new ways” (p. 7). Dawson (2018) suggested that VTS creates an open invitation for “students to take risks and reach beyond what they assume to be safe answers” (p. 45). VTS supports both language and identity development. In their study of ninth grade English lan­ guage learners, Clark-Gareca and Meyer (2022) “found that VTS promoted English learners’ language acquisition along a variety of pathways, including valuing their home language [and] encouraging scaffolded language” (p. 6). VTS lessons also benefit vocabulary development, especially complex lan­ guage specific to academic disciplines. One sixth grade teacher in Cappello and Walker’s (2016) study found that “the language came organically [from the students] because it didn’t feel like an add-on to the strategies themselves” (p. 6). In the same study, teachers agreed that students’ oral language skills blossomed as students used accountable talk to build off each other’s ideas with relevant contributions. VTS provides students with time to negotiate and articulate their identities inside and outside the class­ room. Dawson (2018) stated that VTS “deliberately positions the students as a knower” (p. 46). When students capitalize on their visual knowledge in expert ways, they challenge the deficit perspectives 111

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sometimes assigned to them in school contexts. This is especially true for English learners, who often develop powerful visual literacy skills to bridge the gap as they learn language. Finally, we make sense of this strategy by understanding it through a critical multimodal literacy framework, as it creates equitable classroom learning opportunities to access and demonstrate social and academic knowledge (Cappello et al., 2019).

Discussion Expansive definitions of literacy that include multimodal artifacts as well as the accompanying innova­ tive assessment procedures make multimodal pedagogies an inclusive and equitable pedagogy across educational settings and academic content areas. Indeed, multimodal pedagogies create classroom opportunities for educators to develop a more vibrant picture of students’ literacies as well as their content and social knowledge. Because students have new pathways to access and demonstrate knowl­ edge, they are able to counter the deficit views that are elicited by classroom labels such as English learner (Cappello & Barton, 2022), at-risk (Lawrence & Mathis, 2020), and academically marginal­ ized (Anderson et al., 2017). Multimodal pedagogies create classrooms where students have additional opportunities to imagine, prove, and communicate themselves as successful, influencing the perspec­ tives of their peers and teachers, and creating space for self-reflection. In this way, multimodal peda­ gogies have the potential to encourage and reveal hope (Barton & Cappello, 2023; Griffin & Turner, 2021; Turner & Griffin, 2020; Wiseman et al., 2021).

Conclusion The field has made some subtle shifts as more and more educators recognize the overwhelming pres­ ence of visual texts used with linguistic texts in classrooms and in students’ worlds beyond school. Teachers and learners now come to school with a wide range of experiences of viewing and visually representing ideas through multiple modes of expression. This makes pedagogies for effective teach­ ing even more necessary as interaction with multimodal literacies becomes increasingly prevalent in our everyday lives. Multimodal pedagogies must be included in teacher preparation and education programs to provide teachers with the skills they need to guide our students into a future dominated by multimodal literacies.

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6

RESEARCH IN CHILDREN’S

LITERATURE

Angie Zapata, Monica C. Kleekamp, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, and

Thomas Crisp

Children’s literature remains an enduring means for language and literacy learning across K-12 class­ rooms. As researchers in the field of literature education and research, we have witnessed a long history of examining the promise and potential of children’s literature for broader Language Arts learning, including touchstone texts to support reading comprehension (e.g., Laman et al., 2006), mentor texts for writing (e.g., Laminack, 2017), supporting language acquisition (e.g., Ho, 2000), and support­ ing children’s affinity for reading for pleasure and cultivating book joy (Baumann  & Duffy, 1997; Yenika-Agbaw, 1997). As curated art for readers to respond to (Eeds & Peterson, 1991; Zapata, 2022), children’s literature also offers readers of all ages opportunities to read for aesthetic (personal response) and efferent purposes (reading for information) (Rosenblatt, 1994). A healthy corpus of research on children’s literature response and discussion among children and youth has revealed the significance of literature discussion as a pathway for students to connect with characters (e.g., Roser et al., 2005) and themes and to make intertextual meaning across literary genres, including nonfiction texts (Crisp et al., 2021; Dooley et al., 2012). Classroom research focused on children’s literature has also provided needed insights into both the nature of students’ literature discussions (Sipe, 1999; Wolf, 2014), and how literature educators can support book talk in K-12 classrooms (Daniels, 2002; Maloch, 2004). Research in children’s literature has also highlighted the impact of illustrated literature on literacy for children and youth. Reading illustrated texts such as picturebooks and graphic novel formats offers both visual and print content as well as other semiotic meanings (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2013; Serafini & Reid, 2022; Sipe, 1998). These include use of line and perspective in illustration as well as other peritextual features, including book jackets (Bang, 2016; Sipe & McGuire, 2020). Literature scholars have discussed how reading illustrated literature requires a “slow look” (Pantaleo, 2020) to read both text and image together. Indeed, there remains continued interest and great momentum for research inquiry into the  multimodal nature of children’s illustrated literature (Moses et  al., 2020; Serafini, 2010), its affordances for visual literacy learning (Pantaleo, 2021), and its broader social semiotic mean­ ing (e.g., shifts in color in picturebooks) (Martinez et al., 2020). Indeed, the longevity and vastness of children’s literature education is indelible, and the result­ ing research has slowly influenced classroom practices over time (Arizpe et al., 2013). We are now observing how the field of children’s literature research and education (and the influence of children’s literature publishing) has produced continued openings for next-generation educators and scholars to dig further into the rich language and literacy learning possibilities of sharing children’s literature with children and youth in the classroom. As noted by Short (2018), the field is currently experiencing a DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-7

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visual and cultural diversity turn centered on the promises and possibilities of making a better world through children’s literature (Bomer & Bomer, 2001; Rodríguez & Swalwell, 2021). In this chapter focused on children’s literature and the language arts, we provide a closer look at this next-generation scholarship and highlight the relationship between children’s literature research focused on content analyses, classroom practice, and teacher preparation, and what we identify as a justice-oriented turn in the field.

Methodology To better understand and appreciate this next generation of literature scholarship and a justice-oriented turn in children’s literature, we must acknowledge the significant relationship between the publica­ tion of children’s literature and the field of children’s literature research. Trends in children’s literature publication have always shaped important areas of children’s literature research inquiry. As patterns in children’s literature publication influence the collections in classroom and school libraries, children’s literature research has followed suit with deep interest in the ways children and youth take up trends in publication in the classroom, including inquiries into graphic novels (Low, 2017) and nonfiction picturebooks, for example (Crisp et  al., 2018; Gallagher  & Wrenn, 2020). These trends have also influenced pedagogy, resulting in research on the emergence of innovative literacy pedagogies that have brought new and needed insights to the field. For example, Gardner (2017) has illustrated the impor­ tance of visual thinking strategies with picturebooks focused on slavery as a racially healing practice for readers of color. Publication of children’s literature as an art form has consistently reflected movements and events in contemporary society. For example, as the nation experienced desegregation in schools and mul­ ticultural education initiatives gained momentum, children’s literature publishers began to publish a small number of texts with a diverse representation of characters. Despite their limitations as adjunct material, these texts offered openings for other culturally, racially, and ethnically relevant literature to be published, adding to the small but critical legacy of racially specific literature for children. More recently, in the wake of global equity, social justice, and anti-racism movements, publishing houses deeply influenced by movements such as #WeNeedDiverseBooks have given more attention to diverse representation in children’s literature, amplifying the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; LGBTQ+ communities; dis/abled people; and multiracial, multiethnic, religious, and lan­ guage minoritized groups. Literature scholars have taken notice and have produced numerous content analyses of these texts and examined how teachers and students read, discuss, and learn from children’s books that reflect diverse representation and justice-oriented movements. Throughout this chapter, we use the term “justice-oriented” to encompass the wide-ranging epistemologies currently shaping the field of children’s literature, including critical literacy (Vasquez, 2003), social justice (Yokota & Kolar, 2008), anti-racist (Rogers & Christian, 2007), and anti-oppressive (Paterson, 2018) stances in children’s literature research. Building on the most recent trajectory in children’s literature research and education, we define and amplify children’s literature as sociopolitical art reflecting both historical and contemporary life, and center justice-oriented children’s literature with diverse representation. In doing so, we align this review of new children’s literature scholarship with the justice-oriented turn in research focused on interpreting the authenticity of diverse portrayals in texts and how children, youth, and their teachers in K-12 settings are responding to this literature. Our review is also informed by the continued atten­ tion to the theories of semiotics shaping much of the current research in children’s literature. With this focus on semiotics and justice-oriented research in children’s literature, we conducted digital hand searches in relevant children’s literature research journals on literacy, children’s literature, and education research from the last 10 to 15 years. We bound our search to the last 10 to 15 years to better build 117

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upon recent reviews of the field (e.g., Arizpe, 2021; Flores et al., 2019; Short, 2018), and relied on children’s literature as a key term with other key phrases including content analysis, classroom research, picturebooks, literature response, literature discussion, multimodal, visual literacy, and other relevant justice-oriented terms including critical literacy, social justice, anti-racism, and anti-oppressive. To help narrow the initial collection of research gathered, we focused on picturebook research in K-12 settings given the preponderance of scholarship focused on the picturebook examined through the lens of visual literacy, semiotics, and broader multimodal frameworks and social justice frameworks. To better align with the justice-oriented turn in children’s literature and its increasing focus on diverse representation, we also sought out research that reflected an explicit focus on high quality children’s literature with diverse portrayals, including titles authored and/or illustrated by established writers and artists of color and Indigenous heritage. Based on our review, we identified three distinct areas of inquiry shaping the field: (a) content analysis of children’s literature; (b) classroom instruction of children’s literature, and (c) children’s lit­ erature teacher preparation and development. The content analyses of children’s picturebooks featured reflect approaches and methods that rely on critical theories to interpret patterns in the print and/or illustrated narrative features of the literature. The classroom instruction of children’s literature scholar­ ship reviewed illustrates how children’s literature (across K-12 settings and across both Language Arts and Social Studies classrooms) is shared by teachers with close attention to the ways children and youth take up justice-oriented themes and features. The third and final sub-field of study, teacher preparation and teacher education research in children’s literature, highlights how children’s literature can be a part of teacher preparation and development in higher education settings. In this chapter, we feature each of these sub-fields of study as distinct yet related domains of inquiry, highlighting the significant con­ nections and related implications offered by each area of inquiry. The points of intersection are further developed in the discussion and conclusion of this chapter.

Critical Research on Multicultural Content Analyses of Picturebooks In recent years, scholars in the field of diverse children’s literature have become increasingly concerned with how historically marginalized identities and communities are represented in picturebooks. Short (2018) wrote, “The continued lack of diversity in children’s literature is devastating for children as readers, many of whom rarely see their lives and cultural identities within a book” (p. 293). Given that so few representations of minoritized and marginalized communities exist, current scholars in chil­ dren’s literature seek to uncover what messaging (both overt and covert) exists in these texts. To engage in this work, scholars have shifted away from previous iterations of content analyses that focused solely on textual content to read more deeply into underlying meanings within and beyond texts, including visual and semiotic meanings in illustrations. Paired with an array of critical onto­ epistemologies (e.g., Critical Race Theory(ies), Queer Theory, Disability Studies, etc.), recent analyses of children’s picturebooks are also largely guided by critical multicultural analysis (CMA) (Botelho & Rudman, 2009) and/or critical content analysis (Johnson et al., 2017). Botelho and Rudman (2009) posited that a critical multicultural analysis of children’s literature “centers on the sociopolitical function of linguistic and visual signs” (p. 2) through a reframing of the field to read and interpret power structure representation through language, meaning, and literature. Johnson et al. (2017) similarly defined critical content analyses of children’s literature as examining inequities from multiple perspectives including who speaks in the text, from whose point of view the story is told, and in what ways. Texts must be examined for how they do (or do not) present characters as resistant to stereotypes to make space for counternarratives. Researchers engaging in critical content analyses employ critical theories alongside critical content analysis methods as they examine data.

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In the following sections, we specifically turn to critical multicultural content analyses of pic­ turebooks within the last decade. We identified 105 pieces of scholarship focused on critical content analyses of children’s literature. Collectively, these analyses harness the work of Botelho and Rudman (2009) and/or Johnson et al. (2017) as guiding frameworks for this critical work. Across these analyses, we highlight three major themes consistently identified by researchers: (a) the importance of author and illustrator identities in authentic representations of children’s literature; (b) the harmful effects of oversimplification in children’s literature; and (c) the presentation of individual action, collective responsibility, and the role of systematic exclusion in children’s literature.

Whose Stories? The Importance of Author and Illustrator Identities in Authentic

Representations in Children’s Literature

To begin this section, it is perhaps first relevant to consider who is currently represented in terms of authorship and illustrator identities in recent children’s literature. In a systematic content analysis of 337 Caldecott winners and honor books published in 2012 in the United States, Koss et al. (2018) revealed that nearly 87% of all texts represented white authors and illustrators. Black authors and illustrators rep­ resented less than 9% of publications, while Asian/Asian American authors and illustrators represented just 3%. Latinx authors and illustrators represented less than 2%, and American Indian illustrators represented .3%. There was no representation by American Indian (the first award for an Indigenous illustrator occurred in 2021), Middle Eastern, or multiracial authors or illustrators. Given the lack of diverse representation in award-winning children’s literature (see Crisp, 2015), it is perhaps unsurprising that numerous critical content analyses of picturebooks revealed that texts perpetuating problematic stereotypes related to cultural groups were often written by authors without group identity membership, while texts written and illustrated by cultural insiders generally portrayed more authentic representations of communities’ lived experiences. For example, Rodríguez and Kim (2018), in their critical content analysis of 21 Asian American picturebooks featuring human Asian or Asian American main characters set in the United States, pointed to the imperative importance of insider knowledge when writing and illustrating with cultural authenticity. Drawing on Asian Ameri­ can critical race theory (AsianCrit), Rodríguez and Kim (2018) identified an array of stereotypical representations in their analysis. As researchers with insider positionalities, Rodríguez and Kim (2018) described the importance of cultural details in text and illustrations that provide evidence of cultural authenticity. Specifically, when texts were authored and illustrated by cultural insiders, representations of food, traditional customs, and self and family evoked memories for both authors that felt relatable to their own upbringings, indicating an authenticity that can likely not be recreated by an outsider. While many analyses focused on contemporary children’s literature, some researchers examined less current popular text choices for young children. For example, in their critical content analysis of 50 Dr. Seuss books, Ishizuka and Stephens (2019) not only emphasized the importance of authors and illustrators as cultural insiders but also brought to light the extreme importance of author/illustrator positionality. Utilizing critical literacy and critical race theory (CRT) as theoretical frames, Ishizuka and Stephens (2019) outlined, in great detail, how themes of Orientalism, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy circulate throughout the corpus of children’s picturebooks published by Dr. Seuss. After noting that Seuss failed to acknowledge or apologize for racist depictions of characters of color in his literature throughout his life, Ishizuka and Stephens (2019) concluded, “Using the work of an author with an extensive history of explicit racism distorts and erases the harm Seuss has done to oppressed groups” (n.p.). Ishizuka and Stephens (2019) name Seuss’s positionality as a white author and illustra­ tor with a known background of racist and xenophobic ideas as particularly problematic given the ongoing popularity of Dr. Seuss picturebooks today. In other words, sharing Seuss’s work with young

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children continues to celebrate racism without calling into question the violence this work has caused to marginalized communities. Research raising concerns about author/illustrator identities are not limited to content analyses of picturebooks depicting diverse racial and/or ethnic backgrounds. Utilizing a cultural model of Deaf­ ness as a theoretical framing, Golos et al. (2012) completed a content analysis of 25 fictional picturebooks with deaf central characters. Of this sample, Golos et al. (2012) identified an overwhelming tendency for text and illustrations in these picturebooks to position deaf characters from a pathological rather than cultural perspective. For example, most picturebooks featured only one deaf character among a cast of characters who were all hearing and depicted gestures rather than featuring American Sign Language (ASL) in the illustrations. Golos et al. (2012) pointed to the lack of Deaf representa­ tion in author and illustrator identities within the corpus of these texts as a key shortcoming for deaf children to see themselves represented in environments rich with Deaf culture. Investigating the identities of picturebook authors and illustrators is a crucial part of the selection process when examining diverse children’s literature. As Reese (2019) reminds us, though, readers should not always assume that authors, illustrators, reviewers, or publishers always represent the identi­ ties they claim. Specifically, in her decades-long review of various individuals claiming to be authorita­ tive resources, Reese (2019) pointed to multiple people who have claimed Indigenous identities and, in turn, often perpetuate stereotypes invisible to non-Native people, particularly those representations that position Indigenous identities as a monolith. Therefore, building a more humanizing collection of diverse children’s literature with attention to cultural and identity authenticity begins with centering the voices of authors and illustrators from these communities of people.

Stock Stories or Counterstories? Naming the Harmful Effects of Oversimplification in

Children’s Literature

In addition to how author and illustrator identity influence cultural authenticity in picturebooks, researchers have found an absence of complex and multifaceted portrayals of lived experiences in chil­ dren’s literature. While researchers found some picturebooks representing a diverse array of identities and careful attention to the nuances of cultural insiders and disrupted stereotypical representations via counterstories, many analyzed texts continue to include stock stories or monolithic representations of a cultural group or specific identity. For example, utilizing postcolonial theory and CRT to conduct a critical content analysis of Puerto Rican experiences in contemporary realistic fictional picturebooks, Acevedo (2017) noted key themes that oversimplified this complex existence, including positioning Puerto Rico as never-changing, technologically unaware, and dependent on the United States. Singlestory representations presenting a stock image of someone from a specific cultural or identity group were not unique to Acevedo’s study. Employing an AsianCrit lens, specifically the tenet of Asianization, in a critical content analysis of 33 adoption-themed picturebooks featuring children adopted from Asia, Yi (2021) demonstrated that texts overwhelmingly present Asian adoption stock stories, or a monolithic understanding of the adoption experience. Yi (2021) found that texts were written primarily from the perspective of a white adoptive mother and situated mostly East Asian adoptees, specifically Chinese children, as forever for­ eigners who assimilated into American families. Similarly, Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi and Adams-Campbell (2016), drawing from an array of examples from picturebooks portraying the First Thanksgiving, described how children’s literature continues to promote a master narrative that privileges mythi­ cal Eurocentric-dominated ideas about Indigenous peoples. Non-Indigenous authors and illustrators often continue to perpetuate narrow misrepresentations of a deeply racist and violent history. How­ ever, Indigenous authors and illustrators take power back from these harmful narratives by exercising agency through their own publication of the harsh realities of these histories. 120

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Other researchers have also identified this juxtaposition of stock stories that reify stereotypes and counterstories that disrupt them within a single content analysis. Guided by LatCrit, Rodriguez and Braden (2018) examined the immigration experiences of Latinx child characters in their critical con­ tent analysis of 13 picturebooks. They found both monolithic representations that oversimplified the experiences of Latinx youth and counterstories that cast doubt on the validity of ideas upheld by the majority. For example, Rodriguez and Braden (2018) problematized texts that portrayed children as missing their home country without naming the home country, stating that this ambiguity “has the potential to contribute to the essentializing of immigrants instead of [recognizing] the varied experi­ ences that immigrants from different countries may face” (p. 56). However, texts that made space for counterstories such as the difficulties of learning a new language and adjusting to oppressive situations immigrants face living in the United States recognized children’s lived realities. In examining stock stories of a particular marginalized group in children’s literature, researchers also problematized the lack of intersectionality portrayed through main characters in picturebooks. For example, findings from Young’s (2019) content analysis of 28 award-winning picturebooks featur­ ing LGBTQ+ communities revealed that most texts featured characters who were overwhelmingly white, gendered along binary lines (i.e., male or female), and often presented in secondary roles to a straight protagonist. These findings are especially disappointing, given that that field does not seem to have responded to similar critiques from scholars across the past few decades (e.g., Day, 2000; Naidoo, 2012). While texts in this collection featured some positive representations of LGTBQ+ life, many texts included stereotypical negative interactions in which queer characters needed to conform to cisheteronormative ways of being/existing (e.g., performing masculinity) to gain social acceptance. Given the largely monolithic representation of LGBTQ+ human characters in picturebooks, Wargo and Coleman (2021), guided by critical multiculturalism and the conceptual hook of the queer (in) human, completed a critical content analysis of animal, fantastical, or inhuman characters (e.g., uni­ corns, worms, and mermaids), through reparative readings of 18 LGBTQ+ picturebooks. They argued that while many scholars call into question the value of representing queer humanity in animal form, (in)human representations create possibilities to move away from homonormative portrayals of queer life that tend to mirror a heteronormative existence, as described by Young (2019). From a reparative stance, Wargo and Coleman (2021) argued that the queer (in)human offers an opportunity to repair dehumanizing violence by considering what could be possible in the social world through the lens of “(in)human figures” (p. 93). Across this body of scholarship, there is a common theme of counterstories appearing in children’s literature when representations are highly nuanced and complex in their detailed take of a particular lived experience. However, researchers who identified gross oversimplifications and stereotypical por­ trayals of a group via monolithic/stock stories often still argued that these texts might be shared with young readers as long as these readings are paired with critical conversations about who/what is (and is not) represented in a text, how this/these identities are portrayed, and what realities are (and are not) shared within the text.

Who is Accountable? Individual Action, Collective Responsibility, and the Role of

Systematic Exclusion in Children’s Literature

A final theme that emerged across critical content analyses of diverse children’s picturebooks examined how social responsibility is framed within texts. Current researchers argue that picturebooks represent­ ing historical moments through accounts of individual responsibility or individual exceptionalism fail to capture the importance of collective responsibility and systemic exclusion/marginalization. For example, in their critical reading of A Fine Dessert (Jenkins, 2015), a picturebook that depicts parents and children in four different centuries making a dessert called blackberry fool, Thomas et al. 121

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(2016) problematized the portrayal of the lived historical realities of enslaved Black Americans and how historical events are often taught in ways that reinforce Whiteness. Using A Fine Dessert as an example of a text that won multiple awards, Thomas et al. (2016) reminded readers that award-winning books are not exempt from critical examination. Rather, picturebooks like A Fine Dessert serve as examples of pervasive Whiteness among authors, illustrators, and the publishing industry, including editors, reviewers, and award committees. Juxtaposed with this critique of historical depictions of slavery, Rodríguez and Vickery (2020) examined a portrayal of the lived realities of Black Americans during the civil rights era. Combining Critical Race Media Literacy and CRT, Rodríguez and Vickery (2020) completed a critical content analysis of The Youngest Marcher (Levinson, 2017), a picturebook that also won several awards and depicts the participation of Audrey Faye Hendricks in the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Their critique highlights how sharing stories that continue to reify narratives of individual exceptionalism (much like narratives of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.) fail to account for the complexity of social movements. As Rodríguez and Vickery (2020) concluded: the event in which she [Hendricks] participated was undoubtedly an extraordinary example of collective action . . . despite the clear significance of the Black community mobilizing against racist and discriminatory practices, the efforts of the collective are subsumed beneath the com­ pelling story of an incredibly brave individual. (p. 118) Together, Thomas et al. (2016) and Rodríguez and Vickery (2020) highlight the ways in which Whiteness and individual exceptionalism continue to reinforce stereotypical representations of the col­ lective struggle and efforts of African American communities. Alongside the call for more authentic representations of collective resistance, Sciurba (2020) focused on representations in children’s picturebooks that fail to identify the role of systemic exclusion related to complex topics including racism and police brutality. Harnessing a theoretical framework informed by CRT, Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) and Critical Multicultural Analysis (CMA), Sciurba (2020) conducted a critical content analysis of five picturebooks written in the post-civil rights era that addressed incidents of white supremacist crime or violence against a Black individual or group. While all texts in the analysis centered around a police shooting, findings revealed significant differences in the ways texts did (or did not) name Whiteness as problematic. Sciurba (2020) highlighted the over­ whelming absence of the role of Whiteness within the majority of picturebooks in the study. Defining Whiteness as a system of domination in children’s literature (and society), Sciurba (2020) pointed to the overly simplistic understanding of unjust policing that fails to push readers to interrogate how White­ ness operates in spheres of oppression. Across content analyses, Whiteness and its role in the lives of racially minoritized groups was not unique to African Americans. For example, in their analysis informed by geocriticism, Abas et  al. (2021) examined how Muslim child migrants in the United States were represented in four multicul­ tural children’s picturebooks. Findings revealed that characters generally faced difficulties adapting to the cultural, religious, and linguistic differences between their home countries and the U.S., and that individual Muslim characters were noted as taking agency in overcoming obstacles they encountered. Abas et al. (2021) concluded that “the experiences of Muslim migrant characters were reflective of current situations in the United States and transnationally in Western countries where white suprem­ acy reigns” (p. 56). These findings suggest that while characters in texts must take individual action to gain acceptance in their new country, it is the systemic role of Whiteness that creates the demand for this assimilation in the first place.

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While an array of articles described the importance of sharing children’s literature that depicts the role of collective resistance to racist violence, Aho and Alter (2018) explored how ableism leads to the systemic exclusion of disabled people in children’s literature. Aho and Alter (2018), informed by Disability Studies and DisCrit, conducted an analysis of two picturebooks whose protagonists are both wheelchair users. While both picturebooks include narratives of interdependence, the wheelchair rid­ er’s chair does not become visible until the last page of both picturebooks. Aho and Alter (2018) argued that while these texts portray disabled characters as participating in typical activities, they also promote an individualized understanding of disability (i.e., something located within the person) rather than an understanding of disability as based on societal exclusion. By eliminating wheelchairs, crutches, and legs from the illustrations, the authors reinforce the shaming of difference. These findings link with the continual call from researchers for representations of collective responsibility and action among marginalized communities (and society) rather than the individual responsibility reflected within much of the available children’s literature. Taken together, the articles reviewed here highlight how children’s literature depicting historical events in which someone has been/is being marginalized based on their identity(ies) must provide nuance to these representations. Texts that feature individual exceptionalism without accounting for collective resistance, such as in The Youngest Marcher (Levinson, 2017), fail to offer a complex under­ standing of historical contexts. Texts that place responsibility for participation in society without nam­ ing the role of systemic exclusion and marginalization fail to illustrate missing important layers. Rather, when the multifarious complexities of these experiences are captured in texts, young children and youth have an opportunity to engage in thinking about ideas that open conversations about the com­ plexities of lived realities.

Implications for Research and Teaching The themes of critical content analyses of diverse children’s literature discussed here raise impor­ tant implications for future research and teaching with texts representing historically marginalized communities. Much of the scholarship examining children’s literature includes critical perspectives within the domain of young adult (YA) literature. There is still a growing need for critical perspec­ tives, paired with CMA and/or critical content analysis, to be directly applied to analyses of pic­ turebooks. For future critical examinations of children’s literature, there continues to be a growing need to interrogate award-winning picturebooks representing diverse identities/groups, rather than accepting these texts at face value, as multiple scholars (Crisp, 2015; Thomas et al., 2016; Rod­ ríguez & Vickery, 2020) have brought to light the pervasive role of Whiteness within the publishing and awards industries. The content analyses presented here collectively invite teachers to investigate who wrote and illustrated the diverse texts they are considering sharing with young children. Researchers point to the importance of centering texts that are written and illustrated from the point of view of cultural insiders. However, given that a vast array of picturebooks representing diverse identities/groups often fall short in their authenticity, teachers must be prepared to engage children in critical conver­ sations around these texts by considering who is/is not represented, who gets to speak and when, and whose realities are/are not embodied in the text. These texts should also be paired with con­ textual information for children, including documentation of historical events (e.g., news articles) and first-person accounts, for example. Taken together, current critical content analyses of diverse picturebooks ask researchers and practitioners to note that there is much to be done to imagine and create a more equitable landscape for children and youth still searching for representations of them­ selves in the texts they read.

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Critical K-12 Classroom Conversations In this section, we examine how researchers have documented the ways that K-12 educators engage students in picturebooks through justice-oriented lenses that explore issues of power and oppression. While diverse children’s literature that attends to a broader range of identities—especially histori­ cally and contemporarily marginalized groups—is more accessible to educators and students than ever before, those of us who (in keeping with Botelho and Rudman’s (2009) taking up of diversity and social justice issues in children’s literature) are particularly attentive to studies of classroom practices that go beyond superficial attention to nondominant cultures through a multicultural lens and instead offer students opportunities to wrestle with issues of difference and injustice through picturebooks. We describe such moments as critical classroom conversations, which Wood and Jocius (2013) defined as “discussions in which students take positions and critique what is being said, who is saying it, how characters are positioned, whose voices are being heard, and how they may personally fit into the text” (p. 667). Critical classroom conversations are more than discussions about literary attributes; they require vulnerability and trust between students and educators as they examine themselves in rela­ tion to the texts, with the potential to expand and transform students’ worldviews and interpersonal relationships. Our search for scholarship about critical classroom conversations of diverse children’s literature included 154 articles from language arts and social studies journals. Unsurprisingly, the articles includ­ ing critical conversations about picturebooks took place in elementary classrooms. However, as Roser et al. (2011) and Zapata et al. (2017) noted, picturebooks can also be a supportive resource for middle and high schoolers. Yet research in secondary classrooms shows that middle and high school language arts and social studies classes rely primarily on middle-grade and young adult books, some of which include graphic novels but rarely picturebooks. Scholarship about the critical conversations that occur around picturebooks in classroom settings largely centers around traditional uses of children’s literature, such as interactive read-alouds in which students are asked questions and discuss literary aspects of texts while making connections to them­ selves, other texts, and their world (Wood et al., 2016); reader response discussions and activities where students respond in a range of ways to a text (Jocius & Shealy, 2018; Youngs, 2012) and engage visual thinking strategies (Gardner, 2017; Zapata et al., 2017); and mentor texts that serve as guides and/ or inspiration for student-created writing, illustrating, and action (Smith-Buster, 2016; Dollins, 2020; Nash et al., 2018; Zapata & Van Horn, 2017). Some studies, such as those by Leland et al. (2018) and Wargo (2017), highlighted the importance of not simply reading with texts but also reading against them (Janks et al., 2019), and remaking/remixing characters, plots, and resolutions. While picturebooks can be leveraged to support teaching and learning across all content areas, the extant research overwhelmingly offers examples of classroom application in language arts (113 articles) followed by a smaller but substantial body of scholarship in social studies (41 articles). Across these two content areas, literacy scholars were more concerned with an in-depth exploration of educators’ various pedagogical moves related to texts, whereas social studies scholarship concentrated more on the content of picturebooks that could be utilized to teach specific social studies topics or disciplines. This distinction underscores an important point related to educators’ use of picturebooks: “Although picture book selection matters, the books’ transformative potential depends on how we share them with students” (Strekalova-Hughes & Peterman, 2020, p. 328). As Kelly and Djonko-Moore (2022) noted, “merely representing cultural groups without deeper exploration can result in unintentionally perpetuating stereotypes and cause harm” (p. 572). Furthermore, reading diverse children’s literature without meaningfully attending to issues of oppression can “reinforce the mainstream ideologies so often privileged in texts” (Bourke, 2008, p. 308). Thus, educators must be willing to engage deeply with the books they choose and be cognizant of the issues and misconceptions that may arise as they 124

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embark on critical conversations about them, particularly when texts highlight the stories of marginal­ ized and/or racialized groups. Many studies explore the possibilities of diverse children’s literature serving as mentor texts for writing and the implications for identity development that result, especially for groups who have been relegated to the margins in society and children’s literature (Children’s Cooperative Book Center, 2022). Recently, in both middle school and elementary settings primarily, educators have leaned on linguistically diverse literature as model texts for students’ multilingual writing. For example, Machado and Flores (2021) highlighted how children’s literature can mentor language minoritized students’ storytelling and use of their linguistic resources for writing. Zapata et al. (2015) similarly found that bilingual picturebooks not only mentor children’s use of their languages for writing, but also serve as model texts for children’s illustrations as well. Together, these studies highlight the importance of class­ room instruction that values linguistically diverse literature not only for Language Arts instruction but also as entry points for students to leverage their cultural and linguistic resources in school for identity development. There is an abundance of scholarly articles recommending children’s literature with social justice themes (Jiménez, 2021; Kesler et al., 2020) that call for teachers to be more intentional about choosing texts that are written by and about the populations that their students belong to. However, the role of social justice in classroom settings remains contentious for a range of reasons, from the politicization of more pluralistic representations in schools to teachers’ hesitation to enact such work. Jiménez (2021) described one such tension: When I suggest to teachers that we must center intersectional social justice as visible, measurable content in ELA classrooms, the first reaction is often, “What do I need to give up?” It’s as if we had an imaginary scale and on one side are all the skills and content teachers must cover. Adding intersectional social justice and children’s literature would throw the whole scale off. What if, instead, we think of the ELA curriculum as presenting opportunities to highlight high-quality children’s literature that foregrounds intersectional social justice in our teaching and supports learning standards? For some educators, attending to social justice teaching and learning feels like another thing to pile on top of their already overwhelming pile of obligations. Jiménez (2021), Kesler et al. (2020), and others have argued that social justice should be integrated across content areas as a foundational part of edu­ cating citizens in our democracy. As Zapata et al. (2019) explained, issues of justice are not necessarily topics to pursue but instead pedagogical approaches “to awaken consciousness to equity and power through texts and text interpretation” (p. 180). Several studies have illustrated the possibilities of diverse children’s literature in supporting stu­ dents’ individual sensemaking, collective meaning-making and complicating worldviews. Quast (2019) observed a preschool conversation about My Princess Boy (Kilodavis, 2009) that was distinct from the previously observed classroom read-alouds that often emphasized the importance of inclusivity. Quast described how My Princess Boy, a story about a boy who likes pretty things and wearing dresses, led to transformative textual transactions as educators focused on perspective taking as they strove to disrupt gender norms pervasive in society and among their preschool students. When students did not offer comments after the teacher read the first few pages of the book, the teacher asked students what they thought about a boy wearing a dress. The preschoolers had a wide range of responses, from vehemently disagreeing that boys could even wear dresses to arguing that clothing and interests are not bound by gender. The educators invited students to share and explain their perspectives and offered time and space for collective student sense-making. As students considered the Princess Boy’s feelings and 125

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desires, resistance to genderfluid ways of being subsided as the class collectively adopted a humanizing stance to the character. As the United States continues to be framed as a Christian nation in popular discourse, children’s literature can also be an important resource for expanding student understandings of religious differ­ ence. Teacher educator Denise Dávila and sixth-grade teacher Allison Volz (2018) engaged students with two picturebooks that presented nondominant religious figures. They described how teachers can serve as critical guides who “analyze the tenor and nuances of classroom discussions and calculate exactly how and when to critically explore the responses students generate in connection with par­ ticular texts” (Dávila & Volz, 2018, p. 41). Sixth-grade teacher Ragina Shearer used a text set about Muslims to understand the diversity and complexity of the religious group in the United States and abroad (Newstreet et al., 2019). Shearer hoped to dispel Islamophobic stereotypes and foster empathy by selecting books with immigrant and refugee stories and about discriminatory experiences while supporting the reading of these texts with multimodal response activities. Given the pervasiveness of white middle-class norms represented in children’s literature, Quast and Bazemore-Bertrand (2019) highlighted “the need to counter harmful discourses that often circulate about families from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds” (p. 219) through picturebooks about economic diversity and inequity. The authors offered educators three critical questions to consider when planning for critical conversations about the topic: How is economic diversity reflected? What narratives are presented? How might the conversation be expanded? Each question reminds educators of the importance of representations and avoiding stereotypes; the limitations of offering a singular perspective of a topic; and extending dialogue and examples beyond the text. Importantly, the book recommendations offered by Quast and Bazemore-Bertrand (2019) emphasize the common goal of empathy building alongside the less frequently used but essential concepts of counternarratives and addressing systemic barriers. Some of the topics centered in critical classroom literature conversations may be considered con­ troversial or politicized, such as immigration, race/racism, and LGBTQ+ identities and relationships (Cueto  & Corapi, 2019). Beck and Stevenson (2018) explored the contention around the awardwinning Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote (Tonatiuh, 2013), a book about a young rabbit who leaves his home in Mexico to search for his father, a farmworker in the United States, and crosses the border without papers. Despite claims that the book is liberal propaganda that condones illegal actions, class­ room teachers consider the book “a significant means for teaching about immigration and validating the linguistic resources of immigrant students” (Beck & Stevenson, 2018, p. 266). The authors offered several rebuttals that educators and community members can offer to those who might try to censor books like Pancho Rabbit and highlight the need for texts that reflect the lived experiences and family histories of students. At the time of this chapter’s writing, schools and school districts across the United States are deal­ ing with community outrage and political opposition to diverse children’s literature that has resulted in extensive book bans. While book bans have occurred throughout U.S. history, in a nine-month period between July 2021 and March 2022, PEN America (2022) recorded an unprecedented 1,586 instances of individual book bans that took place in 86 school districts in 26 states. Reflective of current culture wars, 22% of these books directly address race and/or racism; 33% explicitly contain LGBTQ themes; and 9% are related to rights and activism. While many of these targeted texts are not inherently controversial or topically distinct from past publications, they are, however, largely written by authors who belong to marginalized groups and who foreground characters with identities that have been and remain oppressed in U.S. society. Books that have been heralded for their inclusivity and praised for their offerings of multiple perspectives and marginalized identities are now under attack. Consequently, educators may be concerned about organizing critical conversations around diverse children’s literature given the increased attention to such books and the attendant politicization of 126

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topics that are not inherently controversial (e.g., racism, sexism) but are often positioned as such for partisan purposes (Harris & Alter, 2022). Alongside many of the scholars whose work is cited in this chapter, we maintain that offering a rich range of textual representations with instruction to scaffold children’s reading of these texts is not only beneficial for the diverse student populations found in U.S. schools but for our pluralist democracy as a whole. Educators’ support of and engagement with diverse children’s literature is not controversial but democratic—regardless of how contemporary politicization may attempt to frame it otherwise.

Critical Conversations Outside of K-12 Classrooms and Future Directions for Research Thomas (2016) argued, “If today’s children grow up with literature that is multicultural, diverse, and decolonized, we can begin the work of healing our nation and world through humanizing stories” (p. 115). This section has emphasized how educators can support such efforts in classroom spaces, but it is important to note that there are spaces between home and the classroom where critical conversations around picturebooks can also take place. For example, López-Robertson (2017) met with a group of Latina mothers twice a month to engage in platicas literarias (literary discussions) about Latino children’s literature, while Jimenez and Meyer (2016), Thein and Schmidt (2017), Toliver (2021), and Vehabovic (2021) explored the possibilities of reading and writing groups outside of traditional classroom spaces. While the texts featured in studies by Jimenez and Meyer (2016) and Toliver (2021) were not picturebooks, their book selections transcended the realistic and historical fiction genres that domi­ nate classroom-based studies of picturebooks and therefore captured youth attention and provoked their imaginations in distinctly different ways than the classroom studies described here. While several classroom-based studies featured texts with social justice themes, students predominantly considered notions of equity and justice as bounded by their understandings of reality. In contrast, Toliver’s (2021) extracurricular writing groups with Black girls embraced the Black Radical Imagination, which “necessitates a break from realism” (p. 86) and allowed them to journey “into spaces of freedom that could not be realized without dreaming of the currently unrealistic” (p. 102). An essential future direc­ tion for critical classroom conversations is highlighting picturebooks about fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and other genres that offer students more expansive views of how the world can and should be beyond current structures and systems. Further, while many scholars have explored teacher selec­ tion of texts, few have detailed how students might be given greater agency regarding book selection beyond choosing from a teacher-curated collection. Additionally, many scholars have argued for powerful pedagogical approaches with picturebooks that have not yet been the subject of extensive classroom study. For example, Smith (2022) suggested a transraciolinguistic approach with immigrant/transnational racialized youth that addresses students’ cultural literacy assets alongside race and language, while Kleekamp (2020) argued for neuroqueer lit­ eracy practices that recognize inventive ways for students to interact with texts, such as embodied and asocial actions. Strekalova-Hughes and Peterman (2020) offered suggestions for educators to facilitate critical discussions about forced displacement; given the limited attention paid to refugees, their rec­ ommended questions and considerations remind educators of the need to explore the sociopolitical and historical contexts of displacement and to avoid assumptions about the relevance of stories for all refugee communities. Christ and Cho (2021) illustrated the potential of such work with a small group of second- and third-grade Somali and Nepali students, where educators positioned their students as cultural experts whose knowledge and personal experiences guided the direction of the conversation about culturally relevant picturebooks. However, disconnecting these two studies is the teachers’ own familiarity with the refugee experience; Strekalova-Hughes and Peterman (2020) have reminded edu­ cators that refugee status is not a culture in itself and that intersectional identities must be considered. 127

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Moreover, they urged educators to rethink their approaches to guest speakers by inviting them to share stories about their full identities (not simply about flight and resettlement) as well as the histories and futures of their homelands. Further research in these and other areas is needed to explore how con­ ceptual recommendations may need to be adjusted based on educator and students’ identities and in a range of classroom contexts.

Implications for Research and Teaching The extant research on critical classroom conversations about diverse picturebooks suggests a num­ ber of important implications for researchers and educators. First, as supportive and reflective dia­ logue is fundamental to critical classroom conversations, teachers should consider the language that they use and the language they help students develop as they read and discuss texts. Teachers can help students learn how spoken and written words communicate a range of messages including who should be in power and why, who should be ignored, and how people should define themselves if they want to be considered successful (Janks, 2000). Examples from educators and students can “illustrate how language positions people positively and negatively. Such quotes can be used to generate discussion and talk about how teachers and students can be more mindful of the language they read, hear, and use” (Hall & Piazza, 2008, pp. 39–40). Second, engagement in critical classroom discussion requires teachers to develop critical consciousness alongside their students while also fos­ tering reciprocal and authentic relationships. As Kelly and Djonko-Moore (2022) stated, “teachers must transform their literacy curricula using knowledge of students, awareness of bias, and commit­ ment to social justice” (p. 572). Third, while individual self-reflection is an important component of critical classroom discussions, educators should also be careful to attend to harmful and oppres­ sive structures; simply emphasizing empathy and multiple perspectives does not seriously engage in justice work, as individual actions alone cannot dismantle institutions. Collective action must always be in the forefront, as should intersectional approaches that do not discard the layered oppressions faced by specific identity groups.

Children’s Literature in Teacher Education Programs While not surprising, there is often significant overlap across publications that are written for a primary audience of pre-K-12 educators and those geared toward individuals who teach preservice and in-ser­ vice teachers within educator preparation programs. Many critical articles, books, and book chapters included recommendations identified by the authors as applicable to both pre-K-12 classroom teachers and teacher educators. Such research underscores the important ways in which children’s literature can encourage and foster criticality and higher-order thinking for all readers, while also supporting the development of engaged readers who both enjoy reading and want to read (Buehler, 2016; Mueller, 2001; Pantaleo, 2013; Rosenblatt, 1994; Simpson, 2016). The use of children’s literature in teacher education programs is essential to preparing teachers to create and implement a meaningful, “broad and deep” reading curriculum for current and future students (Dooley et al., 2013, p. 2) that fosters lifelong reading habits (Cremin et al., 2014). Despite the clear benefits of using children’s literature as a central component of reading instruction, Simpson’s (2016) large-scale international study of universities and colleges found that children’s litera­ ture had all but been eliminated from many initial teacher preparation programs. Within the United States specifically, research and scholarship indicate that the current culture of high-stakes testing and educational initiatives like Reading First or the No Child Left Behind Act have narrowed the reading curriculum and often leave “little time or resources for extended interaction with literature” (NCTE, 2006, p. 1). Even the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) intended to support more meaningful 128

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reading instruction ultimately promote binary, oversimplified understandings of children’s books and their potential uses in elementary-grades classrooms (May et al., 2020). Further, the CCSS continue to emphasize skills and phonics-based instruction, encouraging early-grade teachers to use simplistic texts with controlled, easily decodable vocabularies (Lu & Cross, 2012; Pullinger, 2012). If experts view children’s literature as central to learning to read, it is disheartening that children’s literature courses are often the first to be cut from teacher preparation programs overburdened with content to cover across a limited number of credit hours (Swain and Hodges, 2021). Further, youth literature is often not included in professional development and teacher education (Miller et al., 2020). In spite of these realities, and although there is comparatively less children’s literature research and scholarship focused on teacher education than other categories highlighted in this chapter, our searches resulted in just over three dozen different books, articles, and book chapters focused on critical per­ spectives, children’s literature, and teacher education contexts.

Themes and Theories In total, we identified 39 pieces of children’s literature scholarship focused on teacher education con­ texts. Despite the extensive variations that we outline here, overall these pieces of scholarship draw upon complementary theories such as critical literacy (Christensen, 2017; Kelly et al., 2020; Shanklin, 2009), reader response (Wheeler et  al., 2021), intersectionality (Jiménez, 2021), and critical con­ sciousness (Dávila, 2015; Rodríguez et al., 2021). They are connected by their belief in the power of children’s books to support the development of teachers as transformative intellectuals (Flores et al., 2019) and the need to move away from consumer models of teacher preparation to “embrace a more humanizing relationship that is grounded in respect for human dignity and that grows from engage­ ment in difficult conversations and a willingness to inquire into one’s collaborative and intellectual practice” (Homza & Fontno, 2021, p. 415). Common across much of this research is the explicit grounding of arguments about the ongoing and troubling pervasive whiteness of U.S. youth literature or the teaching profession (Buchanan et al., 2021; Martin, 2021; Rodríguez et al., 2021). Because K-12 schools and classrooms are diverse but not always welcoming spaces (Crisp & Knezek, 2010; Wheeler et al., 2021), scholars of these publications often contextualize their research in: arguments for diverse or multicultural literature; the history of youth literature (Tyrrell, 2021); discourses of domination/subordination or dominant/non-dominant groups (Landa & Rapp, 2021; Miller et al., 2020; Murray-Everett & Schroeder, 2021; Wheeler et al., 2021), and the need for justice-oriented teaching (Tyrrell, 2021), culturally proficient teachers (Ward, 2013), and teachers who are transformative intellectuals (Flores et al., 2019). Many of these authors draw upon Sims Bishop’s (1990) popular metaphor of windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors (Jiménez, 2021; Rodríguez et al., 2021; Tschida et al., 2014; Wheeler et al., 2021) or Adichie (2009) cautions regarding the dangers of a single story (Day, 2021; Kelly et al., 2020; Tondreau & Barnes, 2021). While some publications focus broadly on diverse books (Tschida et al., 2014), many focus on literature by and about specific populations including Latinx populations (Rod­ ríguez et al., 2021), African Americans or Blacks (Buchanan et al., 2021), and LGBTQ populations (Crisp et al., 2018; Wheeler et al., 2021), while others focus on religion (Dávila, 2015) or refugee status (Crawford et al., 2019).

Range of Publications In our analysis of these published works, we established two broad categories of inquiry: those that are descriptive, conceptual, or anecdotal, and those that were empirical studies involving human subjects, primarily preservice or teacher education students and classrooms. Prior to discussing pieces that fall 129

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within our broad categories of conceptual and empirical publications, however, we first attend to two publications that resisted our classifications. One prominent outlier to our broad categorizations was Flores et al.’s (2019) systematic review of literacy education scholarship that examined the ways in which children’s books were utilized in literacy methods courses to support the development of preservice teachers as transformative intellec­ tuals. Flores and colleagues identified 27 relevant empirical articles published between 2000–2018 to include in their review, which utilized a process of iterative readings and discussions to identify research design features and findings across these studies. Flores et al. (2019) identified the majority of publica­ tions analyzed as spanning one academic course or semester, with findings related to using children’s literature as a tool to support literacy instructional practices or for learning sociocultural knowledge and transformative pedagogies. Findings from this review suggest that “in the preparation of [preservice teachers], children’s lit­ erature functions as a resource for learning about literacy instructional practices and transformative pedagogies in separate and intersecting ways” (p. 227). Many studies focused on literacy instructional practices for preservice teachers to use with their future students in areas like writing or reading instruction (e.g., demonstrating genre conventions, establishing criteria for text selection) or children’s literature as a framework through which to construct knowledge or learn about and experience transformative pedagogies (e.g., culturally relevant or sustaining pedagogies). Ultimately, Flores et al. (2019) called for teacher educators and educator preparation programs to “begin to critique and shift current practices, policies, and discourses to advance transformative instruction” (p. 228), reflecting upon and critiquing our own practices and challenging our own assumptions and positionalities as we work to prepare teachers who will similarly utilize children’s books in their own future classrooms. A second outlier is Wright et al.’s (2021) study of pre-K certification requirements for literacy and mathematics coursework to identify the extent to which teacher certification requirements aligned with expectations for child outcomes in early literacy and math at the state level. The analysis involved 114 different documents from across all 50 U.S. states. Utilizing a content analysis methodology, the authors analyzed early learning standards for pre-K students and teacher certification requirements for grade bands that included pre-K contexts. Among their findings related to children’s literature, Wright and colleagues noted that: Teachers may not be getting opportunities in their preparation programs to develop the knowl­ edge and instructional practices necessary to implement standards that make such extensive demands. For example, supporting 4-year-olds in comparing and contrasting two stories on the same topic is not a trivial task. Supporting preK children to meet this standard requires knowledge of children’s literature (to select appropriate texts), understanding of how to engage young children in a high-quality interactive read aloud, understanding of how to support young children in a text-based discussion, and knowledge of how to support young children’s language development. (p. 81–82)

Conceptual Publications Conceptual pieces generally consisted of publications intended to share recommendations, resources, and effective teaching practices grounded in and through children’s books. One especially unique paper was published in a special issue of Research on Diversity in Youth Literature that focused on the theme of educational systems in youth literature. Miller et al. (2020) examined depictions of teachers in young adult literature, drawing upon conceptualizations of social justice English teaching to explore the ways in which three fictional exemplary English teachers enact such pedagogies within young 130

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adult books. The researchers analyzed these three depictions independently and collectively, including their identities and social locations, the ways in which these teachers challenged dominant conceptions about how teachers are expected to act, connected their classroom content to the lives and realities of their students, and validated their students’ identities and experiences. Miller et al. (2020) concluded by articulating benefits of studying young adult literature in teacher development, such as linking text analysis with practical, real-life, specific pedagogical practices (e.g., reading literature, classroom discussions, classroom management) and describing revised literature circle roles that can be incorporated by social justice-oriented English teachers. Authors of conceptual publications focused frequently on describing practices they implement in their own education courses (Buchanan et al., 2021), rich descriptions of literature-based units and lesson sequences (Jiménez, 2021; Kelly et al., 2020; Wheeler et al., 2021), and imagining what it may look like to utilize a specific theoretical or literary lens with preservice teachers (Shanklin, 2009). Some featured expert critical theory-oriented educators describing how they attempt to structure their classrooms, syllabi, and course content to support the development of future and novice classroom teachers (Christensen, 2017; Wilhelm, 2009). Others wrote about revising their university-level children’s literature courses (Tondreau & Barnes, 2021). Still others described their teacher education pedagogies and practices anecdotally or collectively across course sections and time (Kelly et al., 2020). A column by Jiménez (2021), for example, challenged zero-sum thinking prevalent in educational discourses to share ways in which foregrounding #OwnVoices children’s books can support literacy skills and learning standards. For instance, Jiménez described how by staying focused and flexible, I was able to build lessons that promoted curiosity and engagement and provided opportunities for students to talk and write about intersectional identities, literary genres, historical perspectives, and contemporary socio-political events and climates in small groups with the preservice teachers. (p. 158) In their own conceptual article, Tschida et  al. (2014) examined ways in which teacher educators can guide preservice teachers in considering and effectively mobilizing available texts in their classrooms. Through their description of texts used to disrupt historical single stories, Tshida and colleagues articulated how they work to ensure their preservice teacher students can disrupt single stories for their own future students. Occasionally, authors of conceptual pieces attend to the fact that their proposals “might be a bit idealistic” (Martin, 2021, p. 19), but generally, the recommendations, resources, reflections, and suggested teacher practices are presented without qualification.

Empirical Publications Empirical research grounded in specific research designs and methodologies characterizes our second broad category of publications. Although connected through their use of human subjects, these studies are predominantly qualitative and draw upon designs ranging from self-study (Dávila, 2015; Day, 2021) to case studies (Murray-Everett & Schroeder, 2021; Rodriguez et al., 2021). Some researchers focus on specific students, individual stories, or telling cases (Córdova & Matthiesen, 2010; Kelly et al., 2020), while others utilize data sources such as student feedback (Scullin, 2021) or student reflections (Homza & Fontno, 2021). In some publications, data informs the arguments made in the research inquiry, but does not always guide the analysis and findings. For example, Tyrrell (2021) drew upon feedback from her students as data sources; the data is secondary and more supplemental, supporting arguments rather than determining them. In her chapter exploring issues of justice through youth literature, Tyrrell described a 131

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variety of practices recommended for English language arts teachers. Tyrrell also referred briefly to ways in which her own preservice teacher education students responded to a specific children’s book. Later, she described books that have been popular with her university-level students and noted that she frequently reminds her preservice educators “that books are the healing salve of justice” (p. 491). Overall, though, the empirical studies begin with a research question that is then informed by sys­ tematic data collection and analysis procedures. As one example, Rodríguez et al. (2021) conducted a qualitative case study of a teacher preparation course at a Midwestern university. The researchers clearly described their population and study context before delineating their processes of data collection and analysis. Data sources varied, including course projects and assignments, online discussion posts, and researcher notes. The analysis of that data directly informed the results and subsequent discussion of findings and implications related to topics like developing a critical consciousness, learning the history of linguistic injustices, selecting culturally sustaining curriculum, disrupting stereotypes, and selecting books that can function as windows and mirrors. The authors concluded by articulating solutions, recommendations, and suggestions for future research based upon their findings. As a second example, Landa and Rapp (2021) presented the results of their collective case study of undergraduate preservice teachers participating in a youth literature course at a large Mid-Atlantic university. The researchers evaluated the impact of course instruction involving high-quality diverse children’s books on the development of cultural competence in preservice educators. Data sources (class assignments) included reading responses, digital memoirs, and various other course experiences and projects. The authors established interrater agreements, crafted analytic memos, and then exam­ ined each case for evidence of cultural competence. Based upon these findings, Landa and Rapp (2021) described various stages of cultural competence displayed by students, such as requisite dispositions, cultural knowledge and self-awareness, and sense of agency. Ultimately, the authors concluded that participants displayed a capacity to teach skillfully and equi­ tably but noted that, beyond a disposition to teach in culturally responsive ways, they must be posi­ tioned and prepared with clear plans to put those dispositions into practice, as: it is ultimately in these enactments that teachers not only select texts that represent their students’ cultural identities but also use them as a means of building equity—to explore issues of repre­ sentation, dismantle assumptions, and critically question power structures that create inequitable educational outcomes. (p. 475) Suggestions for future research are directly informed by their research finding and include considera­ tions of the impact of cultural competence education on lessons taught by preservice teachers in field placements and the ways in which individual teachers develop cultural competence not only across a course or semester, but across a teacher education program.

Implications for Teacher Education Research, Scholarship, and Teaching Across all these publications, it quickly becomes clear that if experts view children’s literature as central to learning to read, understanding how to select and use quality children’s books is essential professional knowledge for teachers (Simpson, 2016). Teacher educators therefore have a responsibility to support preservice teachers in developing knowledge of children’s literature and its role in reading instruction across their certification programs. As outlined in a summary of research, the National Council of Teachers of English noted, “teacher education programs have the opportunity—and the responsibility—to develop preservice teachers’ understanding of the inherent value of [children’s] books for both general reading and classroom use” and “build 132

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preservice teachers’ capacity for continued growth, learning, and development as advocates of children’s and young adult literature” as a vital component of reading instruction (Buehler et al., 2018, n.p., emphasis in original). Central among these publications is a desire to provide resources for teacher educators and future pre-K-12 teachers. Many pieces point readers to resources available already, including those related to selecting diverse, high-quality books (Dávila, 2015; Tschida et al., 2014), intel­ lectual freedom (Homza & Fontno, 2021; Murray-Everett & Schroeder, 2021), and instructional strategies like interactive read-alouds and shared inquiry (Wheeler et al., 2021; Kelly et al., 2020; Wheeler et al., 2021). Others provide new resources for selecting books (Jiménez, 2021), frame­ works for evaluating texts (Wheeler et al., 2021), or developing cultural competence (Landa & Rapp, 2021). Implications of this research for teacher education begin with a stated need for diverse books, which can serve as a counter-narrative to the predominantly white teaching force. Homza and Fontno (2021), for example, called for diverse youth literature to serve as a foundations course. Many researchers have used their findings to underscore the need for teacher educators to “do their own work” while also creating spaces through which preservice educators can engage in discus­ sion around controversial issues (Hartsfield & Marquez, 2021). These studies also make clear that incorporating diverse youth literature into teacher education programs alone is not enough. We must disrupt, for example, the fallacy of logic that positions “classic” literature against contemporary texts and utilize children’s books in ways that will support the development of agentive and critically conscious educators (Tyrrell, 2021). The importance and benefits of collaboration is also evidenced across these publications. Authors like Swain and Hodges (2021) and Landa and Rapp (2021) dem­ onstrated the importance of partnerships with local schools and teachers, while others described the value of collaborating with librarians (Homza & Fontno, 2021) and other community partners to develop children’s literature pedagogies. Finally, the authors of these publications make a number of recommendations for future research. Most clearly, there are calls for additional, long-term research regarding the pedagogical potential of children’s literature as a tool for creating critical consciousness and justice-focused educators (Harts­ field & Marquez, 2021). Swain and Hodges (2021), for example, argued that: teacher preparation programs need to provide opportunities to engage with diverse children’s literature in meaningful ways. While researchers and teacher educators believe these experiences are impactful, they have yet to quantify exactly what teaching practices are most effective and shape the views of PSTs. More research is needed to determine: (a) what experiential learning opportunities impact PSTs positively; (b) what experiences are most likely to shape future teach­ ing; and (c) how much and what types of instruction and experiences shift PSTs to select more diverse literature and under what circumstances. The effectiveness of these programs may inform future planning and revisions to teacher education programs. (p. 454) Many others noted the fact that their research is not generalizable, and that future research must build upon and test the present findings (Lynch & Morphis, 2021; Rodriguez et al., 2021). However, in the preparation of future pre-K-12 educators, children’s literature “functions as a resource for learning about literacy instructional practices and transformative pedagogies in separate and intersecting ways” (Flores et al., 2019, p. 224) in reading and writing instruction, as well as subject areas like social stud­ ies and mathematics. Children’s books can help future educators learn to understand, appreciate, and support their students through transformative, intellectualized pedagogies and culturally relevant and sustaining teaching. 133

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Discussion Children’s literature is often the first introduction for children and youth to a world other than their own, Understanding and attending to the intersections of the three areas of children’s literature research featured here opens more possibilities of moving children’s literature education and research from the status quo of sharing diverse literature exclusively for Language Arts skills and strategies towards justice-oriented transformation in student learning. We see these three areas of children’s literature research—content analysis, classroom research, and teacher preparation—as inextricably linked. As we learn from expert scholars who have taken a fine lens to the qualities of children’s literature through critical content analyses, we must consider what their findings mean for selection and instruction of children’s literature in the K-12 classroom. For example, given the lack of diverse representation in award-winning children’s literature (e.g., Crisp, 2015), K-12 educators can find essential criteria to refine their text selection processes. Similarly, what we learn from K-12 Language Arts teachers and their students through research both in and out of the classroom has implications for the preparation of Language Arts educators in early childhood, elemen­ tary, middle, and secondary settings. For example, the innovative children’s literature pedagogies fea­ tured in this chapter, like those unfolding between home and school with children and their families (e.g., López-Robertson, 2017; Vehabovic, 2021), provide forward-thinking, justice-oriented children’s literature instruction for classroom and preservice teachers’ toolboxes. In sum, as children’s literature research continues to outpace classroom practice, understanding the field as a dynamic constellation of these three areas of research can only serve to grow the impact of evidence-based, justice-oriented children’s literature instruction in the K-12 classrooms. Here, we desire to amplify the call for critically framed research that has permeated all three areas of inquiry. The impactful works of Botelho and Rudman (2009) and Johnson et al. (2017) urge us as a field to engage in children’s literature research, teaching, and preparation of Language Arts educators. We note a specific need for more application of critical approaches in children’s literature research, teaching, and methods courses, with a particular need for representation of Indigenous peoples (which reflects trends in children’s literature publications) in the texts featured. While guiding frameworks for text selection (Reese, 2019) and analyses of young adult and/or adult literature exist (Horner et al., 2021), within the last decade, there remains very limited evidence of critical content analyses and teaching of picturebooks, as well as a notable absence of these texts in children’s literature coursework for teachers. A look across our reviews also points to the increasing demand for innovative critical pedagogies with diverse children’s literature both in the classroom and in teacher preparation courses. As suggested in the research, diverse children’s literature should be central to K-12 children’s literature teaching and learning. We observe a call in the research for students’ deep engagement and discussion of diverse children’s litera­ ture to disrupt problematic and normative literary depictions and stereotypes (Kelly & Djonko-Moore, 2022, p. 572). Specifically, the research reviewed suggests that instruction of diverse children’s literature should highlight oppressive structures, not just individuals, an approach that can scaffold students’ discus­ sion and inquiry of challenging topics in meaningful ways. For both classroom and preservice teachers, there remains an urgent need to identify which of these children’s literature teaching practices and expe­ riences are most impactful for students’ critical reading of diverse texts and how we can support children’s literature educators as they develop the critical stances needed to support this work.

Conclusion Although the increased interest in better representation in children’s literature has provided educators opportunities to address authenticity in texts with their students and developed educators’ interest in shar­ ing children’s literature with diverse representation, the field still requires more attention to critical theories 134

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and other justice-oriented frameworks needed to directly impact classroom literature instruction and teacher development. The irony is that in several studies identified and featured in this chapter and inter­ preted as successful for their possibilities for children’s justice-oriented learning, teachers and students are engaging in innovative and critical literacy work with children’s literature. Many teachers are emboldened by a strong conception of literacy learning, are deeply influenced by current events, and are affirming their students’ lives, languages, and literacies. In the studies featured, both children and youth are positioned as productive readers and writers who can engage in critical literature discussions with one another. As a field of children’s literature researchers and teacher educators, we can do more to support educators in their efforts. In an era of book banning and censorship of children’s literature with diverse representations in schools and libraries, the need for more classroom research and stronger teacher preparation with children’s literature to support both Language Arts and justice-oriented learn­ ing remains urgent. As featured in the studies reviewed, teachers and teacher educators can share high-quality picturebooks as sociopolitical art to guide children, youth, and teacher candidates toward exploration and critique of anti-biased and anti-racist portrayals and events. From a justice-oriented perspective, these books also have the potential to reflect and shape empathy and action regarding inauthentic, stereotypical, and racist depictions in children’s literature. As illustrated in this chapter, children’s literature with diverse representation can be a powerful pedagogical partner when situated in justice-oriented, critical, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive classroom conditions.

Children’s Literature Cited Jenkins, E. (2015). A fine dessert: Four centuries, four families, one delicious treat. Schwartz & Wade.

Kilodavis, C. (2009). My princess boy. Simon & Schuster.

Levinson, C. (2017). The youngest marcher: The story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a young civil rights activist. Atheneum

Books for Young Readers. Tonatiuh, D. (2013). Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote. Abrams.

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7

ADOLESCENT LITERATURE

COMES OF AGE

Carol Jago

No one, least of all a teenager, picks up a book to improve their reading skills. We read because we need and are hungry for what is to be found on the page: information, entertainment, insight. Whether the text appears on a screen or on paper, readers look to books both to understand the world and to better understand themselves. As Rudine Sims Bishop explained: Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books. (Sims Bishop, 1990) The goal of every teacher should be to bring books that can provide windows and mirrors to all students. Too many students have searched in vain for too many years for their reflection in the books in their classroom or school library. The good news is that publishers, award committees, and organi­ zations like the International Literacy Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and We Need Diverse Books, among others, have worked to ensure that books which entice adolescents to read and perhaps to become avid readers are readily available. The importance of this work cannot be overstated. Many students grow up in book deserts (Neuman & Moland, 2016). In the same way that growing up in a food desert can determine which foods children do or don’t eat, limited access to books affects students’ attitudes toward reading. When there are no books—or so few that choice is not an option— reading is only practiced in school textbooks rather than as a routine part of teenagers’ lives. Limited access to books has a deleterious consequence on students’ reading comprehension. Reading scores from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) offer evidence of the consequences. In comparison to 1992, reading scores in 2019 were higher only for the highest-performing students at the 90th percentile. The scores in 2019 for lower- and middle-performing students at 141

DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-8

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the 10th, 25th, and 50th percentiles were lower in comparison to 1992, with the largest decrease seen among the lowest-performing students. Survey questions exploring students’ reading habits demonstrated that those who read become better readers than those who do not. Eighth graders who read almost every day for pleasure scored higher than those who read for fun less frequently. Twelfth graders who read almost every day for pleasure scored higher than students who never or hardly ever read for fun (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). Although these findings are hardly surprising, data supports the argument for increased access to books—particularly the kind of books that offer windows and mirrors to adolescents. Of particular note in 2019 was the decline in reading scores for lower-performing twelfth-grade males. The implications of these NAEP findings are clear. If we hope to see improvement in reading achievement, students will need to read significantly more in many different contexts for a variety of purposes, including their own pleasure and of their own volition. Volume matters. Ideally, students will develop the habit of seizing every opportunity—on the bus, over lunch, while waiting for the dentist—to read. Educators should be concerned about the large number of adolescents who don’t read every bit as much as they worry about those who can’t. Every two years, Scholastic conducts a national survey of children’s habits and attitudes concerning reading and books. The seventh edition, “Finding Their Story: Decline by Nine,” (Scholastic, 2019) reported a significant drop both in reading and in children’s enjoyment of reading between the ages of eight and nine. Alarmingly, fewer children responded positively when asked if reading for fun was important. According to Richard Robinson, former Scholastic CEO and Chairman: In this edition, we noticed a trend that signals an urgent call to action: our research is telling us that kids reach their peak engagement with reading books for fun at a very young age, and that as children age, the pleasure they get from reading declines. This data is powerful: it is the story of how a child grows up and loses a connection with reading and books along the way. Germane to this chapter on adolescent literature is the Scholastic finding that about half of students surveyed aged 9–17 wish there were more books available that include diverse storylines, characters, and settings. Easy access to books was a key factor in reading frequency, and unsurprisingly, students reported their favorite books were the ones they chose for themselves (scholastic.com/readingreport).

The History of Adolescent Literature Most researchers date the origin of books written specifically for adolescents at the publication of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders in 1967 (Hill, 2014). Controversial at the time for its portrayal of gang violence along with depictions of smoking, drinking, and rough language, the novel continues to be taught widely, appearing 23rd on a list of “50 classics on (almost) everyone’s high school reading list” (Wiging­ ton, 2021). The Outsiders also continues to garner controversy, appearing 43rd on the American Civil Liberties Union’s 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990–2000. In an article for The New York Times Book Review, S.E. Hinton explained what she believed adoles­ cents look for in books: Teen-agers today want to read about teen-agers today. The world is changing, yet the authors of books for teenagers are still 15 years behind the times. In the fiction they write, romance is still the most popular theme with a horse and the girl who loved it coming in a close second. Nowhere is the drive-in social jungle mentioned. In short, where is the reality? (1967) 142

Adolescent Literature Comes of Age

The term “young adult” was coined by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) in to describe novels that presented realistic portrayals of the adolescent experience (Strickland, 2015). In the 1970s, books like Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and Forever. . ., Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, and Paul Zindel’s My Darling, My Hamburger generated a popular audi­ ence for short novels depicting the drama of the misunderstood teenager. The tone of these books is hard-edged and truth-telling. In sharp contrast to earlier, more formulaic genre fiction, teenagers were reading about gritty and disturbing topics such as drug abuse, for example, in S.E. Hinton’s That Was Then. This Is Now, Alice Childress’s A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich, and the anonymously published Go Ask Alice. In the early 1980s, publishers began to recognize the untapped marketing potential of the teenage audience and produced wildly popular series like The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. Both series were written for the most part by ghostwriters. At first librarians rejected the Sweet Valley High books, arguing that they lacked substance and literary merit, but readers’ demands for these stories describing the escapades of flawlessly blonde, blue-eyed heroines caused librarians to relent. Eventually the Sweet Valley High franchise included hundreds of titles and sales of over 150 million copies world­ wide (Bosman, 2011). Teenage girls gobbled the books up. Now well into adulthood, many of those readers retain fond memories of Sweet Valley High. The decade between 1995 and 2005 saw a rise of 25 percent in the number of books published for teenage readers and of 23 percent in the number of books sold (Campbell, 2010). The genre was evolving as well. This period also saw the publication of two novels destined to become classics of adolescent literature: The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993) and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999). Both have been made into motion pictures. More recently, The Giver (2020) and Speak (2018) have been adapted and illustrated as graphic novels. Although The Giver is widely taught in middle schools, it is often challenged for content involving infanticide, suicide, and euthanasia. Similarly, Speak features on many high school reading lists yet finds itself on many banned-books lists by virtue of its disturbing portrayal of the trauma of a teenage girl, raped the summer before she enters ninth grade. Such stories dare to disturb. Reflecting the growing economic importance of adolescent literature in the world of publishing and authenticating its status in teenage readers’ lives, the early 2000s saw the creation of book awards that specifically honor young adult books and authors: the Printz Award for literary merit given by YALSA, the Edwards Award for lifetime contribution to young adult literature, and the Alex Awards for young adult mystery writing. The Los Angeles Times Book Awards and the National Book Awards both created discrete categories for adolescent literature. Printz Award winners from this period include Monster by Walter Dean Myers, The First Part Last by Angela Johnson, John Green’s Looking for Alaska, and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. This same period saw the publication of several books that would become cultural phenomena: Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series and, of course, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Teenagers’ taste for dystopian tales, fantasy, science fiction, and vampires had been whetted. In the case of all three of these series, popular movies helped to fan the fire the books had ignited. Up to this point, the vast majority of heroes and heroines featured in young adult novels were White. In The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (2019) explored how science fiction and fantasy literature often assigns Black characters to the background, where they become a ghostly, unrealized presence. Drawing from her experience as teacher, young adult novelist, scholar, and avid reader, Thomas analyzes Black female characters in popular fantasy fiction. She demonstrates how these characters’ fictional destinies mirror violence against Black and Brown individuals in the real world. Thomas lauds the counter-storytelling to be found in the novels of Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemison, Colson Whitehead, and Tomi Adeymi. In 143

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an editorial for The New York Times, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Walter Dean Myers wrote: If we continue to make black children nonpersons by excluding them from books and by degrading the black experience, and if we continue to neglect white children by not exposing them to any aspect of other racial and ethnic experiences in a meaningful way, we will have a next racial crisis. (1986) Twenty-six years later, in 2012, only 7.5 percent of the 3,600 children’s book titles published were about people of color. This discouraging news provided the impetus for another op-ed piece by Myers and his son Christopher Myers titled, “The Apartheid of Children’s Literature” (2014). In the follow­ ing months, the We Need Diverse Books campaign was launched. The stated goal of We Need Diverse Books is to create a world where all children can picture them­ selves in the pages of a book. The grassroots organization encourages programs that celebrate diverse books, mentor diverse writers and illustrators, support diverse publishing professionals, and provide books to classrooms nationwide. Their website offers a wide range of resources focusing on race, equity, anti-racism, and inclusion. For teenage readers, We Need Diverse Books has also published anthologies of short stories that feature writers from diverse backgrounds. Flying Lessons & Other Stories (2018) includes work by Kwame Alexander, Matt de la Peña, Grace Lin, Meg Medina, Tim Federle, and Jacqueline Woodson, among others. The success of Jason Reynolds’s novel in verse, Long Way Down, and Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give ushered in a host of titles featuring Black protagonists grappling with issues of racism. In 2020, Jason Reynolds won The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and was named the Library of Congress’s national ambassador for young people’s literature. In an interview with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, Reynolds said his goal was to render life in its messy, three-dimensional particulars and to bust stereotypes (Ruben, 2020). There are so many basketball books. So many good ones. You know, because black kids just wanna play basketball. I’m not going to ever pretend that part of my mission isn’t to push back against the stereotype about what black children are. I mean, we do everything like everybody else, we’re children like everybody else’s children, but we don’t often get the opportunity to be that in media. Early adolescent literature featuring LGTBQ characters inexorably linked a protagonist’s same-sex attraction with the death of the loved one. The first book to break this protocol was Nancy Garden’s Annie on My Mind (1982). Not only do the two female characters in this novel survive to the end of the story, but so does their love. Once equated with obscenity, positive portrayals of same-gender rela­ tionships such as M.E. Kerr’s Deliver Us from Evie began to find their way into school and classroom libraries. Over the course of the ensuing decades, literature dealing with teenagers’ sexual orientation and identity found strong readership among young readers (Waters, 2016). In 2020, Kacen Callendar won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for King and the Dragonflies. Fundamen­ tally a story about a boy dealing with grief over the death of his brother, the narrative depicts the main character Kingston confronting his feelings toward his friend Sandy. In so doing, he finds the courage to discover his own identity. Adolescent literature has manifestly come of age. It remains to be seen how the genre will continue to evolve. 144

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The Evolution of Attitudes Toward Adolescent Literature The definition of adolescent literature is widely accepted: books specifically written for young people between the ages of 12–18 featuring protagonists of a similar age who confront the kind of issues teen­ agers face (Wilder & Teasley, 2000). Such issues include coming of age, establishing identity, falling in love, friendships turned sour, and confrontations with authority. There is much less consensus regarding the role that adolescent literature should play in teenag­ ers’ reading lives. When books like The Outsiders and My Darling, My Hamburger became popular in the 1970s, I was teaching seventh grade at Lincoln Junior High School in Santa Monica, California. I remember offering novels like these with their enticing covers and limited page count to book-hun­ gry students. It never occurred to me to include such texts in the curriculum. As a lifelong avid reader myself, I saw reading for school and reading for entertainment as two very different things. At a time when researchers in education were becoming increasingly interested in adolescent lit­ eracy, ILA’S Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL) and The ALAN Review, established in 1974, began to publish research, both empirical and anecdotal, detailing the efficacy of including adolescent literature in secondary classrooms. Cheerleaders of the genre argued that students were choosing to read such contemporary stories—the same students who commonly turned to Cliffs Notes rather than read the assigned chapter of The Woman Warrior or The Great Gatsby. In an article titled “Young Adult Literature in the Classroom Today: Classroom Teachers Speak Out” (Gibbons et al., 2006) one teacher commented, “Because students feel unconnected to the books they are assigned to read in English classes, both struggling and successful readers feel antipathy toward reading” (p. 55). Many observed that their students were more inclined to read about characters of their own age in familiar settings than about heroes like Odysseus and Beowulf. They were delighted to see students with a book, almost any book, in their hands. Not everyone agreed nor do they now agree with this curricular shift toward relatable literature. Young adult books, particularly those that consist primarily of teenagers talking to other teenagers about teenage problems, employ limited vocabulary. Authors rarely tax readers with long, complex sentences; paragraphs are typically quite short. In a national survey of literary study in grades 9, 10, and 11 from the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, “The Twilight Generation Can’t Read” (2010), Sandra Stotsky argued that a fragmented English curriculum and a neglect of close reading may explain why the reading skills of American high school students have shown little or no improvement in decades. Stotsky takes aim at the number of young adult fantasy books that the teenag­ ers surveyed reported reading. It is important to note that the study was conducted during the heyday of Twilight’s popularity. Although it would be hard to find many copies of the Stephanie Meyers series in classroom libraries any longer, the criticism that complex classical literature has been displaced by “simpler” contemporary novels persists. Readability measures are often used to criticize young adult books. Lexile, the most often cited tool, measures the complexity of a text by analyzing characteristics such as sentence length and word frequency. Books with longer, more complex sentences and sophisticated vocabulary are assigned higher Lexile measures, while shorter sentences and commonly used vocabulary result in lower Lexile measures. These scores are then translated into grade-level equivalents that have been used to match books with readers. Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, criticized the use of such readability measures in her study, “Interpreting Lexiles in Online Contexts and with Informational Texts” (2009): The variability across individual parts of texts can be extensive. Within a single chapter of Pride and Prejudice, for example, 125-word excerpts of text (the unit of assessments used to obtain stu­ dents’ Lexile levels) that were pulled from every 1,000 words had Lexiles that ranged from 670 145

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to 1310, with an average of 952. The range of 640 on the LS [Lexile Scale] represents the span from third grade to college. (p. 8–9) Adolescent literature commonly employs conversational language and simple sentence struc­ tures and moves the story’s plot along quickly. As a result, many young adult books with mature content have low Lexile scores that mistakenly suggest the title is appropriate for young children. For example, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas has a 590 Lexile score, which is equivalent to a fourth grade reading level. Thomas’s gripping novel is clearly inappropriate for a nine-year-old reader. Steven T. Bickmore, a respected scholar of adolescent literature and editor of The ALAN Review, explained the difficulty of measuring the complexity of young adult books in his foreword to The Criti­ cal Merits of Young Adult Literature (2014): Examining YA literature for its literary quality and its ideological stance can be a bit tricky. At times, the seemingly simple vocabulary and its popularity among young readers blur the com­ plexity of the texts before critics can closely examine its possibilities. For example, a novel like Sachar’s Holes (1998) can be easily read by fourth and fifth grade students, but it only masquer­ ades as a simple book. In reality, it is quite complex. The novel’s interwoven plot lines jump back and forth through time, suggesting elements of magical realism. In addition, the narrative confronts issues of gender, race, and class. (ix) “Simple” need not be equated with “simplistic.” Although some of the books published with a teenage audience in mind are formulaic and utterly without literary merit, others are works of art. It is a constant challenge for teachers as they create reading lists for students and refresh their classroom libraries to separate the wheat from the chaff. Donalyn Miller has been tireless in her efforts to help teachers and librarians in this work. First in The Book Whisperer (2009) and more recently with Teri Lesesne in The Joy of Reading (2022), Miller recommends making time within the school day for independent reading of books selected by students. She criticized the use of readability measures on the grounds that “levels cannot take into account a reader’s emotional maturity—a reader’s ability to understand the psychological, mental, and emotional content in a text” (2022, p. 84). Teri Lesesne employed the metaphor of a ladder to describe how she proposes books to young read­ ers. She starts with a student’s preferences and then rung by rung, level by level, increases the difficulty of the text, with the goal of slowly moving readers from where they are to where we would like them to be. Lesesne believes that it is not enough to find the one perfect book for a student; teachers need to be able to guide young readers to the next book and the one after the one after that, setting them on a path that will lead to a lifetime of reading (2010). Helping students to construct their reading lad­ ders from easy reading to more complex texts depends upon two things: a teacher with broad, almost encyclopedic knowledge of books and easy access to those books. Rudine Sims Bishop’s sliding-glass door that allows readers to move from mirror books to window books requires the impetus of a knowl­ edgeable adult to put that door in motion (1990). Judgments about a book’s worth (Gilmore, 2011), like a book’s complexity, are subjective and vary from teacher to teacher and community to community. The adolescent reader, an individual who is in the process of developing from a child to an adult, is equally in flux. These variables make it challeng­ ing to select a single book for the whole class to study. As a result, no clear “canon” of middle school titles exists, although the following titles are often taught in grades 6–8. Most of these books have 146

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received the National Book Award or Newbery Medal, awarded for the most distinguished contribu­ tion to American literature for children. The Giver, Lois Lowry A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, Christopher Paul Curtis Esperanza Rising, Pam Muñoz Ryan Hatchet, Gary Paulson A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson

The same books continue to be taught in high school as if stubbornly set in stone (Applebee, 1989). Almost every ninth grader continues to be assigned Romeo and Juliet and the play is included in every ninth-grade English textbook. More than their middle school colleagues, high school English teachers struggle to find a balance between allowing students to choose what they want to read and assigning books for the whole class to study together. In an article titled “Whole Class Novels vs. Choice Read­ ing: Why Not Do Both?” for Education Week, Arial Sacks, the author of Whole Novels for the Whole Class: A Student-Centered Approach, explained that: Strict adherents to a “reading workshop” model believe it’s counterproductive to force students to read an entire novel they didn’t choose and that won’t be at an appropriate reading level for every single person. On the other side of the spectrum, there are teachers who believe that they are best equipped to choose worthwhile literature for students to read, and to lead them through that process. (2019) In The Death and Resurrection of a Coherent Literature Curriculum (2012), Sandra Stotsky asserted that providing students with choice in order to engage them in reading overshadows the academic purpose of an English class. Author and literary critic Francine Prose reviewed 80 high school reading lists and concluded that rather than exposing students to works of literature that expand their capacities and vocabularies, sharpen their comprehension, and deepen the level at which they think and feel, we either offer them easy books that anyone can understand, or we serve up the tougher works predigested. (p. 180) Although Prose’s article in Harper’s Magazine, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read: How American High School Students Learn to Loathe Literature” (1999) garnered a great deal of attention, advocates for the inclusion of student choice in the curriculum countered passionately that “when given more choice, students respond more positively, feel motivated to read and are more likely to engage in class discussions” (Geoghegan, 2021, p. 88). High school English teachers do not have to abandon the classics to include adolescent literature in their curriculum. They do, however, need to reconsider when to instruct and when to allow students simply to read and talk with one another about what they are reading. Force-feeding is never an effec­ tive pedagogical move (Gordon, 2018). Many books written for teenagers do not require the assistance of a teacher to be understood. A William Shakespeare or August Wilson play, on the other hand, poses significant textual and intellectual challenges for young readers and most often requires the guidance 147

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of a teacher to make the reading meaningful. In my experience, one of the quickest ways to ruin a contemporary young adult book is to begin with a lecture on theme or motif followed by the require­ ment to annotate the text. Think about the last time you read a great book. Did you say to yourself, “Gee, I wish I had kept a reading log!” or did you long for another reader to talk with about the book? The goal for any English class is twofold—to help students develop confidence and competence with navigating challenging literature and to acquire the habit of reading. One neither prohibits nor needs to stand in the way of the other. In his Nobel Prize for literature acceptance speech, Joseph Brodsky underlined the importance of books, both classical and adolescent: In the history of our species, the book is an anthropological development, similar essentially to the invention of the wheel. Having emerged in order to give us some idea not so much of our origins as of what the Sapiens is capable of, a book constitutes a means of transportation through the space of experience, at the speed of turning a page. (1987)

Nonfiction Adolescent Literature—An Oxymoron? Every year, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) selects one work as the best non­ fiction book written for young adults. Instituted in 2010, the award program has brought attention to titles that teachers might not otherwise consider for their classroom libraries. The impetus for the creation of the award may have been the emergence of the 2009 National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading Framework. NAEP frameworks provide guidelines for the development of assessments given to fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders nationwide. New to the reading framework was a chart indicating the distribution of literary and informational passages that would appear on the test. In 2010, the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts were developed and made public. As a result of the prominent appearance of this distribution chart in the introduction to the Common Core State Standards, these percentages for literary and informational text had a powerful influence on publishers and curriculum designers. What were intended to be used as guidelines for test developers became a controlling factor in the creation of Common Core-aligned instructional materi­ als. The distribution chart was never intended to determine the balance of fiction and nonfiction books taught in English classes, but instead to measure students’ reading achievement across the disciplines. The focus on nonfiction embedded in the Common Core State Standards influenced trade publish­ ers as well. Bookseller Suzanna Hermans of Rhinebeck, New York, saw an impact both inside and outside the school gates: Common Core raised awareness of kids’ nonfiction. We are seeing parents and teachers talk­ ing about it differently in home and at school. Nonfiction [for young readers] has also really

Figure 7.1 NAEP Reading Framework

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improved in recent years. The books are more readable, with more pictures and less straight recitation of facts. (McNeill, 2015) The importance of nonfiction has been reiterated in the latest NAEP Reading Framework adopted by the National Assessment Governing Board in 2021 for the 2026 NAEP administration. Students will be tested on their ability to read informational text in social studies and science. The assessment is intended to evaluate discipline-specific reading skills in the genres students encounter in the class­ room and the real world. Some secondary teachers were concerned that due to the new Framework, they would be required to stop teaching novels, but there was little need for anxiety on that score. As Advanced Placement Language and Composition teachers and others have come to realize, nonfiction texts can be extraordinarily effective in the classroom. Many students simply prefer to read about “real things.” While it is generally assumed that boys prefer nonfiction to fiction, data from an International Study of Avid Book Readers (Merga, 2015) established that males displayed no marked preference for nonfiction. Broadening the range of books available in classroom libraries has been and will be good for all students. Publishing trends indicate that nonfiction books are increasingly popular with both adult and young adult readers. Since 2015, adult nonfiction publishing revenue has grown by 22.8% and young adult nonfiction by 40% (Harris, 2022). Many of the nonfiction books published for teenagers are presented in a magazine-like format with photographs, charts, maps, and illustrations to break up the text. A striking example of this is Christina Soontornvat’s All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team. The book won a host of awards: the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Young People’s Literature, a Newbery Honor Book, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfic­ tion for Young Adults Finalist, and an Orbis Pictus Honor Book. As is common with award-winning nonfiction books for young readers, All Thirteen includes detailed source notes and extensive references for further reading. This list of recent YALSA winners provides a glimpse of the range of subjects cur­ rently included within the genre of adolescent nonfiction. Ambushed!: The Assassination Plot Against President Garfield, Gail Jarrow The Rise & Fall of Charles Lindbergh, Candace Fleming Free Lunch, Rex Ogle The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees, Don Brown Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers, Deborah Heiligman March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War, Steve Shenkin

A further development in the evolution of adolescent nonfiction has been the production and pop­ ularity of young reader editions of best-selling adult nonfiction. Books like the adaptations of Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, and Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped (adapted by Jason Reynolds) invite students to participate in conversations swirling around in the news. Full-length biog­ raphies and autobiographies whose page count teenagers find daunting have been shortened and often refocused on the subject’s early years. Examples of this treatment include Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, Wolfpack by Abby Wambach, and Becoming by Michelle Obama. Young reader editions also often feature more photographs and illustrations than the adult versions. The best of these adaptations do not condescend to their readers. Tonya Bolden, author in her own right of Changing the Equation: 50+ Black Women in STEM and Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., adapted Carol Anderson’s White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide for younger readers. The edition was 149

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retitled We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide. Bolden explained that her goal was to find the space between presenting information that would probably be new to young readers without oversimplifying the content. “The challenge was striking the right balance: making the book accessible but not watering it down. There’s also the challenge of keeping the book engaging, the same challenge I face when writing my own books” (Jensen, 2021). As the Ojibwe scholar Anton Treuer adapted his 2012 book Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask in 2021, he brought the young reader edition up to date and added con­ tent to his original work. According to Treuer: When we developed the young reader edition, we greatly expanded the content, especially around social activism, race relations, and contemporary topics. And every sentence was rewrit­ ten to create the greatest ease of access. A lot happened since the adult version of the book was first published including the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest at Standing Rock, the confronta­ tion at the Lincoln Memorial, the name change of Washington’s NFL team, new successes and stresses around Indigenous language revitalization, and a new push for racial reconciliation. (Jensen, 2021) Reyna Grande’s adaptation of her memoir The Distance Between Us, which describes her experi­ ences before and after coming to the United States as an undocumented immigrant, included scenes that didn’t appear in the original, such as her high school prom and a bus journey to Tijuana when the bus left her father behind. She also expanded on her account of the border crossing, believing that this moment might touch a nerve for some young readers. Grande explained: Adapting The Distance Between Us was very easy to do because the original book was already in a child’s perspective and the voice was already there. All I had to do was remove the parts where there was an adult point of view. I also removed scenes that were inappropriate for kids. I had to comb through the chapters line by line and cut out as much as I could to reduce the word count. (Jensen, 2021) Teachers and librarians have been amazed by teenage readers’ appetite for graphic texts, both fic­ tion and nonfiction, and have been delighted to watch these books fly from the shelves. But are they worthy of close scrutiny and analysis? Do they possess the intellectual heft to make investing precious classroom time with them worthwhile? In a study designed to determine the extent to which students learned content from a historically accurate graphic text titled “More Than Mere Motivation: Learn­ ing Specific Content Through Multimodal Narratives,” researchers found that sixth graders built their background knowledge of the American Revolution in the course of their reading and demonstrated “significant learning around conceptual ideas” (Brugar et al., 2018). The genre of nonfiction has been energized by the inclusion of memoirs and biographies written in a graphic format. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of interviews with his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew before and during World War II. Both Spiegelman’s parents were Holocaust survivors. Maus was one of the first books in graphic format to receive serious academic attention and find its way onto many high school English and history/social studies reading lists. Graphic memoirs like Maus and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood are complex texts, worthy of close reading and analysis. They are also windows into particular moments in his­ tory. Satrapi describes her life from ages six to fourteen in Tehran, years that included the fall of the Shah, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the Iran-Iraq war. Her illustrations provide visual context and emotional insight into the experiences she recounts. Persepolis was first published to great success in France, where adult comic books have long been popular. The English edition includes an 150

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introduction by Satrapi expressing her desire to show Americans that Iran is not merely a country of fanatics and terrorists (Eberstadt, 2003). In a similar fashion, the three-volume series March details the life of John Lewis, congressman from Georgia until his death in 2020 and lifelong civil rights activist. Written by Lewis with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell, the trilogy is a visual rendering of Lewis’s life from growing up in rural Alabama through to his chairmanship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and tireless work in the service of human rights. In 2016, March: Book Three received the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Another graphic memoir that offers a window to history is George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy. While most people recall George Takei as the actor who played Sulu on “Star Trek,” long before he appeared on the screen Takei and his family were sent to a Japanese internment camp where they spent the war in a series of barbed-wire encampments. The book is rich in historical detail, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech and other primary documents vital to the story of detained Japanese Americans during World War II. Along with teaching history, graphic memoirs can be a vehicle for developing students’ social and emotional skills. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), “Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” Graphic memoirs like Cece Bell’s El Deafo, a Newbery Honor Book, and Jon Krosoczka’s Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction, a National Book Award finalist, offer readers compel­ ling accounts of individuals overcoming extraordinary challenges. Both provide myriad opportunities for discussing difficult issues such as prejudice, shame, self-worth, disability, and abandonment. And far from being depressing, these memoirs are poignant and humorous. While Bell’s description of her experiences as a hearing-impaired child are appropriate for fifth and sixth graders, Krosoczka’s story is more suitable for older, high school-aged readers. In an author’s note, Krosoczka tells readers that his mother eventually died of a drug overdose. “He also makes clear throughout that he and his grandparents weren’t perfect. But Hey, Kiddo is a testament to the power of art and creativity—and a chain-smoking grandfather—to save your life” (McCormick, 2018). Krosoc­ zka’s TED Talk about becoming an artist has garnered over a million views. The principal virtue of graphic texts is that teenagers otherwise disaffected by books are reading them. Though teachers will never be able to pry the phones from teenagers’ hands, they can help stu­ dents become more aware of how their time is spent. In a survey of teenagers’ media use conducted in 2021, the Common Sense Census found that “tweens” (ages 8–12) were spending on average five and a half hours every day playing games, watching YouTube videos, and engaging with social media. Teens (ages 13–18) spent about eight and a half hours per day on their screens. These hours do not include time spent in school on computers or at home with schoolwork. From 2019 to 2021, entertainment media use by adolescents grew by 17%. It is possible that visually appealing graphic works can help to lure teenagers away from TikTok and Instagram. While 84% of teens use social media, only 34% of them say they enjoy social media “a lot.” Though children under the age of 12 are technically not supposed to be on social media, they are. Graphic novels and nonfiction could also provide steps on the ladder to adult reading. The Common Sense Census is a wake-up call.

Adolescent Literature in Verse Teachers are generally more successful at instructing students on the features of poetry than at demon­ strating how to be readers of poetry. As a result, most students do not so much dislike poetry as simply 151

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find it annoying. The genre frustrates them. “Why can’t the poem just say what it means?” they groan. In Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry, David Orr (2012) suggested that our entire approach to teaching poetry requires rethinking. If there is one thing that unites academic treatments and how-to guides, it’s the implicit assump­ tion that relating to poetry is like solving a calculus problem while being zapped with a cattle prod—that is, the dull business of poetic interpretation is coupled uneasily with testimonials announcing poetry’s ability to derange the senses, make us lose ourselves in rapture, dance naked under the full moon, and so forth. (xiv) Reading poetry is rather like visiting a foreign country. While encountering unfamiliar customs at every turn, readers—like travelers—don’t need to understand every nuance to enjoy the journey. Students, however, do need to develop the confidence to make the journey, a need that a great deal of poetry instruction unintentionally undermines. Novels in verse help young readers begin to enjoy the trip and take pleasure in poetry by lowering the barrier to comprehension. Lengthy narrative poems are not a recent invention. Henry Wadsworth’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” “The Song of Hiawatha,” and “The Children’s Hour” were staples of didactic literature for 19th-century schoolchildren. In the 1990s, Make Lemonade (1993) by Virginia Euwer Wolf and Out of the Dust (1997) by Karen Hesse revitalized the genre with book-length poems written in free verse. Hesse’s novel was based upon a true story depicting the struggles of an Oklahoma family during the Depression. The book received the Newbery Medal and the Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction. As this form of adolescent literature gained popularity among young readers, scholars began to attempt to define it. Joy Alexander (2005) posed “the vexed question of distinguishing between a novel told in verse and a series of poems linked in a narrative sequence. Both poets and novelists have been drawn to the genre from their respective directions.” She goes on to describe the typical verse novel: The entire story is told in the form of non-rhyming free verse. Very often each section is less than a page in length and only rarely more than two or three pages. Usually each of these sec­ tions is given a title to orientate the reader, which may indicate the speaker, or contextualize the content, or point to the core theme. The form lends itself to building each section around a single perspective or thought or voice or incident. (p. 270) An example of a book that fits this definition perfectly is Love That Dog (2001), a delightfully origi­ nal novel in verse by Sharon Creech. Lyrical and joyous, the book’s plot revolves around the narrator’s relationship with his dog Sky. And yes, in the end, the dog dies. Creech employs the elements of poetry: alliteration, enjambment, imagery, and syntax in the process of telling a moving story. One aspect of novels in verse that particularly appeals to novice teenage readers is the abundance of white space on the page. The sparse visual presentation of text is less daunting than long blocks of dense prose. In “The Verse Novel and a Question of Genre” (2011), Mike Cadden asserted, “The verse novel seems to be a form demanded by our age.” He concluded that: The verse novel is so successful in large part because it is so readable. Rather than bemoaning its failure to be one thing or another—thus making it out to be some sort of monstrous and insuf­ ficient form—we should be celebrating its rich combination of generic strengths, its melding of the most engaging aspects of three genres to create a very appealing form. We have the sustained story typical of the novel, the guided pace provided by free verse’s use of enjambment, and the 152

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dialogue-rich nature of drama. What the verse novel lacks in description and extended narra­ tion, it makes up for in its insistence that the reader provide those things on his or her own, both demanding and enabling the reader to imagine appropriate and personally satisfying images that match the context of the soliloquy and/or dialogue-driven narrative. By using the verse novel as touchstone text to learn more about three distinct genres, we would be learning how the verse novel itself is its own thing rather than a failed version of something else. (2011) Two giants in the field of contemporary narrative works in verse are Kwame Alexander and Jac­ queline Woodson. Alexander’s The Crossover (2014), told in the voices of two very different basketballloving twins, won the Newbery Medal. Alexander went on to write many other novels in verse, including a prequel to The Crossover called Rebound, the story of the twins’ basketball-playing father. Alexander’s latest endeavor is a planned trilogy that follows a Ghanaian boy caught up in the slave trade. The first volume, The Door of No Return, is deeply researched, quoting proverbs, using Adinkra symbols as chapter markers, and translating Twi phrases to acclimate young readers (Dawes, 2022). In Brown Girl Dreaming, a memoir in verse, Woodson recounts her experiences growing up in the South with its remnants of Jim Crow and her emerging understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. In 2015, it won the National Book Award for Young Readers. A New York Times bestseller, the book has become a classic of adolescent literature. Other acclaimed books of fiction, biography, and memoir in verse include: The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo (fiction)

Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy, Sonya Sones (memoir)

Audacity, Melanie Crowder (biography)

The Red Pencil, Andrea Davis Pinkney (historical fiction)

Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds (fiction)

Darwin: A Life in Poems, Ruth Padel (biography)

Shout, Laurie Halse Anderson (memoir)

Sold, Patricia McCormick (historical fiction)

One, Sarah Crossan (fiction)

October Mourning: Song for Matthew Shepard, Leslea Newman (historical fiction)

Challenges to Books for Adolescents Powerful forces are mustering to demand control over what students read. A recent report from PEN America called “Banned in the U.S.A.” reported an astonishing 1,586 book bans in 86 school districts and 26 states. Overwhelmingly, the majority of books being targeted explore issues of race, racism, sexual orientation, and gender identity. It is not just the number of books removed that is disturbing, but the processes—or lack thereof— through which such removals are being carried out. Objections and challenges to books available in school are nothing new, and parents and citizens are within their rights to voice concerns about the appropriateness and suitability of particular books. To protect the First Amendment rights of students in public schools, though, procedural safeguards have been designed to help ensure that districts fol­ low transparent, unbiased, established procedures, particularly when it comes to the review of library holdings (PEN, 2022). As part of its report, PEN created an index of books that have been banned between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. Of the 1,145 titles listed, 47 percent are classified as young adult literature. Of the titles banned, 41 percent included protagonists of color and 33 percent address LGTBQ+ themes. The 153

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report also recorded bans on 31 graphic novels and 32 verse novels, both forms of adolescent literature that are often employed by teachers and librarians to engage reluctant readers. The American Library Association, which has been tracking book challenges for 20 years, reports a surge the likes of which they have never seen before. “What we’re seeing right now is an unprec­ edented campaign to remove books from school and public libraries that deal with the lives and expe­ riences of people from marginalized communities,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s office for intellectual freedom (Harris & Alter, 2022). The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. Of the 1,597 books that were targeted, the eight most challenged were: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The struggle to control what students read is often driven by fear; parents are afraid that their teenagers will be unduly influenced by the books they read. But keeping young people ignorant of reality, particularly when it is harsh, won’t keep them safe. In fact, blinders can prevent children from understanding what they see in the world around them and what they feel within themselves. Carmen Maria Machado, whose novel The Dream House appears in the PEN index of banned books, explained: Preventing children from reading my book, or any book, won’t protect them. On the contrary, it may rob them of ways to understand the world they’ll encounter, or even the lives they’re already living. You can’t recognize what you’ve never been taught to see. You can’t put language to something for which you’ve been given no language. Why do we not see these acts of censor­ ship for what they are: shortsighted, violent, and unforgivable? (2021) The danger is silence. Classroom discussion is essential to educating today’s adolescents to become tomorrow’s citizens. And teachers, in concert with their school communities, are in the best posi­ tion to make decisions regarding what to teach and how to approach controversial subjects in ageappropriate ways. Edgy readings and topics tend to make for the most engaging classes and most engaged students. And yet, teachers find themselves crippled by curricular caution. And self-censorship may ulti­ mately have more of an impact than school board bans. Results of a survey conducted by School Library Journal (2022) suggest that censorship attempts are likely to have a long-lasting insidious effect on school library collections. Removed books can be counted. What about the books that are never purchased? Several professional organizations offer assistance to teachers and librarians in the event of a chal­ lenge. PEN America, the American Library Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the International Literacy Association have created forums, book rationales, and protocols for book adoption processes. Educators committed to bringing adolescent literature into classrooms do not need to go it alone. 154

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Bibliography Acevedo, E. (2018). The poet x. HarperCollins Quill Tree Books. Alexander, K. (2014). The crossover. HMH Books for Young Readers. Alexander, K. (2018). Rebound. HMH Books for Young Readers. Alexander, K. (2022). The door of no return. Little, Brown and Company. Alexi, S. (2007). Absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Anderson, C., & Bolden, T. (2019). We are not yet equal: Understanding our racial divide. Bloomsbury Children’s Books. Anderson, L. (1999). Speak. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Anderson, L. (2019). Shout. Penguin Books. Andrews, J. (2012). Me and Earl and the dying girl. Abrams Books. Bell, C. (2014). El deafo. Harry N. Abrams. Blume, J. (1970). Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret. Bradbury Press. Blume, J. (1975). Forever. . . Bradbury Press. Bolden, T. (2020). Changing the equation: 50+ US black women in STEM. Harry N. Abrams. Brown, D. (2018). The unwanted: Stories of the Syrian refugees. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Campbell, P. (2010). Campbell’s scoop: Reflections on young adult literature. Scarecrow Press. Chbosky, S. (1999). The perks of being a wallflower. Simon & Schuster. Childress, A. (1973). A hero ain’t nothin’ but a sandwich. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Collins, S. (2008). The hunger games. Scholastic. Cormier, R. (1974). The chocolate war. Pantheon Books. Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. HarperCollins. Crossan, S. (2017). One. Greenwillow Books. Crowder, M. (2015). Audacity. Viking Books for Young Readers. Curtis, C. (1997). The Watsons go to Birmingham –1963. Yearling. Evison, J. (2019). Lawn boy. Algonquin Books. Fitzgerald, S. (1925). The great Gatsby. Scribners. Fleming, C. (2020). The rise and fall of Charles Lindbergh. Schwartz & Wade. Gates, H., & Bolden, T. (2020). Dark sky rising: Reconstruction and the dawn of Jim Crow. Scholastic. Grande, R. (2017). The distance between us: Young readers edition. Aladdin. Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. Dutton Juvenile. Heiligman, D. (2017). Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh brothers. Henry Holt. Hesse, K. (1997). Out of the dust. Scholastic. Hinton, S. E. (1967). The outsiders. Puffin Books. Hinton, S. E. (1971). That was then. This is now. Puffin Books. Hong Kingston, M. (1976). The woman warrior: Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts. Knopf. Jarrow, G. (2021). Ambushed! The assassination plot against President Garfield. Calkins Creek. Johnson, A. (2004). First part last. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Johnson, J. (2020). All boys aren’t blue. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Kerr, M. (1994). Deliver us from Evie. HarperCollins. Kobabe, M. (2019). Gender queer. Oni Press. Krosoczka, J. (2018). Hey, kiddo: How I lost my mother, found my father, and dealt with family addiction. Graphix. L’Engle, M. (1962). A wrinkle in time. Ariel Books. Lewis, J., & Aydin, A. (2016). March: Book three. Top Shelf Productions. Lowry, L. (1993). The giver. Houghton Mifflin. Martin, A. (1986–2000). The baby-sitters club. Scholastic. McCormick, P. (2008). Sold. Hyperion. Meyers, S. (2005). Twilight. Little, Brown, and Company. Morrison, T. (1990). The bluest eye. Knopf. Myers, W. (1999). Monster. HarperCollins. Newman, L. (2012). October mourning: A song for Matthew Shepard. Candlewick. Noah, T. (2020). It’s Trevor Noah: Born a crime. Yearling. Ogle, R. (2019). Free lunch. Norton Young Readers. Oh, E. (2018). Flying lessons & other stories. A Yearling Book. Padel, R. (2012). Darwin: A life in poems. Knopf. Park, L. (2010). A long walk to water. Clarion Books.

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Carol Jago Pascal, F. (1983–2003). Sweet Valley High series. Random House. Patterson, K. (1977). Bridge to Terabithia. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. Paulson, G. (1986). Hatchet. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Pérez, A. (2015). Out of darkness. Carolrhoda Books. Pinkney, A. (2015). The red pencil. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Reynolds, J. (2017). Long way down. Atheneum. Reynolds, J., & Kendi, I. X. (2020). Stamped: Racism, antiracism, and you. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Rowling, J. (1997). Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone. Scholastic. Ryan, P. (2002). Esperanza rising. Scholastic. Sachar, L. (1998). Holes. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Satrapi, M. (2004). Persepolis: The story of a childhood. Pantheon. Shenkin, S. (2015). Most dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the secret history of the Vietnam war. MacMillan, Roaring Book Press. Shetterly, M. (2016). Hidden figures young readers’ edition. HarperCollins. Sones, S. (1999). Stop pretending: What happened when my big sister went crazy. Harper Teen. Soontornvat, C. (2020). All thirteen: The incredible cave rescue of the Thai boys’ soccer team. Candlewick. Sparks, B. (1971). Go ask Alice. Prentice Hall. Spiegelmann, A. (1986). Maus: A survivor’s tale. My father bleeds history. Pantheon. Stevenson, B. (2019). Just mercy: A true story of the fight for justice adapted for young adults. Ember. Takei, G., Eisinger, J., Scott, S., & Becker, H. (2019). They called us enemy. Top Shelf Productions. Thomas, A. (2017). The hate u give. Balzer + Bray. Treuer, A. (2021). Everything you wanted to know about Indians but were afraid to ask. Levine Querido. Wambach, A. (2020). Wolfpack: How young people will find their voice, unite their pack, and change the world. Roaring Brook Press. Wolff, V. (1993). Make lemonade. Henry Holt. Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. Penguin Group. Yang, G. (2006). American born Chinese. Macmillan. Zindel, P. (1969). My darling, my hamburger. Harper and Row.

References Alexander, J. (2005). The verse-novel: A new genre. Children’s Literature in Education, 36, 269–283. Applebee, A. (1989). A study of book-length works taught in high school English courses. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts. Bickmore, S. (2014). Coming of age with young adult literature through critical analysis. Routledge. Bosman, J. (2011, April 16). The sweet valley twins are back, and like their readers, fully adult. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/business/media/17sweet.html Brodsky, J. (1987). Nobel prize for literature acceptance speech. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1987/ brodsky/lecture/ Brugar, K., Roberts, K., Jiménez, L., & Meyer, C. (2018). More than mere motivation: Learning specific content through multimodal narratives. Literacy Research and Instruction, 57(2), 183–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/193 88071.2017.1351586 Cadden, M. (2011). The verse novel and the question of genre. ALAN, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.21061/alan. v39i1.a.3 Dawes, K. (2022, September 22). Kwame Alexander’s new book about slavery focuses on Africa, not America. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/books/review/kwame-alexander-the-door-of­ no-return.html Eberstadt, F. (2003, May 11). Review: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The New York Times. Geoghegan, M. (2021). Reviving reading through student choice in the high school English classroom. The Graduate Review, 6, 81–91. Gibbons, L., Dail, J. S., & Stallworth, J. B. (2006). Young adult literature in the classroom today: Classroom teach­ ers speak out. The ALAN Review, 33(3), 53–61. Gilmore, B. (2011, March). Worthy texts: Who decides? Educational Leadership, pp. 46–50. Gordon, B. (2018). No more fake reading: Merging the classics with independent reading to create joyful, lifelong readers. Corwin Press. Harris, E., & Alter, A. (2022, April 4). Book banning efforts surged in 2021. The New York Times. https://www. nytimes.com/2022/04/04/books/banned-books-libraries.html

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Adolescent Literature Comes of Age Hiebert, E. (2009). Interpreting lexiles in online contexts and with informational texts. Apex Learning. Hill, C. (2014). The critical merits of young adult literature. Routledge. Hinton, S. (1967, August 27). Teen-agers are for real; teen-agers. The New York Times Book Review. https://www. nytimes.com/1967/08/27/archives/teenagers-are-for-real-teenagers.html Jensen, K. (2021). Young readers editions: What makes for a great adaptation of an adult book? School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/young-readers-editions-what-makes-for-a-great-adaptation-of-an-adult-book Lesesne, T. (2010). Reading ladders: Leading students from where they are to where we’d like them to be. Heinemann. Machado, C. (2021, May 11). Banning my book won’t protect your child. The New York Times. https://www. nytimes.com/2021/05/11/opinion/censorship-domestic-violence-book.html McCormick, P. (2018, October 2). A brave graphic memoir of a childhood shadowed by a parent’s addiction. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/books/review/jarrett-j-krosoczka-hey-kiddo.html McNeill, S. (2015). Moment of truth: Trends in nonfiction for young readers. Penguin Random House. https:// authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com/moment-of-truth-trends-in-nonfiction-for-young-readers/ Merga, M. (2015). Do males really prefer non-fiction, and why does it matter? English in Australia, 52, p. 27. Miller, D. (2009). The book whisperer. Jossey-Bass. Miller, D., & Lesesne, T. (2022). The joy of reading. Heinemann. Myers, W. (1986, November 9). Children’s books; I actually thought we would revolutionize the industry. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/09/books/children-s-books-i-actually-thought-we-would­ revolutionize-the-industry.html Myers, W., & Myers, C. (2014, March 15). The apartheid of children’s literature. New York Times. National Assessment Governing Board. (2021). Reading framework for the 2026 National Assessment of Educational Progress. U.S. Government Printing Office. Neuman, S., & Moland, N. (2016). Book deserts: The consequences of income segregation on children’s access to print. Urban Education, 54(1), 126–147. Orr, D. (2012). Beautiful and pointless: A guide to modern poetry. Harper Perennial. PEN America. (2022). Banned in the USA. https://pen.org/banned-in-the-usa/ Prose, F. (1999, September). I know why the caged bird cannot read. Harper’s Magazine. Ruben, C. (2020, March 27). Jason Reynolds is the bard of black YA fiction. Now he’s written a totally differ­ ent kind of book. Washingtonian. www.washingtonian.com/2020/03/27/jason-reynolds-is-the-bard-of-black­ ya-fiction-now-hes-written-a-totally-different-kind-of-book/ Sacks, A. (2019, April 16). Whole class novels vs. choice reading. Why not do both? Education Week. https://www. edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-whole-class-novels-vs-choice-reading-why-not-do-both/2019/04 Scholastic. (2019). Kids and family reading report, 7th edition. Finding their story: Decline by Nine. https://www.scho­ lastic.com/content/corp-home/kids-and-family-reading-report.html Sims Bishop, R. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), 89–95. Strickland, A. (2015). A brief history of young adult literature. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/15/living/young­ adult-fiction-evolution/index.html Thomas, E. (2019). The dark fantastic: Race and the imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. New York University Press. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (2009). Classroom context: Reading for fun. https://www.nationsre­ portcard.gov/reading_2009/context_3.aspx?subtab_id=Tab_2&tab_id=tab1 Waters, M. (2016). A brief history of queer young adult literature. https://medium.com/the-establishment/ the-critical-evolution-of-lgbtq-young-adult-literature-ce40cd4905c6 Wigington, K. (2021, September 30). 50 classics on (almost) everyone’s high school reading list. https://stacker.com/ stories/2218/50-classics-almost-everyones-high-school-reading-list?page=4 Wilder, A., & Teasley, A. (2000). High school connections YA: FAQ (we’re glad you asked). The ALAN Review, 28(1), 55–57.

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SECTION II

Equity, Identity, and Belonging in the Classroom

8

CULTIVATING EQUITABLE

LANGUAGE ARTS PRACTICES

Marcelle M. Haddix, Elizabeth Years Stevens and Kathleen A. Hinchman

If you are receiving this letter, then that means that you have been asked to join an uprising. This is the year everything changes, it has gone on this way for too long. People want to express themselves again, like how it was 50+ years ago, we want to be able to have relationships with the people we love. . . . The uprising will take place July 4, 2070 at 12:00 pm, the uprising will not start unless we feel that we have enough people, so we hope all of you join, because we cannot do this by ourselves, we need everyone. —(Toliver, 2021a, p. 101)

This snippet of text was included in Stephanie Toliver’s article, “Freedom Dreaming in a Broken World: The Black Radical Imagination in Black Girl’s Science Fiction Stories,” published in 2021’s Research in the Teaching of English. Toliver included these words as an example of how young Black writ­ ers construct science fiction that imagines characters drawing on abolitionist letter-writing traditions to spur reconstruction of a more equitable world. Avenae’J shared this world vision as a participant in Toliver’s Critical Race English Education (CREE) writing workshop, a communal writing space centered on Black women’s and girls’ development of self-affirmation, growth, and resistance strate­ gies. Toliver explained that Avenae’J pays “homage to surrealist notions of liberty, rebellion, creativity, and love” to “engage in Afrosurrealist thinking by focusing on the real world, then departing from it in order to create future possibilities centered in Black freedom” (Toliver, 2021a, p. 101). The purpose of this Handbook chapter is to review the growing body of scholarship on cultivat­ ing equitable English language arts (ELA) practices, including reading, viewing, writing, listening, and speaking. The chapter’s focus is specifically on the rapidly evolving, equity-oriented scholarship addressing Black students’ literacies. Despite and because of current racist events in the U.S. (e.g., police shootings, mass killings, backlash against antiracist pedagogy) that continue more than 400 years of oppression (Hannah-Jones, 2019; Kendi, 2016), the literature focusing on pedagogies with a focus on Black students’ literacies is robust and hopeful, providing examples of pedagogies that can be used with multiple populations of students for more equitable tomorrows for all (Gadsden et  al., 1996; Ladson-Billings, 2021b). Our chapter begins with a brief history to explain the chapter title, “Cultivating Equitable English Language Arts Practices.” The next section describes late 20th-century attention to Black language and literacies, multiculturalism, critical literacies, identities, and related equity-oriented ELA pedagogical

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initiatives that paved the way for current efforts. We then discuss current initiatives, including CREE, linguistic justice, and other antiracist efforts. We end with a description of speculative, activist, abo­ litionist, and Afrofuturist approaches that invite educators and their students to invent equitable ELA practices—and a more equitable and just world. We are longtime colleagues representing three generations of scholarship. Marcelle identifies as Black, and Elizabeth and Kathleen as White. We all strive to cultivate equity and justice in our teach­ ing, leadership, scholarship, and community engagement, a perspective that informed our work on this chapter.

Why Equitable ELA Practices and Not Equal? Learners worldwide struggle for access to education to help themselves reach their aspirations. Some cannot attend school because there are no schools, and others cannot because of racist, sexist, eco­ nomic, or ability-related social barriers. Narratives of such educational oppression have existed in the U.S. at least since Europeans first claimed land where other people already lived (Kendi & Blain, 2021). Those who have shared such narratives have done so in hopes of reshaping education systems for greater access, with literacy at the heart of what the systems are thought to offer (Apple, 2013; Shannon, 2017). Because these narratives upset dominant narratives, they have a history of being cen­ sored; this history continues today, with the current opposition to teaching critical race theory (CRT) in schools (Newvine, 2022; Terry, 2022). Such censorship compels us to share the following history as background for the scholarship we describe later in the chapter.

Literacy, Segregation, and Brown In the Foreword to the edited volume, Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing, Oliver (2018) imagined the courageous literacy learning of the earliest Black Americans: “Overcoming language differences among the captured enslaved and then subsequently learning American English were among the first miracles along the path toward Black authorship.” Many states in the pre-Civil War United States punished these same enslaved Black people for learn­ ing to read and write at the same time that public common schools began to flourish (Kaestle, 1983). After the war, newly freed Black people voted, owned property, and built schools. These freedoms were quickly curtailed with the rise of Ku Klux Klan terrorism and the end of postwar Federal protec­ tions. Increasingly White-only state legislatures, bolstered by Plessy versus Ferguson (163 U.S. 537, 1896), enforced a separate but equal society that advanced segregation, unequal resource distribution, and cul­ ture that reinforced White people’s superiority and chipped away at Black children’s self-esteem in spite of extraordinary efforts by Black communities to counter such feelings (Brown, 2004; DuBois, 1935). Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka (347 U.S. 483, 1954) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended de jure segregation. However, ending de facto desegregation has been more elusive. In response to man­ dated integration, Black schools were closed and fewer than half of Black educators found employment in new White-dominated systems (Milner & Howard, 2004; Tillman, 2004). Courts mandated busing to transport Black students to predominantly White schools and away from the segregated neighborhoods of Jim Crow zoning and mortgage restrictions. By the late 1980s, almost half of Black students attended majority-white schools (Rothstein, 2017). But white flight from urban centers worried legislators, who then weakened desegregation mandates and reinforced residential between- and within-school curricu­ lar segregation to lure White families by tedious literacy interventions and special education programs overpopulated with students of color (Ferri & Connor, 2006; Frankel et al., 2021). U.S. schools are now more segregated than before mandatory busing, and unequal distribution of state and federal resources has persisted (Chapman, 2018; McPherson, 2011; Wilkerson, 2020). ELA 162

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teaching across grades remains mostly staffed by White educators, and is dominated by Eurocentric, heteronormative, overly simple curricula and texts that are often read to students, and focused on a 50-year-old reading achievement gap defined only by test performance (Haddix, 2017). This contin­ ues to send negative messages to those who are minoritized by such approaches (Forzani et al., 2022; Ladson-Billings, 2021b). Reading comprehension tests specifically serve as “mechanisms of ideological and cultural hegemony used to inculcate dominant ideologies . . . that shape curricula as federal funds [for schools] are attached to test performance” (Willis, 2004, p. 261). The preceding makes clear that equal resources have never been allocated to educating students of color, particularly when it comes to ELA practices. It is also clear that even equal resources, often interpreted as teaching everyone the same way and with the same materials, cannot yield equitable educational outcomes for communities of color traumatized by centuries of oppression. Education in general and ELA practices specifically will only provide equitable aspirational outcomes for all students when they focus on the hopes and assets all students bring to school (Darling-Hammond, 2010).

Sociocultural Insights Neuroscience, sociological, and psychological researchers of the last half-century have identified and explored ways to support social and cultural dimensions of learning (Nasir et al., 2021). Some progress in civil rights has meant that more women and people of color have been involved in this research. Closer examination of lived experience has led researchers to develop more complex explanations of how society and culture shape individuals’ lives (Ogbu, 1974; Willis, 1977), including how literacy acquisition is shaped in homes, schools, and communities (Heath, 1983; Mehan, 1979; Street, 1984). Three areas of scholarly focus have been especially important to today’s efforts to cultivate equitable ELA practices.

Language Variation Mid-20th century sociolinguists delineated how the English spoken by many African American people was rule-governed and predictable. That is, this version of English was different from but not deficient in comparison to what was, at the time, called Standard American English (SAE) (Labov, 1970; Smith­ erman, 1977). This finding raised the issue of if or how newly supposedly desegregated schools, with their mostly White ELA teachers, were to address such language differences after centuries of teaching so-called “correct” English (Yellin, 1980). In 1979, a group of parents sued the Ann Arbor Michigan school board, arguing that their chil­ dren were being denied an equal education because this language difference was not dealt with in instruction, though many of today’s scholars would refer to their desire for equal outcomes as a desire for equity. The judge agreed and ruled that schools should address the linguistic mismatch, and with respect for students’ home language. Two decades later, the 1997 Oakland California Board of Educa­ tion resolved that Ebonics, the term coined to describe African American language (Williams, 1975), was to be respectfully used as a base for developing English language arts skills. Without clear peda­ gogical direction, teachers had been ignoring the issue, with negative media attention to the rulings exacerbating their confusion. This led to pedagogy that continued to favor standardized approaches, canonical literature, and dominant linguistic conventions. This in turn limited curricular connections for students who did not share this background (Peele-Eady & Foster, 2018). Other students with language differences have also not fared well in U.S. systems. In the earliest days of immigration, schooling was offered in the German, Dutch, French, Spanish, or English of immi­ grant communities. With U.S. expansion after the American Revolution, government policies forced Native American children to attend English-immersion schools far from home, enduring overcrowded 163

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housing, limited health care, and sexual and physical abuse that only ended with late 20th-century activism (Adams, 2020; Allard, 2018). At the same time, westward expansion also brought regional­ ized mandates for instruction in English and regionally dominant additional languages (e.g., German, French, Spanish), a practice that sometimes continues today; such dual-language efforts have cyclically been brought to a halt with English-only pendulum swings. In addition, today’s dual-language pro­ grams are often dominated by linguistically aspirational monolingual English speakers. This practice occurs even as multilingual Black, Latinx, indigenous, and Asian American Pacific Islander students continue to be judged through White, monolingual filters that do not recognize their linguistic and cultural assets (Barros & de Oliveira, 2022; Brooks, 2020; Chang-Bacon, 2021; Kang, 2022; Nieto et al., 2008).

Multicultural Education The research focused on the experiences of Black learners in social and cultural contexts has led 20thand 21st-century education researchers to agree with such predecessors as Sarah Jane Woodson, Anna Julia Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and W. E. B. DuBois that Enlightenment-based, Eurocentric stud­ ies of liberal arts and sciences were harming generations of students who were not being invited to learn about their own communities’ contributions (Banks, 1973). Even as White students developed uncritical, unrealistic senses of their own privilege, students of color were given the message that their people and ideas lacked value (McGhee, 2022). Women’s perspectives were also largely ignored, along with significant bodies of information accrued worldwide and across generations, including the social and cultural perspectives of such knowledge (Graeber & Wengrow, 2021). An early response to this realization was that higher education and K-12 schools initiated curriculum and programs of study focusing on underrepresented perspectives. However, K-12 efforts were quickly squelched as putting the nation at risk by not focusing on more limited cultural knowledge said to be the foundation for U.S. democracy (e.g., Bloom, 1987; Hirsch, 1983; NCEE, 1983). In response, educationally marginalized women and scholars of color united with immigrants and new speakers of English. This diverse group argued instead for multicultural education that would serve as a more inclusive foundation for U.S. society (e.g., Banks, 1991; Gay, 1979; Grant & Sleeter, 1985). Key elements included content integration, construction of new knowledge, prejudice reduc­ tion, equity pedagogy, and empowerment school culture (Banks, 1993). Proponents of the approach invited students to celebrate their backgrounds and draw on their experiences to critique inequitable social structures and recognize that cultural conflict was the source of inequity and not cultural depri­ vation (Banks & Banks, 1995). Banks (2013) described multiple examples of this approach, most of which focused on ELA prac­ tices. These included Au’s (2011) use of Native Hawaiian talk stories with Hawaiian students, Lee’s (2007) recognition of students’ existing competencies in African American discourse and hip-hop culture during literacy studies, Moll and colleagues’ (1992) accounts of teachers building on Mexican American students’ funds of knowledge, and Ladson-Billings’ (1995) recounting of teachers collaborat­ ing with their African American students to connect home, community, and school cultures. However, as multicultural education grew in popularity, it became homogenized by educators and scholars who lacked needed deep cultural knowledge to foster such transformative engagement, literacy, critique, and knowledge reconstruction (Nieto et al., 2008).

Critical Literacy Like the U.S., South America, Central America, and the Caribbean were colonized by European enslavers. As a result, dismantling oppressive racist and classist social structures was also a focus for much 164

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20th-century work in this region. One of the most influential literacy educators in history, Brazilian Paulo Freire (1970), developed critical pedagogy to teach illiterate Brazilian adults to read to dismantle sources of their oppression. He explained that: The act of reading cannot be explained as merely reading words since every act of reading words implies a previous reading of the world and a subsequent rereading of the world . . . and trans­ forming it by means of conscious practical action. (Freire, 1985, p. 18) Luke (2019) explained that critical literacy pedagogy involves teaching people how language, text, discourse, and information make a difference, for whom, and according to what rules. Like multi­ cultural education, critical literacy is tied to individuals’ identities; that is, who people are and what matters to them, including the multiple, varying, intersecting identities that are not well represented by society’s generalizations (Collins, 2015; Vasquez et al., 2019). Critical literacy and identity are also central to how individuals are situated in varied social spheres (Moje & Luke, 2009; Gee, 2015). This work includes developing the ability to use and reshape academic and disciplinary discourses for a more inclusive next generation of scientists, historians, mathematicians, and, most pertinent to equitable ELA, writers and literary scholars (Hinchman & O’Brien, 2019; Moje, 2007).

Practices Toward Cultivating Equitable ELA Cultivating equitable ELA practice with attention to linguistic variation, multicultural education, and critical literacy is not a new idea. It has been addressed in every edition of the Handbook of Research on Teaching English Language Arts. The first three versions of the Handbook addressed these themes by describing varied research methods, instructional approaches, texts, and classroom organizational structures (Flood et al., 1991, 2003; Lapp & Fisher, 2011). The fourth edition (Lapp & Fisher, 2018) shifted focus to center race in an early chapter to inspire the equitable ELA work referenced in the remainder of the text (Willis, 2018). This most recent edition of the Handbook addresses equitable ELA practices in every chapter. For us, cultivating equitable ELA practices involves using assets-based pedagogy to support students reading, viewing, writing, speaking, and listening with pedagogical activities they find compelling, affirming, worthwhile, and supportive of their school, community, and life aspirations (Gutiérrez et al., 2009). Like Muhammad (2020), we use the word cultivating to imply that the work is active, persistent, grounded in local communities, and ever-changing along with those communities. The practices in this section center multiple identity assets within and across communities and conceptualize ways to dismantle sources of marginalization (Willis, 2018; Yosso, 2016). They are well exemplified by current work focusing on Black Girls’ Literacies, Historically Responsive Literacy, Critical Race English Education, Anti-Racist Black Language, and Archeology of Self pedagogies, described in the next sections.

Black Girls’ Literacies The Black Girls’ Literacy Collective (2018) provided a pedagogical framework with a focus on Black girls’ identities and community assets that delineated how Black girls’ literacies are multiple and include reading, writing, listening, viewing, and speaking (see also Muhammad, 2015; Muhammad & Haddix, 2016). This instructional framework emphasized the importance of Black girls defining who they are and how they are perceived. It was historical, involving the girls in exploring the literacies of Black women before them. It was collaborative, a shared experience that allowed Black girls to learn from 165

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each other’s and the teachers’ experiences and insights. It was also intellectual, providing Black girls the chance to grow intellectually by gaining knowledge. It was also critical, drawing on and developing Black girls’ language arts skills to understand and begin to work to dismantle power, oppression, and privilege. Price-Dennis and Muhammad (2021) explained, As Black girls engage in reading, writing, thinking, and speaking, they are doing so to make sense of how authority is held in texts, communities, and the wider society. This calls readers to think outside of themselves, including the cultural identities and values that they have come to know, and to consider multiple standpoints—including those of marginalized groups. (p. 3) The framework also drew on the traditions of Black women’s literate societies, reading and writing to build community and to institute social change (Haddix et al., 2016). It focused on the work of scholars who advocated for the liberation of women of color (i.e., Anzaldúa, 1987; Collins, 2000; hooks, 1994; Lorde, 2007; Moraga, 2015; Richardson, 2007; Walker, 1983). It is also intended to honor Black girls’ assets. It pushed against the racial violence Black girls experience that is normalized through language arts curriculum, texts, and standards that remain grounded in heteronormative whiteness (Young et al., 2018). It supported critical, humanizing, and multimodal pedagogies (Player, 2019, 2021; Price-Dennis, 2016; Muhammad & Womack, 2015; Turner & Griffin, 2020). The ways literacies and texts are invoked by a Black girls’ literacies approach is especially noteworthy. In “Even Cinderella is White,” Young and colleagues’ (2018) use of the framework invited Black girls to take traditional fairy tales and rewrite them as counter fairy tales (CFT), reflecting their perspectives, experiences, and funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) and allowing them to see themselves in a text that did not otherwise acknowledge them. Toliver (2020) drew on this framework when initiating a “Sci-fi/Fantasy Sista Circle” with Black middle-school girls, noting that read-alouds became a communal space that gave the girls opportunities to share knowledge and learn from one another. Greene (2021) shared how Black girls developed a podcast about their hair, drawing on their multimodal composing skills to disrupt dominant narratives and push against racist ideologies. Price-Dennis and colleagues (2017) provided multiple examples of the use of the Black girls’ literacies framework. Price-Dennis developed a Digital Literacy Collaborative in an elementary school, inviting Black girls to work together to develop memes, podcasts, and poetry to respond to others’ literature and poetry; and perform spoken word poems and hip-hop videos addressing racism, social justice, and power. Muhammad described how she facilitated a collaborative titled Black Girls W.R.I.T.E. (Writing to Represent our Identities, our Times, and our Excellence) during a summer middle and high school program that involved Black girls reading literature by Black women and writing about their identities. Womack facilitated a collaborative titled African Ascension that involved Black girls ages 14–21 in a library program reading and analyzing poetry, songs, fiction and non-fiction texts, and autobiographies, with reader responses. McArthur’s Black high school girls’ collective was titled Beyond Your Perception (BYP) and used hip-hop and other popular media to initiate conversations about Black girls’ identities and community engagement. Haddix led the Dark Girls collaborative on a series of Saturdays, using a variety of media (e.g., art, writing, dance, performance) for Black girls to study and express insights about Black girlhood.

Historically Responsive Literacy Muhammad (2018, 2022) also outlined a five-layered pedagogical model called Historically Responsive Literacy. Intended for use in grades 4–8, this model draws on the successes of other context-specific 166

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approaches to honor students’ histories and centers students’ identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy (Tatum, 2019a, 2019b). Drawing on Love’s (2019) work on Abolitionist Teaching, which we describe in more detail later, Muhammad (2022) explained that adding joy to this pedagogical framework “allows Black children to see not just pain and struggle but hope and aspirations” (p. 200). The Historical Responsive Literacy model embraces literacy as offering hope for marginalized individuals because literacy is emancipatory and humanizing in nature. The goal of this approach to pedagogy is to move educators beyond skills-based lessons to those that are culturally and historically responsive and respectful of all students’ needs and assets (Muhammad, 2018). As an example, Muham­ mad (2022) outlined learning objectives for each of the five layers of a unit drawing from a mentor text called “Wishing Game”: Identity: Skill: Intellect: Criticality: Joy: Social Action Connection:

Students will discover who they want to be tomorrow. Students will learn how to write a lyrical story. Students will learn the history of The Brownies’ Book. Students will learn who Paul Laurence Dunbar and Booker T. Washington are. Students will learn why it is important to have people to look up to for their own self-worth and self-empowerment. Students will identify what they wish for that will contribute to peace and joy in their lives. Students will create a list of people who help to make their communities joyful and better. This will create awareness and draw attention to several “unsung” heroes who are local advocates and activists. (p. 202)

Like approaches to supporting Black girls’ literacies, Historically Responsive Literacy draws on multi­ ple pursuits to develop equitable ELA practices. It is especially helpful as an exemplar because it adds explicit connection to joy into culturally responsive teaching in the language arts classroom.

Critical Race English Education Critical Race English Education (CREE) (Johnson, 2018) is a conceptual framework that informs the theory and practice of secondary school English teaching. CREE explicitly draws on Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), BlackCrit (Dumas and Ross, 2016), and Critical Eng­ lish Education (Morrell, 2005) to help teachers and their students understand race, whiteness, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and the role language and literacy play in maintaining and disrupting power relations in- and out-of-school (Johnson, 2018). CREE also harnesses language and literacy as a way to affirm those students who are marginalized in classrooms and society. Like the other approaches to equitable practice, it pushes against deficit perspectives and celebrates Black literacies. According to Johnson (2018), “Black literacies affirm the lives, spirit, language, and knowledge of Black people and culture” (p. 108). CREE also promotes disrupting the use of heteronormative, White-authored texts still used in many classrooms. It suggests supplementing curriculum with texts that focus on Black struggle and liberation alongside Eurocentric texts. Johnson (2018), the scholar who proposed this approach, noted: ELA teachers and literacy educators must understand that choosing Eurocentric texts that omit the lived realities of Black people or misrepresent the multiple ways of being Black leads to anti-Blackness and the devaluation of Black life. Similarly, racial violence also occurs in who and what educators include (or do not include) in classrooms. Educators have to consider the 167

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countless Black students who experience racial fatigue and spirit-murdering from sitting in classrooms where Black students are typically invisible (e.g., in curriculum and pedagogy) yet hypervisible (e.g., in suspension, expulsion, and overrepresentation in special education classes), as well as begin to consider instructional practices that actively stand against the physical and symbolic violence perpetrated against Black bodies. (p. 109) As an example, Johnson (2021) suggested that Assta Shakur’s biography, an example of protest literature about freedom and democracy, be taught in conjunction with the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and slave narratives to compare and contrast the ways descendants from Europe and Africa understand freedom, democracy, and human rights. Multiple scholars have begun to draw on CREE in their work. In addition to Toliver (2021a), who we referenced at the beginning of the chapter, Polleck and Spence-Davis (2020) described how they drew on CREE to center #BlackLivesMatter in classroom analysis of All American Boys (Reynolds & Kiely, 2015), a text whose main characters encounter police brutality and march for their rights. The text and specific instructional moves (e.g., gallery walks, responding to prompts in writing, annotating the text, small group discussions) supported marginalized students’ attention to developing advocacy and agency. Similarly, Rebellino and colleagues (2019) drew on the use of All American Boys, paired with hiphop by Todrick Hall, to help students learn about race, power relations, agency, and activism. BorsheimBlack and Sarigianides’ edited volume (2019) provides additional examples of CREE in the classroom.

Linguistic Justice Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy is another approach that can be used in and out of classrooms to dismantle linguistic racism (Baker-Bell, 2019). This framework was informed by Bell’s earlier framework, Critical Language Pedagogy (CLP) (Baker-Bell, 2013). The CLP framework called attention to language, learning, ideologies, identities, and deficit perspectives about individuals’ language. CLP was informed by recommendations for culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012; Paris & Alim, 2014, 2017) and critical, cultural understandings of Black Language to encourage Black students to have a positive view of their own language. Baker-Bell (2020) intentionally used the terms Black Language (BL) and White Mainstream English (WME) to show the ways racial and linguistic hierarchies are related, particularly anti-Black racism and White linguistic supremacy. Baker-Bell (2020) drew on Smitherman’s (2006, p. 3) definition of Black Language (BL): A style of speaking English words with Black Flava—with Africanized semantic, grammatical, pronunciation, and rhetorical patterns. [Black Language] comes out of the experience of U.S. slave descendants. This shared experience has resulted in common language practices in the Black community. The roots of African American speech lie in the counter language, the resistance discourse, that was created as a communication system unintelligible to speakers of the dominant master class. In contrast, Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy calls for Linguistic Justice by centering the strengths and assets of Black Language and Black lives in classrooms and in research (Baker-Bell, 2017), working against Anti-Black Linguistic Racism. African American Language (AAL), African American English (AAE), Ebonics, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), for instance, may also be referred to as BL (Baker-Bell, 2020). Also drawing on Alim and Smitherman’s (2012) definition of WME, instead of calling it SAE, points to the way WME is dominant, privileged, and normalized in U.S. society. 168

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Baker-Bell (2019) defined Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as, “linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization that BL speakers endure when using their language in schools and everyday life” (p. 2). In school, for example, this may include teachers or administrators silencing students, correcting them, or policing them when they communicate in BL. Such linguistic racism denies students the opportunity to draw on their native language when engaged in language arts learn­ ing activities, as has been deemed legally appropriate for decades (Baker-Bell, 2019). Baker-Bell (2019, 2020) offered language arts practices aligned with Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy. For instance, she suggested using literature such as The Hate U Give (Thomas, 2017) to help Black students see their racial and linguistic realities. This novel’s main character is a Black teenager who navigates her Black identity as she attends a predominantly White high school while living in a Black community. Baker-Bell (2019, p. 7) explained, Thomas’ depiction of Starr accurately captures the cultural conflict, labor, and exhaustion that many Black Language-speakers endure when code-switching; that is, they are continuously monitoring and policing their linguistic expressions and working through the linguistic double consciousness they experience as a result of having to alienate their cultural ways of being and knowing, their community, and their Blackness in favor of a white middle class identity. Baker-Bell (2019) outlined seven lessons using The Hate U Give, drawing on students’ experi­ ences, activities, and supplemental resources regarding Black language and identity; language, history, and culture; study of Black language; language and power; language and racial positioning in society; language, agency, and action; and developing a language of solidarity. Her text, Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy (Baker-Bell, 2020), offers multiple additional examples. Other scholars have begun to call for linguistic justice in their work across grades. For instance, Souto-Manning and colleagues (2021) engaged in a racial analysis of early language and language arts practices and provide shifts and actions to help us reimagine early literacy as a site of belonging. In a high school English language arts classroom, Johnson and Sullivan (2020) drew on Baker-Bell’s (2019) notions of Anti-Racist Black Language to implement and study a humanizing approach to teaching writing that centered Black intellectual traditions.

Archeology of Self Sealey-Ruiz’s instructional framework invites educators to conduct an Archeology of Self (2018, 2020, 2022) to develop racial literacy, “a skill and practice in which individuals are able to probe the exist­ ence of racism and examine the effects of race and institutionalized systems on their experiences and representations in US society” (Sealey-Ruiz, 2013, p.  386). The goal is for educators to engage in self-examination or deep reflection that includes excavating issues of racism to understand how racism influences language arts pedagogy, moving through the components of interruption to critical love. This work was informed by work by Ladson-Billings (2021a), Milner (2011), Love (2019), Muham­ mad (2020), and Emdin (2021). Together, these scholars call for shifting our language, perceptions, and practices in the classroom. As an example, Milner (2011) suggested that the widely discussed “educa­ tional achievement gap” could be more accurately referred to as an opportunity gap, and Muhammad (2020) is among those who have called for educators to “see the genius” in Black children (p. 22). The six components of the Archeology of Self include (a) interrupting racism and inequality at personal and systemic levels; (b) deep examination of the self in relation to biases; (c) historical lit­ eracy to develop awareness of historical forces that shape our society; (d) critical reflection about how our identities privilege or marginalize our work; (e) critical humility to understand the limits of our own ideologies; and (f) critical love, care and commitment for the communities in which we live. 169

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Sealey-Ruiz (2022) asserted: “There is no way around this: the heart and the mind must be examined if we are to move forward in eradicating the inequalities that exist in education for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] students” (p. 24). It is through critical self-reflection that educators work toward building an understanding and gaining the tools to shift their language, curriculum, and pedagogical practices to be more culturally relevant for BIPOC students. Sealey-Ruiz (2022) also offered ideas for equitable language arts classroom practice. These include using literature in which BIPOC students can see themselves, inviting them to examine their own lived experiences, creating a space for their dialogue and self-discovery, addressing ways teachers’ biases spill into curricular decisions, and connecting the curriculum to movements of social change. Other schol­ ars have begun to detail ways they have engaged in Archeology of Self to center Blackness and dismantle status quo in their own work as teachers and teacher educators (e.g., Porcher, 2021a; Stevens et al., 2023; Tondreau et al., 2021). Others explained how they have engaged teacher candidates in such work using multimodal tools (e.g., Porcher, 2021b) and letter writing (e.g., Bell et al., 2022). All see their efforts as a first step in cultivating equitable language arts practices but note that the work remains.

Inventing the Future As the field continues to make progress in theory and practice, we lean on the past and additional cur­ rent scholarship to theorize a future that harnesses equitable practices. We recall the opening vignette written by Avenae’J (Toliver, 2020, 2021a) in a writer’s workshop, which offered a counternarrative, challenging dominant narratives through storytelling. The pedagogical framework in which Avenae’J was participating offers another consideration in cultivating equitable ELA practices, in addition to the work described in the preceding sections. This approach is exemplified by current work on speculative literacies, abolitionist teaching, and Afrofuturism. These approaches offer additional ways to involve Black students themselves in reimagining equitable literacy practices.

Speculative Literacies Speculative literacies is an instructional framework to promote “expansive, creative forms of meaning and meaning making and communication aimed at radically reorienting the nature and purpose of shared democratic life toward equity, empathy, and justice” (Mirra & Garcia, 2020, p. 297). Continuing to theorize the framework, Mirra and Garcia (2022) recently added that speculative literacy: Encourages boundary-pushing and youth-centered creative thinking about how to fully re-story (Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016) public life by putting lived and participatory approaches to democratic learning into conversation with the agentic resistance and public dreaming of futurist literary world-building. (p. 351) Re-storying is the reshaping of narratives using the lived cultures, histories, knowledge, identities, and dreams for the future as a starting point (Garcia & Mirra, 2021; Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016). Garcia and Mirra (2021) suggested that the speculative literacies framework extends Friere’s (1970) perspective of critical consciousness as individuals are conscious of their lived experiences and then take subsequent action. It also draws on critical race perspectives and Afrofuturist ideas about specu­ lation to “interpret, engage, design, or alter reality for the reimagination of the past, the contested present, and act as a catalyst for the future (Otieno, 2018)” (Mirra & Garcia, 2020, p. 301). Mirra and Garcia also acknowledged that civics and literacy are not neutral and must be interrogated, explain­ ing that, “This stance contrasts with widely held perspectives of civic education that emphasize the 170

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acquisition of U.S.-centric political knowledge (Zukin et al., 2006)” (Garcia & Mirra, 2021, p. 645). Current practices in civics and literacy are also not enough to help students develop a sense of demo­ cratic community, dialogue, or action. Garcia and Mirra (2021) explained that when reading, writing, listening, and speaking ELA prac­ tices move toward solidarity, action, and pushing against neutrality in the classroom, then specula­ tive civic literacies are taken up. Such language arts practices might include students participating in research projects, engaging in multimodal production that could be shared with wide, authentic audiences, writing persuasively, introducing new and complex characters in writing, and analyzing lit­ erature critically. They described the implementation of a yearlong Digital Democratic Dialogue (3D) project involving high school students in speculative civic literacies involving collaboration, interroga­ tion, reexamining curriculum that perpetuates status quo, and imagining alternative futures (Garcia & Mirra, 2021; Mirra & Garcia, 2022). Wargo and Alvarado (2020) described children ages 3–9 participating in a project on “making a differ­ ence” and engaging in making using makerspace technologies and pedagogy that was grounded in specu­ lative design. They explained that the project provided the children an opportunity to re-story the realities of today and encouraged them to engage in speculative worldbuilding, imagining a socially just world. Thomas (2018, 2019) outlined how individuals of color are often positioned as “Dark Other” vil­ lains in published speculative fiction, and called for the decolonization of such work. Toliver’s (2020) example from the beginning of this chapter provides an example of how teachers and students can work together on their own speculative fiction. Black girls in her study composed their own specula­ tive fiction to provide counterstories to challenge colonial narratives and imagine a more equitable and just future.

Abolitionist Teaching According to Love and Muhammad (2020), “Abolitionist Teaching is built on the creativity, imagina­ tion, boldness, ingenuity, and rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists to demand and fight for an educational system where all students are thriving, not simply surviving” (p. 695). The approach has connections to theories such as culturally responsive teaching (Ladson-Billings, 2009), critical race theory, radical pedagogy (hooks, 1994), and humanizing pedagogy (Freire, 1970). Its purpose is to create a teaching and learning space where students feel safe, valued, and joy in, for example, the language arts classroom. According to Bacon (1999), use of the term “abolition” was borrowed from to the Abolitionist Movement to end slavery. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass understood literacy as a pathway to freedom for slaves despite its contradictions for enslaved people: It was the language of oppression since enslaved people needed to learn the master’s language to do the master’s work. It was also the ticket to freedom when knowing what was going on in a community made literacy a medium of escape and freedom maintenance. We continue to see such contradictions today when, on the one hand, one’s literacy is tied to racialized standardized testing practices, eugenics, and the school-to-prison-pipeline even as it often is the key to one’s aspirations (Coles et al., 2021). Love (2019) argued that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all for Abolitionist Teaching; instead, it may look different across schools and language arts classrooms. As a first start, like other pedagogies, Abolition­ ist Teaching in ELA includes choosing texts that represent students’ culture and centering students’ cultural backgrounds (Hoffman & Martin, 2020; Love, 2019). It also includes encouraging students to bring their narratives into their work and celebrating their culture in other ways—particularly Black joy (Love, 2019). Grounded in Abolitionist Teaching, Muhammad (2020) called for Agitation Literacies. These included using literacies to upset, disturb, disquiet, and unhinge systemic oppression such as racism or 171

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homophobia (Love & Muhammad, 2020). More recently, Garcia and de Roock (2021) called for more “radical possibilities” (p. 192). Given the current political terrain in the U.S., they called for Abolition­ ist pedagogies that interrogate civic platforms such as classrooms and digital spaces that can be both oppressive and abolitionist. They noted that “It is therefore critique, call to action, and a future-facing imagination” (Garcia & de Roock, 2021, p. 192). Hoffman and Martin (2020) found that scripted curricula, even in a progressivist reading and writ­ ing workshop, did not allow teachers to deviate enough from the curriculum to meet students’ needs. They found requiring teachers to adhere to a script did not align with culturally responsive Abolitionist Teaching and was harmful for the teachers and students. Teachers lived in a state of fear, and students’ needs were not addressed. On a positive note, teachers found comfort in being co-conspirators, helping groups of which they were not members. Hoffman and Martin (2020) drew on Love’s (2019) descrip­ tion of such co-conspirators, describing the teachers as, “question[ing] their privilege, decenter[ing] their voices, build[ing] meaningful relationships with folx working in the struggle, tak[ing] risks, or be[ing] in solidarity with others” (p. 117). The teachers in this study also felt that taking up Abolitionist practices served students well.

Afrofuturism As we look forward to the future of equitable English language arts practices, we imagine a future where no students are on the margins. We, like other scholars, lean on Afrofuturism in our vision. Afrofuturism centers Black culture and history while drawing on elements of science-fiction and fan­ tasy (Wallace & Schwartz, 2022). Toliver (2021b) referred to Afrofuturism as “an effort to reclaim and recover the past, elevate positive realities that exist in the present, and create new possibilities for the future” (p. 2). Haddix and Brown (2022) also suggested that Afrofuturism can be used as a framework that allows us to draw on the past and present to imagine a more equitable future. They described Afrofuturism as an abandonment of racial hierarchies, where Black people are valued and in charge of their own worlds. Afrofuturism has a rich history, dating back to the Abolitionist Movement (Dery, 1994). It is grounded in critical theory and Black radical imagination (Kelley, 2002; Morrison 2007), and has roots in speculative fiction (Butler, 2012; Jemisin, 2018; Thomas, 2014). In recent studies, Wargo (2021) connected Afrofuturism to Mirra and Garcia’s (2020) speculative work. He suggested that because we teach and learn in existing systems, Afrofuturism reminds us why speculative work is necessary, particu­ larly for those who have been historically oppressed. His observation supports Toliver’s (2021b) asser­ tions that Afrofuturism offered Black girls the opportunity to refine their present and future identities.

Conclusion Many educators have turned toward cultivating transformative equitable ELA practices referenced in our title, enabling students to recognize and cultivate their own genius. Doing so means cultivating ELA practices that are deliberately not equal, that is, the same for everyone. Instead, equitable ELA practices value, celebrate, and ground literacy instruction in local communities and their assets. They center the insights, ambitions, and self-advocacy of minoritized students, their families, and their communities. They challenge and dismantle dominant narratives even as they legitimize the histories and cultures of marginalized communities. Cultivating equitable ELA practices means inviting students to imagine aspirations unencumbered by injustice and supporting their acquisition of the literacies needed to do so. Yet even as we write this, we note that the use of texts, curricula, and pedagogies that honor stu­ dents’ histories and center their identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy as described in this chapter have recently been restricted in many communities amidst fear that White students will be harmed 172

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from learning about the U.S. history of racism or the achievements of populations of color. This means that too many youths continue to be oppressed, struggling to identify and connect with their school­ ing. This in turn tells us that, despite the risks, cultivating equitable ELA practices is central to our ability to invent an equitable, just future.

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9

MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS

Extending to “Multiculturating”: Enacting Complex

Linguistically and Culturally Enriched Teaching

Arnetha F. Ball, Tonya B. Perry, Joaquin Muñoz, Tracey T. Flores, and

Teaira McMurtry

Statistics on U.S. Multiculturalism The United States is a multicultural society, growing in its racial and ethnic diversity. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 data, the U.S. population has increased by 7% since 2010. In 2020, the larg­ est racial or ethnic group in the U.S. was the White (non-Hispanic) group, which had a population of 196.8 million. Between 2010 and 2020, the Hispanic/Latino population had the most growth, increas­ ing by 10.6 million from 50.7 million in 2010 to 61.3 million in 2020. In 2020, the White (nonHispanic) group had the largest decrease, making up 59.7% of the population compared with 63.8% in 2010, a drop of 4.1 percentage points. Between 2010 and 2020, the share of the population that is Hispanic/Latino increased the most, 2.2 percentage points, to 18.6% (U.S. Census). People who do not identify as White (non-Hispanic) make up 40.3% of the current population. As this current trend continues, the United States will become even more racially and ethnically diverse: in other words, more multicultural. In response to our increasingly multicultural society, we must create schools and develop teachers who are responsive to culturally and linguistically diverse students through enhanced teaching practices (C.D. Lee, 2006; Ball, 2009; Ladson-Billings, 2009; Paris  & Alim, 2017; Perry, 2020; Perry et al., 2022). Intentional and purposeful teaching requires a transition from a multicultural approach to a multiculturating approach—moving from basic knowing about multiculturalism to doing or enacting intentional, informed practices that honor linguistically and culturally diverse students and their communities.

Brief History of Multicultural Education Initiated by scholars such as George Washington Williams, Carter G. Woodson, W. E. B. DuBois, and Charles H. Wesley, the most important objective of the early multicultural education movement in the 1900s was to protest the negative messaging about African Americans by developing authentic depic­ tions of the life, history, and contributions of African Americans. These scholars believed that develop­ ing positive self-images of African Americans was key to their shared identity and freedom. They also believed that “stereotypes and negative beliefs about African Americans could be effectively challenged by objective historical research that could transform mainstream academic knowledge” (Multicultural Education, n.d.). Scholars and activists advocated for asset-based education for Black children in the early 1900s, and this work continued well into the Civil Rights Movement.

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The Civil Rights Movement advocated for the equal treatment, political power, and economic development of African Americans. African-American scholars and educators who worked within the movement led the way for present-day multicultural education (Banks, 1996), which was profoundly entrenched in this active and visible struggle for rights for African Americans. Activists, community advocates, and parents urged responsive and inclusive curriculum in schools. As multicultural educa­ tion gained more attention in the 1970s, schools, higher learning institutions, and other organizations tried to address the concerns of African Americans and other historically marginalized groups using a host of programs, practices, and policies, but most focused on slight changes to traditional curriculum (Gorski, 1999). By the 1980s, the framing of multicultural education was changing. The national education report, A National at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (1983) cited multiple indicators of educational risk, almost exclusively tied to declining test scores (p. 12). With the emphasis on standardized knowl­ edge as the central indicator of success, Children of color, students from low socioeconomic earning families, and children who were English Language Learners were implicitly viewed as “at risk” or “low performing.” As a result, their homes and communities were not valued for their cultural richness and wealth of knowledge; inequity in schooling was not an integral part of the report (Sleeter, 1995). Mul­ ticultural education resurged as part of the curriculum in the mid-1980s into the 2000s as the number of students of color in the United States was increasing; however, multicultural teaching was seen as additive and not central to the curriculum. The focus centering White culture still did not meet the criteria set by multicultural education scholars, educators, and leaders in the field (Banks, 1992). The foundational leaders of the current mul­ ticultural education movement are quite ethnically diverse and understand that multicultural education is central to learning, not peripheral. They include African Americans such as James Banks, Gwen­ dolyn Baker, Geneva Gay, and Carl Grant; Native American scholar Jack Forbes; Latinx scholars Carlos Cortes, Ricardo Garcia, Hilda Hernandez, and Sonia Nieto; Asian Americans Philip Chinn, Valerie Pang, and Derald Sue; and European Americans Christine Bennett, Donna Gollnick, and Christine Sleeter (Banks, 1992). Banks has written about multiculturalism for decades and has immensely shaped the design of multicultural education today. Banks (2016) formulated what he called the five dimen­ sions of multicultural education: 1. content integration: using content from a variety of cultures in the classroom as examples 2. knowledge of construction process: helping students understand how cultural assumptions and biases influence how knowledge is constructed 3. equity pedagogy: teachers adjusting their teaching to facilitate learning for diverse students 4. prejudice reduction: understanding the characteristics of students’ racial attitudes and how they can be modified by teaching methods and materials 5. empowering school culture and social structure: examining and assessing the school culture to create spaces that uplift and support students from diverse groups (p. 5)

Moving to Multiculturating in Education These five dimensions are foundational to multicultural education. Based on the work of Banks (2016), we extend the term “multiculturalism” to a verb—multiculturate. In addition, we extend Banks (2016) work to include more emphatically the following: (a) emphasizing the importance of including diverse families and communities in the teaching and learning process with their children; (b) revisiting and

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implementing authentic culturally and linguistically sound pedagogical and collaborative practices; and (c) teaching about power, privilege, and responsibility. Today, multiculturating is occurring in some educational contexts, with educators celebrating diver­ sity by embracing diverse learners, complex classrooms, and enriched teaching while understanding and challenging the structures that produce negative beliefs about those diverse communities. This chapter provides support and examples for using multicultural students’ communities and families as a foundation for growing and learning. We also push the notion of multicultural education from a neu­ tral term to include more actionable language and behaviors that challenge the reader to think about stance and how language and culture impact learning and perceptions of learning: multiculturating. Multiculturating is an active opportunity to celebrate and embrace the complexities of diversity, culture, and language, a much different outlook than one that sees diversity as challenging. A shift in understanding, appreciation, and honoring of students and their families, communities, and their culture is needed, and so we extend the substantial work of our forefathers and foremothers from noun to verb.

Moving from Knowing to Doing: A Framework of the

Model of Generative Change

Another useful noun in this conversation is derived from the theory of generative change, or “gen­ erativity,” a complex psychosocial construct that refers to new or novel behavior in problem solving used to predict and implement creative action (Ball, 2009). The model that emerged from Ball’s research provides generative opportunities for teachers to continually add to their knowledge and understanding by con­ necting their personal knowledge and professional knowledge with the knowledge they gain from their students, and then to become models of generativity for their students. Ball’s decade-long program of research found that generativity was the most important characteristic of successful teaching and learning in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms, yet these competencies are rarely taught in our schools or teacher education programs. Once teachers learn about their students’ lives, histories, and perspectives, they must then use that accumulated knowledge to solve the difficult and unfamiliar pedagogical problems that emerge within their classrooms on a daily basis. Knowledge becomes gen­ erative when the learners see the need to innovate in light of their existing challenges. The term “generative change” also refers to a process of self-perpetuating change, whereby a teach­ er’s pedagogical practices are inspired, influenced, and transformed by the instructional approaches, new knowledge, and new theories they learn about in a professional development program (Ball, 2009). The Model of Generative Change shown in Figure 9.1 has four stages. Each stage provides opportunities for teachers to learn new knowledge about their students and to consider innovative classroom practices that impact how they engage students in meaningful learning activities. The model provides a foundation for future work on understanding teacher change and develop­ ment. The model can also be used as a framework to guide the organization of instruction in profes­ sional development and teacher education programs and as a heuristic to explain what needs to happen in programs aimed toward addressing the challenge of developing a highly skilled teaching force that has the knowledge and dispositions needed to ensure excellent education for culturally and linguisti­ cally diverse students in complex classrooms. Phase one of the model emphasizes the use of reflection through the narratives of personal experi­ ences that motivate increased metacognitive awareness. Guided reflection during this stage results in an increased sense of personal awakening. Teacher education programs use narrative reflection and extended writing to promote metacognitive awareness. Phase two emphasizes the use of guided introspection, which requires teachers to look within themselves to determine their own role as educators. Through carefully selected written activities and

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Figure 9.1 Changing Discourses and Practices Reveal Learners’ Developing Perspectives Toward Generativity

readings, teachers determine their level of personal involvement and decide if these new perspectives should be embraced in their personal philosophy. Discussions and written activities facilitate ideological becoming, which results in an increased sense of agency. Phase three emphasizes the critiques of readings and the analysis of action research projects teach­ ers select to work on to increase their sense of advocacy and focus on classroom improvement and problems that perplex them. Action research culminates in a plan for innovation and creative problem solving as a catalyst for teachers to develop their generative thinking skills. Where appropriate, teachers later assign their students to complete their own action research projects so they can develop generative thinking skills as well. Phase four emphasizes the combination of theory, best practices, and actual work in collaborat­ ing with students to facilitate theory posing and generative thinking. Teachers use writing to facilitate actions and implementation of their plans—based on feedback they receive from their students. These action research projects result in teachers’ increased sense of efficacy and their development of deeper understandings of the lived experiences of their students. The Model of Generative Change depicts the strategic use of language in education and in particu­ lar the use of writing as a pedagogical tool for engaging teachers in reflection, introspection, critique, and the emergence of their own personal voice—which is subsequently applied to their work with students. Ball’s 2006 and 2021 research revealed that one distinguishing characteristic of this approach was that as the teachers developed their own voices and became generative in their thinking, they also modeled generativity for their students and inspired them to become generative thinkers as well. The Model of Generative Change is constantly evolving (see Ball, 2012; Ball et al., 2021 ; Liu & Ball, 2019; Brito & Ball, 2020). Here, we emphasize two critical components in its ongoing evolution: 1) the Advocacy level, which is the firsthand knowledge that teachers experience and gain as a result of connecting with the cultural wealth of students and their families; 2) the Efficacy level, which is the inclusion of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies in teachers’ classroom practices for children of color using effective approaches that help students understand power, privilege, and responsibility. As we have established, multiculturating is the act of authentic re-envisioning and application of responsive teaching for children of color. How does this impact and transform teaching? The next 182

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sections provide examples of enriched teaching practices to illustrate multiculturating in multiple con­ texts, including schools that honor authentic Indigenous community spaces, homes, and other envi­ ronments of Latinx learners, and rich places for young emerging Black scholars to thrive.

Embracing Complex Culturally and Linguistically Enriched Teaching

Within Indigenous Communities

As educators work to develop their repertoires for culturally and linguistically complex classrooms, there is a danger of equating the experiences of Indigenous Peoples to those of other historically resil­ ient communities who have also resisted—and continue to resist—hegemonic schooling practices that erase culture and language. Understanding the experiences of the 547 federally recognized tribes in the United States (not to mention state-recognized and unrecognized tribal groups) with distinct language, cultural practices and relationships with the U.S. government through treaties and federal policies— many of which pre-date the establishment of the United States—requires knowledge that is specific to place. This means that all educators, including those working with Indigenous communities and those with no Indigenous presence in their schools, must develop awareness of the specific geography of tribal lands that we live and work on. Included in this knowledge development is an awareness of the language and culture of the traditional occupants of the land prior to colonization, and the complex interplay of multiple communities sharing stewardship of those lands. Critical Indigenous Studies scholar Daniel Heath Justice reminds us that we are visitors to the lands we occupy, and one part of our visitation is an awareness, acknowledgement, and action in relation to our occupation as settlers (2018). We may not have enacted the original colonization, but to become and to remain good visitors and relatives, we are responsible for repairing and reconciling. This section seeks to offer a framework to educators as they develop new capacities and strengthen existing skills around engaging the rich complexity indigenous students bring into schools. This frame­ work is also meant to support teachers who, as part of the mission of anti-racism and anti-oppression education, are working to bring understandings of indigenous worldviews into classrooms of predomi­ nantly non-indigenous students. It is important to note how this framework interacts with conceptions of multiculturating. As mentioned earlier, the specific and unique relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the United States federal government creates a context where racial and ethnic catego­ rizations are not sufficient. Frequently, multiculturalism is a broad term applied to diverse racial cat­ egories. These racial categories (in the case of Indigenous Peoples, the category of Native American) do not capture the legal classifications and considerations outlined in treaty law. Some knowledge of historic and legal discourses is necessary for educators to best understand and best communicate the unique relationships between tribal and the U.S. federal government. In considering the education of indigenous students or teaching about indigenous topics and issues, teachers have a responsibility, and teacher educators must take up the charge of developing resources and learning spaces for teachers to develop this knowledge. The task of supporting new educators to embrace stances celebrating Indigenous Peoples is one that, when accomplished, equates to building powerful, ethical spaces (Battiste, 2013) where Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies (Walter & Andersen, 2013) are centered and given life. Because the discourses in society that negatively characterize Indigenous Peoples in the world also find their way into schools, learning spaces become traumatic and violent places for Indigenous youth. English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms can and must be spaces where cultur­ ally and linguistically diverse learners can grow and thrive in their complexity. Embracing diverse learners, complex classrooms, and enriched teaching means celebrating diversity while understand­ ing and challenging the structures that produce negative beliefs about the diverse communities we seek to include. 183

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With regard to Indigeneity, this means educators developing both specific and general knowl­ edge and practices of local communities, land, kinship practices, languages, and standpoints (Walter & Andersen, 2013). At the same time, educators must also have an awareness of the larger movements in education across indigenous communities, such as decolonizing practices in education (Battiste, 2013; Smith, 1999/2021), indigenizing practices in schools, (Cajete, 1999; Cote-Meek & Moeke-Pickering, 2020; Garcia et al., 2022), education towards survivance (Sabzalian, 2019; Vizenor, 2008), and critical indigenous pedagogy (Brayboy, 2005). These approaches are based in specific Indigenous contexts but can offer lessons that support many different communities. Exploring these approaches supports the development of more effective curriculum and pedagogy that celebrates, embraces, and finds joy in the expressions of Indigenous Peoples. In developing these joyful and celebratory stances of Indigenous communities, teachers must engage in theory that extends the boundaries of traditional teacher education structures. This includes engaging with Indigenous Knowledge (Barnhardt  & Kawagley, 2005), Indigenous Methodologies (Kovach, 2009/2021; Wilson, 2008), and increasing awareness of the implications of settler colonial­ ism (Horner et al., 2021) in education systems and institutions. “Decolonizing” has become a common refrain in teacher education, professional development, and curriculum creation, and—when used properly—invites entire new imaginings of schooling, education, and community structure (Battiste, 2013). “Indigenizing” (Cote-Meek & Moeke-Pickering, 2020; Garcia et al., 2022) has also received some attention from those outside of indigenous education, largely from communities serving indig­ enous students, as well as some institutions with low or no indigenous student population, but with an interest in developing equitable spaces in schools. Within the Canadian context, the approaches to indigenizing have ranged from land acknowledgements and displays of indigenous learning principles on signs and posters, to land-based education practices and culture camps designed to engage learning about indigenous communities and cultures. Attempts to reimagine schooling spaces with decolonial or indigenizing approaches must be carefully constructed and maintained to avoid the traps of educational re-creations, often only offering cosmetic changes and leaving the underlying, problematic foundations in place. Too frequently in schooling spaces, educational re-creations emerge as benign multiculturalism, or education about the Other (Kumashiro, 2000), which seeks to diversify classroom curriculum without challenging power and privilege. In Canada and the United States, there is a rich history that references the transformations neces­ sary in education, both in content as well as practice, to teach about the experiences of Indigenous Peoples and culture. Indigenous scholars from Turtle Island (North America) and beyond have articu­ lated multiple ways to approach teaching about indigenous communities. In the U.S., Deloria Jr. (1974) developed critical consciousness around topics relating to indigeneity, and the unique stances of Indigenous Peoples in regard to epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies. Frameworks established in American Indian Studies departments have provided connections for teacher educators seeking to infuse critical theory and indigenous studies into their classroom instruction (Brayboy, 2005), for those offering visions of indigenous literatures (Reese, 2022), and for those engaging in teaching decoloniz­ ing approaches (Tuck & Yang, 2012). Teacher educators have also explored the needs of indigenous students in schools, with careful attention to the history of violence enacted by boarding and residential schools (Battiste, 2013). Yazzie-Mintz (2007) focused on the specific needs of students in Danae (AKA Navajo) communities by engaging culturally appropriate curriculum as a pedagogical approach, while Castagno and Brayboy (2008) and McCarty and Lee (2014) explored forms of culturally responsive, culturally sustaining, and revitalizing pedagogies. All of these efforts have contributed to further devel­ opment in education and social justice practice (Sabzalian, 2019; Garcia et al., 2022) through elements of survivance (Vizenor, 2008) and indigenizing education practices. Central to these conceptualiza­ tions is a focus on Indigenous Peoples’ sovereignty (practices of self-determination) in the space of schools, which includes pedagogy, curriculum, and school management and discipline practices. 184

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The Canadian context provides an equally rich conceptualization of indigenous and First Nations educational transformation. Archibald’s notion of storywork (2008) is particularly informative in ELA work related to Indigenous Education, conceptualizing both the epistemological and pedagogical. Hare and Pidgeon (2011) explore the resilience of indigenous students in the face of racism, while Leddy (2018) explores the development of culturally responsive pedagogies for indigenous students. Battiste (2013) and Cote-Meek and Moeke-Pickering (2020) have developed frameworks for decolo­ nizing and indigenizing educational processes in the areas of Alberta and Ontario. All of these focus on similar elements as the U.S. context in regards to sovereignty and survivance (Vizenor, 2008) and challenge the problematic conceptions of benign multiculturalism. Decolonizing education, as Batiste noted, should take us beyond the prior processes of cross-cultural awareness and inclusion and bridging programs to a new perspective and processes that support indigenous knowledge, communities’ continued enriched livelihood within place, their languages, and self-determination in a new, decolonized way. (Battiste, 2013, p. 72) As educators and settlers (Lowman  & Barker, 2015) responsible for counteracting the trauma and violence of settler colonialism, we can use these powerful frameworks to explore the development of curriculum and pedagogy practices for indigenous students as well as classroom spaces without indigenous representation. These indigenizing and decolonizing approaches, the counter-narratives to settler colonialism, celebrate the “complex and responsive knowledge systems that dared to innovate in the face of colonization” ( Brant-Birioukov, 2021, p. 248). Teachers’ conscious enactment of these approaches contribute richly to our notions of multiculturating.

Multiculturating: Indigenous Students in the ELA Classroom More and more, the approaches to engaging indigenous students in ELA classrooms are diversifying and shifting away from traditional approaches to teaching, assessing, and engaging language arts over­ all. The so-called Canon of English literature identified largely as White, Western, and Eurocentric is insufficient for teaching diverse young people. Text selection today requires carefully curated texts that connect to the lived experiences of young people and celebrate the experience of youth. The old conception of using Young Adult Literature (YAL) as a scaffold or bridge to more difficult texts—the so-called “Classics” or real literature—no longer holds. And with this shift, there is a move away from the pathological language of reluctant readers (Gibbons et al., 2006; Perry & Stallworth, 2013) or selfabsorbed teens (Koelling, 2004) to more generative, creative, and complex understandings of youth lit­ eracy practices (Finders, 2012). Fundamentally, ELA is shifting as a discipline to be far more responsive to the plurality of its practitioners and the students they serve, which is not at all a new development (Muhammad, 2020). As teachers have moved toward these new texts and modalities, questions have arisen as to the use of resources for teaching diverse students, and for teaching about the experiences of marginalized communities. The use of materials in the ELA classroom in this way is not without challenges. Teachers who seek to develop as anti-oppression educators (Kumashiro, 2000) must guard against reinscribing biases, prejudices, and stereotypes. In the case of Indigenous Young Adult Literature (IYAL) and children’s literature, for example, educators utilizing texts written by Indigenous Peoples to reach indigenous students in the classroom or to support the learning of non-indigenous students must be aware of the power dynamics in place, and take critical stances (Giroux, 2011). For example, Kumashiro (2000) cautions that the use of diverse literature in the classroom can actually re-entrench power and privilege 185

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when the dominant culture is not critiqued. The learning that comes from engaging with diverse texts only becomes effective when it is combined with a critical stance that “involves unmasking or making visible the privilege of certain identities and the invisibility of this privilege” (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 37). This means teachers must both engage these diverse perspectives—whether those identities represent­ ing those perspectives are present in the classroom or not—to guide learners in critical inquiry that is also critical of self. For indigeneity, this means careful attention to support learners in awareness of the sovereign status of Indigenous Peoples, as well as the historic and contemporary challenges to this sovereignty in the form of physical violence, structural and systemic racism, and the continuous threat of settler colonial­ ism. This awareness may come in the form of four general areas. First is the awareness of indigeneity and identity in its various forms ( Vowel, 2016), including awareness of different types of Indigenous Peoples, the legal statuses of various Indigenous Peoples, as well as the contested areas of indigenous identity, such as tribal membership, federal recognition, state recognition, or no legal recognition. This awareness goes beyond the surface-level question of what to call Native people (Treuer, 2021), and asks educators to explore the nuances and complexities of Indigenous Peoples to a much greater degree. Second, educators can explore the crucial though often misunderstood area of indigenous sovereignty which, like identity, carries various complexities and nuances. One example is in chal­ lenging the assumptions of indigenous sovereignty as being forms of “special privileges” afforded to indigenous people, to the far more complex question of governmental responsibilities toward indig­ enous communities based on treaties. These differences are often subtle and are not at all consistent across all indigenous communities. This is why awareness of sovereignty also includes developing understanding of the history and context of the specific place you are in. A third area for growth and development is in understanding the various ways that indigeneity has been challenged and sometimes violently attacked in the space of educational settings. This can be challenging for educators in part because of the implied responsibility and accountability as well as the difficulty in recognizing these traumas. Indigenous people regularly face forms of “cultural hegemony” (Brant-Birioukov, 2021) and the ongoing oppression of settler colonial common sense, the discursive structures that create, cultivate, and maintain settler colonialism as an ongoing institution (Rifkin, 2013). This often happens through communicating the superiority of White Western frameworks, whether intentional or unintentional— as evidenced by cultural violence like the Candice Reed case of 2021 (Burke, 2021) or through the continued policing and removal of diverse texts from classrooms. These all lead to the fourth and final theme that can guide teacher preparation and practice, that of decolonizing classroom spaces (Battiste, 2013; Cote-Meek & Moeke-Pickering, 2020). This approach challenges teachers to reconsider their content, pedagogy, and underlying assumptions about students and the communities they come from. It challenges educators to reimagine possibilities for teaching, learning, scholarly production, and responsibility and kinship toward communities ( Justice, 2018).

Classroom Practices to Enhance Teaching The work of embracing culturally and linguistically complex classrooms, creating culturally and lin­ guistically rich classroom spaces and practicing enriched teaching is by no means a simple task. It asks educators not only to rethink their pedagogical practice, but also to challenge preconceived notions potentially built on white supremacy and oppressive beliefs. Students are encouraged to develop the love of learning across their lifespan, and educators must embrace responsibilities across our own lifes­ pan to interact in culturally and linguistically complex spaces. In relation to indigeneity, what is needed are approaches that ground classroom experiences in specific places and contexts. Developing deep awareness and connection to indigenous communities in a local vicinity is a crucial step to repairing the violence and trauma schools have enacted upon indigenous students. This connects to the crucial 186

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work of being “good relatives” (Justice, 2018), which allows the walls of the school to be permeated by the community, creating opportunities for greater growth and development of students. What is not needed is cosmetic treatments of indigeneity that produce students with little to no meaningful understanding of indigenous issues, history, or culture. Students frequently express frustration at these missing elements of their schooling, and it does an immense disservice to indigenous communities. Along with challenging our own notions of indigenous identity, we must also be open to engaging new expressions of indigeneity; for example, in our pedagogical practice, we can explore the use of digital media and learning technologies to transform our approaches, and celebrate the creativity of Indigenous Peoples in their digital production on social media platforms (Muñoz et al., 2023). Asking teachers to learn and build capacity for cultural awareness in the ELA classroom and develop awareness of issues of settler colonialism, decolonization, and indigenist perspectives might sound like a tall order, “one more thing we ask teachers to do.” To be clear, the work of an indigenist educator working toward decolonization practices is not additive work, but the work to reconfigure epistemology and paradigms. This means understanding the paradigms already in place, which often dismiss the cultural and linguistic complexity of the classroom in an attempt to make education more efficient. Developing the capacities for decolonizing and indigenizing classrooms is necessary for creating the “ethical spaces for decolonization” (Battiste, 2013, p. 104) that create healthier educational spaces for indigenous students. Building capacity for cultural and linguistic awareness and practices extends to other diverse groups as well and contributes to our conception of multiculturating.

Community and Family Wealth: Literacy Practices that Inform Teacher Practice Asset-based approaches to teaching, learning, and curriculum development speak to the importance of teacher and school knowledge of the rich cultural, linguistic, and familial practices that students bring from their homes and communities. Research conducted from a funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) perspective has illuminated the language and literacy practices in Latinx families and homes that occur between children, parents, abuelitos, and extended family members through storytelling, consejos [advice], and dichos [sayings] (DelgadoGaitan, 2005; Flores, 2019; Gándara, 1995; López-Robertson, 2017; Reese, 2012; Delgado-Gaitan, 1994; de la Piedra, 2013; Valdés, 1996; Espinoza-Herold, 2007; Fránquiz & Salazar, 2007; Villenas & Moreno, 2001). These perspectives provide a fuller, richer view of Latinx families and communities by reframing them as spaces with an abundance of resources, assets, knowledges, and literacies. Oftentimes, teachers and schools are unaware of these rich cultural and linguistic practices that are part of Latinx families’ daily lives, and they design language arts curriculum within a Eurocentric, English-dominant, middle-class epistemology that reproduces deficit perspectives of students from nondominant communities (Murillo, 2012; Souto-Manning & Rabadi-Raol, 2018). From this limited vantage point, Latinx students’ home and community practices are viewed as an obstacle to overcome and a hindrance to learning “official school-based language and literacy.” This is confounded by historic and contemporary English-only policies and mandates (Lillie et  al., 2012), ethnic studies and CRT bans (Cammarota & Aguilera, 2012), the banning of diverse literature, and an overemphasis of standardized language and literacy curriculum (Au, 2007). Collectively, these policies work to silence the voices and histories of Latinx students and communities by mandating an “official” curriculum (Salinas et al., 2016; Salinas & Castro, 2010). Schooling should not begin with the assumption that to be successful in school, learning, and society, one must strip cultural and linguistic knowledge. A  funds of knowledge (Moll et  al., 1992) and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) embodied stance in teaching starts from the belief and dispositions that children and youth from Communities of Color come from abundance. This stance is a youth-, family-, and community-centered approach 187

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to teaching and learning that centers the cultural and linguistic practices of students as resources in the ELA classrooms.

Funds of Knowledge Perspective The funds of knowledge theoretical perspective emerged from collaborative research conducted by Moll and colleagues (199 2) and teacher-researchers documenting the language and literacy practices of Mexican and Mexican American households in Tucson, Arizona. Funds of knowledge is defined as the “historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (Moll et al., 1992) embedded in the everyday practices that Latinx families rely on to survive and thrive in their daily lives. In this research, teach­ ers entered their students’ homes as ethnographers, as listeners and learners of their students’ everyday lives, and observed families engaged in a wealth of practices often absent or ignored in the classrooms. This includes storytelling traditions, artistic expression, being raised in an intergenerational household, access to extended family networks, connections to the land, knowledge of plants for nourishment and medicinal purposes, and faith/spiritual connections, to name a few. From this stance, all Latinx chil­ dren and youth have funds of knowledge because of their roles and active participation in their family and the fabric of social and community networks.

Community Cultural Wealth Drawing from critical race theory (Solórzano, 1998), Tara Yosso’s theorization of community cultural wealth (2005) provides an important critique of Bordieu’s theory of cultural capital, which refers to “an accumulation of specific forms of knowledge, skills and abilities that are valued by privileged groups in society” (p.  76). Disrupting this framing of Communities of Color as impoverished and devoid of teaching and learning, Yosso’s theory centers and identifies community cultural wealth as “an array of knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed and utilized by Communities of Color to survive and resist macro and micro forms of oppression” (p. 77). Community cultural wealth argues that Communities of Color nurture and sustain community and wealth through six forms of capital: 1) Aspirational capital, which is the “ability to maintain hopes and dreams for the future, even in the face of real and perceived barriers” (p. 77); 2) Linguistic capital, which “includes the intellectual and social skills attained through communication experiences in more than one language and/or style” (p. 78); 3) Familial capital, which refers to “those cultural knowledges nurtured among familia (kin) that carry a sense of community history, memory and cultural intuition” (p. 79); 4) Social capital, which involves “networks of people and community resources” (p. 79); 5) Navigational capital, which is “the ability to maneuver through institutions not created with Communities of Color in mind” (p. 80); and 6) Resistant capital, which refers to the “knowledges and skills fostered through oppositional behavior that challenges inequality” (p. 80). From this stance, the cultural wealth shared between and within Latinx families and communities serves as a tool of resistance for sustaining dignity and creating path­ ways toward liberation.

Curriculum Design for Latinx Children and Youth Together, funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) provide theoretical and pedagogical tools for designing curriculum and cultivating classroom communities that center the voices, stories, histories, and practices of Latinx children and youth as valuable assets to the classroom and school life. Researchers and teachers have documented teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms that critically and strategically integrate family, home, and community resources and 188

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knowledge into the language arts curriculum. The types of writing produced in these classrooms and schools draw on oral, written, and digital family and community stories composed during the school day and in after-school family and school engagement spaces, family histories, folktales and legends, oral histories, family message journals, and testimonio (Alvarez, 2018, 2020, 2021; Dworin, 2006; Flores, 2019; Rivera-Amezola, 2020; Lopez et al., 2022; Jiménez, 2020 ; Flores & Springer, 2021; Carmona & Delgado Bernal, 2012; Durán, 2016; DeNicolo et al., 2015). They highlight the pos­ sibilities that exist when teachers and researchers enter as learners and listeners of students’ lives and start from a funds of knowledge and community cultural approach to writing, composing, and sharing personal stories. For example, Durán (2016) explored a first grade ESL classroom engaged in a unit of study focused on family message journal writing. Drawing on a translingual orientation to composing (Canagarajah, 2013), the teacher designed this unit to provide students with the opportunity to interact and com­ municate with parents through writing and other modalities while supporting their biliteracy devel­ opment in writing and speaking. The teacher modeled different strategies for composing messages in their journals. Students wrote in their message journals two times per week, taking them home for a family member to read and respond to their composed messages. Over time, students’ voices, lan­ guages, and purpose for composing shifted as they received authentic feedback from family in the form of written responses to letters. Durán’s study documented the sophisticated linguistic practices of these students and the audience awareness they developed by engaging in an authentic context for writing centered on composing to their family for real purposes and shining a light on their home practices. Alvarez (2018) explored the written and drawn funds of knowledge that her first-grade bilingual students composed during an entire academic school year. She designed the writing curriculum to allow student choice and autonomy in topic selection, opening space for their voice and personal sto­ ries. Each student had a portfolio where work was collected to show their progress and serve as a tool of self-reflection. Across the year, the teacher collected 220 drawings and written narratives from all her students. Their drawings and written narratives provided a lens into their transnational experiences and deep connections to the United States and México, the love and care in their homes, and their role in their families and communities. From the insights that Alvarez gained from students drawing and writing from their funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth, she found ways to integrate their experiences and expertise into classroom learning throughout the year (p. 119). DeNicolo et al. (2015) collaborated with a third-grade transitional bilingual teacher, Ms. Perales, to design a curriculum for her students that affirmed their bilingual and bicultural identities. There was pressure across the school to prioritize English in all instruction in order to prepare students for the end of the year assessment. Together, they designed a memoir writing unit in which they drew on Latina/o children’s literature and written testimonios by two members of the research team as mentor texts to invite students into composing oral and written testimonios. These texts served as models for genre, style, form, and languaging in English and Spanish. The students discussed and wrote testimonios about their lives that highlighted the aspirational, linguistic, and navigational capital from their homes and communities. The design of this curriculum points to the importance of selecting culturally rel­ evant texts and genres that are part of students’ everyday lives to support them in accessing curriculum, composing, and naming the community cultural wealth in their families and communities and homes. Similarly, Flores and Springer (2021) described teacher Sandra Springer’s design and implementa­ tion of a folktales and legends unit of study in her third-grade bilingual classroom. Most of the cur­ riculum resources that are available as models and mentor texts mainly focus on the dominant culture and were not representative of the cultural and linguistic practices of Sandra’s students. To make the writing relevant, Sandra began with an invitation for families to share the folktales and legends that are part of their oral storytelling traditions. These stories that live in the homes and communities of Sandra’s families became the models and mentor texts for their entire unit of study, in which students 189

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compared these stories from México and Latin America, learned about text features, and read picture books of legends and folktales from around the world. The unit culminated with each student publish­ ing their family’s renditions of legends and folktales for a class book. Through this unit, Sandra engaged her families in the literacy curriculum. Without families having to come to school, their voices were present and central to the curriculum. In California’s Central Valley, Rosa Jiménez (2020) conducted a 1.5-year participant ethnography in collaboration with a Latina sixth grade teacher in which they designed and taught a critical and culturally relevant curriculum for the teacher’s predominantly immigrant Latina/o “ELL” students. Throughout their collaboration, they used community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) as a theoretical and pedagogical framework to engage students in exploring their communities, current events, social justice issues, and Latina/o literature. Two of the units they designed and implemented, the Com­ munity Cultural Wealth and Family History Unit, aligned to the English Language Development and Social Studies standards. Across these units, Jiménez and the teacher intentionally designed the cur­ riculum to make connections across the curriculum in English and Social Studies through teaching different types of writing (e.g., expository), reading comprehension tasks, vocabulary development, timelines, and presentation of family stories. An important aspect of this curriculum was the teacher’s use of storytelling through her own autoethnographic counterstories as a pedagogical tool, which invited students to examine their own histories. Through storytelling, narrating personal stories, and writing family stories, students illuminated their community cultural wealth in powerful ways. Lopez et al. (2022) documented the Family Recuerdo Project, a bilingual family journal project that engaged fourth grade students and families in storytelling and narrative writing. The teacher, Lopez, designed this family engagement experience to center the experiential knowledge and familial capital of families through storytelling and enhance the curriculum in other content areas by integrating family knowledge and expertise. The teacher developed culturally specific prompts related to holidays, ances­ tors, traditions, and family stories to invite students and families to draw on and share their knowledges, resources, and practices. The funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth shared in the family journals through art and personal stories were then integrated into other core content areas. This high­ lights the important ways that integrating storytelling, family stories, and knowledges in our curriculum can foster relationships with families and enhance curriculum across content areas (p. 429). Teachers and schools can draw on and embody these approaches and stances by designing and enacting an innovative and relevant language arts curriculum that views Latinx children and youths as “holders and creators of knowledge” (Delgado Bernal, 2002). In these classrooms, writing curriculum centered the voices, experiences, perspectives, and histories of the writer. This curriculum invited children and youth to engage in composing that is personal and relevant to their lived experiences and rooted in the literate traditions and legacies of their ancestors (Muhammad, 2020; Muhammad & Haddix, 2016; Price-Dennis et al., 2017; Perry et al., 2020). These approaches take a more expansive view of writing and composing that privileges the cultural and linguistic assets that young people bring to the classroom from their homes and communities so they can share stories and pass on histories and knowledges including storytelling, oral histories, songwriting, and art. This is not about simply including these resources and literate practices as a box to check for inclusivity; it is about intentionally privileging them as integral to our language arts curriculum and creating structures to sustain them. As Gholdy Muhammad (2020) and others have outlined for us, the purpose of this type of cur­ riculum was never about passing a test; these are intellectual pursuits that are designed and taken up as a form of liberation and resistance. Through this type of community-centered curriculum, children and youth nurture and sustain the identities and resources from their homes and communities, bring­ ing them into the classroom as a valuable part of teaching and learning. This work also transcends to Black/African American communities, allowing home and school to share space for students’ develop­ ment and growth. 190

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Embracing Complex Culturally and Linguistically Enriched Teaching in

Pursuit of Black Linguistic Justice

Classrooms today include diverse groups of students who identify and are racialized as Black/African American, and who possess unique language histories and abilities. Furthermore, Black immigrant learners who are English language learners (ELLs) and/or plurilingual make up 2.6% of the Black K-12 student population in U.S. classrooms (Kiramba et  al., 2021). Their native languages include English, Spanish, French Creole, and French, to name a few (Cooper, 2020). Making up 15% of U.S. classrooms are U.S.-born Black/African American students who may speak languages other than English and who may embody a language from their African ancestry, African American (vernacular) English, or Black Language (United States Black Language or USBL henceforth), which is not gener­ ally viewed as a language outside of the field of linguistics. Both intra-diverse groups of U.S. and foreign-born Black students possess skillfully complex lan­ guage repertoires. They are verbal artists who—as Toni Morrison articulates—love the “saying of words, holding them on their tongue, experimenting with them, playing with them” (cited in Alim & Smitherman, 2012). Amid historical public repudiation, the language of African descendants in the U.S. is now undeniably endorsed as “official.” As such, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research is embarking on an endeavor led by historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. to produce the Oxford Dictionary of African Ameri­ can Language by 2025. This formal recognition of USBL is reminiscent of Black Language pioneer Geneva Smitherman’s (2000) groundbreaking lexical compilation integral to the African American community entitled Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner. Beyond the lexicon (vocabulary) aspect of the Black linguistics tradition are other dimensions (i.e., rhetorics) that take as much verbal acuity to articulate as other languages such as Swedish, Yoruba, and Russian (“The Language,” 2016). Despite this world-renowned linguistic capital (Yosso, 2005) that Black and African American students carry into the PK-12 classroom, USBL continues to be widely denounced and mocked widely. Hence, Black and African American students are subjected to unwarranted opposition due, in large part, to unawareness and deep-seated deficit-based beliefs and misconceptions about who they are—culturally and what they can do—linguistically. As Kirkland and Jackson (2009) asserted, “the true obstacle to language learning lies not in the students’ ‘home’ language but in discrimination and a largely uninformed, intolerant national sentiment that sees [standardized American English] as the only acceptable means of “intelligent” communication” (p.  147). Hence, Black and African American students face language-based discrimination, neglect, and harm in the classroom, resulting in linguistic insecurity and shame. To illustrate, Black English learners (immigrants and those native to the U.S.) are often not seen as English language learners (ELLs) because they don’t “fit the profile” of a world language speaker and thus are not provided ELL services (Cooper, 2020). Conversely, despite their proficiency in English, many Black immigrant students are erroneously placed in English as a second language (ESL) classes (Smith, 2020; Obeng & Obeng, 2006). The basis of discrimination against Black and African Ameri­ can people in the U.S. is a result of deficit beliefs and attitudes about the language(s) they embody and thus their very existence (Lippi-Green, 2004). Similar to their Black immigrant counterparts, many U.S.-Born Black/African American students are frequently referred to special education services for language usage that emanates from their linguistic lineage, which gets erroneously classified as language deficit and language disorder (Seymour, 2004). This, then, is a contributing factor to the disproportion and overrepresentation of African Americans in special education (Harris & Schroeder, 2013). Meanwhile, the treatment of USBL in English language arts (ELA) classrooms is often reflective of how society has widely regarded it: broken English that is unintelligible and limiting. These attitudes withstand even though several decades of sociolinguistic research has consistently documented that 191

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traditional instructional methods of ELA are ineffective for USBL speakers (Boutte, 2016; Harmon & Wilson, 2006; Rickford, 1999). In addition, written Black linguistic patterns central to Black literary texts, such as Hurston’s (1937) Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Walker’s (1982) The Color Purple, continue to be regarded as cacophonous (i.e., a distasteful dialect that is cumbersome to read), treated as static and anachronistic (i.e., archaic speech situated in the past), and portrayed as inherently deficit speech of the poor, uneducated, and unintelligent Black people. Also normalized in the PK-12 class­ room is the omission of authentic Black texts from the curriculum (Boutte et al., 2021) or teaching authentic Black texts without explicit acknowledgment or study of USBL (Baker-Bell et al., 2020; Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2014). These various acts of linguistic violence (Johnson et al., 2019) can be best described as Anti-Black Linguistic Racism, which is defined as: [t]he persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization that Black Language (BL) speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. It includes teachers’ silenc­ ing, correcting, and policing students when they communicate in BL. It is the belief that there is something inherently wrong with BL; therefore, it should be eradicated. It is denying Black students the right to use their native language as a linguistic resource during their language and literacy learning. It is requiring that Black students reject their language and culture to acquire White Mainstream English (WME), and it is also insisting that Black students code-switch to avoid discrimination. (Baker-Bell, 2020a, p. 9) Hence, the focus of this section supports teachers in moving toward enriched teaching that intention­ ally enacts anti-racist linguistic pedagogy for U.S.-born Black/African American students specifically, but also extends to Black immigrant students who are proficient in and are learning the English language (see Milu’s (2021) work on Black language pedagogy centering transnational and African Immigrant students). The spirit of anti-racist linguistic pedagogy in the U.S. moves in tandem with the Black Lives Matter movement and campaign created by three Black women freedom fighters: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Opal Tometi (“Black Lives Matter,” n.d.). As punctuated in The Black Language Demands (CCCC’s latest position statement on language diversity) (Baker-Bell et al., 2020), the protests for the lives of Black bodies on the U.S. streets cannot be divorced from the demand for linguistic rights in the “academic streets” (i.e., the classroom). Thus, USBL natives must be provided with language arts instruction that is not only affirmative and artful but is also active against racism. The remainder of this section (a) briefly divulges what USBL is (and is not), (b) discusses why USBL must be a part of teachers’ conceptualization of multilingualism, and (c) provides a historicization of language pedagogy that highlights efforts toward enacting anti-racist language arts instruction for all students, but specifically those for whom USBL is native. The section ends with suggested approaches, strategies, and resources to incite or strengthen dispositions and enriched language pedagogies.

Black Language Defined Black Language is a global concept and encompasses the rich language roots of the African diaspora and its influence across the world (Smitherman, 1997; Rickford  & Rickford, 2000; Baugh, 1999; Lanehart, 2015), including standard varieties of English such as Ghanaian English, Trinidadian Stand­ ard English, Caribbean English, and “nonstandard” English dialects including Ghanaian Pidgin Eng­ lish, Black British vernacular, and Jamaican Creole (Bailey, 1965; Alexander, 1996; Smith, 2019). In the U.S., Black Language (USBL) is known by many monikers such as African American (Vernacular) 192

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English (AAVE), Black English, and Ebonics. Using the term Black Language rather than another (i.e., AAVE) highlights its globalization, its African origins, and its validity as a systematic language in its own right, with an incomparable linguistic and rhetorical tradition. Hence, USBL encompass(es) a range of informal and formal registers and [is] embodied in characteristic pho­ nological, grammatical, lexical, and discourse patterns, in its totality and as a language system, [it] possesses stylistic and speech-act components that define the linguistic competence of its speakers as participants in a long-lived and thriving cultural tradition. (Ball & Lardner, 2005, p. 31) While it is complex and diverse in practice, this section refers to USBL as the language of African people(s) created due to American U.S. enslavement, subsequently passed on transgenerationally, and embodied by the multigenerational descendants of enslaved Africans within the U.S. today. For more than half a century, USBL has been formally studied as linguists and educational scholars have consistently demonstrated that—despite contrary, popular views—USBL is a legitimate linguistic system (i.e., rules for pronunciation, grammar, word usage, etc.) and that it can (and should) be used in the classroom to validate, affirm, and ultimately bridge USBL speakers’ cultural language to standard­ ized academic discourses (Labov, 1969; Green, 2002). Linguists have long demonstrated how USBL is not an obstacle in learning standardized dialects of English (Gilyard, 1996) (i.e., White Mainstream English, also known as Academic English), but rather a viable literary tradition that serves as a linguistic resource that must be highlighted, encouraged, and preserved among its natives. With this under­ standing as the catalyst, in the 1990s, emic researchers with experiential knowledge (i.e., Ball, 1992, 1995; Smitherman, 1993; Ladson-Billings, 1994; C.D. Lee, 1995) played a crucial role in shifting the incessant deficit doctrine about the language of African American students. They established critical findings about the viability of African American students’ language and literacy practices, substantiat­ ing them as strengths of which all teachers should be aware to foster students’ academic success and wellness. Particularly about the systematicity of USBL, Ball (1992) and Smitherman (1993) respectively found that (a) organizational structures that African American students prefer to employ in their expos­ itory writing are systematic, sophisticated, and characteristic of their cultural communication acuity and (b) rhetorical features that African American students employ in their writing have contributed to higher scores on standardized writing assessments. This pioneering knowledge crystalized that writing pedagogies should draw on the tradition of USBL to enhance language and literacy experiences for students and has laid the groundwork for asset-based language approaches demonstrating how Black Language could and should be celebrated in academic spaces, just as it is widely revered in the highest forms of cultural creation (i.e., Hip Hop). Thus, USBL should be treated as a compatible co-parallel (Boutte, 2016), rather than in conflict with standardized dialects of English such as White Mainstream English (Young & Barrett, 2018). The emergence of anti-racist language pedagogy builds upon aforementioned foundational scholar­ ship and also names and demands an end to the language-based racism, or anti-Black linguistic racism (Baker-Bell, 2020b) inherent in the eradicationalist language pedagogies (i.e., noncritical code-switch­ ing techniques and contrastive analysis instructional approaches) that emerged and gained popularity throughout the first decade of the 2000s (e.g., Wheeler & Swords, 2006). Essentially, anti-racist lan­ guage pedagogy is a movement away from these noncritical language approaches. This requires moving beyond simply tolerating and—at best—acknowledging USBL to appreciating and encouraging Black Lan­ guage natives to exercise their right to use their language in classroom discourse and academic com­ positions. It requires a resurgence of and reliance on the earlier research of Black Language scholars. While the term “linguistic” justice is now widely used, the fight for language rights dates as far back as the 1960s. Hence, much of its inspiration and momentum can be found in the pioneering work of 193

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linguists (Bailey, 1965; Labov, 1969; Dillard, 1972; Smitherman, 1986; Baugh, 1983; Rickford, 1999), many whose work and physical presence (in court) were the lynchpin in critical federal court cases and public litigation, such as Ann Arbor’s “Black English Case” (1979) and Oakland School Board’s Resolu­ tion on Ebonics (1996), which eventually led to rulings that legally recognized the legitimacy and viabil­ ity of USBL, despite residual public dismay and pervasive negative attitudes. From this, the national and educational discourse from what students supposedly lack in language ability shifted to what teachers must do to learn about students’ language wealth to provide effective language and literacy instruction and equitable writing assessment practices that acknowledge the full humanity of African American students (for full discussions, see Smitherman & Villanueva, 2003; Kirkland & Jackson, 2009). Further solidifying the undeniability of USBL and its potential to enhance language arts instruction and academic outcomes for its natives are the scores of documented position statements by professional organizations that affirm, defend, and protect students’ right to their native and heritage languages in the classroom (Conference on College Composition and Communication [CCCC], 1974; Linguistic Society of America, 1998; Rickford, 1997; to name a few). The newest position statement (see BakerBell et al., 2020) has documented all of the existing position statements and thus demands that USBL is prioritized and studied—without comparison—as a viable language with rich linguistic and rhetorical traditions that continues to influence and enhance the English language. Although there is a solid body of scholarship on USBL, landmark court cases along with their sub­ sequent rulings, and existing public and professional policies/statements that secure the language rights of USBL natives, there remains a gap in the translation of research and policy to practice, and it remains clear that the fight for the linguistic rights of Black students in classrooms across the nation persists. Enacting enriched teaching for USBL natives requires a reconceptualization of what constitutes or “counts” as language and literacy practices in U.S. schools, which incites a necessary critique on popu­ larized, noncritical code-switching pedagogies that eschew the crucial connections between students’ linguistic practices to their African ancestry, thereby unjustly diminishing their language habits to broken instances of “academic” English. The asset-based research and resources that are cumulatively growing, however, speak volumes about the possibilities of consistently enacting and thus normalizing linguistic rights for students whose language heritage has been historically positioned as inferior. The selected studies discussed here show how using research and policies as anchors to design language arts instruction that intentionally names, dismantles, and disrupts deficit language ideologies and unapolo­ getically centers USBL can enhance the literacy outcomes and academic wellness of Black/African American students while taking strides to thrust the needle toward linguistic justice.

Actualizing Linguistic Justice by Dismantling Language Ideologies A growing body of anti-racist linguistic research shows that Black students must be taught about their language through their language to actualize linguistic justice. This means a focus on the unique dyna­ mism (i.e., the form, functionality, and tradition) of USBL rather than erroneously deducing it to a list of grammatical errors and only leveraging it in the classroom to achieve a means to a White linguistic end. To be clear, White ways of speaking, acting, and being should not be the ideal toward which all other cultural and racial groups should strive, especially in an increasingly multicultural, pluralistic society. Particularly in a democratic society, language pedagogy must examine language within its entangled relationship to race, power, and identity. Thus, the basis for which USBL has been deemed as linguistically deficient is directly correlated to how Black people have been historically viewed as socially and biologically inferior (Baugh, 1999), a complex construct Rosa and Flores (2017) refer to as raciolinguistic ideologies. Hence, language instruction must aim toward improving Black/African American students’ attitudes about USBL and themselves by focusing on cultural preservation, which is the crux of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (Paris & Alim, 2017). 194

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In contrast, an examination of so-called progressive code-switching pedagogies of the early 2000s reveal that these instructional doctrines neither directly name USBL nor mention its lineage to Afri­ can languages. Hence, while these code-switching pedagogies respond to the “technical differences between [USBL] and White Mainstream English [they ignore] the racial and cultural tensions that underlie such pedagogies” (Baker-Bell, 2020b, p. 101). As Kirkland and Jackson (2009) posit, non­ critical language pedagogies also play a major role in hindering Black students’ identity develop­ ment. As a result, critical language scholars (Kirkland & Jackson, 2009; Baker-Bell, 2013; Young et al., 2014) designed and implemented critical language pedagogies (i.e., anti-racist language pedagogy) that explicitly teach students historical knowledge about their language and that begin by helping adoles­ cent students unlearn internalized negative perceptions of USBL and thus themselves. Likewise, BakerBell (2013) implemented a critical language pedagogy for Advanced Placement high school students to help them interrogate dominant notions of language, which subsequently led to an expressed appre­ ciation of USBL from its natives. Studies like these are essential in that they foster a rising in students’ Black Linguistic Consciousness (Baker-Bell, 2020b), because for Black/African American students, learning their language has a name and that it is well researched is liberatory (McMurtry, 2021).

Actualizing Linguistic Justice by Studying the Dynamism of USBL Several studies illustrate the pedagogical approaches that center the dynamism of Black Language. To illustrate, Kynard (2008) delineates an approach using children’s literature that draws on the dynamism of the Black rhetorical tradition to center USBL natives’ cultural rhetorics. Wynter-Hoyte and Smith (2020) demonstrate how drawing on the African diaspora can facilitate language learning and language arts experiences that foster positive linguistic identities in early childhood. In a similar literacy vein, scholars have demonstrated how when USBL is at the center of language instruction, and serves as a tool for authentic voice and agency for young writers (A.Y. Lee & Handsfield, 2018) and adolescents (Kinloch, 2017; Lee, 2006). To illustrate, C.D. Lee (2006) employed the Cultural Modeling Framework that positioned the rhetorical tradition of USBL as a source of intellectual, complex reasoning in a high school classroom. In another study, A.Y. Lee and Handsfield (2018) enacted a translanguaging practice, an instructional framework that incorporates multiple languages (and language varieties) in a multilingual primary classroom while interrogating dominant language ideologies and pedagogies. In another exam­ ple, Kinloch (2017) utilized an ethnographic approach to collect language data across two high school contexts (including writings, responses to questionnaires, conversational interviews, and observations). Analyzing language data from an asset-based lens, USBL is seen and positioned as an enhancement to Black students’ writing, as their school sanctioned writing is expanded and enriched. What can be learned from these studies that build off the work of earlier asset-based research on centering USBL (i.e., Ball, 1992; Smitherman, 1993; C.D. Lee, 1995) is that artful language instruction that centers USBL refrains from damaging students’ identities and stunting their literacy development, and, instead enriches teaching that values the identities of students while sustaining and expanding their linguistic dexterity.

Enacting Enriched Pedagogical Practices for USBL Natives Teachers need not wait until they have “mastered” anti-racist pedagogical approaches to language before enacting this kind of enriched teaching. While studying the 3Rs of USBL: (historical) roots, (linguistic and rhetorical) rules, and (political) ramifications (McMurtry, 2022), teachers can glean instructional and cur­ ricular ideas and resources that Black Language pedagogues and scholars have developed through human­ izing research practices (Paris & Winn, 2013) that seek to center people(s) who are historically marginalized and have been misrepresented and even exploited by traditional research methods. The following are ways to enter and engage in this work, followed by language and literacy ideas to enact enriched teaching. 195

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Engagement Teachers are encouraged to think about the following: 1. Carve out self-paced, autodidactic learning opportunities to study the living linguistic legacy of students as if it is their school’s newly adopted literacy curriculum. Contemporary critical educa­ tors and scholars have artfully designed pathways to learning about and prioritizing USBL in the classroom accessible via hypertextual websites such as (a) Black Language Syllabus (“Black Lan­ guage Syllabus,” n.d.), (b) Online Resources for African American Language (ORAAL) (Online Resources for African American Language [ORAAL], n.d.), and (c) Students’ Right to Their Own Language (Charity-Hudley et al., n.d). On the Black Language Syllabus website, teachers can find a wealth of resources that “celebrate the beauty of Blackness and Black Language, fight for Black Linguistic Justice, and provide critical intellectual resources that promote the collective study of Black Language” (“Black Language Syllabus”, n.d.). Similarly, the ORAAL is a collective hub of information and resources on USBL for teachers, researchers, and the general public. Lastly, the Students Right to their Own Language website features guides for teachers that give “practical suggestions for supporting the linguistic agency of Black [adolescent and] college student writers [featuring] examples of adapting grading, feedback, and revision practices to foster critical thinking about written language, including about the power of [USBL] in academic writing” (Charity Hud­ ley et al., n.d.). Reminiscent of Redd and Webb’s (2005) NCTE publication A Teacher’s Introduction to African American English: What a Writing Teacher Should Know (NCTE Teacher’s Introduction Series), this site also offers sample papers and feedback, infographics to download, and student guides to (re) claim agency in their language. The creators of this website have cited it as a practical companion to The Black Language Demands (Baker-Bell et al., 2020). 2. Position students as linguistic experts and informed interpreters (Ball & Lardner, 2005). This means that teachers must situate themselves as learners and embrace teaching as a bi-directional and generative experience (Freire, 1972; Ball, 2009). Thus, teachers should understand that students come to the classroom with the facility to enact language that may, in fact, surpass teachers’ existing understandings of what qualifies and quantifies as language wealth. 3. Create in-class compositional opportunities that call for storytelling or anecdotal recountings in academic modes of writing (e.g., narrative, expository), as this style of engage­ ment is a strong suit for African American students. As Smitherman (1993) notes, “the narrativiz­ ing, the dynamic quality of the African American Verbal Tradition will help students produce lively, image-filled, concrete, readable essays” (p. 21). 4. Read critical language scholars’ humanizing research projects (i.e., Kirkland & Jackson, 2009; Kinloch, 2009; Baker-Bell, 2013; Love, 2019) and reflexive accounts of implementing pedagogical practices (i.e., McMurtry, 2022) for guidance. These scholars were classroom teachers who, through their publications, described the complexities of leveraging USBL research, language policies, and position statements as anchors guiding the re-envisoning, redesigning, and implementation of curricula to make USBL a priority in the ELA classroom.

Language and Literacy Ideas to Enact Enriched Teaching The following are suggested activities and instructional approaches for teachers to consider in their practice of assimilating Black Language into their instruction. Alim and Smitherman (2012) offer a host of exploratory language-centric activities in what they call the “Language in My Life” project. The aim is for teachers to assume the role of learners and learning facilitators to guide students in

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conducting sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic analyses of language. This project apprentices students as linguists while centering their language practices as the official content of study: 1. Young and Barrett (2018) offer instructional approaches that critique hegemonic language ideolo­ gies, and that allow for students to combine or mesh linguistic “codes” rather than switch, which increases students’ academic esteem and positive writing identities in the process. 2. Charity Hudley and Mallinson (2014) present an authentic writing opportunity called Linguistic Autobiographies, which are narratives that positions students as researchers who trace their language lineage, documenting their distinct language style, and reflecting on their language experiences. Students experiment with their language use, employing multiple “codes” at once or code-mesh­ ing. Teachers are encouraged to engage in this writing experience with students, share their writ­ ing during the process, and view students’ authentic compositions as opportunities to learn about language from their students. 3. Other critical language scholars (Kirkland & Jackson, 2009; Baker-Bell, 2020b; Young, 2020) offer approaches that include language analysis activities, but also delve into complex issues of language, identity, and power; language discrimination; and anti-Black language racism, which includes explicitly naming what students are likely to experience such as linguistic violence, profiling, and policing. The goal is to empower students to identify these acts of linguistic injustice so they can take pride in their language lineage and refrain from further internalizing or reproducing harmful hegemonic ideas about language. Teachers are encouraged to reference these bodies of work, as scholars have provided discussion questions and activities to first engage with themselves (and col­ leagues) and then implement with students. Though more research is needed in the area of how anti-racist language pedagogy is enacted in the classroom, urgent work is needed in building appreciative attitudes and beliefs about the language abilities Black and African American students embody and bring to the classroom. We acknowledge that teacher education programs may not adequately prepare teachers to see USBL as a viable language in that it is whole, systematic, and resourceful for facilitating language learning and cultivating their linguistic repertoires. But what we also acknowledge is that there is accessible research, resources, and tools to support teachers toward these humanizing dispositions and pedagogies. The Model of Gen­ erative Change (Ball, 2009) described earlier in this chapter provides a framework that will help guide teachers through reflexive learning and teaching practices for enacting enriched teaching in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms.

Multiculturating as Generating New Knowledge that

Closes the Knowing-Doing Gap

This chapter began with a discussion of the need to push forward the notion of moving multicultural­ ism from a neutral term to encompass a more actionable concept that unapologetically challenges the reader to think about the stance that educators must take to fully celebrate and embrace the complexi­ ties of cultural and linguistic diversity found in today’s classrooms. This new stance of multiculturating requires a shift toward a deeper understanding, appreciation, and honoring of the cultural and linguistic resources that historically minoritized students bring into the classroom—no excuses accepted. Notice that the term multiculturate is a verb rather than a noun: this expanded concept demands transforma­ tive action on the part of educators across the profession to challenge their preconceived notions of students’ identities and to reconsider their content, pedagogy, and underlying assumptions about the historically marginalized students they teach and the communities they come from.

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We recognize the challenges involved in bringing about such changes in the knowledge base, dispo­ sitions, and practices of educators in these areas. However, we recognize the magnitude of the impor­ tance of the impact this change will have on the quality of the learning lives of the growing populations of students who fall under the umbrella category of cultural and linguistic diversity. We argue that these changes are imperative for a movement toward improving teaching and learning practices, curricular materials, and assessments employed in schools serving diverse populations. The authors of this chapter have pointed out that all students bring community cultural wealth into the classroom setting. This includes storytelling traditions, artistic expressions, being raised in intergenerational households, and access to extended family networks and knowledges that nourish and enrich their lives and well-being, to name a few. It is the responsibility of teachers and schools to weave these together in designing and enhancing innovative and relevant language arts curriculum that engages diverse students and can be built upon to enhance and enrich their learning experiences. We therefore have focused our discussion thus far on the currently available resources that need to be considered in school reform efforts, and the need to prepare teachers to work effectively with cultur­ ally and linguistically diverse students. We have presented the findings of empirical research, theory, documented practice, and our own understandings of this information for the purpose of disrupting prior conceptualizations of multi­ culturalism and what it means to multiculturate such that we serve all students well in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. In addition, teachers must connect to the families and communities as individuals who seek to better understand the community context. A key part of the mission of our expanded notion of multiculturating includes bringing broadened understandings of diverse worldviews into the classroom and must also include the obligation of every teacher to practice anti-racist and anti-oppressive education, including teaching about power, privilege, and responsibility. Encompassed within our broadened conceptualization of multiculturating, teachers have a respon­ sibility to learn from the students what they need to know so they can teach them effectively and develop resources, appropriate nomenclature, and learning spaces for them. This is a necessary com­ ponent of functioning multiculturating—knowing that the discourses in society, which so negatively characterize diverse peoples in the world, also find their ways into schools, turning learning spaces into traumatic and violent experiences. It is the responsibility of professional educators to counteract these forms of violence. The Model of Generative Change provides a framework and an instructional approach based on a longitudinal program of research conducted in the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia that documents professional development that challenges teachers to do a better job of serving our rapidly changing student populations; supports educators in their movement toward pedagogical ingenuity, personalized learning, and racial equity; and actually impacts teachers’ practice in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. The Model of Generative Change is designed to facilitate the development of teachers who have the knowledge, skills, dispositions, attitudes, and the desire to educate all students to their full potential and apply that knowledge to making necessary changes in their classrooms—so they can multiculturate.

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10

LITERACY DEVELOPMENT FOR

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Allison Breit and Laura Justice

Students who receive special education in public schools comprise 15% of the school-age population (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2022), representing more than 7 million children with disabilities between the ages of 3 and 21 years. Students with disabilities represent a heterogeneous group in terms of the nature of their disability (e.g., specific learning disability, intellectual disability) and the severity of learning domains impacted by the disability (e.g., intellectual functioning, socialemotional competence, reading achievement). However, across most categories of disability, students receiving special education consistently demonstrate lower average reading scores compared to their neurotypical peers, resulting in a reading achievement gap, or the difference between the average scores on measures of reading skills between students identified with and without disabilities (National Assessment of Reading progress [NAEP], 2022). Furthermore, the size of this reading achievement gap depends on the specific disability. An analysis of reading skill for more than 3,000 7-year-old students with disabilities showed that those with speech/language impairment, specific learning disabilities, and visual impairment performed the highest in reading achievement, compared to students identified with multiple disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and autism, who performed the lowest (Wei et al., 2011). Interestingly, across 11 categories of disability studied, longitudinal analysis of these students from age 7 to 17 showed that the rate of growth in reading skill was largely similar, such that similar rates of growth over this ten-year period were observed across all types of disabilities. By far, the most common types of disabilities among school-aged children and students ages 3 to 21 receiving special education services are specific learning disability (33%), speech/language impairment (19%), and other health impairment (15%) (NCES, 2022). The incidence of other types of disability occurs less frequently, such as autism (12%), developmental delay (7%), intel­ lectual disabilities (6%), emotional disturbances (5%), and multiple disabilities (2%) (NCES, 2022). Some disabilities such as visual impairment and hearing impairment affect relatively small numbers of children, representing one% or fewer of students with disabilities. Consequently, teachers of the English Language Arts (ELA) are most likely to work with students with specific learning disabil­ ity and speech/language impairment, as most if not all of these students are served in the general instructional environment. As defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), specific learning disability is a disorder affecting the “basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations” (Section 300.8 (c) (10)). Often, as this definition implies, a DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-12

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specific learning disability manifests itself in reading, spelling, and writing difficulties. Speech/language impairment is a disorder affecting one’s language abilities, including both comprehension and produc­ tion of language; given that reading and writing inherently involve written language, students with speech/language impairment also often have reading, spelling, and writing difficulties. These reading and writing difficulties may be identified early on or later in a student’s school career. Research on trajectories of reading and writing development in students with disabilities sug­ gests that gaps in reading and writing skills when compared to neurotypical students are apparent as early as the preschool years and persist into secondary school (Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC) & Chiu, 2018). The cognitive underpinnings of reading and writing dif­ ficulties in students with disabilities has been attributed to challenges in executive functioning skills such as attention, working memory, and inhibitory control. However, students with disabilities do show ongoing improvements in their reading and writing development across grades, indicating the malleability of their literacy skills and the possibility for them to achieve their full potential in the English Language Arts. Thus, providing opportunities for students with disabilities to learn to read and write is important, as these opportunities provide access to the same knowledge and experi­ ences as students without disabilities. Research suggests that when the literacy skills of students with disabilities are improved, gains in self-esteem, social participation, and overall quality of life also occur (Forts & Luckasson, 2011). Understanding the ways in which literacy is developed and acquired in students with disabilities is critical to providing literacy opportunities and instruction that are equitable, individual, and inclusive. In the remainder of this chapter, we address the following: (1) conceptual frameworks for under­ standing reading and writing difficulties in students with disabilities; (2) reading and writing trajecto­ ries for students with disabilities; (3) cognitive underpinnings of reading and writing disabilities; and (4) facilitation of reading and writing development in students with disabilities.

Frameworks for Understanding Reading and Writing Difficulties in

Students with Disabilities

Several conceptual frameworks are useful for understanding the reading and writing difficulties of students with disabilities. These include the phonological core variable-difference model (Stanovich, 1988), the situation model (Curran et al., 1996), and the knowledge-telling model of writing (Scarda­ malia & Bereiter, 1987). In this section, we discuss one of the most widely researched and used read­ ing frameworks for students with disabilities (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990). We also explore the cognitive processing approach for examining writing (e.g., Berninger & Amtmann, 2003). These frameworks are helpful for understanding the core components of reading and writing development, and the ways in which difficulties in one or more core components can lead to reading and writing disabilities.

Reading Frameworks In their influential work on reading ability, Gough and Tunmer (1986) presented a model for con­ ceptualizing reading disability. Coined “A Simple View of Reading,” Gough and Tunmer proposed that skilled reading is the product of decoding (i.e., accurate and quick word reading) and linguistic comprehension (i.e., understanding the structure and meaning of spoken/signed words, sentences, and discourses). That is, skilled reading is the multiplicative function of accurately and fluently decoding words and being able to understand text. According to this simple view of reading, reading disabil­ ity results from: (a) difficulty decoding, (b) difficulty comprehending, or (c) difficulty decoding and comprehending. 205

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Decoding Difficulties Specific word-reading difficulties are a defining characteristic of students identified with dyslexia and speech/language impairment, in which 5% to 17% tend to have difficulty with phonological awareness and phonology memory (Alonzo et al., 2020). Phonological awareness refers to an individuals’ sensi­ tivity to the sound structure of language, such as the individual sounds that make up words (e.g., the word pig is made up of three distinct sounds, or phonemes: /p/ + /I/ + /g/). Phonological awareness is a core component of decoding skill, as word reading involves the systematic mapping of phonemes (sounds) to graphemes (letters); children who are slow to develop phonological awareness, or who struggle to develop such awareness at all, are highly vulnerable to decoding-specific reading disabilities (Peters et al., 2020). Phonological memory, also known as verbal short-term memory, refers to the temporary storage of verbal information (Cunningham et al., 2021). This is a limited-capacity storage system, distinct from our long-term memory system, as is evident whenever anyone tries to retain a long string of numbers in memory (e.g., a new phone number or password to a device). Recent research indicates that verbal short-term memory appears especially important in the early stages of reading development. During this period, emergent readers must repeatedly learn to translate letters into sounds and then blend them to pronounce the words read (Cunningham et al., 2021). Students with short-term memory issues, as is commonly seen among children with specific learning disability and speech/language disorder (Vance, 2008), have difficulty encoding verbal information, which can impair the learning of both oral words as well as written words. In the ELA classroom, students who have difficulty with decoding often will exhibit slow and labored reading of words or sounding out words letter(s)-by-letter(s). Students who have difficulty with word-reading also tend to have difficulty with spelling; they may frequently misspell monosyllabic words and/or leave out syllables in multisyllabic words (Hebert et al., 2018). At the same time, students with word-reading difficulty may adequately comprehend grade-level and more complex texts when the text is read aloud to them, thus highlighting the specificity of decoding-specific reading difficulties.

Comprehension Difficulties Some students with disabilities have adequate word-reading skills coupled with general weakness in linguistic comprehension, resulting in comprehension-specific reading disability (Justice et al., 2013). Estimates of specific reading comprehension difficulties vary depending on the criterion used to meas­ ure it. For example, a recent study by Wagner et al. (2021) found prevalence rates of 8% (5th percentile) to 17% (20th percentile) of specific reading comprehension difficulties when decoding accuracy was adequate (50th percentile). However, Wagner et al. (2021) also found that prevalence rates of specific reading comprehension difficulties vary and increase as the level of decoding accuracy decreases. That is, the lowest percentage of students with the most severe difficulties in decoding (5th percentile) had the highest listening comprehension skills (50th percentile or above), while the highest percentage of students with moderate difficulties in decoding (20th percentile) had the lowest level of listening comprehension skills (30th percentile or above). Difficulty understanding and using language is char­ acteristic of students with speech/language impairment as their primary disability (Adlof, 2020; Catts et al., 2006), as well as being secondary to other disabilities such as developmental and intellectual disabilities (Saletta, 2018). Generally, children who show lags in their development of language skills during the years of early childhood—as is characteristic of children with speech/language impairment and a variety of develop­ mental disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, and hearing impairment—are at heightened risk for comprehension-specific reading difficulties (Justice et al., 2013). This is due to core difficulties in domains of language that are foundational to skilled comprehension, including both 206

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grammar and vocabulary, which are significant contributors to reading comprehension (Catts et al., 1999; Verhoeven & Van Leeuwe, 2008). These language skills provide representations of the literal meaning of a text in terms of meaning and form, respectively (Kintsch & Kintsch, 2005). Students who experience comprehension-specific reading disabilities can be difficult to identify and support in the early years of reading instruction—between kindergarten and third grade—as these stu­ dents are often adept at decoding texts and thus appear to be reading. However, these students, when pressed, have significant difficulty with comprehending what they are reading and thus are not able to, or struggle greatly to, acquire new information from texts. In the ELA classroom, students with specific comprehension deficits may have difficulty locating information not explicitly stated in printed and digital text, understanding new vocabulary words and grammatically complex sentences in text, and answering literal and inferential questions about text either read or heard.

Decoding and Comprehension Difficulties Difficulties transcending both decoding and comprehension represent the vast majority of reading dif­ ficulties in students with disabilities (Brasseur-Hock et al., 2011; Capin et al., 2021, 2022; Catts et al., 2006; Clemens et  al., 2021). For example, Capin and colleagues (2021) assessed the word-reading abilities and listening comprehension of 446 fourth-grade students who were struggling with reading achievement, of which 13% had identified disabilities. Ninety-one percent of the sample had difficul­ ties in both decoding and comprehension, based on profile analyses. In the ELA classroom, students who have difficulties in both decoding and linguistic comprehension are often reading one to two lev­ els below grade level, may receive poor scores on vocabulary and reading comprehension assessments and quizzes, and may become frustrated during reading instruction to the point of shutting down or refusing to read. The latter is particularly important, as frustration toward reading can decrease students’ motivation to read, which is uniquely and strongly associated with both reading activity and reading achievement (Toste et al., 2020). Students who are motivated tend to read more often and become better readers, whereas students who are not motivated tend to read less, resulting in diminishing read­ ing skills over time. Students with disabilities, especially those exhibiting reading difficulties, are highly susceptible to developing an aversion to reading (Lee & Zentall, 2012). Following the simple view of reading, both decoding and linguistic comprehension are necessary to read skillfully, as one without the other is not sufficient to develop proficient reading. Instructional practices that focus only on teaching students letter-sound correspondences, spelling-sound rules, and/or reading quickly, which are often used to teach decoding, fail to attend to the importance of linguistic comprehension to reading achievement (Fisher et al., 2022). By the same token, instructional practices that focus only on teaching language skills important to comprehension fail to attend to the necessary role of decoding print in reading achievement (Gough & Tunmer, 1986).

Writing Frameworks In addition to skilled reading, skilled written expression is one of the most important literacy skills stu­ dents develop in educational settings. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ most recent results in writing, 60% of 8th-grade students with disabilities were below a basic level of writing compared to 15% of students not identified with disabilities (NCES, 2011). Eighth-grade students writing at a below-basic level have minimal competency with the accurate use of spelling, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, development and organization of ideas, and effective structuring of text according to the demands of the writing task (NCES, 2012). Conceptual frameworks for capturing written expression difficulties in students with disabilities emphasize the writers’ cognitive processes when producing text (Smith, 2018). Cognitive processing 207

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theories of writing embrace the written task as a complex process that recursively draws on funda­ mental mental resources at many levels inherent in writing, such as translating, planning, generating, and organizing to arrive at a final written product (Smith, 2018). For example, Flower and Hayes (1981) conceptualized written composition as a goal-driven task comprised of three components: the task environment, the writer’s long-term memory, and the writing processes. Cognitive sub-processes of the writing processes as described by Flower and Hayes included planning, translating, generating, reviewing, and monitoring one’s writing. Termed “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing,” Flower and Hayes’ model laid the foundation for more recent cognitive processing frameworks that foreground domain-specific writing processes within domain-general cognitive processes. For instance, the simple view of writing (Berninger et al., 2002; Berninger et al., 2003;), the not-so-simple view of the internal functional writing system (Berninger & Winn, 2006), and the more recent direct and indirect effects model of writing (Kim & Park, 2019) collectively identify two core components of the writing pro­ cesses: transcription (i.e., spelling, handwriting) and idea generation (i.e., generating and organizing ideas). Accordingly, domain-specific writing difficulties in students with disabilities result from: (a) difficulty with transcription, or (b) difficulty with idea generation.

Transcription Difficulties The transcription process comprises both spelling and handwriting. Because spelling and handwriting draw upon phonological awareness and orthographic and semantic knowledge, difficulties in transcrip­ tion are common among students identified with specific learning disability, dyslexia, and speech/lan­ guage impairment, who often demonstrate weak awareness and knowledge of these skills (Hebert et al., 2018). Similar to decoding, phonological awareness is a core component of encoding, as translating oral words into written strings of letters requires systematically mapping and transcribing phonemes into visual letter forms. Delayed development or difficulty processing phonological information has been shown to be a significant predictor of spelling-specific writing disabilities (Bar-Kochva & Nevo, 2019). Orthographic and semantic knowledge as it relates to spelling and handwriting refers to the command of permissible letter patterns in a written language (Mather & Jaffe, 2021). For example, knowing to drop the final -e in words ending in -e when adding -ed demonstrates a writer’s orthographic knowl­ edge. Semantic knowledge includes determining when to use certain spelling patterns based on word meaning (e.g., main vs. mane). Thus, writing disabilities in transcription are often seen in spelling and handwriting tasks that demand juggling phonological awareness and orthographic and semantic skills. In the ELA classroom, students who have difficulty with transcription usually exhibit poor spelling accuracy. They may add, omit, or substitute vowels or consonants letters in words and produce texts that have a high percentage of misspelled words (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM-V], 2013). Students who have difficulty with transcription skills also tend to write slowly by hand and form letters in unconventional ways. The handwriting of students who have difficulty with writing may also be quite difficult to read.

Idea Generation Difficulties When given a purpose and audience for writing, students must decide how to develop and organize their ideas to achieve the demands of the task. The generation of these ideas requires knowledge about language, particularly grammar and vocabulary (Hayes & Berninger, 2014). Because idea generation in writing relies on the translation of skilled oral language, students with disabilities who have a speech/ language impairment as either a primary or secondary disability are particularly vulnerable to difficul­ ties with idea generation. Production of written language at this level involves language bursts of six to 12 words in skilled writers; however, students with limited understanding and use of grammar in 208

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speaking may produce shorter written sentences that include grammatical errors (Silliman et al., 2018). Word finding problems may also result in difficulty accessing the vocabulary necessary for idea genera­ tion, and difficulty with inferential thinking and language may interfere with higher-level expression of ideas (Hayes & Berninger, 2014). Idea generation also relies on organizing ideas into a coherent text. Skilled writers use higher-level cognitive skills specific to the writing process. Higher-level writing processes include planning, reviewing, revising, and monitoring (Berninger & Winn, 2006). Writing difficulties in idea generation show up in the ELA classroom often in terms of texts that lack fully developed ideas or lack clarity due to imprecise use of vocabulary words. Teachers may also see ideas in texts that are off-topic or lack explicit connections with one another, as is often seen in students with autism spectrum disorder (Asaro-Saddler, 2016; Finnegan & Accardo, 2018) who, by virtue of their disability, exhibit challenges with the social use of verbal language that often manifests itself in written expression (Accardo et al., 2020). Students with writing difficulties in idea generation may also produce poorly organized texts with no clear introduction or conclusion in the ELA class­ room. Other students or teachers who read these texts may be confused and not understand how the details fit with the main idea or topic. In summary, we have reviewed several conceptual frameworks and their core component skills for understanding the reading and writing difficulties of students with disabilities. We have also discussed the reading and writing difficulties specific to particular disabilities, as well as how these reading and writing difficulties may present themselves in the ELA classroom. In the next section, we will discuss the reading and writing trajectories of students with disabilities and examine the development of read­ ing and writing abilities over time for both students with and without disabilities and the implications of these developmental trajectories for instruction.

Reading and Writing Trajectories of Students with Disabilities Longitudinal trajectories of reading and writing achievement in students who are at risk for and identified with disabilities show similar growth patterns in reading and writing skills from childhood to adolescence relative to students without disabilities (Peng et al., 2019). However, what distinguishes students with disa­ bilities from their peers is persistently lower achievement, approximately one standard deviation difference between students without disabilities; further, this gap persists over time (Gilmour et al., 2019; Wei et al., 2011). Among disability categories, students with speech/language impairments are among the highest performers in reading and writing achievement, whereas students with intellectual disabilities are among the lowest (Wei et al., 2011). Given these findings, researchers have been interested in exploring more nuanced views of reading and writing growth trajectories, particularly for students with disabilities across disability categories, core components of reading (i.e., decoding and comprehension) and writing (i.e., transcript and idea generation), and their relations to other academic content areas such as mathematics.

Reading Trajectories Using data from the Special Education Longitudinal Study, Wei et al. (2011) examined differences in the reading growth of students ages 7 to 17 years identified with 11 different categories of disabilities based on measures of decoding (letter-word identification) and linguistic comprehension (passage com­ prehension). Results showed that at age 12, students with speech/language impairments, emotional disturbances, visual impairments, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, or autism dem­ onstrated significantly higher scores on letter-word identification than students with learning disabili­ ties; however, their rate of improvement at age 12 was slower than students with learning disabilities. In linguistic comprehension, results indicated that students with speech/language impairments, emotional disturbances, visual impairments, orthopedic impairment, and other health impairments demonstrated 209

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significantly higher passage comprehension scores at age 12 years compared to students with learning disabilities. In turn, students with learning disabilities demonstrated significantly higher passage com­ prehension scores than students with hearing impairment, autism, and intellectual disabilities at age 12. All students with disabilities demonstrated positive and upward growth in passage comprehension that decelerated over time; however, students with learning disabilities progressed at a significantly faster rate of growth at age 12 than students identified with other disabilities. Comparison of the growth rates between letter-word identification and passage comprehension revealed overall slower growth in pas­ sage comprehension compared to letter-word identification across disability categories and across time. Extending Wei and colleagues’ (2011) work, Quinn et al. (2020) used multiple-group latent change score modeling to examine the developmental trajectories and bi-directional relations of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension from kindergarten to fourth grade in a large sample of stu­ dents with and without learning disabilities. Concerning vocabulary knowledge, the results of the study showed that students with learning disabilities started with slightly lower average scores in vocabulary and demonstrated slightly lower latent change scores over time than an average student without a learn­ ing disability. The study also found bidirectional effects of vocabulary knowledge on reading compre­ hension such that an increase in vocabulary corresponded to an increase in reading comprehension and vice versa, but only for students without learning disabilities. For students with learning disabilities, no bidirectional relations were found, suggesting that students with learning disabilities may not be harness­ ing their receptive vocabulary knowledge as it applies to reading comprehension. This data lends support to observed difficulties integrating and generalizing knowledge and skills across contexts for students with disabilities (Burt & Whitney, 2018). Implications for practice from this research suggests that chil­ dren with learning disabilities may need explicit and direct instruction and cognitive supports to make connections between receptive language vocabulary, reading vocabulary, and reading comprehension. In relation to other important academic skills, Mattison and colleagues (2023) recently conducted a longitudinal study using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 to 1999 (ECLS-K) to examine the reading and mathematics profiles of first- to eighth-grade students who had received special education services for learning disability. Results revealed four distinct growth profiles: (1) average-persistent (students with average performance in reading and mathematics that persists over time [22.3%]), (2) low average-declining (students with low average performance initially and declin­ ing performance in 8th grade [54.3%]), (3) low average-reading dip (students with low average perfor­ mance initially, have a reading dip in 3rd-5th grades, and then increase growth in reading from 5th to 8th grade [10.4%]), and (4) below average-gaining (students with below average reading skills in early grades who then gain reading skills every year until 8th grade [13.0%]). Exploration of the differences among classes suggests that the co-morbidity of reading and mathematics difficulties of at least 1 SD below the mean differentiates profiles 2 (low average-declining), 3 (low average reading dip), and 4 (below-average gaining) from profile 1 (average-persistent). Students in the average-persistent profile demonstrated a milder learning disability in reading alone (.05 SD below the mean). Implications of this study suggest the potential impact of the severity and more widespread underlying difficulties such as cognitive (work­ ing memory, processing speed) and language skills (receptive vocabulary) on the longitudinal profiles of students with learning disabilities compared to a less severe and more specific disability in only reading skills such as phonological processing and naming speed (Moll, 2022; Willcutt et al., 2013).

Writing Trajectories While considerable research has explored the reading trajectories of students with disabilities, longi­ tudinal research on writing trajectories for students with disabilities is much more limited (Kent & Wanzek, 2016). However, research thus far with students without disabilities suggests significant posi­ tive relations between reading achievement and writing achievement, with stronger relations at the 210

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word level between decoding and transcription (i.e., spelling) than at the discourse level between linguistic comprehension and idea generation (Ahmed et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2015). Additionally, there is some cross-sectional research on the writing performance levels of students struggling with writing (not necessarily identified with disabilities) at different points in time, which demonstrates persistent gaps in writing achievement levels between students who do and do not struggle with writ­ ing (Kent & Wanzek, 2016; Herbert et al., 2020; and research suggesting co-morbidity rates of 30% to 50% of students with reading disabilities (i.e., dyslexia, ADHD, autism) and writing disabilities (i.e., dysgraphia [impairment in handwriting]; Arfé´ et al., 2020; Di Brina et al., 2018; Mayes et al., 2018). One category of disabilities in which there is some information on the writing growth and trajectories over time includes students identified with speech/language impairments. Dockrell and colleagues (2009) followed the writing performance of 58 students with histories of speech/language impairment identified at age 8. At ages 11, 12, 14, and 16 years, students completed written production and writing fluency tasks. Results revealed a significant decline in written produc­ tion scores of one standard deviation between ages 11 and 16 years; however, this decline was moder­ ated by writing fluency. Students who were less fluent at writing alphabet letters produced shorter texts with simple sentence structures and ideas compared to their peers with speech/language impair­ ment who were more fluent in handwriting. Extending the work of Dockrell and colleagues (2009), Kim et  al. (2015) examined the developmental trajectories of writing skills for first-grade students identified with speech-language impairments from the fall to the spring of an academic year. Findings showed that students with speech-language impairments had consistently lower writing scores across the year, but their rate of growth in writing was similar to the growth rate of students not identified with speech-language impairments. Thus, it is plausible that for students with speech/language impair­ ments, their growth rate in the early grades shows positive, upward change in transcription processes until they reach the upper elementary and middle school years, in which written sentence generation has been shown to be particularly helpful in identifying struggling writers (Dockrell et  al., 2019). Much more research is needed on the writing trajectories of students with speech-language impair­ ments as well as other disability categories.

Cognitive Underpinnings of Reading and Writing Disabilities Underpinning skilled reading and writing is cognition—the mental processes of input, storage, and usage of information that support learning and school performance. Research suggests that a subset of three mental processes or executive functions play critical roles in carrying out the tasks required to achieve skilled reading and writing: (a) inhibition (i.e., suppression of thoughts and actions); (b) work­ ing memory (i.e., holding information temporarily); and (c) shifting (i.e., moving between tasks; Kim, 2019; Miyake et al., 2001; Sharinger et al., 2015). For example, executive functioning skills make their appearance in skilled readers and writers when they discard irrelevant meanings of words (inhibition), hold phoneme-grapheme correspondences in memory (working memory), and move between decod­ ing and comprehension and/or transcription and idea generation (shifting: Daucourt et al., 2018; Ober et al., 2020). Difficulties with executive functioning skills, as a result, impact the ease and effort with which students acquire and develop skills in reading and writing. Brain imaging and behavioral stud­ ies have examined the underlying relations between cognitive executive functioning and reading and writing difficulties in students with and without disabilities to better understand the contribution of cognition (domain-general skills) to reading and writing (domain-specific skills; Berninger et al., 2017; Daucourt et al., 2018; Spencer et al., 2020). In students without disabilities, brain imaging studies demonstrate activation of regions in the left hemisphere and bilateral and coordinated activation in some regions of the right hemisphere dur­ ing decoding and sentence comprehension tasks. Specifically, activation of the frontal, temporal, and 211

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occipital regions of the brain occur in students without disabilities (Mason & Just, 2007; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2004). In contrast, brain imaging studies of students with reading difficulties such as dys­ lexia have demonstrated increased activation in regions of the left hemisphere such as the frontal lobes with decreased activation in the temporal and occipital areas, as well as more widespread activation of regions in the right hemisphere (Kearns et al., 2019; Rimrodt et al., 2009). The frontal lobes of the brain are responsible for the mental processes associated with executive functions, while the temporal and occipital regions are associated with language and visual processing, such as word meanings and phoneme-grapheme correspondences. As a result, increased brain activity in this area suggests that students with reading difficulties may be overworking their executive functioning processes while underworking their reading and writing processes, leading to cognitive overload. One type of biologi­ cal expression of such brain activity occurs via the eyes and can provide insight as a potential biological marker for reading and writing difficulties in students with disabilities. Over the past several decades, eye-movement pattern research reveals differences in the ways in which the eyes fixate, linger, or reread information in students with and without reading difficulties (Connor et al., 2015; Zargar et al., 2020). Using eye-movement tracking, Ozeri-Rotstain and col­ leagues (2020) explored pupil dilation in 8- to 12-year-old students with and without reading difficul­ ties when reading sentences that made sense and did not make sense. For students without disabilities, there were no significant differences in pupil dilation between reading sentences that did and did not make sense; however, for students with reading difficulties, they found significantly greater pupil dila­ tion when reading sentences that made sense versus sentences that did not make sense. How large or small pupils dilate are based on two muscles, a sphincter muscle and a dilator muscle. Sensory neurons or receptors within the dilator muscle are affected by neurotransmitters such as adrenaline released from the sympathetic nervous system to the brain. The sympathetic nervous system regulates arousal, attention, cognitive functions, and stress reactions in the body; thus, when the sympathetic nervous system goes into flight or fight, it releases adrenaline, which is received by the dilator muscle, which expands to let in more light (Szabadi, 2018; Hussain et al., 2022). Thus, the greater pupil dilation in students with reading difficulties suggests a stress response to the increase in cognitive load and execu­ tive functioning associated with comprehension due to nonautomatic decoding skills. In turn, stress and/or anxiety affects motivation and behavior, potentially causing frustration, avoidance, or refusal toward reading tasks for students with reading difficulties in the ELA classroom. Difficulties in executive functions are a core diagnostic criterion in attention deficit/hyperactiv­ ity disorder (ADHD), one type in the category of other health impairments (Willcutt et al., 2005). Estimates of comorbidity rates of other health impairments such as ADHD in students identified with learning disabilities and speech/language impairments suggest an overlap of approximately one-half (DuPaul et al., 2013; Helland et al., 2016); research demonstrates that the executive function deficits associated with ADHD impact the development of skilled writing. For example, in a recent behavioral study, Soto et al. (2021) examined the underlying relations between executive functioning (inhibition, working memory, shifting) and writing skills (written expression, spelling, writing fluency) in a sample of students ages 8- to 13-years-old with and without ADHD and positive screens for learning disabili­ ties. Results of the study showed working memory to be a significant predictor of written expression, spelling, and writing fluency in the sample. Findings also indicated direct effects of inhibition on spell­ ing skills and no significant effects of shifting on writing. Implications from this study and others for ELA teachers working with students with disabilities who have working memory challenges may find that instruction rooted in students’ awareness of how written language works and foundational vocabu­ lary and grammatical skills increases automatic language processing and reduces working memory load (Gooch et  al., 2016; Singer  & Bashir, 2018). For example, the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model of writing instruction is an evidence-based intervention for supporting development of executive functions via defining the problem of the writing task, setting goals, planning writing, and 212

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monitoring attention throughout the writing task (see Harris et al., 2018 for a classroom example of developing executive functions with students with learning disabilities using SRSD). Overall, research indicates that cognitive executive functions such as inhibition, working memory, and shifting are essential for learning and developing skilled reading and writing. Many students with disabilities, however, demonstrate difficulties with these underlying skills, which contribute to gaps in reading and writing achievement levels and trajectories over time. As a result, it is important to provide students with disabilities opportunities to read and write and supports for facilitating reading and writ­ ing development in the ELA classroom.

Facilitation of Reading and Writing Development for Students with Disabilities Supporting literacy development in students with disabilities considers the core components of read­ ing, writing, and cognition in instruction, as well as important supports such as visuals for increasing literacy learning. Historically, intellectual functioning has dominated decisions around teaching read­ ing and writing skills to students with disabilities, such that these academic skills are sidelined for more important daily functioning or adaptive skills (Grigorenko et al., 2020). As a result, students with dis­ abilities have often not received the same access to and intensity of instruction on the core component skills related to reading and writing. Furthermore, research demonstrates that low expectations for developing skilled reading and writing restrict instructional decisions made around what and how to teach reading and writing to students with disabilities, with instruction often focusing on high–fre­ quency word recognition to the exclusion or abandonment of critical reading skills such as phonologi­ cal processing once students are in the upper elementary grades (Copeland et al., 2016). Based on the information presented in the chapter thus far, however, students with disabilities can make gains and continue to grow in their reading and writing skills across schooling (Kim et al., 2015; Peng et al., 2019). ELA teachers can facilitate the reading and writing development of students with disabilities in their classrooms by (a) providing access to evidence-based instruction in core reading and writing instruction skills; (b) promoting self-determination; and (c) supplying visual supports; and (d) utilizing computer-assisted instruction.

Provide Access to Explicit Instruction in Core Reading and Writing Skills As a result of challenges in intellectual functioning, adaptive behavior, and communication, students with moderate to significant intellectual disabilities often do not receive adequate instruction in decod­ ing. Rather, reading instruction is restricted to mainly word recognition in which words are treated as images rather than as letter(s)-sound correspondences and abandoned altogether when students enter grades four and higher (Browder et al., 2006; Dessemontet et al., 2019). While recognizing words as images may be helpful, it limits the number of words that students can read and restricts reading to only those words taught. In recent years, researchers have started using systematic and explicit phonics instruction to teach decoding skills to students with significant and moderate intellectual disabilities (e.g., Allor et al., 2014; Lindström & Lemons et al., 2021). A meta-analysis of single case and group design studies on the effects of phonics instruction on the decoding skills of students ages 5 to 14-years old with intellectual disabilities demonstrated a large effect (g=1.42; Dessemontet et al., 2019). Thus, it is possible for students with intellectual disabilities to develop decoding skills and continue to develop them as they progress through schooling. Importantly, decoding and learning new words is essential to storing words in memory, which is important for reading automatically and fluently. Another key finding from the meta-analysis are results pertaining to intervention intensity and duration. In most studies, students received intervention one-on-one every day for approximately 30 minutes and these 213

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interventions lasted between five months and three years, suggesting that supporting literacy develop­ ment in students with disabilities involves intense and lengthy interventions (Dessemontet et al., 2019). Combining high-quality evidence-based instructional strategies within the general education class­ room, such as ELA classrooms, may be an additional way for students with disabilities to access and improve core reading and writing skills. For example, Wang et  al. (2022) conducted a secondary analysis of the effects of middle school students with and without disabilities receiving the Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension of Text (PACT; Vaughn et al., 2013, 2015) intervention on their vocabu­ lary and reading comprehension skills. The PACT intervention is delivered in social studies classrooms and targets background knowledge, academic vocabulary, critical reading of texts, and application of learned information in team-based activities. Results of the study indicated significant growth for all students on measures of academic vocabulary, content knowledge, and reading comprehension. Wang and colleagues also found that disability status did not predict growth in academic vocabulary and read­ ing comprehension, suggesting that access to evidence-based reading instruction benefits all students in the general education classroom. Thus, ELA classroom teachers are particularly poised to provide students with disabilities with the same access to evidence-based instructional strategies in reading and writing as done for students without disabilities. They can build students’ knowledge of the world and words, teach them how to monitor what and how they are reading, ask students questions about the text and encourage them to generate their own questions about the text with partners (Vaughn et al., 2022). Regarding writing, an examination of the limited but available systematic reviews and meta-anal­ yses on effective writing instruction finds similar results. A recent review conducted by Roitsch et al. (2021) examined studies of writing instruction for students with learning disabilities. Results of the review revealed that explicit instruction in writing strategies and setting goals for writing demon­ strated significant effects on the writing skills of students with learning disabilities. Al Otaiba et al. (2022) synthesized meta-analyses focused on writing skills and interventions in elementary students with reading disabilities including dyslexia and found positive effects for word-, sentence-, and textlevel instruction. Specifically, word-level instruction on spelling, sentence-, and text-level instruction that focused on sentence construction and the process increased writing outcomes in students with disabilities. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the importance of providing students with dis­ abilities the same access to and intensity of the instruction on core reading and writing skills as their non-disabled peers.

Promote Self-Determination Making choices and decisions in one’s life, particularly around reading and writing, is critical to being motivated to learn. Especially as students progress through schooling and texts become longer and more complicated to read and write, the ability to act with a sense of choice and persistence impacts achievement in reading and writing. Yet, for students with disabilities, instructional decisions and goals tend to be set by others. For those of us working with students who have difficulties in reading and writing, it is not uncommon to hear, “I don’t want to be here. I really don’t care about reading. I’m not going to pass this class anyway, so why should I try?” In short, years of limited choice in reading and writing, frustration, and poor grades contribute to limited self-determination and motivation in students with disabilities and have significant and detrimental effects on their reading and writing development (Guzman et al., 2018). Telling students, “I know you can do this. I believe in you” rarely works; instead, several large- and small-scale studies have demonstrated significant increases in selfdetermination and broader goal attainment for students with intellectual and learning disabilities when educators implement a self-determination learning model of instruction (Seong et al., 2015; Shogren et al., 2014; Wehmeyer et al., 2012). 214

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In a study of five 13- to 15-year-old students with mild intellectual disability, Garrels (2019) taught students to set a personally relevant goal in reading and writing skills, make action plans for achieving their goals, and self-monitor their progress toward meeting the goal they set. All students made progress and achieved their goals, demonstrating not only the power of fostering self-determination in students with intellectual disabilities, but also the recognition of the high expectations students with intellec­ tual disabilities have for themselves. For these students, who have likely experienced repeated failure in reading and writing instruction, fostering self-determination through goal setting offered them an important opportunity to experience some agency in their learning and confidence in achieving their goals. Having agency and confidence, therefore, may impact identity development in students with disabilities as successful readers and writers (Forber-Pratt et al., 2021). ELA classroom teachers may find it helpful to help students with disabilities set reading and writing goals for specific assignments or for a certain length of time and encourage choice in selecting texts to read and types of writing to be produced (Didion et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2021).

Supply Visual Supports For students with disabilities who may also have underlying executive functions difficulties, visual sup­ ports are an effective evidence-based strategy for reducing the cognitive load of reading and writing tasks (Al Otaiba et al., 2018). Particularly for students with learning disabilities and speech/language impairments, Singer and Bashir (2018) recommend three types of evidence-based visual supports: (a) rehearsal and visualization; (b) advance organizers; and (c) graphic organizers. Rehearsal and visualiza­ tion refer to holding information either by repeating or seeing it just long enough to execute a task (Singer & Bashir, 2018). Rehearsal and visualization are useful for following directions related to a reading or writing task or remembering characters’ names long enough to write them down. Advance organizers consist of a hierarchical display of information that teachers present to students visually prior to reading and/or writing (Singer & Bashir, 2018). They consist of the topic, main idea, and essential concepts. The purpose of providing advance organizers is to visually convey the gist of a lesson and support listening comprehension. Graphic organizers help students sort relevant from irrelevant infor­ mation so they can focus on important relationships between ideas (Vaughn et al., 2022). They may include visual displays at the word or conceptual level, and can be utilized by teachers and students before, during, or after a reading and/or writing task. Graphic organizers have been shown to be effec­ tive for supporting reading comprehension and written comprehension in students with and without disabilities (Brady et al., 2022; Regan et al., 2018). In a study conducted with high school students with and without learning disabilities, Harris et al. (2011) found that using a visual word mapping strategy before reading significantly increased students’ ability to comprehend subsequent texts read, and predict the meaning of unknown words during reading. Other types of visual supports that ELA classroom teachers might supply for students with disabilities include photos, illustrations, visual schedules or directions, or even gesturing.

Utilize Computer-Assisted Instruction Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) refers to the use of a digital device (e.g., laptop, desktop, iPad) by a student to meet an academic objective (Kim et al., 2017). CAI often includes several instructional features that benefit students with disabilities, such as speech technology, built-in feedback, and multi­ media. Speech technology refers to digital devices that have text-to-speech or speech-to-text software. Text-to-speech software may be particularly helpful for students with decoding difficulties because it reduces the cognitive load associated with word reading and frees up resources for comprehending meaning. In fact, one meta-analysis found a positive moderate effect size (d = 0.35) on the reading 215

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comprehension skills of students with reading disabilities when using text-to-speech software (Wood et  al., 2018). Another feature of CAI instruction includes built-in feedback in which students can respond to presented questions and immediately see the accuracy of their answers, and has been shown to be effective in increasing school-age students’ reading comprehension skills (Xu et al., 2019). Mul­ timedia such as images, videos, and electronic dictionaries are also a feature of CAI and can facilitate students’ reading engagement and motivation to persist. Importantly for ELA teachers, CAI can be a practice tool in the classroom when it is combined with explicit and systematic reading instruction. A recent evaluation of the evidence base for com­ puter-assisted reading instruction for students with learning disabilities revealed overall positive effects on reading comprehension (Kim et al., 2017). Critical features of computer-assisted instruction identi­ fied in the evaluation of evidence included opportunities to answer multiple-choice questions after reading a text on the computer screen, built-in feedback showing students correct answers and then prompting different responses for incorrect answers, and use of teacher-directed instruction in combi­ nation with CAI (Kim et al., 2017). Thus, CAI can be used to enhance explicit reading instruction as a supplemental tool for students with disabilities in the ELA classroom.

Conclusion Students with disabilities represent a significant percentage of students within public schools, and many are susceptible to experiencing lags in the development of critical literacy skills. It is important for ELA teachers to understand the fundamental skills that influence literacy achievement in both reading and writing and to have knowledge of frameworks governing skill development. It is also necessary for ELA teachers to have knowledge about the patterns of reading and writing development for students with disabilities, in terms of trajectories across the grades. Finally, ELA teachers must be equipped with strat­ egies for supporting the literacy development of students with disabilities, such as providing access to explicit instruction in core reading and writing skills, promoting self-determination, supplying visual supports, and using computer-assisted instruction. Indeed, the use of such strategies may enhance the literacy achievement of not only students with disabilities, but all students in the ELA classroom.

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Knowledge telling and knowledge transforming in written composition. In S. Rosenberg (Ed.), Advances in applied psycholinguistics: Volume 2, Reading, writing, and language learning (pp. 142–175). Cambridge University Press. Scharinger, C., Kammerer, Y., & Gerjets, P. (2015). Pupil dilation and EEG alpha frequency band power reveal load on executive functions for link-selection processes during text reading. PLoS One, 10(6), e0130608. Seong, Y., Wehmeyer, M. L., Palmer, S. B., & Little, T. D. (2015). Effects of the self-directed individualized edu­ cation program on self-determination and transition of adolescents with disabilities.  Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, 38(3), 132–141. Shaywitz, S. E., & Shaywitz, B. A. (2004). Neurobiologic basis for reading and reading disability. Paul H Brookes Pub­ lishing Co. Shogren, K. A., Plotner, A. J., Palmer, S. B., Wehmeyer, M. L., & Paek, Y. (2014). Impact of the self-determined learning model of instruction on teacher perceptions of student capacity and opportunity for self-determina­ tion. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 440–448. Silliman, E. R., Bahr, R. H., Nagy, W., & Berninger, V. W. (2018). Language bases of spelling in writing during early and middle childhood: Grounding applications to struggling writers in typical writing development. In B. Miller, P. McCardle, & V. Connelly (Eds.), Development of writing skills in individuals with learning difficulties (pp. 99–119). Brill. Singer, B. D., & Bashir, A. S. (2018). Wait . . . what??? Guiding intervention principles for students with verbal working memory limitations. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49(3), 449–462. Smith, A. (2018). Waves of theory building in writing and its development, and their implications for instruction, assessment, and curriculum. Theoretical Models and Processes of Literacy, 65–83. Soto, E. F., Irwin, L. N., Chan, E. S., Spiegel, J. A., & Kofler, M. J. (2021). Executive functions and writing skills in children with and without ADHD. Neuropsychology, 35(8), 792. Spencer, M., Richmond, M. C., & Cutting, L. E. (2020). Considering the role of executive function in reading comprehension: A structural equation modeling approach. Scientific Studies of Reading, 24(3), 179–199. Stanovich, K. E. (1988). Explaining the differences between the dyslexic and the garden-variety poor reader: The phonological-core variable-difference model. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21(10), 590–604. Szabadi, E. (2018). Functional organization of the sympathetic pathways controlling the pupil: Light-inhibited and light-stimulated pathways. Frontiers in Neurology, 9, 1069. Toste, J. R., Didion, L., Peng, P., Filderman, M. J., & McClelland, A. M. (2020). 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11

STUDENT AGENCY IN THE

ADAPTIVE CLASSROOM

Margaret Vaughn

In the context of schooling, agency is the ability of individuals to make intentional decisions, take actions, and exert influence in their environment to shape or transform learning pursuits (Vaughn, 2018). In this way, agency is socially mediated and constructed (Lewis et al., 2007), where students individually and collectively influence and create opportunities in the learning context through inten­ tions, decisions, and actions. This approach to student learning marks a shift from more traditional forms of learning where the teacher directs the learning and knowledge is transmitted to the student (Alvermann, 2001), to an adaptive view of classroom instruction where the student and teacher are co-collaborators in the learning process. Opportunities to capitalize on student agency in education have drawn widespread attention in recent years. This growing interest is fueled by initiatives to develop skills for the 21st century, includ­ ing problem-solving, critical thinking, and the ability for students to access and interpret knowledge with effective oral, written, and communication skills. A primary goal of such initiatives is to develop students who are agentic and entrepreneurial and can synthesize and transform knowledge to produce innovative ideas and pursuits. Simultaneously, a critical function of language arts instruction is for students to apply knowledge independently and creatively to convey their ideas. The International Literacy Association (2018) pro­ vides a current definition of literacy that includes reading, writing, speaking, listening, composing, and viewing. This definition outlines how such processes require students to think innovatively about their purpose, audience, and structure using a variety of modes to communicate their ideas. Such a view of literacy broadly suggests that agency is a productive lens to understand how to create rich spaces in the language arts classroom. Although agency is something educators may strive for when it comes to supporting learners in theory and as a goal in developing the next generation, conceptualizing agency from theory to practice can be a challenge (van Lier, 2008). Yet, the concept of agency offers a way to understand students’ perspectives of their learning and provides a pathway whereby students can think about themselves in relation to their learning pursuits. Supporting agency in the language arts classroom aligns with a dynamic view of learning, where students actively engage, question, and make meaning of their learn­ ing. Language arts teachers who invite student agency intentionally structure learning experiences with and alongside their students, thereby inviting students’ voices, histories, languages, and interests into the curriculum. Orienting language arts instruction that privileges student agency views students and families as knowledge generators and resources that are valuable and essential to student learning DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-13

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(Campano et al., 2020). Acknowledging that student agency is essential in the context of classroom interactions relies on contextualizing the language arts classroom as a site of power and one where students have a voice in their learning pursuits. The primary purpose of this chapter is to explore student agency in the language arts classroom and to consider its implications for theory, practice, and research. The view of student agency in this chapter is informed by research spanning sociocultural perspectives that position literacy as a socially mediated process, whereby one’s agency is situated in complex learning environments. To contextual­ ize student agency, the chapter begins with a brief overview of educational reform efforts over the last two decades surrounding language arts instruction that situates possibilities for student agency in schools. Next, a review of the literature explores conceptual understandings of student agency, where a theoretical framework integrating philosophical, psychological, and sociocultural understandings of agency is presented (Vaughn, 2021). Then, as part of this framework, empirical research is discussed, identifying instructional contexts, activities, and resources that can support agency. The discussion ends with new ways of thinking about methodological approaches for exploring student agency in the language arts classroom.

A Brief Overview: Factors That Influence

Opportunities for Student Agency

In recent years, several educational policy initiatives have influenced how language arts instruction is taught in schools and opportunities for student agency. The Reading First Initiative mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) legislated high-stakes accountability for schools and districts across the United States. The goal of these efforts aimed to improve student literacy achievement outcomes and ensure that all U.S. public school children could read at or above grade level by third grade. Central to the Reading First Initiative was how federal funding was allocated to schools for imple­ menting research-based literacy curricula (Allington, 2013). Teaching literacy in schools at this time primarily centered on using a one-size-fits-all or “perfect method” (Duffy & Hoffman, 1999) approach to literacy instruction that has failed to provide adaptive and flexible instruction required to meet the individual, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds of many students, particularly students from historically underrepresented populations (Tefera & Fischman, 2020). These overly prescriptive programs contin­ ued to dominate literacy instruction, despite the fact that “the instructional plans of these programs [did not change] the trajectory of the very students for whom the mandates [were] put in place” (Bren­ ner & Hiebert, 2010, p. 361). Widespread educational literacy reform efforts continued to influence instructional literacy prac­ tices in the U.S., with a central focus on pay-for-performance measures such as the Race to the Top legislation (Department of Education, 2009). The results of such efforts instilled a renewed reliance by district leaders and educators on prescriptive, one-size-fits-all instruction (Tanner, 2013). This, coupled with the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015), which aimed to address the “education by zip code” inequities of schooling in the U.S. that limits students’ exposure to high-quality instruction based on students’ geographic region and social backgrounds (Timberlake et al., 2017), provided contexts where schools continued to rely on scripted literacy curricula to teach literacy (Vaughn et al., 2022). With increased attention on schoolwide evaluation systems, schools relied heavily on scripted curricula to support student achievement (Fitz & Nikolaidis, 2020), leaving little room for student agency as a central focus in literacy classrooms. These effects of widespread literacy policies and practices persist and have deep ties to how language arts instruction is implemented in schools today. For example, at the time of this writing, 46 states in the U.S. have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS, National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), with scholars conflicted 223

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on its benefits. Proponents emphasize how the CCSS support reading complex texts (Williamson et al., 2014), encouraging students to critically analyze what they read and engaging students in oppor­ tunities to question and express their opinions in flexible ways (Kamil, 2016). Other perspectives emphasize that the CCSS are another reform effort that promotes a standardized curriculum by overly narrowing a view of literacy and teaching practices (Botzakis et al., 2014; Fang & Pace, 2013). As debate around these standards continues, making agency visible in the language arts classroom environment is even more critical in the field. With the resurgence of theories on the most effective ways to teach reading (i.e., the Science of Reading) in the popular media along with universal dyslexia screening legislation across the U.S. underway (Worthy et al., 2017), policymakers are once again per­ suading the public that “literacy is a neutral skill and that ‘achievement gaps’ can be addressed without attention to the histories of power relations” (Lewis et al., 2007, p. 3). Undoubtedly, opportunities for agency in classrooms draws attention to the power relations that occur daily between students and teachers and provides the potential for students to transform knowledge beyond the acquisition of isolated literacy skills (Johnston, 2020). Hence, understanding the role of agency is particularly vital, as language arts teachers continue to face a myriad of challenges. A fundamental responsibility of schools is to develop students who can read, write, and communi­ cate their ideas using a variety of modes and through innovative ways, suggesting the increased need for student agency as central in the language arts classroom. In the following section, student agency is operationally defined using theories across psychological, philosophical, and educational perspectives. The section also outlines a model of agency, with related discussion on translating theories of agency to instructional practices in the language arts classroom.

Student Agency: Mapping the Conceptual and Empirical Scholars from across the psychology, philosophy, and educational fields have theorized the con­ cept of student agency as an important aspect of the human condition (Archer, 2000; Brockmeier, 2009). Dewey (1922) highlighted the critical importance of active students who have choice and deliberation in their educational pursuits. Freire (1970) highlighted the ways in which individuals have agency through interactions and decision-making. Bandura (1989, 2001) associated agency with an individual’s self-efficacy and ability to take control of their context and actions. Oth­ ers have conceptualized the ways in which identities are formed in relation to one’s individual and collective agency (Holland et al., 2001) and through contesting and resisting (Rainio, 2008; Wischmann & Riepe, 2019), while other perspectives view agency through a more motivational lens, where individuals are connected deeply to autonomous choice-making and engaging contexts (Reeve & Tseng, 2011; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Building from these various orientations outlines a model of agency that includes: • dispositional dimensions of individuals who act and transform environments • motivational dimensions of individuals who regulate their actions, exist within contexts, and make intentional decisions • positionality of individuals in that individuals negotiate and interact in complex social settings These dimensions outline a model of student agency and provide a means to conceptualize student agency in the classroom (Vaughn, 2020). Central to each dimension outlined here is the core under­ standing that students are individuals with varied strengths, languages, and racial, gendered, and cul­ tural identities that provide the lens by which to view each dimension. Each dimension of the model (Figure 11.1) is outlined to further conceptualize agency in practice.

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Student agency in practice

Dispositional: students' inner dimensions and their willingness to act on their intentions and purpose

Positional: students’ social contexts and the ways in which students interact and negotiate their ideas and purpose in learning situations

Motivational: students’ ability to act on their beliefs and persist and pursue their learning pursuits

Figure 11.1 A Model of Student Agency

Dispositional The dispositional dimension reflects students’ experiences and their propensity and intentionality to act on and pursue their ideas in relation to their learning. Underlying this dimension are theories of students as creative and entrepreneurial individuals who can conceptualize ideas to expand capabilities in relation to their learning (Adair, 2014; Roth, 2008). As outlined in this dimension of the model, entrepreneurial skills, creativity, and abilities individuals possess are vital to one’s agency. Accordingly, agency relies in part on students’ inner dispositions and how they are creative and generative in the learning process (Tran & Vu, 2018). Agency is “the starting place of doing”; someone with agency is “recognized as having an understanding of [themselves] in terms of [their] wants and [their] powers and creates opportunities” (Oakeshott & Fuller, 2001, p. 35). Such a view suggests the inner dispositional nature essential to agency, in that individuals who have agency in classroom contexts possess a sense of intentionality and purpose in their learning pursuits. Students have thoughts, intentions, ideas, and rationales for making decisions in the classroom. One way to conceptualize this in the classroom is in the following scenario. During a classroom les­ son focused on deforestation, a small group of fourth-grade students wanted to learn more about the relationship between forest fires in the region and deforestation so that they could better understand and possibly combat the regional forest fires experienced by the community (Vaughn, 2021). Each summer, the town is filled with residual smoke from forest fires that occur in their region and in several surrounding states. The group of students contacted natural resource experts in the region and at the university and made a public service announcement that ran on the local radio station about prevent­ ing forest fires. In this example, the students decided to pursue their ideas, and they had a purpose and intentionality to work toward their goal. As part of this agency framework, this dispositional dimension acknowledges the importance of individuals operating in complex social contexts such as the classroom while recognizing that students rarely act in isolation and are positioned in contexts that can support or negate their intentions and ideas. This dimension of agency aims to identify students’ inner dispositions and ideas and represents

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how the dispositional qualities are integral in understanding a model of student agency. Finally, this dimension emphasizes how students may independently explore concepts in the classroom in pursuit of their ideas, purpose, and beliefs.

Motivational The motivational dimension of agency encompasses theories of self-regulation and self-efficacy. Selfregulation influences how individuals regulate their learning and direct their attention to task-related skills to pursue ideas and intentions despite perceived obstacles and barriers (Zimmerman, 2002). If an individual feels they cannot successfully accomplish a task, their tendency is to avoid the task. Thus, self-regulation is tied to self-monitoring. Self-efficacy is the belief that one can succeed in what they are doing (Schunk, 1995). Bandura et  al. (2001) highlighted the important role of self-efficacy in relation to one’s agency. “Among the mechanisms of human agency, none is more focal or pervading than people’s perceived self-efficacy” (p. 187). Bandura (1989) stated, “The stronger the belief in their capabilities, the greater and more persistent are their efforts” (p. 2). Learners use this self-evaluation process to manage and organize their thoughts and convert them into skills for learning. Through selfevaluation and monitoring, students view learning as an activity that they decide to pursue, rather than viewing learning as something that happens to them. These theories are integral when conceptualiz­ ing how students make decisions, pursue their ideas and interests, and set a path toward their learning while balancing the complex demands of classroom interactions.

Positional The positional dimension of agency outlines how individuals interact and negotiate their interests and ideas within the historical backdrop of schooling, interactions, and the complex social worlds (Dyson, 1999) of classroom learning environments. Student agency is deeply connected to others in the com­ munity and the resources, materials, and tools available to them. As a result, agency is not solely devel­ oped by an individual but is co-created with other individuals such as peers and teachers and across a variety of social interactions and contexts. Agency in this dimension has to do with interactions and negotiations as individuals decide to take (or not take) action to exert their influence within the classroom. Vygotsky (1978) suggested that one learns through social interactions with others and that learning and developing are “dynamic processes, social, cultural, and historical by nature, and in a dialectical relationship with each other” (p. 27). Building from Vygotsky’s (1978) foundational work, Wenger (1998) described social interactions with others through participation within a community of practice. Agency does not occur in isolation. Instead, agency is co-constructed in communities of practice (Lave  & Wenger, 1991). Individuals may be accepted within this community and positioned as a ‘legitimate’ member or as a ‘peripheral’ member who is outside the group (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Hence, their identities are formed in practice while interacting within and outside of these groups. Similarly, Holland and colleagues (2001) described how one’s agency is interactive in that it is “developed through participation in activities; socially produced, [during] culturally constructed activ­ ities” with others as we become members within the community (p. 41). Inden (1990) also supported this idea, stating that human agency is “the realized capacity of people to act upon their world . . . to act purposefully and reflectively, to remake the world (or community) in which they live” (p. 23). The positional dimension of the model of agency recognizes that students exist in complex social worlds such as the classroom and that students’ gendered, racial, and cultural identities are essential in con­ structing their agentic narratives.

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Vital to this model of student agency is the understanding that agency has been denied to histori­ cally underrepresented students and their families in schools for centuries. In the context of schooling, these dimensions recognize this history and view schools as a contextualized site of conflict. How students are positioned within schools and where their ideas, interests, out-of-school lives, and back­ grounds have the potential to be included or excluded are central to this model of agency. Sociocul­ tural perspectives of agency outline how individuals are connected across complex systems and how their histories, beliefs, backgrounds, and experiences shape their agency. Teachers can utilize these three dimensions of agency to support traditionally underrepresented students. For example, teach­ ers can support students by inviting them to share their interests and ideas, and provide scaffolds to support these efforts, while positioning students as knowledgeable experts whose inquiries, linguistic repertoires, cultures, pursuits, and ideas are integral to the learning process.

Locating Student Agency in Literacy Research and Practice As students engage in literacy practices (e.g., reading, writing, composing, communicating), there are key instructional practices that provide opportunities to support student agency. Agency is dynamic and multifaceted and functions as a jointly constructed action between students, teachers, and peers. Johnston (2004) stated, “In schools, it is our job to help expand the possible agentive narrative lines available for children to pick up” (p. 40). Exemplary literacy teachers adopt a gradual release of respon­ sibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983), leading students to contexts where they are in control of their own learning while pursuing individual and collective interests and topics. In a nation-wide study of exemplary first- and fourth-grade teachers, Pressley et al. (2001) found that effective literacy teachers organized learning contexts where students were increasingly in charge of their learning and developed the identities of independent readers and writers. “We observed [that] the most effective teachers did more to encourage students to do things for themselves than did least effective teachers” (pp. 14, 17). Prioritizing agency in the language arts curriculum encourages teachers to place students at the center of the learning experience. In educational systems where the transmission model of knowledge is valued (Doyle, 1983; Winne & Marx, 1982), the teacher controls the learning context and knowl­ edge is transmitted to the student, making student agency narrow and constricted, as the emphasis of active learning is on the teacher. However, when learning is viewed as dynamic, where students make meaning and question the world around them, student agency becomes a critical aspect of classroom learning experiences. In these learning exchanges, the curriculum is adaptive, dynamic, and reflective of students’ interests, questions, ideas, and linguistic strengths. What does this mean for language arts presently? The next sections outline how agency can be constructed in the language arts classroom using a variety of resources and practices, including adaptive teaching, visioning, interactions with text, translanguaging, and interactions across modalities.

Adaptive Teaching One promising approach to supporting opportunities for student agency is to engage in the practice of adaptive teaching, which is considered a cornerstone of effective instruction (Corno, 2008; DarlingHammond, 2016). Adaptive teachers adjust their instructional actions during classroom teaching to support student learning (Pifarre & Staarman, 2011; Fairbanks et al., 2010) and invite students into the curriculum (Griffith & Lacina, 2018). Moreover, scholars position adaptive teaching as essential in effectively teaching literacy, which depends on teachers adapting knowledge to fit the specific instructional situation at hand (Duffy, 2005; Pearson & Hoffman, 2011). Adaptive teachers engage in what Sawyer (2006) terms an “improvisational

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performance emphasizing the interactional and responsive creativity of a teacher . . . locally improvis­ ing within overall global structures” (p. 20). In research spanning more than 315 observations in over 70 K-6 classrooms in schools throughout the nation, scholars have documented teachers’ adaptations and rationales for adapting (e.g., Ankrum et al., 2020; Parsons et al., 2018; Vaughn, 2019). Results from these observations emphasize that adap­ tive teachers: (a) apply a variety of instructional actions to support students’ interests and instructional needs while centralizing instruction on students’ linguistic and cultural identities; (b) are deeply metacognitive about their rationales for modifying their instructional actions; (c) support opportunities where students are co-collaborators in the learning process; and (d) view students’ interests, ideas, and experiences as central to learning activities. To demonstrate adaptive teaching in the context of the language arts classroom, consider the fol­ lowing example of adaptive classroom teaching based on the aforementioned lesson on deforestation. After hearing her fourth-grade students’ shared experiences about where they went camping with their families and the impact of deforestation in the region, Ms. Anders changed the instructional focus away from synthesizing to making connections. She invited students into the learning activity by redirecting the class into writing about their personal experiences at the campsites in the region, plotting the location where each student camped, and then extending the lesson to include a multilesson unit on researching the impact of deforestation along with its pros and cons. In this way, the teacher was responsive and adaptive in her approach to supporting students’ interests, questions, and lived experiences. Applying the agency framework (Figure 11.1), Ms. Anders supported the dispositional dimension of agency by eliciting information about the students’ interests, ideas, and overall intended purpose for exploring deforestation. To encourage the motivational dimension of agency, she then provided scaf­ folds such as modeling to students how to find more detailed information about forest fires in the area. She shared how to contact university faculty in the area who specialized in forestry while supporting students as they grappled with their efforts to take control over what they wanted to learn in relation to the topic. Moreover, on the positionality dimension, Ms. Anders invited students into the classroom to share their knowledge as co-collaborators. This example shows how adaptive teachers maximize opportunities and engage in responsive approaches to teaching to support student agency. Such an approach requires teacher reflection and invites teachers into thinking about the individual characteristics of each student and class to cultivate contexts reflective of the specific needs of students (Duffy, 2002; Wetzel et al., 2015). Adaptability also emphasizes principles of cultural responsiveness (Banks et al., 2005; Gay, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 2001) as teachers “take the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for [students]” (Gay, 2000, p. 29). In doing so, adaptive teachers must reflect upon the values and assumptions they bring to teaching as they: Examine, frame, and attempt to solve the dilemmas of classroom practices; [are] aware of and question the assumptions and values he or she brings to teaching; [and are] attentive to the insti­ tutional and cultural contexts in which he or she teaches. (Zeichner & Liston, 2013, p. 6) Adaptive teaching requires teacher reflection and invites teachers into thinking about the indi­ vidual characteristics of each student to cultivate contexts reflective of the specific needs of stu­ dents. At the core of such interactions are opportunities where teachers can support and facilitate student agency.

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Visioning Whereas adapting teaching focuses on adjusting to individual characteristics of students, visioning is “a teacher’s conscious sense of self, of one’s work that rises from deep within the inner teacher and fuels independent thinking” (Duffy, 2002, p. 334). Gambrell and colleagues (2011) identified visioning as a tool used by effective literacy teachers to inspire students to become readers and writers. Scales (2021) explored visioning using a cross-sectional view of literacy teacher educators, in-service literacy teach­ ers, and preservice teachers, finding that visioning served as a pivotal reflection tool across teachers’ professional trajectories. Student visioning is a rather new area of study in relation to visioning research, although one can look at connected research including student voice (Lundy, 2007; Mayes, 2020), student action (Holdsworth, 2000), and student participation (Miller et al., 2021) to conceptualize the ways in which student visioning can create agentic opportunities during language arts instruction. Much like teacher visioning, student visioning invites students to reflect upon what they hope to accomplish in their learning and why they are learning. Student visioning also includes pathways for agency by encourag­ ing students to reflect on their out-of-school lives, experiences, cultures, languages, and interests, with the goal of pursuing these topics in the classroom. Pivotal to our understanding of creating contexts supportive of student agency is understanding how teachers use dialogue in various forms to invite students’ voices into the curriculum. According to Johnston (2004), Teachers’ conversations with children help the children build the bridges between action and consequences that develop their sense of agency. They show children how, by acting strategically, they accomplish things, and at the same time, that they are the kind of person who accomplishes things. (p. 30) Inviting students to share their ideas and interests expands their agency. Questions like, “Tell me more,” “How does this work,” “Why do you think” (Vaughn, 2021) “How do you know,” and “I’m wonder­ ing how” (Johnston, 2004) are explicit ways to encourage students to engage in the learning process and expand their agency. When we invite students into the process of sharing their voice and vision in their learning, the process becomes “collectively constructed and owned” (Ishimaru & Galloway, 2014, p. 108) and connects deeply to supporting students’ ability to exert their agency.

Interactions with Texts As students engage with literature, they make connections to texts and have the capacity to expand on their agency. McNair (2016) emphasized that children must have access to classroom libraries that are varied across genres and topics and include multiple representations of race, gender, ability, and religion. According to Bishop (1990), foundational is understanding that “Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection, we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience” (p. ix). Carefully utilizing children’s literature that is culturally relevant and represents students’ lived experiences is vital when planning for student agency. Widely known literacy practices such as Bless this Book (Marinak & Gambrell, 2016; Fisher & Frey, 2018) provide a way to support the inclusion of culturally relevant texts and for students to highlight their ideas about what they are reading. Other well-known practices include the use of literature circles (Daniels, 2002; Raphael et al., 2001), which provide spaces for students to share their insights about texts while making connections, asking questions, and pursuing their lines of thinking while sharing their perspectives with others. Specifically, examining how characters in texts, especially individuals

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from historically underrepresented backgrounds, exert their agency can serve as a powerful lens for discussions with students about their own agency (Enriquez et al., 2020). Central within these two instructional practices, students choose texts and can decide on different ways of participating to con­ vey knowledge learned (i.e., recording a book trailer, creating alternative endings, discussing with flex­ ible grouping, or working individually and collectively). As Dyson (1997) counsels us in our approach to constructing literacy spaces for students, “children have agency in their own imaginations” (p. 181). Providing opportunities for students to take the lead, respond flexibly, and make decisions about their reading choices is critical when structuring opportunities for student agency. Ivey and Johnston (2013) described how through text selection and student-led discussions about books, middle-school­ ers experienced a sense of agency. This agency was further enhanced through self-directed learning, the use of scaffolding techniques with their peers, text selection, and student-led discussions that were centered on students’ experiences and interpretations about topics presented in texts. Similarly, Coakely-Fields (2019), in studying fourth-grade students and how they engaged with one another with texts, found that students talked about texts in meaningful ways, developed identities as allies with others, and appeared to have a sense of agency when afforded the opportunity to informally discuss books at their own pace and according to their own agenda. In their study of fifth grade students, Miller and colleagues (2021) also concluded that as instructional activities surrounding texts became more relevant to students’ interests and lives, they experienced a greater sense of agency. Additionally, engaging students in discussions using interactive read-alouds (Fisher et al., 2004; Len­ nox, 2013), where students and teachers talk together about texts, and additional textual-talk oppor­ tunities (Beck & McKeown, 2001; Wright, 2018), where teachers engage students in discussion and reflection about texts, provides a way for teachers to have explicit conversations with students about their agency in relation to the world around them (Herrera & España, 2021). Specifically, teachers can pose targeted questions with students about the ways in which characters utilize their agency to negoti­ ate their interests, ideas, and beliefs (Vaughn, 2022a).

Translanguaging Translanguaging, a wide range of pedagogical practices that refers to supporting multilingual learners using a variety of languages, modalities, and other meaning-making tools (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Gutiérrez et al., 1999; Jiménez et al., 1996) is an essential tool in structuring opportunities for student agency in the language arts classroom. Jiménez and colleagues (2015) utilized the collaborative translation approach, where bilingual students work together in small collaborative groups to translate passages of English into their home language. Another widely used instructional practice is the preview-view-review approach (Freeman & Freeman, 2000), where students engage in conversation in their home language on a specified topic and then instruction is scaffolded in English to support comprehension and con­ tent learning. Similarly, in their research on bilingual Latinx students, Axelrod and Cole (2018) noted how stu­ dents negotiated their knowledge of language and strategies to create multimodal texts during an afterschool program using translanguaging practices. Students engaged in a “pedagogical third space” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 257), where the spaces between home and school were hybridized and rich with opportunities for students to compose literacy artifacts that were embedded in their community, languages, and cultural practices. Daniel and colleagues (2019) highlighted how translanguaging prac­ tices during a teacher-research partnership afforded opportunities for second-grade students to make meaning, engage meaningfully in literacy practices, and feel a sense of agency in their efforts to utilize their linguistic repertoires. In this design-based research study, teachers utilized scaffolding of targeted instructional strategies to construct spaces where students had the flexibility and power to negoti­ ate their ideas using translanguaging practices that included integrating translanguaging into typical 230

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instruction (e.g., partner work, small group learning), leveraging students’ lived experiences, and intro­ ducing transliterating as a powerful strategy for students to use across the curriculum. Across these studies, students are positioned as knowledgeable decision-makers and their agency is supported by providing opportunities where they can negotiate their linguistic repertoires to make meaning during interactions with texts, peers, and others. These spaces are adaptive, as teachers and students make in-the-moment modifications to support and enhance agency and literacy learning.

Interactions Across Modalities Students can also pursue their agency using different modalities (e.g., writing, digital tools) (Creely, 2020; Kendrick & McKay, 2004; Kress, 1996) in the language arts classroom to pursue their ideas and intentions. Multimodal composing, utilizing a variety of tools and platforms (e.g., digital, written, oral), provides a space where students can be viewed as authors, and it supports students as knowledgeable and agentic decision-makers (Kersten, 2017; Wang, 2015). For example, teachers can encourage stu­ dents to use Booktok, a space for youth by youth to talk about their favorite books, authors, genres, and recommendations through the creation of short videos that are posted for others to view (Jerasa & Boffone, 2021). Such practices align with connecting out-of-school reading practices to the classroom while affording a space for students to have agency in not only what and how they read but also in how they share their reading practices. Teachers can use Booktoks in their classroom to invite students into discussions about texts, composition, and analysis of connections and preferences. Similarly, Rowe and Miller (2016) explored how young children utilized multimodal composing, specifically, digital cameras and iPads to create stories and convey their understandings about their lives and interests. Additionally, Brown and Allmond (2021) studied an emergent bilingual student who drew upon composing practices and used digital tools to create multimodal contexts reflective of his interests, future goals, and background experiences. Similarly, Vasudevan and colleagues (2010) explored how fifth-grade students enacted agency while composing complex multimodal texts that incorporated their out-of-school lives and interests into the classroom. Additionally, teachers can capitalize on exploring how other genres invite opportunities for student agency. Dallacqua and Peralta (2019) explored the ways in which fifth grade students within an inte­ grated science and literacy unit became creative experts while composing informational nonfiction comics. Students took the lead in composing their comics, pursuing their ideas while critically exam­ ining texts and resources to convey and write their own stories. Moreover, Linares (2019) explored how adolescent, newcomer, and multilingual adolescent students shared their understandings, ideas, and interests using a dialogue journal platform. Dialogue journaling, a platform for written conversations between teachers and students can be used to offer a space for students to use a variety of languages and take risks with their writing and ideas. Further, Linares (2019) described how one teacher used dialogue journaling in her classroom: ‘There’s not one answer,’ and ‘It’s your opinion, meaning . . . there are many [answers].’ [The teacher] reminded students that their dialogue journals were a space where they could ‘experi­ ment . . . explore [their] thinking . . . [and] mix up [their] languages.’ This form of encour­ agement indicated [the teacher’s] desire to get to know her students through their writing, by encouraging students to share their perspective, to the extent that they wished. (p. 527) Like these practices suggest, thinking about the ways in which students engage with specific materials and resources that invite students’ lived experiences, linguistic strengths, and interests into the curricu­ lum can enrich opportunities for student agency. 231

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Other opportunities, like the workshop model (Atwell, 2007; Calkins, 1986), provide a pathway for students to think critically and explore their understandings individually and collectively to convey their ideas. During reading workshop, for example, students are encouraged to select texts of interest, discuss their ideas, and respond to readings. As Svrcek and Heidt (2022) found in their review of read­ ing practices, reading workshop affords a space for agency as it: • supports students’ sense of being literate in the classroom and in the world • allows for flexibility, choice, and engagement in reading materials selected by students • enhances students’ sense of ownership in their role in the process of learning to read Like reading workshop, writing workshop (Calkins, 1986; Graves, 1983) provides a space for stu­ dents to research, create, draft, and revise while working individually and collectively to pursue their ideas and interests. Through this process, students make intentional decisions and pursue paths and ideas relevant to what they are writing (Jaeger, 2019; Rowe, 2022). Dyson (1999, 2003) explored how children developed a sense of agency as they explored their interests and brought their out-of-school lives into the classroom during writing workshop and flexible writing experiences in the classroom. In this research, Dyson noted that students collaborated with one another, wrote for authentic audiences and purposes, and demonstrated sophisticated ways of enacting their agency. As these studies illustrate, opening spaces where students can explore their ideas through a variety of materials and resources can serve as opportunities for students to enact their agency. Instructional practices like the ones shared here invite students to respond to texts and to engage in creating individual and collective meanings while reading, writing, dialoguing, and composing. Students are encouraged to use a variety of resources and tools to demonstrate their knowledge and exert their agency. In this way, students and teachers are co-collaborators and necessary partners, each working together to support student agency.

Methodological Approaches for Examining Student Agency There is no question that empirical research on the study of agency in language arts contexts has greatly increased in recent years. A systematic review of literacy research that sought to examine stud­ ies focused on agency in literacy contexts spanning from 1975 to 2017 (Vaughn et al., 2020a) revealed an increase in the number of studies focusing on student agency in literacy. This review reported that studies primarily used qualitative methods to explore agency in literacy contexts, utilizing case study design (n = 25) and ethnography (n = 6). In addition, across this review, findings indicated that researchers explored agency utilizing a variety of data collection tools including observations and interviews (e.g., Dagenais et al., 2006; Rogers & Wetzel, 2013), artifact designing tools, and digital composing tools (e.g., Garcia et al., 2015; Lamping, 2012). Highlighted in this review are findings helpful in locating student agency in literacy research and practice, including: • supportive literacy contexts that influenced opportunities for agency (Johnston et al., 2016, Dage­ nais et al., 2006) • targeted instructional practices (workshops, multimodality) and expanded agentic opportunities for students (flexible grouping structures; Hill, 2015; Klenk, 2017) sociocultural perspectives, which were the most utilized theoretical frameworks to explore agency in literacy contexts (e.g., Moore et al., 2006) In a recent review of agency and literacy and language arts studies across educational databases (i.e., ERIC and EBSCO) from 2018 to 2022, the topic of agency continued to indicate an area of 232

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interest in the field, with a continued growth (n = 257) of studies that focus on agency as a central component in language arts research in K-12 settings (Vaughn, 2022b). Across these studies is the trend of viewing agency theoretically within sociocultural perspectives and with an emphasis on examining the role of identity construction in relation to agency studies (e.g., Lee & Canagarajah, 2019; Linares, 2021). Promising research has begun to measure student agency from the perspectives of students. For example, Reeve and Tseng (2011) examined high school students’ perceptions of their agency, conceptualizing agency as agentic engagement or “students’ constructive contribution to the flow of instruction they receive” (p. 258). There were four questions in this agency-related instrument that focused on a view of agency as form of engagement. Examples of survey items included, “I  let my teacher know what I’m interested in” and “During class, I  ask questions” (p. 259). Similarly, Veiga and colleagues (2015) also explored agency through the lens of engage­ ment and found that students with high self-concept had higher levels of personal agency. They defined personal agency as “a proactive, agent of action, making suggestions, and expressing preferences” (p. 307). Additionally, Mameli and colleagues (2021) examined agency in adolescents across subject areas, with questions pertaining to how students understand their sense of agency in relation to school climate. Findings from across these studies highlight how agency can be measured to explore how adolescents understand their agency within school. However, to date, there are few psychometrically sound instruments that provide an up-close portrait of what elementary-aged students think in relation to their agency in literacy contexts. One instrument found to do this is the Student Agency Profile (StAP) (Vaughn et al., 2020b), which explores the dispositional, motivational, and positional dimen­ sions of agency to translate understandings of student agency from students’ perspectives to classroom instruction. Sample items from across these dimensions include: • • • •

I want to choose what I read in class. Writing is easy for me. I solve problems when I read by working at it. Students in my class offer ideas that my teacher uses.

The sum of individual scores within each dimension can be used to understand students’ perceptions of their agency in literacy contexts. Teachers and administrators can use the survey results to critically examine literacy opportunities from students’ perspectives. For example, Ms. Keason, a second-grade teacher who used the StAP noticed that her writing instruction lacked opportunities for students to flexibly engage with materials and resources. About one particular student, she said: Wow, I thought he didn’t like writing, but for him writing is something that he really doesn’t think he’s good at—and the same for reading. Interesting about how he thinks about his ideas and intentions, and it seems like he doesn’t think it’s OK for him to have his own ideas when it comes to reading and writing. (Vaughn et al., 2020b, p. 437) Ms. Keason’s reflection about her practice based on her evaluation of her instructional practices high­ lights the importance of critically reflecting on classroom experiences that may or may not afford spaces for agency. By carefully examining how students access materials and resources, for example, teachers can see whether or not they have the necessary supports conducive to supporting student agency. Undoubtedly, exploring ways to understand student agency from a variety of approaches can aid in creating more agentic spaces in the language arts curriculum. 233

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Conclusion Effective literacy educators support opportunities for student agency so students can develop as inde­ pendent learners, take the initiative to be in charge of their learning, and be positioned as knowledge­ able individuals whose experiences and lives are a critical and necessary dimension of the learning experience. Specifically, teachers can create student agency in the language arts classroom by including students’ interests, out-of-school lives, linguistic repertoires, and backgrounds into the curriculum; engaging students and teachers in understanding their roles in relation to their agency; providing flexible approaches, such as how teachers structure language arts activities, and incorporating flexible opportunities that support student collaboration and interest while maximizing literacy opportunities. Finally, when we think about constructing agentic opportunities in the language arts classroom, understanding what it sounds like, looks like, and feels like is essential. Listening to how teachers modify and create curricula to fit students’ individual linguistic, cultural, and instructional needs and how they support student agency can provide insight into ways to construct even greater opportunities for student agency. Similarly, listening to students’ ideas, understandings, and perceptions about what they are learning can provide valuable insights into how to construct agentic opportunities with and alongside students.

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12

IDENTITY SAFE SCHOOLS

Vincent Pompei and Becki Cohn-Vargas

Identity safe teaching is an evidence-based approach, deeply rooted in equity, where educators strive to ensure that each student feels that their social identity is an asset rather than a barrier to success in the classroom. In identity safe schools, students of all backgrounds and identities are welcomed, supported, and valued (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). Students enter classrooms with a range of social identities that stem from their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and the intersectionality of these and other aspects of their lived experiences and backgrounds. In identity safe schools, educators validate students’ backgrounds and lived experiences and cultivate diversity as a resource for learning. Identity safe teaching is evolving as we implement evidence-based strategies to support diverse stu­ dents in K-12 schools. Rather than a program with a defined set of steps, it is an approach with innu­ merable teacher practices. The Learning Policy Institute (n.d.) described key elements that contribute to student safety and belonging, saying: Directly addressing stereotype threats and creating identity safe, culturally affirming environ­ ments improve academic performance while also strengthening belonging and a growth mindset. Respect for students [is] coupled with instruction that builds upon students’ cultures, identities, and experiences alongside efforts to reduce implicit and explicit bias in the classroom and school as a whole; these practices include affirmations that establish the value of each student, cultivate diversity as a resource, and encourage asset-based celebrations of accomplishments. A growing number of educators have begun implementing identity safety at the classroom, school, and policy levels to make their schools into places where students feel safe to be themselves and respected as valuable members of the learning community.

Why Identity Safe Teaching Matters This section describes aspects of the school environment and society that have led to the need for identity safe teaching and identity safe schools. The section begins with Othering and Belonging and continues with the power of school climate and culture, the impact of systemic oppression and margin­ alization, and how the current political and social climate influence the need for identity safe teaching.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-14

Vincent Pompei and Becki Cohn-Vargas

Othering and Belonging To understand identity safe teaching, we begin by grasping the impact of othering, a phenomenon that not only affects children, but harms everyone. john powell (2016) (lower case intentional) and Ste­ phen Menendian describe “the problem of the 21st century as the problem of ‘othering’” (Powell and Menendian, 2016). Unfortunately, since 2016, hate and bias incidents have increasingly targeted Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, religious minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and individuals with disabilities, to name a few. This uptick in hate is exacerbated in the age of diversity bans, book censorship, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and the mainstreaming of white nationalism and white supremacy (Okeowo, 2016; Stern, 2022). As people across the globe grapple with othering and belonging, schools grow more diverse. Identity safe educators work to elevate students’ voices so that none feel ashamed or compelled to hide or ignore differences to fit in. They aim to equalize status and strengthen relationships, thus benefiting all students as they learn to get along, appreciate differences, and thrive in our diverse and global world. Well-meaning teachers often say that they “do not see race” and other differences and treat every­ one the “same.” This is impossible in a highly stratified world with unequal opportunities and unfair treatment of people who are not White, neurotypical, cisgender, or straight. Efforts to ignore notice­ able differences can backfire, leading to feelings of being “othered” even for young students. Many experience stereotype threat, the fear of confirming a negative stereotype that lowers academic perfor­ mance (C.M. Steele, 1995). Identity safe practices are an antidote to othering, mitigating the damage from “colorblind teaching.”

The Power of School Climate and Culture A positive school climate also bolsters identity safe practices by supporting each student’s ability to grow across all the developmental pathways—physical, psychological, cognitive, social, and emo­ tional—while reducing biological impediments to learning, such as stress and anxiety (Darling-Ham­ mond & Cook-Harvey, 2018). Similarly, the theory of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” reminds us that individuals, including students, require basic physiological and psychological needs to be met before reaching their full potential. Meeting the foundational components of the Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid (physiological needs, feelings of safety, belonging, and self-esteem) are essential before self-actualiza­ tion. Attention to the four domains and each component of identity safe schools allow educators to address the foundational needs of students theorized by Maslow, fostering a positive learning environ­ ment where students feel safe, connected, and have healthy self-value (Maslow, 1943). In identity safe schools, like most other schools, educators do not control who enrolls or what experiences or identities they will bring. However, they can determine how they respond to how students show up, including using empathic, affirming, and culturally responsive practices that account for each student’s identity and culture (Warren, 2018). Multicultural education researchers have agreed that empathy is foundational to culturally responsive teaching, especially for students of color or those with diverse family structures (Warren, 2015). Additionally, empathy is interlinked with what an edu­ cator knows or thinks about a student when responding to their individual needs or when preparing a classroom learning experience (Warren, 2018). For example, imagine a teacher reading a book to her 2nd-grade class to open a unit on families where the characters are a White mom and dad with two children living in a two-story home. Although well-intentioned, the teacher’s book selection does not include a variety of family structures, cultures, ethnicities, and housing accommodations, which could reinforce biases about what an ideal family should look like and how they should live. Students who are not White, have a different family structure, or whose socioeconomic status limits where they live may question the value of their identities and may feel the need to hide information about their families and circumstances. These thoughts and emotions create barriers to learning. 240

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A healthy school climate helps to remove barriers to learning. Over the last few decades, educators and scholars have become increasingly interested in school climate-related issues (Cohen & Espelage, 2020). School climate refers to “the quality and consistency of interpersonal interactions within the school com­ munity that influence children’s cognitive, social and psychological development” (Haynes et al., 1997, p. 322). Recently, the focus on school climate has expanded to incorporate issues related to safety, support, and engagement (Osher & Berg, 2017). Students’ feelings of safety and connectedness have been associated with multiple positive behavioral outcomes including academic achievement. Conversely, when students feel a lack of safety and connectedness, it can induce negative behaviors such as absenteeism, dropout, suspension, drug use, and aggressive or bullying-type behavior (Berkowitz et al., 2017). A strong sense of school and family connectedness also promotes positive mental health and reduces the risk for violence, suicide, substance use, and sexual risk during adolescence and well into adulthood (Steiner et al., 2019). In recent years, research trends on school climate indicate that many schools need to work harder to meet student needs. According to a national youth survey, in 2019, 19.5% of high school students had expe­ rienced bullying at school (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Additionally, more than one in three indicated they had experienced such persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness that they couldn’t participate in regular activities, a 40% increase since 2009. Even more concerning, in 2019, approximately one in six students reported making a suicide plan in the past year, a 44% increase since 2009. Data on marginalized student populations are more troubling. Over the past three years, The Tre­ vor Project identified an upward trend in suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ students. Their national survey in 2022 found that 45% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, up 5% since 2020. These rates were even higher for different races and ethnicities and transgender and nonbinary youth. For example, 55% of Native/Indigenous LGBTQ+ youth and 53% of transgender and non-binary youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. Students who found their school to be LGBTQ+ affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide, an important protective factor for schools to consider (The Trevor Project, 2022).

Systemic Oppression and Marginalization The marginalization of diverse student groups in K-12 education exists by design (Zacarian et  al., 2021). White supremacy, systemic racism, sexism, ableism, nativism, heterosexism, cisgenderism, and other systems of oppression remain strong forces in society and uphold the status quo of injustice in education. Creating identity safe schools counteracts systemic oppressive paradigms and supports students who do not belong to dominant social identities. These efforts also equalize status and help students from dominant backgrounds learn to respect and value people who are different from them. Identity safety combines with culturally responsive teaching, anti-bias curriculum, social and emo­ tional learning (SEL), trauma-informed practices, and efforts to examine policies and structures to ensure equitable educational outcomes for all students.

Influences Stemming from the Current Political and Social Climate When Dr. Martin Luther King said the iconic words, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” (King, 1963), he never intended to outlaw teaching about racism and America’s historical inequities. Dr. King aspired to a time when skin color did not matter, yet he recognized that by ignoring differences and censoring historical truths, that time would never occur. Critics of antiracist education who tout that quote neglect to look at Dr. King’s (1947) other words, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” 241

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Nearly 70  years after Brown v Board of Education (1954) sought to rectify separate and unequal schools, many educational systems and structures used today (intentionally or unintentionally) are essentially segregated, upholding privilege and power and preventing equitable student outcomes. Negative biases, stigma, and misinformation about individual differences persist, leaving certain stu­ dent groups feeling unsafe and disconnected from their learning environments. The current political and social climate has intensified the situation. Children and youth are listening when immigrants from our southern border are labeled as “rapists,” when COVID-19 is blamed on an entire ethnic group, and when people question if Black lives matter or make accusations that transgender children are a threat to others in bathrooms. These ideas and beliefs are planting dangerous ideas in the minds of impression­ able young people, negatively impacting the safety of students. Students parrot what they hear on the news, like shouting “build the wall” at high school football games (Vaifanua, 2017). Mounting evidence points to how bigotry has significantly damaged students’ well-being. Social media has intensified racist and other oppressive beliefs, further perpetuating stereotype threats and misinformation. Cyber racism and other forms of hate speech on social media have been shown to cause anxiety, depression, self-harm, and physical violence in students (Skilbred-Fjeld et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2020). For example, in a recent survey measuring educator perceptions on the effect of immigration poli­ cies in schools, 37% noticed an increase in bullying related to the perceived immigration status of a student or their parents/guardians over the last year (Gándara & Ee, 2018). Another self-reported survey study of Chinese American parents/guardians and a subsample of their children found that half (50.2%) of student survey participants reported experiences of COVID-19-related Asiaphobia (Charissa et al., 2020). In 2022, 35 states proposed or passed bills that negatively target transgender and non-binary students (tracktranslegislation.com, n.d.). These anti-LGBTQ+ laws invalidate students’ identities, jeopardize their health, and put them in increased danger. According to a national survey, 91% of transgender and nonbinary youth felt worried about transgender people being denied access to the bathroom due to state or local laws (The Trevor Project, 2022). Also, 31% of LGBTQ+ youth reported being physically threatened or harmed due to their sexual orientation and 37% reported similar threats because of their gender identity, with rates even higher for LGBTQ+ youth of color. These findings suggest that edu­ cators cannot ignore the rising tide of bigoted messages inundating students outside of the classroom if their goals include equitable access and opportunities. As educators evaluate school climate data and institute equitable practices to improve safety and con­ nectedness, it may be wise to anticipate and plan for pushback or resistance, especially in such polarizing times. For example, according to the Texas Tribune, a parent/guardian group complained to the school administration when a teacher displayed inclusivity posters in her virtual classroom. The images included a rainbow flag, a Black Lives Matter poster, and artwork in Spanish translated as “friend, your fight is my fight.” When the teacher refused requests by the school administration to remove the visual aids, they placed her on leave. Public support for the teacher ensued, including an online petition signed by over 40,000 individuals. The school’s student council released a unanimous public statement calling her suspension “unjust” and asking, “Why should a teacher be punished for creating a safe and inclusive environment?” As pressure mounted, the district invited the teacher to return to work, but she rejected the invitation until the district took steps to institute anti-racist policies (Fernández, 2020). It is essential to be transparent and engage in dialogue with parents/guardians or other stakeholders who feel uneasy about equity work or criticize efforts to promote a safe and inclusive school environ­ ment. We can explain that leveling the playing field is not a zero-sum game and that working to elevate groups of students who need additional support does not lower another group. We cannot resolve the inequities without understanding the issues and causes. When discussing systemic racism and the many forms of oppression students encounter, we do not blame individuals or point fingers. Instead, we seek to illuminate policies and practices to improve equitable outcomes and expand opportunities for students who have been marginalized. 242

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When discussing injustice with individuals uncomfortable with anti-oppression school practices, we focus on solutions involving everyone. Sharing troubling analyses of school climate-related data and research about what promotes or hinders learning and overall well-being may help appease con­ cerns. In addition, we can share the school’s anti-bullying policy and remind parents/guardians of the necessary efforts to prevent the harm caused by bullying. We aim to find common ground informing parents/guardians that all students, including their children, deserve to attend a safe, welcoming, and caring school where young people of many backgrounds and identities feel valued and respected.

Educator Identity Safety and Self-Reflection We invite readers to think about their own identity safety as we work to create it for our students. Each of us is made up of the intersections of many social identities. Some are similar to people around us, some match the dominant culture, and some are unique; yet others are stigmatized. Some parts of our identities are apparent, while others are invisible. Some we have from birth, like our skin color, while other parts of ourselves evolve and change over time. In addition, some identities we choose, such as being a teacher, dancer, soccer player, or parent/guardian. We encourage readers to continually reflect inward and out­ ward and make a lifelong commitment to examine their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. We also suggest staying abreast of changes in terminology and best practices to address inequities, particularly regarding race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Identity safety can become a lens with which to view and connect us to the world. This journey can be joyful and painful but promises to be deeply meaningful. Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” (Brown, 1984, p. 19). This powerful insight motivates identity safe educators to take on the challenge of disrupting the status quo of oppression, even when it might feel uncomfortable. Identity safe educators recognize that it is necessary to make an honest effort to examine attitudes that influence perceptions resulting in biased thoughts or decisions during instruction or while respond­ ing to student behavior (Glock & Kovacs, 2013). Implicit biases among educators have been linked to school pushout and the school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately affect Black students and students with disabilities (Morgan, 2021; USAFacts, 2021). Data from the Department of Education revealed that while only 15% of K-12 public school students are Black, they make up more than 30% of suspended, expelled, or arrested students. Additionally, students served under the Individuals with Dis­ abilities Act represented 13% of K-12 enrollment, yet accounted for more than 75% of all restraint cases (USAFacts, 2021). By working with colleagues, educators can expand their understanding of antiracism and other anti-oppressive practices to root out discrimination, stigma, biases, and stereotypes. As one tool to reduce biases, educational leaders can provide opportunities for staff to reflect on their own social identities along with an intent to recognize, accept and understand the myriad influ­ ences upon them (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). This also allows for a discussion about how staff with non-privileged social identities feel at work. For example, a Black educator may feel pressure to speak in a particular way or tone to optimize the comfort of White colleagues. A bisexual educator may feel the need to hide aspects of their life when they are romantically linked to someone of the same gender. When staff learn about the identities and experiences of their colleagues, it can translate into a more compassionate and caring school environment for staff and students (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2022). While we believe that most educators are well-intentioned, we can navigate the self-reflection pro­ cess, acknowledging that everyone operates in an inequitable society, making it a humbling experience, free of blame. It can be easier to identify explicit biases because they are conscious; however, according to Staats (2016), implicit biases influence individuals in unconscious ways. In education, the real-life implications of implicit biases can create invisible barriers to oppor­ tunity and achievement for some students—a stark contrast to the values and intentions of 243

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educators and administrators who dedicate their professional lives to their students’ success. (p. 33) When we confront the painful realities of racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression, we find ourselves navigating necessary yet challenging conversations. Inevitably, we encounter moments that will be difficult for some. One tool to help guide these crucial conversations among staff is to hire a skilled facilitator with expertise in anti-oppressive practices and establishing group norms. A few examples are using “I” statements and treating others as they would like to be treated. However, even with an expert facilitator and well-established norms, it is likely that emotions will run deep, and mistakes will be made. Prioritizing the comfort of some over action-oriented change efforts to overcome oppression per­ petuates the status quo and impedes equitable outcomes for students. If someone in the group feels discomfort or guilt, they can be guided to practice leaning into the emotions with curiosity and recognizing the potential for growth. Some group members may be called out for a microaggression or using an outdated or insensitive term. Although mistakes are likely when doing social justice-type work, calming defenses while acknowledging the difference between impact and intent can help move the meaningful dialogue forward. Educators can gain awareness of how our words or actions can harm others, despite a positive intent. These moments present opportunities to expand empathy and under­ standing of how privilege and oppression hurt our colleagues, students, and their families. Nurturing a growth mindset to cultivate new habits and opportunities to grow, learn, and practice can be helpful for educators on this critical journey (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021).

Identity Safe Teaching: History, Research, and Evolution The evolution of what we now call identity safe classrooms began in the 1990s when a team of social psychologists explored the effect of overt or covert cues and messages that devalue and stigmatize a group based on social identity (Steele et al., 2002). They initiated a series of stereotype threat studies whose results demonstrated that when a group is negatively stereotyped, individual performance diminishes for those in the stereotyped group even if they do not believe the stereotype to be true. Social psychologists repeated studies with students of color in K-12 and university settings and found that stereotype threat impeded the academic achievement of Black and Latinx students (Spencer et al., 2016). Researchers began seeking solutions to counteract the influence of stereotype threat. Claude Steele (2011) wrote, “if enough cues in a setting can lead members of a group to feel ‘identity safe’ it might neutralize the effect of other cues that could otherwise threaten them” (p. 147 para 3). He and his wife Dorothy believed schools should start early to inoculate children with messaging to validate student identities and shelter them from society’s prejudices (Markus et  al., 2000). They initiated the Stanford Integrated Schools Project (SISP) to examine ways to foster identity safety and reduce stereotype threat in K-5 schools.

The Stanford Integrated Schools Project (SISP): Purpose and Methodology The SISP researchers aimed to identify teacher actions leading to student identity safety and academic achievement. The research examined the relationship between three data sources: teacher behaviors, student identity safety, and achievement. The study collected data from 1,753 first-, third-, and fifthgrade students in a large urban California school district in the 2001–02 school year. The yearlong research included 84 classrooms that met the project’s criteria of having 15% of students from at least three ethnic groups. The researchers developed two instruments to gather data from teachers and students. The Classroom Observation Form contained over 200 items to document observable teacher behaviors, including academic and social interactions. Two trained observers who 244

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were not informed about identity safety visited each classroom three times over the year. The Student Questionnaire contained 75 items to measure the children’s sense of identity safety, autonomy, belong­ ing, their trust in teachers, the quality of peer relationships, and attachment to school. Researchers gave students the questionnaire in written form and read it to those with limited reading skills. At the end of the year, they collected achievement data from state standardized tests.

Results Researchers analyzed the student questionnaires after the study to determine how much or how little identity safety students perceived. They discovered that students with a higher sense of identity safety also reported a sense of belonging, autonomy, and motivation to do challenging work. In addition, these students liked school and felt more optimistic about their teachers. Test results indicated that students from all ethnic backgrounds in classrooms with higher identity safety had higher test scores. An analysis of observation forms yielded a pattern of teacher behaviors in higher identity safe classrooms. Researchers categorized the teacher actions into four domains: child-centered teaching, cultivating diversity as a resource, classroom relationships, and caring classroom environments. The domains incorporated 12 components that constitute identity safe teaching (see Figure 12.1). The SISP study revealed a robust predictive relationship between students’ classroom experiences, their sense of identity safety, and academic performance. Moreover, the results pointed to a promising pathway that other educators could replicate to improve educational outcomes.

1) Student-Centered Teaching

Listening for Student Voices

Teaching for Understanding

Focus on Cooperation

Classroom Autonomy

2) Cultivating Diversity as a Resource

Using Diversity as a Resource for Teaching

High Expectations and Academic Rigor

Challenging Curriculum

3) Classroom Relationships Teacher Warmth and Availability to Support Learning Positive Student Relationships 4) Caring Classrooms Environments

Teacher Skill

Emotional and Physical Comfort

Attention to Prosocial Development

Note: All domains and components will be further explained later in this chapter.

Figure 12.1 The Four Domains and Twelve Components of Identity Safe Teaching

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Translating the SISP Results into a Framework for Identity Safe Schools: A Personal

Perspective from Author Becki Cohn-Vargas

When Becki first learned about the research on identity safety, she found the concept and the SISP results very compelling and reached out to Dorothy Steele to learn more. She saw tre­ mendous potential to promote educational equity and address great disparities in opportunity and student achievement. After reviewing the SISP results, she made identity safety the focus of her doctoral dissertation, and Dorothy helped her design a qualitative study with a participatory action research team of elementary teachers. The team deeply explored every SISP component, then described and elaborated on them (Cohn-Vargas, 2007). Subsequently, they created a bank of promising identity safe practices and Becki and Dorothy co-authored Identity Safe Classrooms, Places to Belong and Learn (2013), focusing on elementary students. When they began presenting at conferences and giving workshops around the U.S., they found that an identity safe approach resonated with teachers at all grade levels of K-12. However, many secondary teachers requested they provide strategies to benefit students in grades 6–12. Sadly, Dorothy died in 2017, and Becki continued the work with Amy Epstein and Alexandrea Creer Kahn, two equity-focused high school administrators. They worked intensively with teachers to develop identity safety in sec­ ondary classrooms and published Identity Safe Classrooms Grades 6–12: Pathways to Belonging and Learning (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). As educators began implementing identity safe practices, the three co-authors recognized that equity could only flourish when schools align structures, policies, practices, climate, and attitudes. They needed to extend beyond the classroom to the school level to fulfill the Steeles’ original goal of creating affirming spaces free of stereotype threat and bias. It was not enough to foster belonging and eliminate biased behavior in the classroom: educators needed to ensure these values were embedded across various educational systems to ensure new practices became systemic and continuously rein­ forced to prevent the return of old habits. In 2022, Kathe Gogolewski, a teacher leader, joined Amy, Alexandrea, and Becki to develop a set of guiding principles for identity safety at the school level, which resulted in the publication of Belonging and Inclusion in Identity Safe Classrooms: A Guide for Edu­ cational Leaders, which explained: These principles can be seen as individual trees in the woods. With the principles in mind, edu­ cators can pull back to observe and manage the entire forest . . . to support the greater culture that permeates the entire system. (p. 12) The principles create a framework that connects the four SISP domains and 12 components, aligning them into an integrated whole (see Figure  12.2). “When all classrooms and the entire school engage in identity safe practices, the benefits are not simply extended from room to room but translate to exponential effects that resound across the campus” (Cohn-Vargas et  al., 2022, p. 175). The work of identity safety is continually evolving and growing. As we listen to more voices, we deepen our understanding of the complexities and nuances of identities. We constantly find additional strategies and professional development tools to bring it forward. The societal conditions, as discussed earlier, make this work ever more imperative in a changing educational landscape.

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Identity Safe Schools These principles serve to elaborate on and connect the four domains and 12 components to guide educators as they implement identity safety in their schools. 1. Colorblind teaching that ignores differences is a barrier to inclusion in the classroom. 2. To feel a sense of belonging and acceptance requires creating positive relationships between teacher and students and among students with equal status for different social identities. 3. Cultivating diversity as a resource for learning and expressing high expectations for students promotes learning, competence, and achievement. 4. Educators examine their own social identities to feel a sense of identity safety and convey that feeling to students, creating an identity safe environment for them. 5. Social and emotional safety is created by supporting students in defining their identities, refuting negative stereotypes, and countering stereotype threat, giving them a voice in the classroom while using social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies. 6. Student learning is enhanced in diverse classrooms by teaching for understanding, creating opportunities for inquiry and dialogue, and offering a challenging, rigorous curriculum. 7. Schoolwide equity flourishes for everyone in identity safe schools where the climate, structures, practices, and attitudes prioritize equity, inclusion, and academic growth for students from all backgrounds. Leaders demonstrate emotional intelligence; attend to student needs; address racism, bias, and privilege; and serve as the architects of ongoing change. (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2022)

Figure 12.2 Guiding Principles for Identity Safe Schools

Identity Safety Applied to English Language Arts ELA is not taught in a vacuum; it can be a path to belonging, fostering equity, reducing prejudice, and counteracting stereotypes. But unfortunately, it can also perpetuate biased attitudes and stereotypi­ cal portrayals of people. When educators work together to raise their awareness, review instructional material to eliminate biased representations, and carefully monitor what and how they communicate, literacy instruction becomes a powerful vehicle for identity safety. Educators can weave the seven guiding principles into a congruent approach, like a healthy ecosystem relies on the interdependence of natural systems to flourish. This section describes all four SISP domains and 12 components with insights, examples, and recommendations for K-12 ELA instruction.

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Domain One: Student-Centered Teaching In identity safe schools, Student-Centered Teaching includes the following components: • • • •

Listening for student voices to ensure that each student can contribute to and shape classroom life, Teaching for understanding, so students learn new knowledge and incorporate it into what they know, Focus on cooperation rather than competition, so each student learns from and helps others, and Classroom autonomy to promote responsibility and belonging in each student.

The goals of student-centered teaching resonate with the International Literacy Association (2012) mission, which promotes equitable access “to literacies among individuals of all ages and diverse com­ munities as a basic human right.” They advocate for students to be in charge of their learning and work cooperatively in activities that develop literacy skills while tackling authentic problems that have meaning in their lives. Therefore, ELA presents an excellent avenue to foster identity safety. Literacy activities offer mirrors for self-reflection and windows into others’ lives, with many options for under­ standing and expressing emerging identities verbally, in response to reading, and in writing. Students write about their backgrounds in family stories, personal essays, narratives, and creative nonfiction, enabling educators to discover their beliefs, feelings, apprehensions, and worldviews. Listening for Student Voices and Teaching for Understanding challenge educators to consider stu­ dents’ academic and emotional needs, learning and communication styles, cultural values, and unique interests. ELA materials are well-suited for identity safe teaching, with many cultural, racial, and LGBTQ+ voices from primary sources, stories, and literature that can be used to celebrate diverse people’s beauty, joy, resilience, and positive contributions. Through ELA activities, students also learn to critically analyze the influence of racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, and other forms of oppression they experience in their daily lives. This awareness extends from individual experiences of discrimination to systemic forms of oppression. Identity safe literacy strategies aim to maximize participation and equalize student status. Student motivation increases when they choose what to study and contribute to decisions about what they will be learning. Robin Alexander developed dialogic principles where students communicate ideas and alternative viewpoints on purposeful topics. Dialogue allows educators to “harness the power of talk to engage children, stimulate and extend their thinking, and advance their learning and understanding” (Alexander, 2004, p. 37). Structured conversations give each participant time to think and speak with­ out interruption, get positive feedback, and respond to clarifying questions. Students build on their own and their peers’ statements in an inquiry process, leading to greater understanding and higherlevel thinking. They learn to give their point of view while respectfully listening to other perspectives, developing empathy and compassion, and deepening connections to their peers. Confidence and competence grow when students sense what they think, how they feel, and what they have experienced matters. Identity safe educators use pedagogy that draws from how diverse cul­ tures interact and construct knowledge (Banks, 2016). For example, a teacher asking a student to look them in the eyes, a sign of respect or listening in Western society, can be considered rude or aggres­ sive in other cultures (Rabideaux & Cohn-Vargas, 2022). Erica Snowden writes that Black cultural styles are often misinterpreted as ADHD. She explains that energy and movement constitute learning style differences for some students and are not necessarily a problem that impedes learning. For these students, educators can intentionally structure the classroom to include flexible seating arrangements, integrate movement into academic lessons, and provide brain breaks (Snowden, 2017). Christopher Emdin (2016) recommends that educators visit local churches and community groups and meet people in the neighborhood to listen and learn about the students’ backgrounds.

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Inquiry and project-based learning can encompass ELA skills. These activities increase motivation for children with varied cultural and learning styles, offering many ways to gather, synthesize, and pre­ sent knowledge (e.g., storyboarding, interviewing, videos, comic books, podcasts, exhibits, and per­ formances). Visible thinking tools increase access and participation, allowing students, especially visual learners, to organize information graphically and enhance understanding with charts, mind maps, diagrams, outlines, and reflection guides (Project Zero, n.d.). For linguistically diverse students, sticky notes offer a simple tool for expressing their voice. They can write on a sticky note without worrying about spelling or grammar. Students can also vote with hand signals or use individual whiteboards to share ideas and opinions. Students on the autism spectrum may have challenges participating depending on the style or pace of the instruction, but educators can find ways to include them by learning about their unique com­ munication styles and what improves their comfort. When these students are anxious and unable to express themselves, their behaviors may be mistaken as anti-social. Instead, allowing students with limited speech to employ symbol tools like communication boards with pictures or gestured commu­ nication like sign language or augmentative and alternative communication technology can increase inclusion for this population of students (Kaweski, 2011). Identity safe educators are also aware of their student’s life circumstances. Students in one classroom may have different socio-economic and family backgrounds. When educators ask students to describe their summer vacation, a child whose family went nowhere might feel shame hearing another describe a trip to Hawaii. In another example, millions of children grow up without father figures, so activities related to Father’s Day, for example, may take extra planning time. One child may have two moms, while another may live with a grandmother or in foster care. Educators who know their students can plan carefully to avoid stigmatizing them based on their family situations. In addition, educators need to pay attention to the specific needs of LGBTQ+ students, as family rejection is the most significant indicator of suicidal tendencies, self-harm, and completed suicides by LGBTQ+ students (Ryan et al., 2010). An educator’s well-intentioned communication with a parent/guardian unaware of their child’s LGBTQ+ identity may inadvertently “out” them. For example, a teacher referred to a transgender student as “Dalia,” using their chosen name, dur­ ing a phone call home. Previously, Dalia had shared their identity with teachers and administrators and said that it was not safe to use their chosen name and affirmed pronouns around their family. Dalia said, “After that call, my parents were really angry . . . I didn’t feel safe in my own home,” adding, “I don’t think the teacher meant harm—she made a mistake. But one inadvertent mistake can have catastrophic consequences” (Valencia, 2022). Identity safe schools consider policies and practices that support a student’s social transition at school, including providing access to facilities that align with their gender identity, even when the child is not out to parents/guardians due to safety concerns. For example, schools can adopt a Gender Support Plan with protocols and pro­ fessional learning opportunities to set educators up for success when supporting a transgender or non-binary student. Focus on Cooperation refers to embedding the value of collaboration across the curriculum and school day. Identity safe educators are cognizant of cultural interpretations of independence and collab­ oration. For many ethnic groups (Asian, Black, Native American, Latinx, and Mediterranean cultures), values of interdependence are central. Students from these cultures tend to appreciate opportunities to collaborate rather than compete with peers. Paula Rabideaux, a Menominee educational leader, says that many Native American students may not like being put in a position where they appear to know more than other students (Rabideaux & Cohn-Vargas, 2022). In one example, her son refused to respond to a teacher’s question although he knew the answer because the boy sitting next to him didn’t know it. He explained that he did not want to appear boastful or embarrass his friend. Integrating

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cooperation and teamwork across the day allows students from interdependent backgrounds to feel more comfortable and included. Promoting Student Autonomy can work in concert with Focus on Cooperation as students strengthen their sense of agency while learning collaboration skills. ELA instruction increases autonomy through speaking, reading, and activities involving cooperation with an interchange of ideas and problem-solving activities. Autonomy skills help students learn to think critically and make wise decisions. For all students, cooperative learning and negotiation skills combined with tools to think for themselves prepare them for the future where these skills are paramount for suc­ cess in life. Educators can also work to help students, especially those with learning challenges, feel confi­ dent as learners by having them practice executive functioning skills through goal-setting, planning, implementing, evaluating, and improving their work in ELA activities and projects. These skills open doorways to developing agency, enhancing participation and engagement in the learning process. Additionally, how educators themselves give feedback and assess students can transform students’ selfperception, especially for those who previously felt stigmatized and insecure about their academic identity and confidence as learners. Educators can provide input on how to improve while indicating that they hold high standards. They can assure students that they have the potential to meet the stand­ ards and that they will support the students along the way (Cohen et al., 1999). Educators can also scrutinize assessments to ensure materials are appropriate and unbiased. Through student-centered teaching, children and youth experience being heard and making choices that contribute to their learning and classroom life. When they develop a sense of agency and feel valued as contributing members of the classroom in collaboration with peers, they become intrin­ sically motivated and willing to try harder to succeed (Deci & Ryan, 1996).

Using writing prompts where students share what matters to them, how they solve problems, and the values guiding them empowers and strengthens their autonomy Designing partner activities that allow students to quickly share opinions and check for understanding, and where partners work together to complete extended projects Teaching cooperative lessons that conclude by having students evaluate how they worked together. The groups can report academic and social learnings to the class, and the educator can chart tips for improved collaboration. Holding class meetings as venues for building community, sharing, brainstorming, and problem-solving where students learn and practice new skills Organizing debates and Socratic dialogues to help students discuss, analyze and synthesize ideas, present and listen to multiple perspectives, and learn to disagree respectfully

Figure 12.3 ELA Activities Supporting Student-Centered Teaching

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Domain Two: Cultivating Diversity as a Resource In identity safe schools, Cultivating Diversity as a Resource includes the following components: • Using diversity as a resource for teaching to include all students’ curiosity and knowledge in the classroom, • High expectations and academic rigor to support all students in higher-level learning, and • Challenging curriculum to motivate each student by providing meaningful, purposeful learning. To Cultivate Diversity as a Resource, identity safe educators center students’ experiences and unique social identities in all aspects of daily classroom life. When students see themselves and people who look like them in the lessons, literature choices, general instruction, and everyday classroom life, they feel a greater sense of safety, belonging, and self-worth. These identity safety cues signal to minority students that their identities are valued and respected (Maimon et al., 2023). When educators express high expectations and students feel that educators believe in their unique capacities to learn, contrib­ ute, and succeed, they become motivated to achieve (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Students’ lives, families, and communities provide the context for a rich and meaningful educa­ tional experience all year, rather than just during national heritage months or awareness days. The International Literacy Association Children’s Bill of Rights to Read states, “Children have the right to read texts that mirror their experiences and languages, provide windows into the lives of others, and open doors into our diverse world” (International Literacy Association, 2012). ELA incorporates Text-to-self when students connect reading to a personal feeling or experience; Text-to-text when they link thoughts and ideas to something they have read; and Text-to-World when they relate reading to a larger context, locally, nationally, or internationally (Facing History and Ourselves, n.d.). A challeng­ ing language arts curriculum begins with offering multiple perspectives from the cultures and identities of the world beyond. Educators who draw on cultural capital integrate student identities in content, pedagogy, and val­ ues. Tara Yosso (2005) described students’ cultural wealth as language, rituals, and family traditions, and resistance, community activism, and work for social justice. She contrasted cultural wealth with deficit thinking that devalues a student’s background and treats it as something to overcome. Educators can match their pedagogy to students’ cultural ways of being. For example, many Native American students are more comfortable in a less rushed environment. They feel more included when educators use a longer wait time to allow students to think and formulate their responses (Rabideaux & CohnVargas, 2022). However, diversity efforts can backfire when educators treat students as “exotic others.” We can monitor our assumptions or preconceived notions about a student’s background. Gutiérrez and Rogoff (2003) described “repertoires of practice” as an approach to diversity that avoids stereotyping because “variations reside not as traits of individuals or collections of individuals, but as proclivities of peo­ ple with . . . histories of engagement with specific cultural activities” (p. 1). Gutierrez and Rogoff remind us that each student’s family has different ways they enact the traditions and values of their culture. They propose that educators encourage students to share personal experiences and practices about their families rather than ascribing traits to their cultures. For example, educators can take note that some families of Latinx, Black, Indigenous, Asian, or Pacific Islander students have lived in the school community for generations while others are recent immigrants. In addition, families may have mixed heritages, or students or their parents/guardians may have multiple intersections, like Black and LGBTQ+ identities. Educators will be less likely to make assumptions and replicate stereotypes using this approach. Also, it frees them from needing to be an expert on every ethnic group and social identity.

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Identity safe educators also consider the trauma caused by systemic racism and other forms of bigotry. Kenneth Hardy (2013) highlighted what he refers to as three “hidden wounds” that students of color cannot escape simply by living in an unjust society: 1. Students feel internalized devaluation as they absorb messages that they are disrespected and characterized as criminals. 2. Students repeatedly experience an “assaulted sense of self” as they witness attitudes, media images, and personally experience slurs that demean them. 3. Internalized voicelessness occurs when they feel powerless to defend themselves from the onslaught of negative attitudes. When identity safe educators recognize these forms of trauma and the hidden and not-so-hidden wounds, they can provide a space for students to talk about their worries or fears. By naming the emotions and identifying their sources, students can learn to re-channel frustration and rage into constructive actions to make positive change. LGBTQ+ students are similarly traumatized by being bullied, witnessing negative societal attitudes on television, or hearing unsupportive family beliefs at their own dinner tables. Instruction and materials that challenge heteronormativity, the gender binary, and gender norms help students resist negative biases about different sexual orientations, gender identities, or gender expressions. These experiences allow LGBTQ+ and gender-expansive students (those who express their gender in unique ways) to be their authentic selves. Like negative attitudes about race and religion, students are often not aware of their biases to conform to traditional gender roles, such as adopting traditional masculinity behaviors to fit in and the tendency to harass peers that do not conform. This form of harassment commonly consists of homophobic bullying (Espelage et al., 2019). Without safety cues in the classroom environment that reflect each student’s interests, uniqueness, and lived experiences, those who are most vulnerable can become invisible (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Integrating anti-bias content and discussion proactively in the classroom helps educators respond immediately, making it a “teachable moment” rather than just saying one or two words and dismissing the subject. Educators can reflect on prior anti-bias lessons to help students connect with values of respect and kindness. They are careful not to humiliate or shame any of the students. Educators must avoid overly focusing on discrimination and marginalization when cultivating diversity as a resource. We can highlight diversity’s richness with the Harlem Renaissance literature, Afro-Caribbean music, and positive images from Pride events. The Queer Joy Project (n.d.) highlights the happiness and serenity of people living at the margins as a form of resistance for LGBTQ+ people and allies as we collectively pursue the kind of world we are trying to create. These and other examples of life’s beauty, art, dance, resilience, and the indomitable human spirit by people around the world uplift all students. In the SISP research, the power of High Expectations and Academic Rigor emerged as a significant component when cultivating diversity as a resource. Decades of research demonstrate that teacher expectations positively or negatively influence learning. Numerous studies have documented the effects of low expectations for multilingual, low-income, and students of color (August  & Hakuta, 1997; Good, 1987). Christopher Emdin (2016, para. 7) stated that “teachers who hold within themselves perceptions of the inadequacy of students will never be able to teach them to be something greater than what they are. Teachers cannot teach someone they do not believe in.” When low expectations persist, students of color internalize self-defeating feelings of inferiority (Dusek & Joseph, 1983; Rong, 1996). However, when educators regularly communicate high expectations, this pattern reverses. In a study on the influence of teacher expectations, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) told teachers that they had given a test that identified particular students as “late bloomers” who would eventually do well in school. The truth was that these students were randomly selected. In subsequent years, data indicated that these “late bloomers” performed better than their peers because their teachers had given them more attention and support. 252

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Researchers have identified promising practices for expressing high expectations. For example, educators can convey positive presuppositions and communicate an assumption that a student is capa­ ble and competent (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). Rather than saying “check your work, or it will be full of mistakes,” an educator can say, “what do you notice when you check your work? Can you find anything you would like to change or revise?” This language assumes a student will be checking their work and can notice areas for improvement. Educators can monitor the words they speak to individuals and groups to demonstrate their belief that every student can grow and achieve. A Challenging Curriculum in an identity safe classroom includes four aspects that combine to moti­ vate, engage, and empower students. First, by creating an air of intellectual excitement, educators stimu­ late students’ minds and pique their curiosity. They ask students to share what matters in their lives and find curricular links that relate to their world. Second, educators create a space for thinking so that each child can participate in discussions without feeling rushed, criticized, or judged. Third, by providing an appropriate level of challenge, each student can draw from prior knowledge and build on it at a pace that helps them experience increasing success. Finally, educators differentiate instruction to meet the vary­ ing needs of students with different learning styles and academic levels (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). Students rise to the occasion and exert effort to succeed when educators highlight diversity as a resource for learning because they know in their hearts that their educators sincerely believe in them. When curriculum and general instruction captivate students’ minds and are differentiated for their academic level while empowering them to speak without fear of being judged, their school experience transforms, and they blossom. Incorporating critical thinking and higher order thinking activities in all subject areas and at all academic and grade levels. Differentiating instruction through content (varied reading levels), process (activities with various procedures that allow students at all academic levels to engage), and product (a variety of ways to demonstrate learning). Educators intentionally differentiate instruction in ways to avoid stigmatizing students. Using and practicing brainstorming in activities, challenging students to solve problems and generate creative thinking by asking students to look at things in a new way. Everyone is invited to suggest out-of-the-box ideas without feeling judged. Refuting stereotypes by immediately responding to microaggressions, hurtful language, and stereotypes with a meaningful teachable moment. Educators can include anti-bias lessons that teach the harm of stereotyping, teasing, and bullying. Teaching the truth about history using counter-narratives, primary sources, and literature to expand understanding of the past from multiple perspectives beyond the dominant narrative in most textbooks.

Figure 12.4 Examples of ELA Activities to Support Cultivating Diversity as a Resource

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Domain Three: Classroom Relationships In identity safe schools, Classroom Relationships include the following components: • Teacher Warmth and Availability to Support Learning: to build trusting, encouraging relationships with each student; and • Positive Student Relationships: to build interpersonal understanding and caring among students. An identity safe classroom promotes warm, trusting, and encouraging relationships between the teacher and students and interpersonal understanding and respect among students (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). We believe the components apply to teachers and all adults who engage with students (e.g., aides, yard supervisors, cafeteria staff, school counselors, and administrators). When educators convey an asset-based approach focusing on individual strengths and treating diverse thoughts, cultures, and traits as positive assets, students absorb appreciation for their own identities and the identities of their peers. Developing Classroom Relationships based on positive interactions fosters a caring and safe learning environment. Educators are often unaware of their inadvertent verbal and non-verbal cues that convey various biases to students. According to research from the University of Washington, even preschool-aged students learn and absorb bias when teachers use condescending tones, disapproving looks, or dif­ ferent discipline tactics with certain students. The same research found that these learned biases extended beyond individuals to members of a group they are associated with (Skinner et al., 2017). For example, an educator who asks linguistically diverse students only to speak English during class sends the message that languages other than English are inferior, perpetuating stereotype threat and shame. Positive relationships thrive between educators and students when they are based on a foundation of trust (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Building meaningful trust takes time, intention, and an acknowl­ edgment of what motivated mistrust in the first place. The long history of oppressive practices, unequal conditions, and forced assimilation leaves students to mistrust the education system and those who work in schools. For example, Native American and Indigenous students have many reasons to distrust schools after the government forced generations of their families into boarding schools up until 1969. An investigation by the U.S. Department of the Interior found that children were forcibly removed from their families, compelled to change their names, reprimanded for speaking their native language, and brutally punished. The remains of over 500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawai­ ian children were uncovered, with more expected to be found (Pendharkar, 2022). These legacies are augmented by continued negative stereotyping and unfair treatment in school, leading many marginal­ ized students to conclude that education will not serve them (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). Therefore, we need to make an extra effort to build trust with these students and their families by communicating genuine concern, listening, showing respect for their ways of being, and living up to our promises (Rabideaux & Cohn-Vargas, 2022). Teacher Warmth and Availability to Support Learning occurs when educators show sincere concern and care for each student, connecting with them and acknowledging their efforts and accomplishments (Cohn-Vargas  & Steele, 2016). This approach is a strong contrast to classrooms where students are criticized or shamed for arriving late to school, making errors on an assignment, or not completing homework. For example, an educator who has gotten to know their students and has genuinely con­ nected with them might be aware that the reason a student tends to arrive late on Tuesdays is because of the unpredictable work schedule of his primary caregiver. Rather than showing discontent for the tardiness, they could have the assignment ready on the student’s desk with a sticky note that reads, “I’m happy you are here. Please underline all adjectives in the passage and respond to questions 1–5 using complete 254

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sentences. I’ll be around to check in with you in a moment.” Also, to address persistent tardiness, they might reach out to the parent/guardian with possible services the school or community could provide, as opposed to shaming the student, which does not promote teacher warmth or availability to support desired outcomes for learning. As students begin to feel seen and safe to be their authentic selves without judgment, the quality of relationships and level of trust strengthens. Students begin to understand that they can count on their teacher to care when they experience unique challenges related to their academic, safety, or social needs. “The most important quality is the teacher’s ability to make each child feel equally cared for and believed in whether they are having a difficulty academically or socially.” (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). To broaden the perception that everyone can make meaningful intellectual contributions, educators can offer students, particularly students who are neurodivergent, a variety of options to demonstrate learning. They can find ways to elevate each student’s unique qualities, cultures, and interests while modeling the value of diversity in the learning environment. For instance, a student exhibiting joy when they talk about their love for cooking pupusas with their grandmother on weekends could be invited to share with classmates their favorite family recipe and the most important steps to ensure the meal turns out just right. Setting high standards on how students treat each other is as crucial as high expectations for academic achievement (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). Time invested in helping students get to know one another and build empathy benefits schools in multiple ways, especially for students who have been victimized or feel left out. It increases engagement, improves a sense of safety and belong­ ing, and reduces the number and intensity of conflicts that can negatively influence relationships or disrupt classroom instruction. In a longitudinal study, researchers followed adolescents into adulthood and documented that youth with positive social relationships experience higher levels of well-being (Olsson et al., 2012). They also found that positive social connectedness was more predictive of future well-being than academic achievement. Promoting positive relationships is paramount in creating a sense of belonging that supports student well-being and overall success in school. Educators can cultivate Positive Student Relationships both in and outside the classroom. Through­ out the year, ELA teachers can create intergroup interactions and model positive values that help students learn how to treat one another (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Students practice using com­ munication tools to help them navigate disagreements and resolve conflicts, while the teacher inter­ venes when needed to assure that no child is mistreated, bullied, or left out. Positive reinforcement strategies for pro-social behavior and connecting to previous classroom lessons on respect and belong­ ing nurture constructive student interactions. Suppose a diverse group of students is playing a game during recess, and one group accuses another of cheating. Before the teacher intervenes, they observe how students handle the situation independently. In an identity safe school, students often have the initial skills necessary to troubleshoot scenarios like this with little to no intervention. When they do, educators can praise students using specific examples of the respectful ways they treated one another while successfully addressing the conflict. As identity safe schools build positive relationships, they simultaneously address various biases about difference, helping to equalize status and relay how diversity is an asset to learning. Working to elimi­ nate negative biases will never be a finished task; however, when we work proactively to dismantle them, students begin to interrogate their feelings and opinions of themselves and others. Additionally, students begin to believe that their teachers and classmates will help them if they experience bullying or violence. According to Dr. Chatters-Smith, Assistant Professor of Counselor Education at Pennsylva­ nia State University, educators don’t always believe student reports of bias-based bullying and 255

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discrimination, leading to their silence (Phillips, 2018). Chatters-Smith asserted that what some­ times hurts students more than bullying is when their classmates watch without intervening. As identity safe educators build trust with students, discussions about bullying and bystander behavior are critically important concepts and behaviors for students to understand, especially when there are no adults around. Vincent remembers informing his 2nd-grade teacher that a few classmates were calling him a girl and saying that he was gay. He remembers the teacher’s well-intentioned but harmful response: “Tell them how that made you feel.” He took the teacher’s advice, which led to more ammuni­ tion for bullying treatment. He learned in that incident that he couldn’t trust the teacher to help him when he felt unsafe and began to internalize the biased and homophobic comments of his peers. He never reported another bullying incident, even as the behavior became increasingly violent. Educators can help students understand what to do if they experience or witness bullying. They can inform students of multiple ways to report bullying, explain how the school will respond, and offer tools to encourage allyship and upstander behavior. As part of these efforts, an ELA teacher might have students research upstander role models across history (e.g., Harriet Tubman rescued and led enslaved Black people to freedom, Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farmworkers Association to protect the human rights of farmworkers, and Oskar Schindler saved Jews from the Nazis). These activities followed by class discussions can allow students to analyze the power of and compile a list of upstander behaviors found in their research (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). The teacher might even allow time for students to practice upstander behaviors using scenarios while reinforcing their skills. Unequal status continues to impact students of color and the intersectional oppression compounded by immigration status, social class, family structure, disability, religion, gender identity, and others (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). Utilizing an intersectional and multicultural approach to equalize status is an integral and ongoing component of identity safety. For example, educators can ask themselves if students with multiple marginalized identities can see their full selves reflected on the walls, in les­ sons, and school-wide activities. Educators can analyze if references to Black or Latinx people in the classroom tend to be cisgender or if references to LGBTQ+ individuals only include mentioning those who are gay and White. Educators benefit from continually critiquing their efforts to foster equitable treatment for all. Identity safe educators build positive relationships with students and among students. They use an approach that considers students’ lives before and beyond their high school graduation so that each will feel safe, have equal access, and be well-equipped to succeed in the global, diverse world.

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Identity Safe Schools Employing LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive practices, including embracing all family structures, using gender-inclusive language, and interrupting gender role stereotypes Educating students about intersectionality and the nuances of oppression faced by people with more than one marginalized identity. These discussions also recognize the beauty and joy of having multiple social identities and the rich diversity in themselves and others. Assigning activities for students to recognize upstander behavior, such as having students analyze and reflect on scenarios where upstander actions are needed Creating writing assignments, group discussions, and role-playing activities where students identify negative biases in their favorite books, television shows, or marketing campaigns and have students determine how biases can negatively impact individuals and the world Designing journal writing prompts that allow students to reflect on positive relationships they have with themselves and others and what approaches might help improve those relationships

Figure 12.5 Examples of ELA Activities to Support Classroom Relationships

Domain Four: Caring Classroom Environments In identity-safe schools, Caring Classroom Environments include the following components: • Teacher Skill: to establish an orderly, purposeful classroom that facilitates student learning; • Emotional and Physical Comfort: to ensure each student feels safe and attached to school and to other students; • Attention to Prosocial Development: to teach students how to collaborate, solve problems, and show respect and care for others. A Caring Classroom Environment is the medium for bringing the key elements of identity safe school practices together, integrating them into an intentional climate that fosters identity safety (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). In these environments, social skills are taught and practiced to help students care for one another in an emotional and physically safe space. The practices in this component mani­ fest when educators express pro-social values in a calm, well-ordered, and asset-based environment and students are on task, actively engaged, involved, and excited about class activities. In identity safety, Teacher Skill promotes a structured classroom with smooth transitions where students contribute to discussions and activities (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Similar to setting high expectations for student learning, educators set high expectations for behavior (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). During the first week of class, the teacher can guide students to develop positive behavioral expectations rather than establishing rules that tend to inform students of what to avoid. Once all 257

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students agree to the expectations, they can be displayed on the wall and reinforced when needed. Students become more engaged when they have agency and confidence in a flexible and instructive environment rather than a strictly controlled one (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Teachers can also get student input on developing a set of consistent and predictable routines that bring the values of the classroom to life. Routines help students know what to do once they take their seats and how to rotate desks for group work. Research has found that classroom structure positively correlates with student behavior and cognitive and emotional engagement (Hospel & Galand, 2016). When students make mistakes, they are viewed as learning opportunities rather than moments of humiliation. Educator responses to minor or severe conflicts utilize restorative practices where students learn to be accountable for their actions and seek to repair harm (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). Practices like restorative justice are essential, as zero tolerance policies have contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline and school pushout, which have disproportionately impacted students of color, students with disabilities, and students who are LGBTQ+ (American Bar Association, 2022). The beginning of the year may require more teacher invest­ ment to nurture, model, and guide students using positive reinforcement. Still, building the interpersonal skills necessary for a caring and productive learning environment and taking time to create an affirming classroom early on will pay off with less time spent later to manage conflicts and class disruptions. When teachers know their students and thoughtfully prepare lessons, they can prevent behaviors that may interfere with learning and harm relationships. For example, when I (Vincent) was a middle school English teacher, I knew that a particular student often became disengaged and sometimes dis­ ruptive during independent writing time. I also knew the student had a passionate fondness for soccer. During a compare and contrast writing lesson, I brought in an overview of statistics and facts about two particular soccer players I overheard him talking about a few weeks prior. Although I reinforced that all students have the power to select the topic, I shared a few personal observations from the statistics in hopes it would inspire ideas. Within minutes, the student was engaged in the writing process with excitement on his face. Strategies like this can help with classroom management and help teachers build a stronger rapport with students while facilitating a caring and productive learning environment. Emotional and Physical Comfort flourish in a climate where each student feels safe and connected to the learning environment and to each other (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). In these environments, edu­ cators radiate a warm, friendly, and pleasant demeanor, and their unique traits and personality come to life, strengthening connections (e.g., lighthearted humor, music selections, dramatic storytelling, and a cozy reading area). When students know they are in a safe environment, they can alleviate fears, giving their brains more bandwidth to learn. The classroom setup and layout can also create a homelike, organized, and welcoming feeling (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). As teachers consider where to place student desks to maximize learning time, it would be helpful to envision the flow as students enter and exit the classroom and transition between independent and group work. Planning the physical layout of the furniture can also help the teacher quickly move about and monitor student engagement and understanding. The location of supplies such as writing utensils, staplers, and trash bins can promote an orderly environment while minimizing potential distractions. Identity safe educators thoughtfully choose visual cues for the walls and book selections for display that include positive representations of student identities and beyond. They might even discuss the intent behind selecting the visuals or pieces of literature to encourage interest, strengthen rapport, and build historical background. Lastly, teachers encourage emotional and physical safety when they use inclusive language that respects all genders and sexual orientations. Regardless of the teacher’s gender identity, sharing their pronouns when introducing themselves and adding them to their email signature models inclusivity and helps normalize pronoun-sharing. These approaches can be particularly ben­ eficial for students with non-dominant social identities, and they holistically promote emotional and physical comfort for all students. 258

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By mixing up the pacing of lessons and incorporating a range of modalities, teachers can take advan­ tage of information gleaned from neuroscience (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). Adding elements of liveliness and enthusiasm into the classroom draws out students who are active learners and benefit from move­ ment or humor. In addition to the lesson flow, teachers can vary the auditory experience for students. For example, there may be moments where students are encouraged to be louder during fast-paced games while other learning moments are quieter. For smoother transitions between teaching modali­ ties and varying noise levels, teachers can offer students the option of standing at their desks instead of sitting or facilitating calming mindfulness activities before moving to the next lesson. Although these practices can promote student engagement and retention, educators also consider the unique needs of students with disabilities in the room. For example, some students with autism or sensory sensitivity may become anxious when there is too much noise or movement. When teachers know their students, they can create adaptations to accommodate the individualized needs of everyone in the class. Attention to Prosocial Development is the last evidence-based identity safety component. Its pur­ pose is to have educators develop students’ problem-solving skills and teach them how to treat each other with kindness and respect across their differences (Cohn Vargas et al., 2020). Just as students need to learn to read and write, they need guidance and opportunities to practice responsibility, empathy, and self-regulation. ELA teachers can build prosocial skills during academic and non-academic dis­ cussions throughout the day and encourage students to reflect on their interactions (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Educators understand students’ social skills are continuously developing, so adequate modeling, patience, and positive reinforcement are helpful strategies to keep in mind. ELA teachers can reflect on their inner dialogue while envisioning the prosocial behaviors they seek in the classroom. For example, they can consider the cultural differences that may influence student behaviors as they prepare to develop a caring classroom environment (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). In identity safe schools, social and emotional learning (SEL) skills are taught, practiced, and constructed on a foundation of equity while considering each student’s background, interests, and lived experiences. It is essential to recognize that formidable challenges such as poverty or trauma may influence student behaviors and create barriers to their learning. For example, if a student is worried about the deportation of their parents/guardians, encountering a racially biased police officer on their walk home, or being rejected by family for being LGBTQ+, they may be disengaged or restless, negatively impacting behav­ ior and social interactions. By using SEL approaches and trauma-informed practices, educators can level the playing field and mitigate practices that impair learning and damage the classroom environment. Class discussion on how strong emotions can influence (positively or negatively) how individuals respond to challenging situations can strengthen interpersonal skills, self-reflection, and empathy. For example, a student who takes an aggressive tone when angry or agitated can learn techniques to help calm themselves before they respond or lash out. While these skills support positive student relation­ ships and a caring classroom environment, students often find these strategies beneficial in their fam­ ily relationships. Inviting students to practice these techniques outside the classroom and report back could help reinforce their usefulness. When teachers embrace sharing emotional regulation techniques instead of punitive behavior management strategies, they help prevent repeated interruptions, and students learn lifelong skills. (Hoffman et al., 2020). Schools can also leverage national awareness campaigns to build self-value, compassion, and intercul­ tural understanding with students (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). There are numerous opportunities to rec­ ognize and participate in awareness activities throughout the year, including Mix It Up Day, Juneteenth, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Day of Silence, Mental Health Awareness Day, World Hijab Day, Black Lives Matter Week, Bullying Prevention Month, No Name Calling Week, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Human Rights Day, and National Coming Out Day. Working with students to organize activities and create events that are part of national campaigns like these contributes to prosocial development and opens hearts and minds. Students feel pride in their backgrounds when they see themselves and their 259

Vincent Pompei and Becki Cohn-Vargas Guiding students in developing behavioral expectations that include their recommendations on how they want to be reminded or nudged by the teacher or others when they are not being respected. The class periodically reviews how they are living up to the expectations. Introducing students to a variety of literature where main characters represent the broad diversity of the world. Additionally, allowing for meaningful discussion time for students to learn about diverse authors, especially those from non-dominate social identities. Presenting an array of calming techniques to practice when students experience strong or uncomfortable emotions, with several opportunities for students to reflect on their usefulness Sharing pronouns with the class, and welcoming students to share their own pronouns if they choose to do so Organizing a writing lesson or assigning reading connected to national awareness campaigns and providing opportunities for students to reflect once the campaign is over

Figure 12.6 Examples of ELA Activities to Support Caring Classroom Environments

identities celebrated by the entire school community and nationally. It builds connections students have with their own social identities and others from different customs, religions, and experiences. More importantly, it addresses negative biases and improves students’ sense of safety and belonging at school.

Conclusion Creating identity safe schools for every student takes deep commitment, constant vigilance, and thoughtful reflection (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). While many components discussed in this chapter may not be new to educators, their combined influence will profoundly impact the educational experience of all students (Cohn-Vargas & Steele, 2016). Once teachers recognize the full power of these collective components, they can build upon and fine-tune their skills, ensuring no student falls through the cracks or is forgotten. Identity safe educators are contributing to one of the most meaningful of life’s purposes—being part of a profession that leads toward a more accepting, inclusive, and social justice-oriented world (Cohn-Vargas et al., 2021). These endeavors will be challenging at times but also extremely rewarding. We wish you joy in this lifelong journey as you cultivate identity safety for your colleagues, your students, and their families.

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SECTION III

Influences on Learning the Language Arts

13

ROLES OF MOTIVATION AND

ENGAGEMENT IN TEACHING THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

John T. Guthrie and Allan Wigfield

A Brief History of Research into Reading Motivation As we begin this chapter on the contributions of motivation to teaching English Language Arts, we provide a brief glimpse of the beginning stages of professional thinking about motivation in literacy. In providing this preview, we are indebted to William S. Gray, the first president of the International Literacy Association. He composed a literature review published in the Encyclopedia of Educational Research, containing all the reading studies relevant to education from 1881 to 1941 (Gray, 1941). In this retrospective, Gray (1941) noted that in the Greek and Roman cultures, reading consisted of training for citizenship and philosophical contemplation. He further noted that “the religious motive for reading attained great prominence in the Middle Ages as children and adults were prepared for service in the church” (p. 7). In the American colonial days, reading was likewise dictated largely by “religious motives.” By 1776, reading became an instrument of the state as well as the church in their attempt to promote solidarity and unity. In these historical times, the motivations of institutions and leaders rather than the motivations of individuals were given priority. In the 20th century, scholars such as Waples and Tyler at the University of Chicago became inter­ ested in the use of print during the Great Depression (Waples & Tyler, 1931). In those times, print was used to follow the news, to find evidence, to experience thrills, and improve vocational competence. Waples and Tyler also compared the amount of time devoted reading from 1880 to 1920. Based on library circulation figures, reading grew five times faster than the size of the general population, show­ ing a widespread increased participation in literacy activity. In that era, young children’s reading was tracked according to books they preferred, which included animal stories, nature stories of the fanciful type, and simpler fairy tales for primary students. For children ages 8 to 10, stories of realistic nature, home and school life, and other adventures were increasingly popular. Reading interests of older students included hobbies, how to make things, and mysteries. Teachers actively promoted these reading interests in school. According to a 1920 survey of 715 teachers in a large city, the leading goal of teaching was helping children appreciate good lit­ erature. Although motivations for reading among adults in the early 20th century basically consisted of governmental or religious purposes, teachers at that time prioritized the aim of nurturing students toward enjoying literature (Gray, 1941).

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Personal Motivations for Reading Moving beyond institutional purposes for reading, Gray (1941) made the conceptual breakthrough to consider the role of personal motivations in people’s reading. He believed it would be fruitful to identify the purposes people had for reading. From the outset, Gray and Rogers (1956) conceptualized purpose for reading as “motivation which causes a person to a do a particular piece of reading” (p. 90). This definition is nearly identical to the currently accepted psychological view. Gray and Rogers (1956) conducted interviews with 38 adults from a wide range of income and occupational sources. Their interviews were designed to explore: (a) interest in reading including enthusiasm for reading, amount of time spent, breadth and depth of interest; (b) purposes for reading consisting of a variety of purposes, including value of purpose and awareness of purpose; (c) recognition and construction of meaning; (d) relation and use of ideas apprehended, and (e) kinds of materials read. They explicitly included cognitive, motivational, and textual aspects of reading. Individuals in the study reported a variety of purposes, including: (a) ritual or force of habit; (b) a sense of duty; (c) to kill time; (d) to know and understand current happenings; (e) for immediate personal satisfaction; (f) to meet practical demands of daily living; (g) to further avocational interests; (h) to promote professional interests; (i) to meet social demands; (j) to meet civic needs; (k) for extension of cultural background; (l) to satisfy intellectual demands; and (m) to satisfy spiritual needs. Gray and Rogers’ (1956) major conclusion was that the mature reader possesses a “focus of interest to which much of his reading relates and which serves as an inner drive or motivating force” (p. 236). They also reported that the amount of time individuals read did not relate to diversity of purposes, and social participation was a vital factor in contributing to mature readers. It should be noted that the term ‘mature readers’ referred to individuals who had relatively high rating on the five aspects explored in the reading survey. It must be admitted that while their work was provocative, Gray and Rogers’ (1956) findings on purposes and motivations for reading did not stimulate similar research. On the contrary, from 1953 to 1970, psychology and education were dominated by behavioral psychology, which focused on how rewards and punishments influenced people’s actions, which we will see is an important but limited view of motivation. In the 1970s, psychology was dominated by the cognitive revolution, which led researchers studying reading to focus on decoding and comprehension skills, with little focus on motivations for reading. During the cognitive era, researchers did examine the connection between being exposed to numerous reading materials and the development of reading comprehension skills; we briefly discuss that work next.

Importance of Exposure to Print In the 1970s, researchers became interested in the amount and variety of materials that students were reading. An early signal of this topic was the notion and the measurement of print exposure. Stanovich and his colleagues wrote questionnaires to measure the amount and variety of materials students were reading by having them identify authors of fiction (Stanovich & West, 1989). Students were given lists of names and asked to identify which were and which were not authors of fictional books. The number of correctly identified authors strongly predicted substantial cognitive outcomes. For example, highscoring undergraduate students showed high levels of vocabulary, knowledge of the world, spelling ability, and verbal fluency. Furthermore, print exposure correlated with these outcomes even when general mental ability and reading comprehension skills were statistically controlled. (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1992). The study authors concluded that reading had direct benefits for college and high school students. Anderson et al. (1988) studied the reading habits of children in painstaking detail through in-depth reading logs. They reported that children’s reading growth was positively correlated to the amount of 268

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time spent out of school reading books (.39), going out (.31), practicing lessons (.29), doing homework (.14), and reading comics (.10), and negatively correlated to watching television (-.12). For book read­ ing, children in the top fifth percentile read 15 minutes per day, whereas children in the bottom fifth read less than one minute per day, essentially being nonreaders. If we accept the finding that out of school reading volume increases students’ reading competencies, it is reasonable to wonder what influences out-of-school reading. To investigate this point, Guthrie (1981) examined the reading environments of students who were highest-achieving readers in a large international survey conducted in 1973. The survey had been administered to representative samples of 14- and 18-year-olds in 15 countries. New Zealand students clearly showed higher comprehension of text than students from all other countries, including the USA. Using information from a regularly occurring national survey, Guthrie also found that New Zealand adults read about four times more books and 50% more newspapers than adults in the United States. It was further found that New Zea­ land had more bookstores per capita than most countries, including the USA. These findings suggest that New Zealand had a relatively “print oriented” culture strong enough to influence children and increase their levels of reading proficiency. Students’ reading achievement was buoyed by the diverse literacy practices of adults surrounding them in homes and communities.

Systematic Inquiry into Reading Motivation Although the investigators cited thus far found a correlation between the time spent reading and student achievement, they did not attempt to identify the individual differences among students that may have influenced how deeply or broadly they read. Based on Gray and Rogers’ (1956) findings that purposes or motivations may influence how much people read, the study of reading motivation in education was launched by the founding of the National Reading Research Center (NRRC) in 1992. Located at the University of Maryland, University of Georgia, Rutgers University, and Uni­ versity of Texas, the Center explicitly targeted the exploration of literacy engagement. At the outset, the directors wrote that “the center intends to carry out research to discover what promotes readers’ engagement in literacy activities” (Alvermann & Guthrie, 1993, p. 1). The previous national Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois had focused on cognitive processes of reading comprehension and knowledge development. By adding motivation and engagement to the inquiry space, the NRRC endeavored to expand the disciplinary grounding of reading research. In one of the earliest publications of the National Reading Research Center, Wigfield and Guthrie (1997) addressed whether students motivation influenced the amount of reading. A key finding was that children who were in the top third in intrinsic motivation read more widely and deeply than stu­ dents in the bottom third of the group. The most intrinsically motivated children invested 300% more time in reading outside of school (30 minutes per day) than those with lower intrinsic motivation (10 minutes per day). By contrast, groups at different levels of extrinsic motivation did not vary as consist­ ently in amount of reading. To explore the progress of the reading motivation research field in 2020, Toste and colleagues (2020) conducted a meta-analysis of motivation and reading achievement for K-12th grade students. Working from 132 articles with 185 independent samples and 1,154 effect sizes, the authors reported a statistically significant though moderate correlation of .22 between motivation and reading achieve­ ment. This correlation is modest in size partly because the reliability and validity of measures were not controlled in this meta-analysis. The authors concluded that “models of reading development that do not account for motivation . . . are missing critical aspects of student learning and achievement” (Toste et al., 2020, p. 448). Consistent with this, Guthrie et al. (2007), Unrau et al. (2018), and McBreen and Savage (2020) conducted meta-analyses of instructional interventions showing consistent impacts on reading motivation, engagement, and achievement. These findings confirm that reading motivation 269

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has progressed to a stage in which there are major accomplishments and zones of consensus, with many exciting challenges to be embraced.

Reading Motivation and Reading Engagement In step with the cognitive revolution, the motivation field also went through a revolution, changing from a sole emphasis on the impact of rewards and punishment on reading to a focus on how indi­ viduals’ beliefs, values, goals, and intrinsic needs are fundamental processes of motivation (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Work on reading motivation originating in the NRRC took this new approach to motivation. In the study mentioned earlier, Wigfield and Guthrie (1997) developed an initial meas­ ure of reading motivation called the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) for elementary school-aged children that tapped a variety of children’s motivations for reading, including their inter­ est in reading, its importance to them, their beliefs in their efficacy as readers, and a number of other dimensions. They showed that these different dimensions could be identified empirically as distinct dimensions via the statistical technique of factor analysis. Baker and Wigfield (1999) confirmed these findings in a larger study which included a diverse group of students. As noted earlier, a key finding regarding these different dimensions of reading motivation is that they relate to the amount and fre­ quency of children’s reading.

Key Reading Motivation Constructs and How to Enhance Them In developing the Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) instructional program, Guthrie, Wigfield, and colleagues (Guthrie et  al., 2012) focused on several of the most fundamental of the dimensions for reading motivation: (a) self-efficacy, (b) intrinsic motivation, (c) valuing of reading, (d) social aspects of reading motivation, and (e) reading engagement. The first four are motivations that drive the engagement. Following is a discussion of each of these dimensions and ways to enhance them in classrooms, and how they relate to engagement. See Eccles and Wigfield (2002), Guthrie and Wigfield (2000) and Guthrie et al. (2012) for further discussion of the constructs.

Self-Efficacy Related to reading, self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capacity for success in future reading tasks, or more simply, confidence. The construct is a central part of Bandura’s (1997) social cognitive theory of motivation. Efficacious readers engage more often in reading and persist through challenges and difficulties they encounter. Although it is often mentioned in isolation, self-efficacy does not function apart from other psychological processes. Recent research findings in various contexts with children, adolescents, and adults support the idea that reading self-efficacy is an iterative process with multiple components. As a student perceives that she is making progress, she gradually develops self-efficacy. Although it is initially tied intimately to success in a simple, concrete task, self-efficacy grows when students begin to set goals for themselves. Often teachers need to provide support to help students set realistic and meaningful goals. When students set meaningful goals, they tend to pursue them, which leads to progress, which leads to self-gratification. As students evaluate themselves accurately and posi­ tively, they gain a knack of estimating their chances at future success. Self-efficacy matures out of these systems working together, and teachers play a vital role in enabling learners to be efficacious readers. It is unclear whether self-efficacy develops in similar ways across different cultures or cultural sub­ groups. Some authors propose that in collectivist cultures where group norms prevail over individual norms, self-efficacy is based on the group. In individualist cultures where the single person is cen­ tralized, students develop a more personalized sense of self-efficacy related to their own experiences 270

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(DiBenedetto & Schunk, 2018). However, the evidence is not conclusive, and one major study showed that American (individualist) and Chinese (collectivist) students showed highly similar motivation lev­ els and interrelationships across eight motivations (Wang & Guthrie, 2004). Further, it is known that Black students within the U.S. may evolve self-efficacy differently than White students. Specifically, whereas the correlation between self-efficacy and achievement is consistently high for White students, the association varies from high to low for Black students in different studies (McRae, 2012). This mystery was apparently solved by the finding that both White and Black students develop a linkage between self-efficacy and achievement through their interactions with teachers during reading instruc­ tion. When teachers support basic competency, students gain a realistic appraisal of their reading, which stabilizes their self-efficacy (McRae, 2012). Because self-efficacy in reading is foundational for progress not only in language arts but in all content domains, this issue deserves increased research attention.

Intrinsic Motivation Intrinsic motivation for reading is the enjoyment of reading for its own sake. This motivation construct is the centerpiece of a theory of motivation called self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2020). Much research shows that when individuals undertake activities for more intrinsic reasons, they enjoy them more and persist at them longer. Most important for English/Language Arts teachers is the find­ ing that high levels of intrinsic motivation are connected to student achievement in several domains, including reading comprehension achievement, vocabulary, reasoning with text and, profoundly, world knowledge. Just as Gray found in 1956, Stanovich and West (1989) found that highly knowledgeable individuals are intrinsically motivated and avid book readers. This propels intrinsic motivation into a high priority for English Language Arts teachers. It is also well documented that intrinsic motivation for reading is generated from instructional contexts that meet students’ needs for competency (reading skills), autonomy (functional choices), and relatedness (social interaction). The benefits of these contexts for learning were documented in a metaanalysis of Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI), which showed positive impacts on reading comprehension, engagement, motivation, and content knowledge. When CORI was integrated into the context of science learning, student growth in science knowledge was dramatic (Guthrie et al., 2007). Recent research reveals that motivation supports that promote intrinsic motivation have broad and long-term impacts. When teachers provide instructional supports for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, students gain not only intrinsic motivation but also a deep and lasting sense of well­ being (Ryan & Deci, 2020). Confidence, self-esteem, and mental health are all positively affected by whether the school environment supports or thwarts basic psychological needs. For example, Tian et al. (2014) found that when adolescent students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence were met over a six-week period, students experienced higher subjective well-being and an improvement in their overall satisfaction with school. These motivating contexts have cascading benefits for learners.

Valuing Reading Valuing of reading refers to the purposes for engaging in reading. It is conceptualized in terms of the extent to which individuals find reading useful and important (Eccles  & Wigfield, 2020). Students experience reading as important when they perceive comprehension of text as contributing to their schoolwork or daily life. Importance extends from the immediate benefit of completing an assignment to a future benefit of being successful in schooling or life. Guthrie et al. (2014) found that valuing 271

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reading was especially predictive of achievement for middle school students, although intrinsic moti­ vation had been relatively more prominent in elementary grades. One explanation of this finding is that middle school students cannot afford to simply read what is interesting to them. They must also commit effort to reading activities that are not immediately enjoyable. When the content becomes broader, sometimes less interesting, and more demanding in middle school, valuing becomes a potent contributor to achievement. For students to build their value for reading, researchers have found it most effective to begin with utility. It is relatively easy for teachers to persuade students that reading one specific text closely will be useful to them in a classroom task. It is also relatively realistic to ask students to write a paragraph on how a text is useful to them in an immediate learning task. Teachers can also ask students to write an essay on the relevance of a text to their lives. Researchers have found these brief utility interventions to have immediate and lasting impacts, especially in STEM reading environments (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020). In English language arts, Rosenzweig et al. (2018) found that teachers’ emphasis on the impor­ tance of specific texts for learning about the Civil War enhanced students’ self-efficacy for learning deeply about this complicated history. A recent advance in understanding literacy values refers to the costs of reading. Students may believe that reading has high costs such as a lack of ability, time, or immediate rewards, or that reading is boring or requires excessive isolation. However, teachers can enable students to understand that the costs of reading contribute to the benefits of enjoyment, learning, achievement, or social participation. When teachers illustrate that despite its costs reading brings worthwhile rewards, students place the costs into a favorable perspective.

Social Motivations Reading often is considered an activity that individuals do on their own. However, there are many ways in which reading is social, and this is particularly true in classrooms. For example, social interac­ tions may include pairs working together, book talks, group projects, group discussion of literature, the reciprocal teaching model, the jigsaw formation, or collaborative reasoning. Motivation processes that enable these group formats to succeed are prosocial goals (wanting to help others), and social behaviors (listening, sharing, and integrating ideas publicly). When students believe that their peers expect them to speak, listen, follow rules, and sustain a social flow in a classroom, their comfort and achievement in the class increases (Wentzel et al., 2018). More broadly, peer influence occurs across the school environment. Students who believe that their peers expect them to graduate and succeed academically have relatively higher levels of achievement. In addition, peer expectations and social goals increase students’ beliefs in the importance of school activi­ ties, which sustains students’ achievement (Wentzel, 2018). In other words, social interaction activities in the classroom and school, along with peer expectations, increase achievement by leading students to see the importance of academic activities, including literacy. Within this network, motivations are woven into school life and students’ cognitive systems accelerate toward enhanced academic outcomes.

Students’ Agency Students’ agency in the classroom is a relatively new dimension of literacy motivation. The term “agency” was coined and studied for language arts teachers by John Marshall Reeve, who conceptu­ alized agency in school as “students’ constructive contribution into the flow of the instruction they receive” (Reeve, 2011, p. 258). For instance, during instruction, students might express a preference, ask a question, communicate their needs, solicit learning opportunities, seek clarification, or request assistance such as modeling, feedback, and background knowledge. This places the student as an agent 272

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of social and academic growth in the learning environment. Agency is akin to belonging, but it is more proactive. With high school students in Taiwan, Reeve et al. (2011) found that students’ agency combined with their emotional and cognitive engagement contributed to their academic achieve­ ment. In other words, in addition to such processes as strategy use and enthusiasm, students’ beliefs in their proactive role as a class member (agency) contributed generously to their achievement (Reeve & Tseng, 2011). Agency contributes not only to the social structure but to the desirable features in a learning environment. In summary, there are a variety of key constructs that individually and together produce motiva­ tion for reading or the lack thereof. In the previous edition of this Handbook, Guthrie and Wigfield proposed an acronym for literacy motivation, SMILE. It stands for Sharing (social motivation), Me (self-efficacy), Importance (valuing), Liking (intrinsic motivation), and Engage (literacy engagement). The SMILE acronym could be a banner, poster, or game to build students’ awareness that motivation is an ever-present process in each literacy act. One significance of SMILE is that is that it points to engagement as a culminating point.

The Future: Domain Specificity of Literacy Motivation and the Impact of the Digital Age Just as students have different levels of motivation for music, sports, and school learning, they also have different motivations for reading, math, and science (Wigfield et al., 2004). There are other motivation domains as well. For example, Stutz and others (2016) showed that the measure of intrinsic motivation for reading stories does not apply to curiosity for learning from information books. Toste and others (2020) showed that motivations were higher for reading comprehension tasks than word recognition or fluency tasks. Motivations as they relate to digital literacy propose a different challenge. Not only are the cognitive challenges of this domain daunting, but we propose that the digital literacy environment may be driven by unique reading motivations. In most digital literacy, the student searches for information, retrieves material that is relevant to a goal, evaluates the accuracy and relevance of information, and uniquely connects information to prior knowledge. Forzani and colleagues (2021) showed that digital reading comprehension was relatively unrelated to intrinsic motivation or value that was not embedded in specific tasks. In contrast, when intrinsic motivation (curiosity) for online reading was deeply embed­ ded into a science learning activity, the students’ curiosity was associated with their engagement in the activity and their achievement in completing it (Wu et al., 2018), as expected from prior research. Just as cognitively navigating digital space entails unique processes such as searching, evaluating, and relevance testing that have not yet been fully researched, motivation in processing digital spaces is likely to entail processes and linkages to the cognitive system that are not yet systematically researched. The future may be replete with novel motivations for digital literacy.

Distinguishing Motivation and Engagement The term “engagement” has many different definitions and uses. In defining reading engagement and developing their model of it, Guthrie and Wigfield (2000; Guthrie et al., 2012) focused on engage­ ment as the qualities of involvement, interaction, commitment, enthusiasm, and proactive behaviors with respect to an activity. Thus, by ‘literacy engagement’ we mean the time, effort, and persistence of literacy behavior. This refers to doing the reading and writing frequently and with commitment. An avid reader who devours mysteries is engaged, as is a serious student immersed in a text about the movement West in early America. Guthrie and colleagues (2012) have found that students’ engage­ ment in reading as measured by teacher reports is a particularly strong predictor of their reading 273

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comprehension. This reflects the reality that engagement is deeply situated in a certain text with stu­ dents reading for a powerful purpose such as writing a drama based on the text. Because the teacher understands the context fully, she can perceive the depth of students’ engagement. She plays a distinc­ tive role as facilitator. The opposite of literacy engagement is disengagement. It refers to alienation, detachment or escape from reading. Disengagement is powered by negative motivations that may be strong. Building on the MRQ, Guthrie and colleagues (2012) developed another measure of approach to reading motivation designed for middle school and older students. In this effort, they proposed a reverse, or undermining, side to each motivation. For example, the reverse of self-efficacy is perceived difficulty, or believing that reading is way too hard. Some students adopt the idea that reading is simply not possible for them. Too often, this negative motivation leads to avoidance or disengagement. They believe can’t do it, so they don’t try. That is, students’ perceived difficulty of literacy tasks leads to disengagement. We believe that each of the motivations contained in the SMILE acronym has its undermining side. Using ques­ tionnaires based on extensive interviewing, we found that the undermining motivations depress read­ ing behavior and skill development. For instance, Rosenzweig et al. (2017) examined middle school students’ affirming and undermining motivations in relation to their reading outcomes. They identified four clusters of students varying in these motivations. Students who were high on affirming and low on the undermining aspects of motivation had the most positive reading engagement and achievement. Students with low affirming and high undermining motivations showed the poorest outcomes. When these motivations arise in the classroom, special attention and preventive actions are needed. Teach­ ers should take extraordinary steps to address the downsides of undermining motivations when they appear; we return to this point later. In our engagement model that is presented in detail in Guthrie et al. (2012), we propose that engagement in literacy is deeply rooted in motivation, but overall, we view it as an outcome of motivation rather than motivation itself (see Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). Reading well takes time, attention, thought, focus, and monotasking. Students need reasons for such commitments, and those reasons are motivations. Students read extensively because they enjoy it, or want to share it, or believe it is vital to them, or have goals to master the content. When these reasons are strong and enduring, students read and write magnificently well. Engagement and motivation exist in a spiral; when one rises, the other rises as well. Likewise, when one declines, the other drops. As an unmo­ tivated student reads less, his motivation declines; inversely, as a highly active student reads more, his motivations expand. So far, we have focused on the nature of motivation and its constituent constructs. We turn next to how it can be impacted by classroom practices, both positively and negatively.

School Programs to Promote Reading Motivation For decades, schools have promoted reading by sponsoring literacy celebrations. Events often feature a celebrity who reads aloud and promotes the joy of books on a LITERACY DAY when children receive free books. Further, reading advocacy may include exploring heritage through books. Often these events are supported by Reading is Fundamental (RIF), a popular voluntary foundation.

Reading is Fundamental The aim of RIF is to encourage book ownership among low-income children. As of 2018, RIF has donated 415 million books to more than 40 million children through 400,000 volunteers across the U.S. RIF began in 1966 when Margaret McNamara secured a $150,000 grant from the Ford Founda­ tion to support pilot activities in the District of Columbia, including the launch of a bookmobile to 274

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increase reach outside of classrooms. Federal funding was provided until 2016, when RIF became fully voluntary. RIF events promote reading motivation as well as popularizing books. According to the website, RIF follows the recommendations of Guthrie and Wigfield to: “1) start them young, 2) pay atten­ tion to their interests, and 3) make it social.” While RIF is likely to be beneficial, its goal is to ignite rather than sustain reading engagement. Although RIF events may excite youngsters temporarily, it is unlikely that such moments will assure long-term, deeply embedded reading motivations. To build children’s lifelong self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and reading values, it is necessary for school pro­ grams to be systematic, long-term, and curriculum-relevant.

Teachers’ Mindsets and General Motivation Enhancing Classroom Practices Throughout the history of teaching English Language Arts, teachers have prized the goal of enabling students to appreciate good literature at least as highly as they have valued reading comprehension (Gray, 1941). However, the appearance of new forms of literacy, such as online learning and the ascendance of testing as a driver of instruction, are presenting challenges to teachers who seek to foster reading motivation. This section describes classroom practices that consistently deepen students read­ ing motivations. In the previous edition of this Handbook, we noted that teachers have various “frames of mind” about how to motivate their students during reading instruction and other subjects. Some of these include offering rewards to students who read a certain number of books, “spicing up” instruction by creating a literature-rich classroom, adopting a single practice such as affording students’ social interac­ tion while reading, or systematically introducing an array of scaffolds to try to spark students’ interest in reading and, more broadly, reading motivation. In this edition of the Handbook, we emphasize estab­ lished practices that can enhance students’ motivation for reading. Research in the general motivation field and the reading motivation field has given us a clear and coherent set of tools that can enhance different-aged students’ reading motivation. In the motivation literature, intervention researchers have focused primarily on trying to enhance the following aspects or parts of motivation to increase students’ performance, persistence, and positive choices: • building students’ self-efficacy through providing success experiences and helping students learn to explain their difficulties or failures in ways that allow them to think they can push through those challenges (Schunk & DeBenedetto, 2020; Schunk & Rice, 1989), • fostering interest through the kinds of activities and tasks students do in school, with a focus on designing activities that initiate interest and working to develop longer-term interest (Hidi & Ren­ ninger, 2006), • increasing students’ sense of the value of the activities they are doing, with a primary focus on enhancing the perceived utility or usefulness of what they are learning (Hidi  & Harackiewicz, 2018), • building intrinsic motivation by supporting students’ own initiative and attempts to do things on their own, which is called autonomy support (Patall et al., 2018), and • capitalizing on students’ enjoyment of interacting with others in order to build social aspects of motivation (Anderman & Anderman, 2020). Reviews of different parts of this work can be found in Rosenzweig and Wigfield (2017) and Rosen­ zweig et al. (2020). Interestingly, most of the intervention studies on these aspects of motivation have 275

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focused on one construct rather than including two or more constructs. They have also tended to be researcher- rather than instructor-driven; we return to this point in the next section.

Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) In the reading motivation literature, the most comprehensive reading instructional program that focuses on motivation and comprehension is Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI), developed by John T. Guthrie and Lois Bennett, and then elaborated and systematically examined by Guthrie, Wigfield, and many others. CORI has been reviewed in detail elsewhere (see Guthrie et al., 2012; Wigfield et al., 2014), so here we briefly describe the key aspects of reading motivation focuses on the elementary and middle school levels. The initial version of CORI was developed for third through fifth grade elementary school students (Guthrie et  al., 1996). It consisted of instructional practices designed to enhance reading comprehension and instructional practices designed to enhance reading motivation. An important aspect of CORI was that the instructional practices to enhance motivation, like comprehension practices, were systematically included during reading instruction. That is, motiva­ tion was not considered an “add on” or a “boost” for teachers to give to their students before engaging in comprehension instruction, but instead were part and parcel of the instructional program.

Motivation-Enhancing Practices in CORI In this section we describe how we attempted to enhance students’ motivation through CORI; we also connect these practices to the broader literature on motivating instructional practices. Based on our understanding of the motivation literature at the time, as well as our engagement model of reading, we focused on several aspects of motivation and developed instructional practices to enhance them in the elementary school version of CORI. First was providing a thematic unit containing overarch­ ing content goals for reading instruction so students would understand the purposes behind what they were learning. The content concerned learning about ecological principles with respect to plants and animals, placing reading instruction in a science content area. Second was sparking interest through hands-on activities and stimulating tasks followed by reading. For example, students first handled and explored horseshoe crabs, and then read about them (Guthrie et al., 2006). These activities and readings were meant to develop deeper interest and intrinsic motivation for reading. Third, we pro­ vided a rich library of non-fiction trade books in each classroom so students could read interesting texts about what they were learning and to answer their own questions (Davis et al., 2004). A related point was that the books were at different reading levels so that all students could find interesting books they were able to read to help build their self-efficacy for reading (Guthrie et al., 2004). Another way CORI builds intrinsic motivation is providing students with many opportunities for exercising autonomy in the classrooms. Teachers gave students autonomy in choosing the books they wanted to read, answering their own questions about the activities they were doing, and choosing the kinds of projects they wanted to do. Last but not least, CORI emphasized social reasons for reading by giving students many oppor­ tunities to interact with others around the books they were reading. Across grade levels, as noted earlier, teachers supported students’ social interactions around reading because they are vital both to learning and to children’s social development (Ryan & Deci, 2020, ArtID: 101860). In addition, social processes can be harnessed to fuel students’ literacy development. Healthy collaboration depends on equal sharing of the work. Teachers often need to scaffold the interactions by modeling the inter­ change process, providing examples, and recognizing pairs for collaborating well. An advanced form of small group interaction in reading or other subject areas is reciprocal teach­ ing (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). In this collaborative pattern, students play different roles of generating 276

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questions, providing answers, clarifying understandings, and summarizing portions of stories or infor­ mation text. As students interact in this social structure, they gain cognitive skills. While students develop prosocial goals and build a sense of belonging in the classroom, their cognitive systems for reading, including strategies such as summarizing and self-checking, are elaborated and strengthened (Yeager & Walton, 2011). A major priority for social interaction in reading and language arts is extended literacy engagement. Students must be doing a lot of interacting with text. When the purpose is literacy achievement, the time spent in social interchange should spur a doubling of the time spent in literacy engagement. Students can read deeply and then talk briefly. Teachers can help students to realize that the social opportunity is integral to their breadth of literacy learning. Learning literacy in a social context is a natural combination. Children learn that literacy is a social adventure that can open their eyes to new understandings of text.

Motivation-Enhancing Practices in REAL In middle school, in which we refer to CORI as Reading Engagement for Academic Learning (REAL), there were a total of six motivational support practices. During the project, there was some variation in which of these practices were implemented. Key additions were supporting student self-efficacy and emphasizing the relevance and value of reading. Based on research of influences on selfefficacy (see Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020), we believe an effective teacher’s program for self-efficacy support provides three major resources: modeling, goal setting, and self-evaluation. Modeling refers to the display of one’s thoughts, beliefs, actions, strategies, and behaviors in ways they can be observed and emulated (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020). For example, the teacher can provide a model for a task such as noting the title of a book and reflecting on what the title brings to mind. The teacher may also mention relevant knowledge or other thoughts that arise. For older students, teachers may model the process of identifying symbolism in text by thinking aloud and formulating symbolic meanings. When modeling has succeeded, students can adapt the model to benefit their comprehension of new text. As they increase their skill through observational learning, students gain a belief in their self-efficacy. Self-evaluations of capabilities are vitally important to maintaining self-efficacy. If students can iden­ tify their gains, they are likely to work harder, persist longer, adopt they what they believe is a better strategy, and seek help from teachers. Providing self-efficacy support through modeling, goal setting, and progress checking is most important when students encounter reading challenges at the outset of learning a new task or newly complex reading demands, or when background competency is limited. Additionally, adapting self-efficacy support for students with special language or learning needs is cru­ cial (see Wigfield & Ponnock, 2020). The practice of assuring Relevance refers to teachers discussing with students how what they are learning and reading about is relevant to them and to the knowledge they are building. Anecdotally, teachers often say that middle school students wonder why they have to learn different topics; focusing on relevance helps deal with these concerns. Teachers nourish intrinsic motivation when they help students relate reading to their lives. This includes linking text to background knowledge, providing hands-on experiences that relate to text information, and providing authentic materials for reading (Guthrie et al., 2006). Assuring relevance of reading is highlighted when teachers provide culturally responsive teaching with texts that resonate with students’ histories or beliefs. Researchers have found that when teachers emphasize relevance, students’ motivation increases (Assor et al., 2002). Relatedly, in REAL, we emphasized the importance and value of reading; these constructs come from expectancy-value theory (Eccles  & Wigfield, 2020). In reading instruction, we suggest that teachers’ broadest aim is to enable students to affirm their lives and their literacy beliefs. Initially, teachers can help students affirm themselves by writing about their key values. In studies where this 277

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affirmation intervention has succeeded, teachers gave students a list of 10 activities that were relevant to them such as music, friendships, pets, art, sports, and video games. After rank ordering these from high to low in importance, students wrote a paragraph about the most highly prized activity, featuring how it related to their lives. This self-affirmation can be done three or four times in slightly different ways early in the year or in the unit (Cohen et al., 2006). Students who self-affirm their values have been shown to increase their academic behaviors continually during a semester or year. The long-term benefit occurs because students re-experience the affirmation on many occasions following the initial activity (Cohen et  al., 2009). Often, students select friendships or group membership as a value. Following this social self-affirmation, students feel a stronger sense of belonging in school. They approach others in the academic environment more frequently with more positive attitudes, which fosters better relationships and lays the groundwork for later academic success (Junge et al., 2020). To enhance literacy values explicitly, effective teachers enable students to understand how different kinds of reading activities are important and useful to them. For example, if a student is making a poster in a class project on the Underground Railroad, she may trace favorite parts of the poster to specific texts or text-based discussions. These links enhance the value of that specific reading activity, which soon generalizes to other texts and reading tasks. Effective teachers often ask students to write about how a text relates to their experiences. When students can say, “That reading helped me understand myself,” their literacy values increase. As these values grow, students broaden their reading engagement (Guthrie & Klauda, 2014). Self-affirmations of literacy activities support students’ beliefs that reading is important. Within a meta-analysis, Yeager and Walton (2011) reported a study showing that secondary students increased their valuing of class materials when they wrote a half-page essay about how a text from the course had helped them personally. Likewise, Jang (2008) found that teachers in a professional development program who wrote about how a specific topic would benefit them professionally increased their valuing of that topic.

Growth of Research on Enhancing Reading Motivation In the past ten years, a burgeoning body of research has shown that interventions focused on enhancing reading motivation are successful in improving students’ motivation, achievement, and other outcomes. Rosenzweig and Wigfield (2017), and Rosenzweig et al. (2020) provide thorough reviews of this work. Impressively, four meta-analyses of research embracing more than 100 intervention studies have exhibited the benefits of systematic reading motivation practices that positively impact motivation, engagement, and achievement (Dignath & Büttner, 2008; Guthrie et al., 2007; McBreen & Savage, 2020). Focusing on CORI in particular, Guthrie, Wigfield, and colleagues have demonstrated its effectiveness both at the elementary school level (Guthrie & Klauda, 2014) and middle school level in a series of quasi-experiment and switching replication design studies. Further, Guthrie et al. did a metaanalysis of CORI’s effects on students’ reading motivation and comprehension, finding large effect sizes for CORI on multiple variables. Guthrie and Davis (2003) reviewed research support for these practices in middle school. It should be noted that classrooms in which these motivational practices are not present engender disengagement in young adolescents (Assor et al., 2005; Patall et al., 2018). Drawing on this wealth of research on inspiring classroom frameworks, effective teachers can go beyond their instincts and draw on data-based tools. They can select a practice with known benefits for a given type of motivation, import it, and sustain it vigorously. Afflerbach (2022) and Gambrell (2011) have discussed this work and described how teachers can use multiple practices to accelerate literacy motivation, including supporting intrinsic motivation for all students. Furthermore, all of these 278

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resources portrayed by Afflerbach and Gambrell present an elaborate view of how motivated students use strategies, both cognitive and metacognitive, that deepen knowledge gleaned from text. Tapping cognitive and motivational processes in concert, engaged students embrace new opportunities for enjoyment and learning. We turn next to discussing teaching practices specific to encouraging the selfefficacy, intrinsic motivation, opportunities for enhancing social motivation, and increasing the valuing of literacy for students from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Conclusion Teachers continually influence students’ literacy motivations in both positive and (sometimes) nega­ tive ways. On the downside is disengagement, occurring when teacher control is excessive, text is too abstract, students are isolated, or the importance of reading is ignored. On the upside, effective teach­ ers consistently promote positive motivations of self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, social motivation, and values for literacy through explicit practices. These motivations encourage students’ behavioral engagement in deep reading, which enables their competencies to grow. When motivation as a visible, everyday priority, students flourish as eager literacy learners.

Addressing Student Diversity in Teaching for Reading Motivation This section of the chapter is centered on the essential message of the Handbook of Research in Teaching English/Language Arts. The driving question of the section is: What does research say about how teach­ ing practices for reading motivation can or should be adapted for students of diverse ethnic or cultural orientations? To tackle this broad domain, we initially describe the extent that ethnic groups may differ in reading motivations. Due to the limited space and the U.S. audience for this work, we restrict our scope to the ethnic groups of Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Whites.

Ethnic Variations in Reading Motivation One of the earliest investigations of this topic was published by Baker and Wigfield (1999), who stud­ ied reading motivations in a diverse sample of elementary students. Compared to White students, they found that Black students reported higher levels of motivations consisting of self-efficacy, challenge, involvement, importance of reading, recognition, grades, competition, and compliance with teacher or parental expectations. These motivations were measured by questionnaires generated from inter­ views with diverse populations in schools that were 3.9% White, 55.2% Black, 2.7% Asian, and 37% Hispanic/Latino. To extend early studies of elementary students, Guthrie et al. (2013) focused on the specific domain of motivation for reading information books in school. Compared to White students, Black students reported similar levels of self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, devaluing, prosocial goals, and anti-social goals in motivation. Black students also reported higher levels of intrinsic motivation and valuing than Whites. Thus, the prevailing picture is one of similarity in strength of motivation among elementary and middle school students of both ethnic groups. For both ethnic groups, motivations are known to generate reading engagement consisting of finishing assignments completely, focusing on gaining knowledge from text, sustaining effort, and persevering in the face of challenge. This network of reading motivations is incontrovertible evidence that researchers have not underestimated the scope or importance of Black or White students’ motivations. Further investigating reading motivation for information books in school, Rosenzweig and Wigfield (2017) found that Black adolescents reported higher levels of intrinsic motivation, valuing, and engagement than White adolescents. Whites reported higher levels of the undermining motivations of 279

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devaluing and avoidance. Profiles of multiple motivations for all students revealed an objective com­ parison of the ethnic groups. Black students were more likely to report moderate levels of motivation for a variety of variables, whereas Whites were likely to report extremely high or extremely low levels for several motivations. Each ethnic group displayed one distinctive motivation profile that generated behavioral engagement and reading achievement. Likewise, for both groups the lowest school grades were shown by a profile of low levels of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy combined with high levels of devaluing text and perceiving text as difficult. The outcome was that each ethnic group had its own pathway to achievement. To examine Asian students’ reading motivations, Wang and Guthrie (2004) compared Chinese learners in Taiwan and California to samples of White students in California. The outcome was that the White and Chinese students were remarkably similar. Both ethnic groups showed highly positive associations between intrinsic motivation and reading achievement. In this case, intrinsic reading moti­ vation was a combination of reading for curiosity, involvement, and challenge. Simultaneously, these two ethnic groups showed negative associations between extrinsic reading motivation and reading achievement. In other words, when the amount of intrinsic motivation was controlled, the correlations of extrinsic motivation and achievement were negative. This is a widely repeated finding, which means that reading for rewards, grades, or competition distracts students from meaningful reading compre­ hension and essentially lowers their tested achievement. In this investigation, students’ prior reading achievements and amount of reading were statistically controlled so as not to influence the relationships of motivation and achievement within the study. In an important replication, Unrau and Schlackman (2006), using Wang and Guthrie’s (2006) questionnaires, found that Asian students in a different region of California showed a virtually identical motivation model to the Chinese students in the Wang and Guthrie inquiry. Unrau and Schlackman (2006) observed that for Asian students, intrinsic motivation was highly positive in its association with achievement, and extrinsic motivation was highly negative in its association with achievement. One minor difference was that Asian students’ motivational correlations with achievement were slightly higher than White correlations. Unrau and Schlackman (2006) also reported that Hispanic students showed nonsignificant associa­ tions of intrinsic or extrinsic reading motivations with reading achievement. For Hispanic students, although individual motivations of involvement, curiosity, and challenge were highly interrelated, the composite of them, which was termed intrinsic motivation, was not linked to reading achievement. Asian students were higher than Hispanic students on curiosity and challenge, but lower on recogni­ tion. At present, it is unknown whether the marked differences between Hispanic and Asian students’ reading motivations and their correlations with achievement were due to issues of measurement, cul­ tural patterns, or other factors to be identified in future research. Whitney and Bergin (2018) provided a comparison of the reading motivations of nationally rep­ resentative samples of Black, Hispanic, and White students in grades three and five from different socioeconomic groups. Their reading motivation measure emphasized both intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. The basic findings were that for White 3rd and 5th graders, motivation predicted read­ ing achievement for all the socioeconomic status (SES) groups except the lowest SES students. For Hispanic 3rd graders, motivation predicted achievement for two of five SES groups; and for 5th grad­ ers, motivation predicted achievement for four of five SES groups. For Black 3rd graders, motivation did not predict achievement for any SES group; for 5th grade Black students, motivation predicted achievement in two of five SES groups. In conclusion, motivation was more likely to predict achieve­ ment for White than Hispanic students and more likely for Hispanic than Black students. In addition, motivation was more predictive at grade five than grade three. Finally, motivation was least predic­ tive of achievement for the lowest fifth of the SES groups, being significant for only 5th grade Black students. 280

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Engagement Processes Across Ethnic Groups When researchers approach students’ reading motivation and learning from a socio-cultural perspec­ tive, such as that taken by Gutiérrez and Rogoff (2003), the intersection of cultural practices and literacy functions becomes salient. These researchers emphasize that “repertoires of practice” in using literacy for their personal purposes become driving forces of their literacy capabilities. Akin to this view, in our behavioral science perspective, reading engagement, referring to putting time and effort into reading, has long-term positive benefits for students’ achievement in reading (Guthrie et  al., 2012). Several studies have shown that Black students’ motivations are closely linked to their reading engagement, a construct distinct from but related to reading motivation. Froiland and Oros (2014) showed the generality of this pattern in a nationally representative sample of fifth grade students. They observed that the depth and persistence of engagement in classroom reading, accompanied by intrinsic motivation and perceived competence, significantly predicted their reading achievement in 8th grade. That study shows a strong contribution of engagement, or repertoires of practice, on achievement over a long period for an inclusive sample of students. It should be noted that in her review of Black students’ reading motivation Jones (2022) argued that the field casts Black students as deficient in reading motivation. Furthermore, she understated the role of engagement, especially for Black students and proposed that previous research denigrated Black learners. However, Jones’ retrieval strategy was quite limited and so she missed much research from both socio-cultural and behavioral science perspectives that show positive findings regarding Black readers’ motivations. She also did not discuss work documenting instructional practices that increase Black students’ motivation and engagement. Thus, her critique mischaracterized the reading motiva­ tion field and should not be considered a relevant guide for researchers or educators. Research from multiple disciplines has repeatedly confirmed that reading engagement is one of the strongest predictors of Black students’ achievement and graduation. For example, Guthrie and McRae (2011) showed that students’ engagement predicted achievement more strongly for Black students than White students. When Black and White middle school students reported low levels of engagement, they showed relatively low reading achievement, with the Black students doing less well. However, when Black and White students were highly engaged in reading, both groups achieved at equally high levels. In other words, reading engagement closed the achievement gap between Black and White students. Further, in a nationally representative sample of young adults, it was found that highly engaged Black readers had higher reading achievement than did their highly engaged White counterparts (Guthrie et al., 1991), although Blacks were lower achieving than Whites when they were relatively disengaged. In sum, behavioral engagement in reading, intimately linked to motivations and achievement, is utilized particularly well by Black adolescents to attain their purposes for reading in and out of school. In a study of classroom engagement and achievement, Hall et al. (1986) reported classroom obser­ vations of students who were attending, on-task, participating, and highly active in the academic activities of the classroom. Students who were engaged were viewed as actively observing, preparing, discuss­ ing, and reacting to text materials. Students’ achievement in this study consisted of reading scores that reflected simple comprehension of text. According to the observers, indicators of engagement cor­ related with achievement at .72 for Black males, .56 for White males, .66 for Black females, and .81 for White females. All these associations of engagement and achievement were highly significant, and the ethnic differences were not statistically significant. In multiple regression analyses, engagement in learning predicted achievement even when gender, race, and ability levels of students were accounted for statistically. In other words, it was engagement rather than demographic characteristics of learners, that most markedly was associated with achievement. Engagement in reading for diverse students may be viewed from the teachers’ perspective, as shown in the previous study, or it may be viewed from the individual student’s perspective. Smalls et al. (2007) 281

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reported student engagement from the students’ perspective. They worked with 390 self-identified Black middle and high school students (grades 7–10) from a Midwestern school. Their indicator of engagement represented students’ attention, participation, effort, and persistence when presented with new reading material in the classroom. Sample items from the students’ self-report questionnaire con­ sisted of: “If I can’t get a problem right the first time I just keep trying,” and “When I do badly on a test, I work harder the next time.” For this sample of Black students, the student self-report of engage­ ment correlated .20 with their GPA in English, science, and social studies, which was statistically significant. At the same time, an indicator of disengagement consisted of undesirable school behaviors such as skipping a class without a valid excuse, fighting in school, being sent to the principal’s office, and cheating on tests and exams. This scale represented extreme forms of disengagement, which may be associated with affects such as hostility and anxiety. The disengagement scale correlated -.26 with GPA, which was highly significant. Not only did the more highly engaged Black students have higher achievement, but the disengaged students showed much lower achievement than their peers. Ethnic comparisons were not available. In the previously mentioned study comparing the reading motivations of nationally representa­ tive samples of Black, Hispanic, and White students in grades three and five from different socio­ economic groups, Whitney and Bergin (2018) found that students’ classroom engagement correlated significantly with 3rd grade students’ reading achievement for Hispanic, Black and White students at all socio-economic levels. For 5th graders, engagement correlated with achievement for all SES levels of Whites, and Hispanics, and three of five SES levels for Black students. For 3rd grade Black and Hispanic students, the correlation of engagement and achievement was much stronger than the correlation of motivation and achievement. At both grades 3 and 5, being an active, eager classroom participant, according to teacher ratings, contributed to achievement more highly than possessing self-efficacy and interest. For 5th-grade Black, Hispanic, and White students, engagement was slightly stronger than motivation in correlating with achievement. In conclusion, for both minority groups of Black and Hispanic students, engagement was more powerful than motivation in predicting reading achievement. In contrast, for White students, engagement and motivation were equally and relatively highly associated with achievement.

Educating for Engagement of Diverse Students The key question is whether studies support the suggestion that increasing engagement will improve the reading development of both Black and White students. Essentially, we asked whether the known principles of classroom instruction for engagement (relevance for interest, autonomy support for own­ ership, success for self-efficacy, thematic units for mastery of learning goals, and collaborative structures for social motivation) apply explicitly to minority groups (Burchinal et  al., 2008). Major findings addressing this question are reported next. For primary school age children, Burchinal et al. (2002) documented that a child’s personal rela­ tionship with their teacher is an extremely important quality of classrooms that increase literacy engagement. Teachers who were able to interact personally, emotionally, and affectively in affirming terms increased the reading engagement of individuals in the classroom. This factor of a strong teacherstudent relationship was more beneficial for Black students than for White students. Black children who enjoyed a strong personal relationship with their teacher grew in reading engagement and reading achievement more rapidly than White children. Thus, social relations with the teacher, while helpful for both ethnic groups, were even more likely to contribute to engagement and success in reading for Black students than for White students. In a related finding, Hughes and Kwok (2007) documented that teachers’ support for children’s interests, security, and need for relationships led to clear gains in engagement and achievement for 282

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Black and White children during first grade. In a longitudinal, quantitative study using structural equa­ tion modeling, the authors showed that students who experienced a close, affirming relationship with their teacher increased in participation and literacy activity more than students who experienced a sup­ portive, but less positively affective relationship with the teacher. Teacher support for students’ interests and social needs facilitated engagement for both Black and White students equally. Furthermore, the rise in reading engagement generated gains in achievement equally for the two ethnic groups. For Black students who are 10 to 11 years old, Dill and Boykin (2000) showed that collaborative learning environments had advantages over individual learning environments. A collaborative (or com­ munal) learning setting increased the recall of stories that were read during collaborative interactions compared to individual reading. More centrally, enjoyment of the learning activity and the desire to participate in similar activities in the future were accelerated by the collaborative learning structures for the Black students. One source of such a benefit may be elaborated discussion. There is evidence that Black students respond to collaborative learning opportunities by discussing text in relatively elaborate ways. In an experimental study, Webb and Farivar (1994) showed that Black students who were taught communication and helping skills in small group work during the reading of a story had more elabora­ tive and rich discussions than comparison groups. On the other hand, White students did not benefit from the training in communication skills. Thus, Blacks were cognitively responsive in social interac­ tions around text, and thus gained cognitive competencies in these settings. Decker and colleagues (2007) examined the associations between the teacher-student relation­ ship and outcomes for Black students who were behaviorally at-risk for referral to special education. Students in the study were identified by their teachers as having behavior problems. The participants included 44 students and 25 teachers from two suburban and three urban elementary schools in a midwestern state. A multi-rater, multi-method approach was used. As both teacher and student reports of the quality of teacher-student relationships increased, there were also increases in positive social, behavioral, and engagement outcomes for students. Especially intriguing was the finding that as kin­ dergarteners increased in their reporting of wanting to be closer to their teachers, their letter naming fluency increased. There is a well-known upward spiral for engagement and achievement, but the spiral is equally powerful in a downward direction. When teachers fail to support engagement, students become increasingly unmotivated; when students are unmotivated, teachers usually become excessively con­ trolling and introduce practices such as assigning boring work that disengages students even further (Skinner & Belmont, 1993). In a large instructional study with all the middle schools in a Maryland school district, we imple­ mented CORI in half of the classrooms while not implementing in the other half. Students in CORI classrooms increased in motivation, engagement, reading comprehension and history knowledge, while decreasing in avoidance and negative motivations such as devaluing reading. The impacts of CORI engagement support were equally strong for Black and White students (Guthrie & McRae, 2011). In a deeper inquiry, Guthrie and colleagues (2011) explored each of the five engagement-support­ ing practices in these middle school classrooms: success, choice, collaboration, relevance, and thematic units. To investigate the relationships of engagement and students’ classroom experiences, we obtained students’ perceptions of classroom environments from questionnaires and interviews. First, students’ engagement in reading during English Language Arts instruction was significantly correlated with their experience of competence in reading texts. Their experience of success consisted of being able to recognize words, comprehend passages, and link new information to their background knowledge effectively. This correlation of successful experience and reading engagement was higher for Black students (.29) than White students (.19), although it was significant for both groups. A second practice consisted of affording students’ choices about texts, tasks, and activities in the classroom. These ‘choice’ experiences significantly correlated with reading engagement for Black (.20) 283

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Contributions of Success to Engagement

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Contributions of Teams to Engagement

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Figure 13.1

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Contributions of Classroom Motivation Practices to Students Reading Engagement

students and were marginally positive for White (.16) students. The experience of reading texts that were relevant to their lives highly correlated with engagement for Black (.35) and White (.37) students at equal levels. Likewise, student reports that they could link a text to other readings in the instructional context of a thematic unit correlated with reading engagement significantly for Black (.25) and White (.52) students, although higher for White students. Participating in collaborative reading activities did not correlate to achievement for Black (.06) students but correlated for White (.31) students. In conclusion, Black students’ reading engagement in English/Language Arts connected strongly to achievement for classroom practices of assuring success, affording choices, providing relevance of texts, and building learning in a thematic unit. White students’ reading engagement was tied to having a thematic unit, relevance of texts, collaboration, choices, and success in text comprehension. For both groups, reading engagement fostered by these contextual principles contributed to students’ improvement in reading comprehension. Relevance is a teaching practice that is magnificently fostered by a few teachers but neglected by too many, although it is supported as valuable in experimental (Guthrie et al., 2006) and correlational research (Assor et al., 2002). Relevance refers to enabling students to connect texts to their personal life experience or knowledge. For young adolescents, the experience of relevance is the perception that a text is directly addressing “me” because it makes immediate contact with “my” experience, knowledge background, personal goals, or active interests. In literature, many occasions arise for providing relevance. When high school teachers present Homer’s The Odyssey, students may be asked to spend one lesson writing their own odyssey. Having entered that self-reflective world, students will read the trials of Odysseus in a new light. Students who read Homer’s work in the absence of composing or thinking about their personal odysseys find it archaic. When teaching European history, content educators can 284

Motivation & Engagement in Teaching the English Language Arts

render the learning of persons, dates, and key episodes as a dull memorizing activity, which is bor­ ing. When teachers exert excessive control and preclude students from finding connections, students become anxious and disengaged (Assor et al., 2005). Alternatively, teachers can breathe life into ancient events by having students reenact them or view a brief video of a historical moment. Such precursors of reading enable students to link printed pages to their newfound perceptions, which brings vitality to the book (Guthrie & McRae, 2011). The uses of these contextual resources by Black and White students are effectively displayed in four graphs located in Figure 13.1. For both ethnic groups, increases in engagement occurred with each advance in the provision of motivation support by the teacher. For example, both Black and White students who say they are not experiencing choices are the least engaged. As the amount of choice in the classroom rises, the amount of engagement increases in lockstep. When students say it is ‘very true’ that teachers afford choices frequently, they are most intently engaged in literacy. One exception to this trend is social motivation, which benefitted White but not Black students in this situation. These strong effects illustrate the sensitivity of students to four different contextual supports for motivation. Both Black and White students quickly note and fully utilize not only the presence but also the rich­ ness of motivation resources offered by teachers.

The Challenges of the COVID-19 Era and the Need to Focus on Social-Emotional Health The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously undermined teachers who attempt to promote reading moti­ vation. Not only did the pandemic introduce the stressors of uncertainty, but it ushered in multiple mental health challenges at unprecedented levels. Meherali et al. (2021) conducted a meta-analysis of 18 studies on the mental health impacts of pandemics on adolescents and children ages 5–19. They reported studies from 2017–2020 published on multiple pandemics including COVID 19, H1N1 influ­ enza, and Ebola. The primary psychological impacts of these pandemics on the general population were anxiety, depression, fear of infection, frustration, uncertainty, fear, and loss of finances. In addition, the pandemics generated stress, worry, helplessness, and risky behavioral problems among children and adolescents (e.g., substance abuse, suicide, relationship issues, academic issues, absenteeism from work). More specifically, anxiety, consisting of worry, fear, hyperarousal, apprehension, dread, concerns for family health, and distress was elevated in 20% of the children ages 5–18, with higher rates for females. Furthermore, depression, including despair, misery, sadness, disinterest, loss of sleep, loss of appetite, and unhappiness, was elevated in 25% of this age group, with a higher incidence for girls. Higher rates of mental and emotional issues were observed for students who were observed later in the pandemics, and there were higher incidences for older students than younger students. (Racine et al., 2021). Not surprisingly, anxiety levels among the adolescent population were significantly higher than those in younger children. Adolescents in senior high school had the greatest depressive and anxiety symptoms. Investigations showed further that the mental health of adolescents and youths is signifi­ cantly related to being less educated, using negative coping styles, suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, and working as an employee. Seven studies reported that lifestyle transformations such as school closure, physical distancing, quarantine, isolation, and the threat of being infected was associated with depression and anxiety disor­ ders among children and adolescents. Psychological distresses such as fear, helplessness, worry, anxietyrelated insomnia, isolation, boredom, and sadness were more common in the quarantine group. These findings indicate that pandemic disasters, the subsequent disease-control measures, and containment responses can create conditions that families and children find traumatic. Pandemic challenges to men­ tal health compel teachers to prioritize the psychological well-being of their students as well as them­ selves. Next, we discuss some ways teachers can do this. 285

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Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Goals and Practices In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, students need social and emotional support as well as academic focus in education. A  resource system designed for this purpose has been termed Social Emotional Learning (SEL). The goals of this aspect of education have been studied by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), among other organizations. In a survey of eight states with a diversity of regions, political persuasions, and demographic profiles, NASBE found that social emotional aims of education were highly endorsed. As Table 13.1 shows, although teaching the basics and student safety were prioritized, more than half of the respondents reported positive support for mental health, social-emotional learning, and motivation in schools. NASBE found that eight states have mental health, SEL, and motivation standards for pre-K students, and eight states extend them to K-12. As social and emotional goals are widely endorsed by the public as shown in Table 13.1, it is reasonable that SEL should be embraced by educators (NASBE, 2014). Although many models of SEL have been implemented, the most prominent framework is Collab­ orative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), which is a collaboration of 20 districts in multiple states (https://casel.org/cdi-ten-year-report/). The core of CASEL is a set of social-emo­ tional goals: (a) self-awareness, referring to the ability to understand one’s emotional thoughts and values; (b) self-management, referring to the capacity to delay gratification, manage stress, and the agency to accomplish goals; (c) social awareness, referring to the ability to take the perspective of oth­ ers including those with diverse backgrounds; (d) relationship skills, referring to the capacity to com­ municate clearly, cooperate, and work collaboratively; and (e) responsible decision making, referring to the ability to make caring and constructive choices. The SEL competences of CASEL are taught with explicit instruction provided in developmentally and culturally responsive ways. Classroom practices include cooperative learning, project-based learning, and the integration of SEL with academic curricula such as language arts. Ideally, the instructional practices are sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (SAFE). Signature practices include welcoming and includ­ ing activities, engaging strategies, brain breaks, transitions, and optimistic closures. These practices are designed to confer experiences of autonomy, belonging and competence support, which are foundational practices of self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2020). These attributes of SEL are not foreign to literacy motivation and engagements; some motivations are embraced as aims within the SEL context.

Efficacy of SEL Programs With the challenges of COVID-19 and other stressors facing teachers, the issue of social emotional learning programs (SEL) in schools becomes a policy-sensitive question. In this situation, educators need to be on the right side of the evidence regarding social emotional learning programs. Fortunately, Table 13.1 Educational Values in Eight States Educational Values

Percent Support

Teaching the basics of reading, writing, math, science, and social studies

83%

Ensuring students feel safe and secure at school

79%

Preparing students for jobs and careers

73%

Supporting positive mental health and addressing needs

69%

Social and emotional learning

58%

Personalized instruction to motivate and challenge students

58%

286

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a body of knowledge has been built on the issue. In one large meta-analysis, 82 interventions of K-12 programs in diverse communities of the U.S. and other nations showed clear evidence that SEL pro­ grams benefits students. The study provided results for CASEL programs and other SEL interventions (Taylor et al., 2017) The analysis showed that students who were provided a verifiable implementation of SEL program­ ming showed stronger social-emotional learning skills than students without this opportunity. The skills included identifying emotions, perspective taking, self-control, interpersonal problem solving, conflict resolution and coping strategies, and decision making, depending on the specific targets and developmental levels of the participating samples. All these outcomes were measured in hypothetical situations or using structured tasks or questionnaires. A second outcome was improved attitude toward self, others, and school. Program participants fared significantly better than control students in self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-concept. Attitudes about others reflected prosocial beliefs such as disapproval of substance abuse and violent behavior. Finally, attitudes related to school included both beliefs about teachers, learning, or education in general as well as school bonding, connectedness, and belonging. The attitude outcomes came from student self-reports. An overall outcome was that students’ emotional distress was reduced by SEL interventions. This positive outcome consisted of reductions in depression, anxiety, stress, and drug abuse, which were typically based on student reports. Fortunately, academic performance showed a positive, though weak, response to SEL programs, consisting of improved grades or achievement test scores. A subset of 31 interventions with student participants in childhood (ages 5–10) showed the highest overall SEL increases. Further, 37 interventions with early adolescent students (ages 11–13) showed significant but intermediate impacts, and 11 interventions showed benefits to adolescent populations (ages 14–18) similar to the early adolescent group. Benefits were seen across demographic subgroups including SES and race (Taylor et al., 2017). Most of the SEL interventions in this meta-analysis were classroom-based and attempted to pro­ mote competencies through a series of structured group lessons lasting between 30 and 45 minutes. A  few incorporated the development of competencies as part of regular academic instruction, and a minority also expanded the classroom intervention with additional components such as efforts to enhance classroom or school climate, various school-wide initiatives, or parent involvement. Each included program targeted at least one of the five CASEL competency domains (e.g., self-management and relationship skills). Eighty-nine percent of the interventions were rated as being sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (SAFE) practices. Although trained teachers participated in the previous meta-analysis, teachers without professional development may also be effective in fostering SEL. To examine this possibility, Zhai and Jones (2015) asked third grade teachers in low-income Chicago schools to describe how often they used a variety of supports for social emotional learning. Teachers completed a survey addressing the following six types of SEL activities: (1) behavior or effective classroom management (e.g., activities designed to reduce student disruptive behavior, increase student attention); (2) violence prevention or peace promotion (e.g., activities designed to address verbal and physical aggression, weapons, bullying, conflict resolu­ tion, or peacemaking); (3) social and emotional development (e.g., activities that help students with anger management, recognizing emotions, empathy, and friendships); (4) character education (e.g., activities that help students develop respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness, caring); (5) tolerance or diversity (e.g., activities that target acceptance of others, celebrating cultural and ethnic differences, or reduction in prejudice); and (6) risk prevention or health promotion (e.g., activities that target alcohol, tobacco and drug use, or promote healthy life choices). Although they had not been provided any targeted professional development, teachers rated how often they used each of these six types of SEL activities since the beginning of the school year, reporting a mean of 2.60 of the six types of activities. 287

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Teachers who used these support systems most extensively fostered a wide array of social-emotional learning processes. SEL-supportive teachers had students who: showed advanced social skills, elabo­ rated cooperative behaviors, had strong teacher-student relationships, were close to the teacher, used self-control rather than impulsiveness, planned and followed through, and had achievement in lan­ guage and literacy (Zhai et al., 2015). These pathways likely go both directions. Teachers who provide advanced SEL supports foster students to gain SEL competencies. In kind, students with high SEL competencies create the occasion for teachers to provide rich SEL opportunities. In this study, con­ nections were stronger than typical links between teacher behaviors and students’ motivation in literacy domains. As powerful as literacy engagement support may be, SEL rivals it for impact on students’ lives.

Linkages of Mental and Emotional Health, SEL, and Literacy Motivation Support It is likely that mental health challenges accelerated by the pandemic can be addressed, in part, by SEL programs. In addition, children’s longstanding need for literacy motivation support can be coordinated with this goal. Links across these aspects of education are presented in Table 13.2. This conceptual framework is proposed by the authors for consideration and is not empirically tested in its entirety. The left column of Table 13.2 presents five distinct aspects of mental and emotional health. The left side of the continuum represents a clinical problem to be addressed by counselors, and the right side of this aspect of mental health represents normally functioning students. The middle column of the table presents the Social Emotional Learning goals. The first row in Table 13.2 represents an aspect of anxiety known as generalized anxiety disorder. In the first row, the middle column shows Self-Management, which is an especially important goal for anxious children. Education toward this competency is provided in SEL programs in which children are taught to set personal goals and use organizational skills. Often, such SEL emphasis on self-management will reduce anxiety, fostering comfort and security for students. However, in SEL programs these competencies are generalized across skill and classroom situations. They may not impact literacy motivation. Table 13.2 Mental Health, SEL, and Motivation Goals Mental and Emotional Development and Growth Anxiety: Generalized Anxiety Disorder—to Emotional Coping Depression: Despair—to Social Awareness

Depression:

Isolation—to Social Agency

Psychological Distress:

Eating, Sleeping, Addictions—to Behavioral health

Social Emotional Learning Competency Goals—General Self-Management: Sets personal goals; uses planning and organizational skills Social Awareness: Awareness of strengths and feelings of others; shows empathy, compassion, gratitude Relationship Skills: Works collaboratively; communicates effectively; solves conflicts constructively Responsible Decision Making: Uses facts to make judgments; promotes well-being of self and others

Anxiety: Self-Awareness: Severe Anxiety, Phobias—to Value Identifies and attains personal, Realization cultural, and linguistic assets

288

Motivation and Engagement Goals—Literacy Self-Efficacy: Goal setting; progress charting; positive self-evaluations; optimism Interest Development: Defined domain interests; commitments; marked preferences Social Motivations: Interpersonal interaction in literacy; active sharing; prosocial goals Intrinsic Motivation: Domains of identification; selfregulated pursuits to accomplish literacy aims Valuing and Self-Determination: Established domains of importance and utility; personal commitments to goals

Motivation & Engagement in Teaching the English Language Arts

Students will rarely know how to apply their self-management skills to improving their own moti­ vations for reading. However, in an English/Language Arts program, teachers can construct motivation and engagement goals and support systems in concert with SEL programming. As indicated elsewhere in this chapter, a fundamental goal is fostering self-efficacy at the outset of teaching. Teachers who support self-efficacy usually provide students with models of self-efficacy, and assure guided instruction in goal setting, progress charting, and positive self-evaluations as described elsewhere in this chapter. All rows in Table  13.2 could be discussed in the same way that we presented row 1; that is, a child who is in the middle of the continuum shown in column one is a promising candidate for SEL programming and classroom support in motivation. The SEL goal in column two is relevant for this student. However, schools and teachers should also plan to provide explicit literacy motivation and engagement support for this group as well as a majority of students. Such an instructional strategy is consistent with the goals of most SEL programs and fosters the mental and emotional health of most students. Although SEL programs may benefit learners, SEL is not likely to be sufficient to increase students’ self-efficacy for reading or other literacy motivations. Specific literacy-centered instruction should be provided as an extension of SEL programming. Table 13.2 provides a set of linkages between mental or emotional growth of students, provisions of SEL programs, and classroom-based motivation goals in literacy. At the same time, this table does not imply limitations, constraints or diagnostic approaches related to schooling or literacy instruction.

Patterns Across These Linkages of Mental Health, SEL, and Motivation Educators and teachers working to build students’ motivation will find it useful to recognize that men­ tal health is a precondition for developing social emotional learning and motivation. In extreme cases, students who are clinically anxious or depressed should be referred to psychological services within the schools and community. At a slightly lower level of mental health challenge, students may need social emotional learning support. A moderate level of anxiety and depression may prevent students from easily engaging in activities that would increase their reading and literacy motivation. For students who function normally, SEL programs such as CASEL are relevant and effective. For this group, who represent a large majority in schools, teachers can provide motivation support for English Language Arts at the same time they are providing SEL programs. Viewed from a different perspective, teachers who attempt to build their students’ motivations for English Language Arts programs should observe some preconditions. These preconditions consist of assuring that students receive professional psychological assistance if needed, and that students have sufficient social and emotional competencies to learn in a normal classroom. These are minimal levels of mental health and emotional maturity needed to benefit from English/Language Arts activities that focus on motivation and engagement. In sum and conclusion, teachers and student face many challenges in the post-pandemic world. Thus, teaching practices that promote literacy motivation and engagement should be built on a plat­ form of basic student competencies in social and emotional learning and services for mental health as needed by students.

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Motivating the academically unmotivated: A critical issue for the 21st century. Review of Educational Research, 70, 151–179. https://doi. org/10.2307/1170660 Hidi, S.,  & Renninger, K. A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_4 Hughes, J.,  & Kwok, O.-M. (2007). Influence of student-teacher and parent-teacher relationships on lower achieving readers’ engagement and achievement in the primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(1), 39–51.  https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.99.1.39 Hughes, J., Lou, W., Kwok, O., & Loyd, L. (2008). Teacher-student support effortful, engagement, and achieve­ ment: A 3-year longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 1–14. Jang, H. (2008). Supporting students’ motivation, engagement, and learning during an uninteresting activity. Jour­ nal of Educational Psychology, 100, 798–811. Jones, S. (2022). 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John T. Guthrie and Allan Wigfield Rosenzweig, E. Q., & Wigfield, A. (2017). What if reading is easy but unimportant? How students’ patterns of affirming and undermining motivation for reading information texts predict different reading outcomes. Con­ temporary Educational Psychology, 48, 133–148. Rosenzweig, E. Q., Wigfield, A., & Hulleman, C. S. (2020). More useful or not so bad? Examining the effects of utility value and cost reduction interventions in college physics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(1), 166–182. Rosenzweig, E., Wigfield, A., Gaspard, A., & Guthrie, J. (2018). How do perceptions of importance support from a reading intervention affect students’ motivation, engagement, and comprehension? Journal of Research in Reading, 41(4), 625–641. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self determination theory perspec­ tive: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, Article ID 101860. Schunk, D. H., & DiBenedetto, M. K. (2020). Motivation and social cognitive theory. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 60, Article 101832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101832 Schunk, D. H., & Rice, J. M. (1989). Learning goals and children’s reading comprehension. Journal of Reading Behavior, 11, 279–293. Skinner, E. A., & Belmont, M. J. (1993). Motivation in the classroom: Reciprocal effects of teacher behavior and student engagement across the school year. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 571–581. Smalls, C., White, R., Chavous, T.,  & Sellers, R. (2007). Racial ideological beliefs and racial discrimination experiences as predictors of academic engagement among Black adolescents. Journal of Black Psychology, 33, 299–330. Stanovich, K. E., & Cunningham, A. E. (1992). Studying the consequences of literacy within a Literate society: The cognitive correlates of print exposure. Memory & Cognition, 20, 51–68. Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1989). Exposure to print and orthographic processing. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 402–433. Stutz, F., Schaffner, E., & Schiefele, U. (2016). Measurement invariance and validity of a brief questionnaire on reading motivation in elementary students. Journal of Research in Reading, 40(4), 439–461. Taylor, R., Oberle, E., Durlak, J.,  & Weissberg, R. (2017). Promoting positive youth development through school-based social and emotional learning interventions: A meta-analysis of follow-up effects. Child Develop­ ment, 88(4), 1156–1171. Tian, L., Chen, H., & Huebner, E. S. (2014). The longitudinal relationships between basic psychological needs satisfaction at school and school-related subjective well-being in adolescents. Social Indicators Research, 119(1), 353–372. Toste, J. R., Didion, L., Peng, P., Filderman, M. J., & Mcclelland, A. M. (2020). A meta-analytic review of the relations between motivation and reading achievement for K–12 students. Review of Educational Research, 90(3), 420–456. Unrau, N. J., Rueda, R., Son, E., Planin, J. R., Lundeen, R. J., & Muraszewski, A. K. (2018). Can reading self efficacy be modified? A meta-analysis of the impact of interventions on reading self-efficacy. Review of Educa­ tional Research, 88(2), 167–204. Unrau, N., & Schlackman, J. (2006). Motivation and its relationship with reading achievement in an urban mid­ dle school. The Journal of Educational Research, 100(2), 81–101. https://doi.org/10.3200/JOER.100.2.81-101 Wang, J. H.-Y., & Guthrie, J. T. (2004). Modeling the effects of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amount of reading, and past reading achievement on text comprehension between U.S. and Chinese students. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(2), 162–186. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.39.2.2 Waples, D., & Tyler, R. (1931). What people want to read about. American Library Association and University of Chicago Press. Webb, N. M., & Farivar, S. (1994). Promoting helping behavior in cooperative small groups in middle school mathematics. American Educational Research Journal, 31(2), 369–395.  https://doi.org/10.2307/1163314 Wentzel, K., Muenks, K., McNeish, D.,  & Russell, S. (2018). Emotional support, social goals, and classroom behavior: A multilevel, multisite study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(5), 611–627. Whitney, S., & Bergin, D. (2018). Students’ motivation and engagement edict reading achievement differently by ethnic group. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 17(6), 357–370. Wigfield, A., Guthrie, J., Tonks, S., & Perencevich, K. (2004). Children’s motivation for reading: Domain specific­ ity and instructional influences. Journal of Educational Research, 97, 6. Wigfield, A., & Guthrie, J. T. (1997). Relations of children’s motivation for reading to the amount and breadth of their reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 420–432.

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ASSESSMENT IN LANGUAGE ARTS

CLASSROOMS

Hyoju Ahn and Peter Afflerbach

Situating Assessment: Tests Are the Context Literacy assessment is subject to societal influences, whether they be well-known or subtle. An account of the use of assessment must reference these influences as they act to support, undermine, and other­ wise complicate assessment choices and uses. In this section, we focus on four substantial and often­ times interactive influences: testing, the “science of reading,” media, and economics. Each reinforces the use of standardized testing.

Testing First, the influence of testing on how reading, reading development, and reading achievement are conceptualized cannot be overstated. Afflerbach (2022) noted: When measures of our students’ reading development are tests, our narratives of student success and challenge are told with test scores. (p. 35) Consider the following: Tests signal student performance at, above, or below expectation, and are often used to compare students using raw scores and percentile rankings. A reading test score indicates a student’s needs (even though summative, standardized test scores are generally rough measures of reading of limited use for informing instruction), and teachers and schools can act on this information to provide related instruction. Instruction thus informed is constrained, restricted by the fact that only strategies and skills are tested. However, this narrow focus and related limitations on what tests can tell us about reading are regularly overlooked due to our habituation with testing. Testing is woven into the fabric of schooling, and the resources and deference given to testing are rarely scrutinized. The tradition of testing reduces our ability to seek assessment alternatives, or to conceptualize reading as more than a collection of strategies and skills. Education policy in reading—at local, state, and national levels—is further influenced by testing. The current focus on the “science of reading” harks back to the Report of the National Reading Panel (2000). The National Reading Panel (NRP) examined what it deemed to be relevant reading research

DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-17

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and sought evidence that certain aspects of language instruction contributed to children’s reading development. These contributions were indicated by statistically significant differences between treat­ ment and control groups, yielded by studies using experimental and quasi-experimental designs. The significant differences were determined by comparing test scores focused on students’ cognitive strate­ gies and skills, including phonics, word recognition, oral reading fluency, vocabulary acquisition, and reading comprehension. Thus, testing not only monopolizes the discourse of reading development and reading achievement, it also was the de facto determinant of whether research was included (or ignored) by the National Reading Panel. Testing again serves to limit how reading and effective read­ ing instruction are conceptualized. The Report of the National Reading Panel was the evidentiary basis for the government-certified reading instruction, as the United States Department of Education utilized the NRP Report to create guidelines for reading education policy and funding. The No Child Left Behind Act and the subse­ quent Reading First initiative were based on the idea that reading programs must include instruc­ tion that reflected the statistically significant outcomes determined by the NRP. States applying for Reading First grants had to demonstrate that reading instruction was based on “scientific evidence” from reading research. While it is difficult to argue against instruction that is informed by science, the approach of the United States Department of Education certified that the “scientific evidence” used to evaluate reading programs and deem some as “acceptable” was test scores that measured reading strategies and skills. The seal of approval given to specific reading programs by the U. S. Department of Education was based on the fact that related research found statistically significant differences between experimental treatment and control-group learning outcomes. Statistical significance was determined by compar­ ing dependent variables—reading test scores—a proxy for students’ cognitive reading strategies and skills. This further limited the reach of schools’ reading assessments, with little or no attention paid to students’ growth in reading metacognition, attributions, self-efficacy, and related affective and conative aspects of reading development. In summary, tests are omnipresent on the reading assessment agenda and in their influence on reading curriculum and instruction.

The Science of Reading The “science of reading” is a prominent term typically used to advocate for skill and strategy instruc­ tion—especially involving phonemic awareness and phonics—for elementary students. The term is used by those concerned with dyslexic students’ reading instruction, those selling programs deemed scientific, and those who believe that the “science of reading,” translated to educational materials and practices, will bring each child to read to expectation. The “science of reading” is often associated with the “simple view of reading” (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). Unfortunately, use of the “simple view of reading” can lead to simple-minded views of how student readers develop and simple-minded ideas of how to assess development and achievement. The evidence presented to support arguments for the validity of the “simple view of reading” is student scores on reading subtests. Teaching students phonics and phonemic awareness and then charting their progress via tests of phonics and phonemic awareness most often indicates achievement in the subskills tested, but not in text comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading (e.g., Gamse et al., 2008). While examination of the “science of reading” is viewed as a mixed blessing (Reading Research Quarterly, 2022), a result of adopting this view further implicates assessment of reading strategies, skills, and subskills. Claims of superiority or inferiority of an instructional approach, and of curricula being “scientific” or “not scientific,” are directly tied to test scores.

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The Media A third powerful influence on assessment and schooling is the media. Citing standardized test scores is the means by which the media reports on school and student and teacher achievement, and in doing so the media perpetuates the belief that test scores and the continued use of tests are the most important type of assessment information. Further, the media constructs narratives about school success or failure in which assessment—specifically test scores—is featured as evidence of either. Consider the following, penned by journalist Emily Hanford (Hanford, 2018): Most teachers nationwide are not being taught reading science in their teacher preparation pro­ grams because many deans and faculty in colleges of education either don’t know the science or dismiss it. As a result of their intransigence, millions of kids have been set up to fail. (Retrieved from: www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/ hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read) Here, the idea that children are “set up to fail” represents a huge inference based on standardized test scores and unscientific thinking. The author argues for attention to “reading science” while at the same time making claims without providing a scintilla of evidence—a basic procedural requirement of any science. A second example of media influence is the recent Public Broadcasting Service (2019) presentation, “What parents of dyslexic children are teaching schools about literacy,” which aired on PBS News Hour. The feature examined struggling student readers and low test scores in the state of Arkansas. The “science of reading” is cited to support claims that when teachers provide intensive phonics instruc­ tion, students’ reading problems are solved. It follows that such teaching, accompanied by reading skill tests and quizzes, are the key to gauging and reporting student achievement. Curiously, the PBS seg­ ment does not indicate that the producers of the show considered explanations for the lack of students’ reading progress other than the need for more phonics instruction. The PBS segment does not sample the considerable research base that describes numerous other factors that influence students’ reading struggles. Consider, for example, the demographics for the state of Arkansas. The state ranks 4th in the percentage of poor children, 43rd in average teacher salary, 40th in quality of the state education system, and 35th in pupil spending. Given the profile of schools and public education in Arkansas, attributing students’ reading performance to the single factor of phonics instruction appears short­ sighted and unscientific. Using single indicators of students’ performance to claim that the problem has been solved further illustrates the media’s test-score dependency.

Economics A fourth influence on literacy assessment is economics, which provides the term opportunity cost: An opportunity cost is a benefit that an individual or business forgoes because they made one decision instead of another. Retrieved from: https://money.usnews.com/investing/term/opportunity-cost For example, when a school district or state spends money on standardized reading tests, with extra costs for scoring the tests, the reporting back of scores, and test preparation materials and procedures, the result is often no money remaining in the assessment portion of the education budget. The oppor­ tunity cost with standardized tests results may include no resources for developing formative assess­ ments to inform classroom practice or for supporting teachers’ professional development in classroom 296

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assessment. This spending of resources on tests maintains the focus on once-a-year summative assess­ ments and prevents the development of regular, classroom-based formative assessments. Without consideration of the opportunity costs involved in the annual and substantial outlay of resources for standardized tests, alternatives to this spending are not considered. For our purposes, a second useful term from economics is path dependence: Path dependence tends to suggest that policy makers work within a series of limited assumptions about their world, that they frequently fail to learn from past experience, and that they empha­ size caution in their decision-making processes. Retrieved from: www.britannica.com/topic/path-dependence In assessment, this helps explain the inability of legislators and laws to imagine—or consider—alter­ natives to yearly multiple choice and fill-in summative tests to evaluate students’ development and achievement in something as complex as reading. In essence, path dependence takes away the ability to envision and develop alternatives to the status quo. Further support for path dependence comes from testing companies themselves. Testing in the United States is a multibillion-dollar industry. In 2022, the estimated revenue from the testing and educational support industry in the U.S. was $24.9 bil­ lion dollars (retrieved from: www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/testing-educational­ support-united-states/#). That any company profiting in such an industry would seek change in the economic status quo defies the profit-making motive. The salience of testing in American schools and the reliance on test scores to “tell the story” of students’ reading development and achievement is firmly established. Powerful influences operate to maintain most privileged status for tests, and consideration of assessment change and innovation is always conducted in this context.

Consequential Validity The assessment of reading and literacy has power outside the realm of reporting students’ scores and performances. Assessment has consequences for each student, above and beyond placement in a read­ ing group, a percentile ranking on a statewide standardized test, a report card grade, and directive feed­ back from a teacher. In medicine, guidance for physicians in the form of the Hippocratic oath includes the idea of doing no harm. Applied to reading and literacy assessment, we would hope that “assess­ ment should do no harm.” Consequential validity, tied to a detailed examination of the consequences of using assessment data, provides a lens for examining whether assessment causes harm. For example, examining how results of an informal reading inventory are used to shape instruction may result in both improved teaching and learning, and an appreciation for detailed, formative assessment. Both of these consequences can be considered positive. In contrast, examining how a single test result is used to label a student as deficient, leading to a narrow school literacy experience, is negative. These two hypothetical scenarios demonstrate that assessment can have positive or negative outcomes on student development related to the uses and consequences of assessment results. Many elementary classrooms designate students as performing above or below grade-level expecta­ tions. Those students who receive test scores in the 90+ percentile, whose reading inventory results indicate above-grade reading ability, and whose classroom discussion contributions are invited and praised regularly might be expected to develop positive associations with reading. For these students, reading assessments are associated with good news, praise for work done well, and recognition of accomplishment. In this case, reading assessment has a positive consequence. In contrast, those students whose test scores are below average, whose group membership is with other struggling readers, who do not believe themselves to be capable readers, and who have generally 297

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low motivation to read exhibit negative affect. These are the students who most need the development of positive affect in relation to their reading because negative affect combined with undeveloped read­ ing strategies and skills rarely leads to reading proficiency. These students often infer that reading is just not worth the effort given their past performance and the consequential information communicated with assessment results. Unfortunately, examination of reading assessment related to consequences for students is uncommon. Teachers and schools are also subject to the consequences of assessment. Test scores are largely (if not solely) the marker of educational accomplishment for politicians, taxpayers, the media, and parents. Teachers and schools with consistently high test scores are regarded as exceptional, while those with consistently low to middling scores are labeled “underperforming” or “not to expectation.” The faulty reasoning behind this labeling is due to the failure to consider that 1) test scores do not represent the totality of students’ experience and learning, and 2) all the good teaching and curriculum development in the world will not overcome all the economic disadvantage and differences in home and community life that may be operating to influence a test score. When a test score is used to designate a teacher or school as underperforming, the consequences may be as dire as that for a student so labeled. Consequences matter: it is important to attend to how we communicate and use reading assess­ ment information with our students. When we use assessment information to provide students with feedback, and we focus on their effort and increasing their motivation and engagement and their sense of self-efficacy, we are using reading assessment to help readers believe in their ability to succeed as readers. Struggling readers especially need this assessment message because they often have histories in which reading assessment sends messages that they are not capable readers.

Formative and Summative Assessment A comprehensive assessment program should include both formative and summative assessment: the former providing useful information to help students learn and grow (and to help teachers develop related instruction), and the latter providing “after the fact” information about overall performance across a marking period, school year, or formal testing event. Formative assessments are crucial, as they can provide details about students’ daily progress, which in turn can help shape classroom instruction. Summative assessments provide a summary statement of student performance, typically over designated time frames. In this sense, formative assessment serves to guide both student and teacher along the path to reading achievement that is demonstrated when meeting a particular standard, as measured by sum­ mative assessment. Afflerbach (2016b) noted: Assessment should describe whether students attain a particular standard through summative assessment and, prior to this, how they are developing on this path to attainment using forma­ tive assessment. (p. 416) Formative assessment refers to the use of materials and procedures that inform teachers in deciding how to best support students’  development (Mansell  & James, 2009). Formative assessment is often “built into” the teaching and learning routines of the classroom and lesson. Teacher observation, discus­ sion with students, focused questioning, and listening to students are all means of conducting forma­ tive assessment. In contrast, summative assessment refers to a more formal summing-up of a student’s progress that is often used to gauge a school or district’s effectiveness in teaching and to evaluate student attainment of standards (Dixon & Worrell, 2016). Summative assessment is conducted at the assumed conclusion of a specific learning process to assess knowledge and learning with predetermined test ques­ tions and tasks that map onto learning standards and end of unit and end of lesson goals (Kibble, 2017). 298

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We note that the categorization of an assessment as formative or summative depends on how the particular assessment is used. For example, a checklist is formative when it is employed to gauge students’ progress toward a formal reading development goal. When that same checklist is used to verify attainment of the goal, it is summative. Teachers should determine the purpose of assessments and use them accordingly. The balance between these two and the purposeful use of assessment is important. Contrasted with the necessity (and often unrealized promise) of forma­ tive assessments, summative assessments maintain a dominant position in school, district, and state measurement regimens. Districts, schools, teachers, and students are evaluated and ranked by the summative assessment of annual testing. These assessments regularly report reading achievement as raw scores, grade level equivalents, or percentile ranks, all related to students’ reading strategies and skills. While summative assessment provides important information related to students’ attainment of standards and grade-level benchmarks, unit and lesson goals, and standards, it occurs after the fact of teaching and learning. Compared with formative assessment, summative assessment does not have the ability to inform instruction and address students’ individual needs as their reading develops (Mansell et al., 2009). Despite this limitation, summative assessment is used to make highly consequential deci­ sions. Accountability, sanction, reward, school success, and school failure are often determined through a process that uses a single summative assessment score. The pressure to focus on such summative assess­ ment takes resources from formative assessment efforts, the very type of assessment that helps teachers and schools demonstrate accountability on a daily basis. Formative assessment, in contrast, is conducted with the goal of informing our instruction and improving student learning. At the heart of effective reading instruction is the classroom teacher’s detailed knowledge of each student. This knowledge is constructed through ongoing formative assess­ ments conducted across the school day and the school year. For example, teacher questioning may be tailored to provide formative assessment information. The teacher who is adept at asking questions during instruction understands how well students are “getting” the lesson. The teacher’s questions can focus on the strategies and skills; the cognitive, affective, and conative influences on reading achieve­ ment; and content area learning that are a result of reading. Consider a fifth-grade teacher’s questions to her students as they read a chapter in a science textbook: What is an ecosystem? On what balances does an ecosystem depend? Can you explain your reasoning? Where do you get the information contained in your explanation? Questions like these evoke responses that demonstrate degrees of stu­ dent understanding. From students’ responses, the teacher constructs her own understanding of their achievement and can adjust instruction accordingly. Students in need of developing positive attitudes related to reading can be helped with formative assessment and related feedback (Johnston, 2012). With formative classroom assessment, teachers can help students focus on the attention to effort, determine the attributions students make for their suc­ cesses and failures, and provide scaffolding in relation to assessment questions, tasks, and students’ work related to them. Moreover, formative assessment helps teachers identify the zones of proximal development in which each individual student can experience success. In each instance, focusing on assessment information related to cognitive development and the affective well-being of students is a goal. Effective teaching includes a detailed understanding of what a student already knows in relation to what is to be learned, and zone of proximal development is an excellent frame for considering both assessment and instruc­ tion. Consider the necessity of formative assessment as it informs a teacher about the current nature of a student’s ability and achievement. This essential feature of effective teaching can then inform ongoing instruction, which seeks to take the student from the current level of capability to the next level. As a lesson begins and then continues, teachers can conduct formative assessment to determine whether the lesson is proceeding well, or if it needs fine-tuning or major revision. Finally, as the lesson concludes, 299

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the teacher conducts summative assessment to determine whether lesson goals were met and if the student traversed the particular zone of proximal development to new learning. Formative assessment of student growth during instruction is essential if we are to address the individual differences in student growth and achievement in all classrooms. The research on the effec­ tiveness of formative assessment—especially focused on teachers’ ability to conduct reliable formative assessments—is quite limited and often describes formative assessment as wanting (Stiggins, 1986). Thus, effective formative assessment may be more a promise than practice in particular schools and classrooms. Formative assessment and summative assessment should work in tandem to optimize teaching and learning. This requires that formative and summative measures cross-reference each other: Do forma­ tive assessments describe points on students’ paths of learning that lead to important outcomes? Do summative assessments reflect the array of formative assessments that are conducted prior to end of lesson, end of unit, and end of year tests? Developing formative and summative assessments in tandem ensures that the ultimate focus—student achievement—is adequately monitored and measured.

Digital Literacy Assessment As digital reading and literacy evolve and become more prominent in students’ lives, the need to develop related assessments increases. Literacy involves the tools used in representing meaning, the cognition involved in communication, and the intent of communication (Kalantzis et al., 2016). Digi­ tal literacy refers to the ability to use digital resources to create, find, evaluate, and communicate infor­ mation in multiple formats (Gilster, 1997). It also involves skills and dispositions with tacit and social practices associated with digital media use (Pangrazio et al., 2020), although traditional reading and writing remain essential in digital literacy (Bulger et al., 2017). The prevalence, growth, and continu­ ing evolution of online reading demand that we use assessments capable of describing students’ related growth and identifying their challenges. Opportunities to learn with digital texts are abundant. Computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones are ubiquitous in students’ lives (Mullis et  al., 2017). In many schools, classroom literacy practices are moving from traditional and print-based to online and digital-based learning using vari­ ous digital devices (e.g., laptops, tablets, smartphones, smartboards). This unprecedented change in learning environments requires students to have online reading comprehension skills and text produc­ tion strategies. For example, students need to navigate through numerous hyperlinks, make meanings from multiple sources on the internet, set purposeful reading paths, and critically evaluate websites’ trustworthiness (Afflerbach & Cho, 2009; Cho, 2014; McGrew, 2020). Although they may be seen as digital natives, they may behave like strangers who need continued support for developing and using appropriate strategies (Riddell, 2016). Multimodal literacy is also necessary due to the prevalence of multimodal websites on the internet featuring slide presentations, e-books, blogs, e-posters, web pages, social media, animation, film, and video games. Multimodal texts have proliferated via various applications and writing tools (Jacksi & Abass, 2019), and often include logos, menus, or hyperlinks in different layouts (Kress, 2003). Reading and writing that had often only used static, written language should now be more broadly understood as the artifact of the multimodal ensemble (Serafini, 2014), meaning that digital and multimodal literacy are typically in play when reading multiple texts on the internet. It is ordinary for students to Google multiple texts for academic tasks or to view friends’ Instagram postings connected to other pages that involve photos, videos, and words. With the proliferation of online, multimodal, and multiple texts in the digital space, students must develop necessary skills and strategies to use, comprehend, and produce online multimodal texts to learn and communicate. Accordingly, assessments of digital literacy should be established to inform instruction, help students develop competencies, and chart progress. 300

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Construct Validity and Digital Literacy Assessment A key for effective digital literacy assessment is the adequate representation and measure of its features. Consider the measurement of online multimodal reading comprehension. Coiro (2009) described how reading comprehension on the internet differs from traditional reading comprehension in five ways: (1) students need new skills, (2) attitudes toward the internet affect online reading abilities, (3) students often seek answers on the internet collaboratively, (4) reading processes should inform reading instruction, and (5) the nature of reading comprehension is changing because of digital technology. Thus, online reading assessments should reflect these characteristics of digital reading, while striving to capture the evidence of students’ online inquiry in a dynamic, interactive manner (Coiro et al., 2018). As digital screens replace print and students read with increased multimodality, literacy assessments should reflect this evolution (Støle et al., 2020). Assessments should be informed by models of digital literacy development and the abilities and mindsets related to digital literacy that we expect from stu­ dents. A resulting construct validity reflects assessment of strategies unique to multimodal reading, as well as those shared with more traditional reading. It is encouraging that the NAEP Reading Frame­ work adopted digital and multimodal literacy in 2019 and has emphasized it in the forthcoming 2025 framework (National Assessment of Educational Progress, n.d.). Coiro (2021) established heuristics of digital literacy focusing on online reading comprehension. The heuristics include text, activity, reader, and context based on the RAND reading framework, where the four elements are interrelated in the reading process (Snow, 2002). The heuristics integrate the New Literacy Studies, multimodal literacy, and multiple document comprehension useful for assessing digital reading. Classroom teachers are encouraged to keep this landscape in mind prior to creating, choosing, and using assessments. For example, teachers can focus on the assessment of student performances that include information searching on the internet and see how readers interact with digital texts and the con­ text in which they engage with various text types (e.g., narrative, information, multimodal, hypertext) as part of reading activities (e.g., comprehension, critical media reading, online research and inquiry). Adding multimodality to the reading construct, Serafini (2012) suggested the “four resources model” that views readers as (1) navigators: interacting and pathfinding in hypermedia texts; (2) inter­ preters: constructing knowledge using prior knowledge in the sociocultural contexts of multimodal texts; (3) designers: constructing meaning from the available semiotic resources with the agency; and (4) interrogators: critically considering the production of multimodal texts and the intended audiences. He posits readers as reader-viewers who operate in sociocultural contexts and bring semiotic resources to multimodal text comprehension (Serafini, 2012). This framework is useful when teachers assess student readers’ roles in meaning-making during online multimodal reading assessments, which is the predominant digital literacy practice. For example, based on a particular reader-text-task interac­ tion, assessment can focus on students’ ability to (1) competently navigate online texts, (2) construct meaning from these texts, (3) understand all semiotic sources, and (4) critically evaluate the meanings constructed from online multimodal reading. Multimodal text analysis framework by Serafini et  al. (2020) also provides useful observational guides for teachers to devise online multimodal text reading assessments that frame students’ multimodal meaning-making processes. For example, during picture-book reading, students attend to writ­ ten language, visual images, and design features and use each to construct meaning. Such templates have the potential to be applied to other, more complex online multimodal text reading assessments. Serafini argues that formative classroom-based assessments are the best way to help teachers evaluate how student readers interact with and understand multimodal texts, which supports student readers with the instructional practices to acquire reading strategies associated with multimodal texts. Models of digital literacy practices such as Rouet and Britt’s (2011) MD-TRACE model (Multi­ ple Documents Task-based Relevance and Content Extraction), List and Alexander’s (2019) IF-MT 301

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(Integrated Framework of Multiple Text use), or the RESOLV (REading as problem-SOLVing) model (Rouet et al., 2017) provide further theoretical frameworks that can help teachers build assessment and observe students’ strategies within the digital reading task. These models include iterative sets of stages that students take, such as setting goals, information location, meaning-making, response to the task, and determination of task completion (MD-TRACE) or preparation, execution, and production (IF-MT). Teachers can use some or whole stages to assess students’ digital reading performances. For instance, using MD-TRACE’s stages, students may self-assess themselves with teacher-provided checklists as they (1) set the goal of online reading, (2) find needed information to reach that goal, (3) read parts of or the whole text to learn about a topic, (4) develop various types of products, and (5) self-evaluate if they have completed the task. The steps in such a checklist are iterative, focusing on both internal (student’s prior knowledge, reading/search skills, self-regulation) and external resources (task direc­ tions, text sources, document contents, reader-generated products) that students use in digital reading (Rouet & Britt, 2011). Overall, assessment based on (and guided by) detailed theoretical accounts of digital reading comprehension should contribute to constructing validity. A further example of assessing students’ online reading strategies is associated with the strategic online reading model developed by Cho and colleagues that combined interrelated online reading strategies (information location, meaning-making, self-monitoring, source evaluation) and reading tasks (Cho et al., 2017). Cho and colleagues also developed two sets of scoring rubrics that teachers can use in tandem to assess these two tasks. For reading strategies, each student’s verbal reports synchro­ nized with screen recordings to evaluate the qualities of reading strategy performance. For example, one point was given if one strategy was used (e.g., information location, meaning-making, source evaluation, self-monitoring), another point was added if that strategy was used frequently, and two points were added if there was overall effectiveness of the strategy. With regards to reading tasks, each student’s critical questions and written legitimization were assessed through another scoring rubric with three criteria—relevance, validity, and significance—that were aggregated into a composite score. Overall, this study demonstrated how assessment could help measure students’ online multimodal read­ ing and digital writing tasks. Namely, this assessment gauged students’ reading processes and products and assessed the interactions of text, activity, reader, and context.

Operation of Digital Literacy Assessments Assessment procedures and tools are developed based on research- and theory-informed constructs to help facilitate consistent and accurate inferences about each student’s growth and achievement. It is important to distinguish the relationship between the purposes and methods of assessments, although they are closely related. Assessment purposes are closely linked to actions based on results, including modifying instruction, judging schools, assigning grades, and evaluating teachers and reading programs. The related assessment methods should reflect best assessment practices applied to digital literacies. It is also essential to assess both the process and product of digital literacy practices, as this permits inference of both students’ developmental needs and their attainment of learning goals. Performance assessment is often suited to assessing both task performance and result because it enables teachers to observe students’ ongoing progress and judge end products as well. For example, a performance assessment focused on digital literacy can be designed to allow observation of students’ online search­ ing strategy use and related evaluation of the search results. Here, assessment is a practical and direct approach to determining how students interact with the internet, while teachers can still guide stu­ dents through various activities. Information on students’ procedural knowledge (e.g., strategies) from performance assessments can be collected using scoring rubrics (Alexander, 2005). For example, a scoring rubric can focus 302

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on online evaluation strategies including judging a website’s credibility, observing and understanding embedded videos, examining the usefulness of hyperlinks, and generating forward inferences (Cho, 2014). Another example of assessing student’s procedural knowledge is NAEP’s (2018) nationally representative assessment of technology and engineering literacy (TEL), a digital literacy assessment instrument that asks 8th-grade students to solve real-world problems (e.g., technology and engineer­ ing-related problems) on a laptop (www.nationsreportcard.gov/tel). The items are multiple-choice and are assessed as basic, proficient, and advanced through scoring rubrics. Self-checklists and written logs on strategy use can also be good resources for assessing student progress. Written journals provide formative assessment information that describes students’ ability to evaluate (e.g., This website had a wrong citation; The pictures were informative). Checklists of strate­ gies serve to both remind students of their utility and provide a means for judging how they used strat­ egies. Students may refer to the checklist (e.g., Did you check the menus on the website? Did you see the source citation? Is the hyperlink useful for your reading goal?) and self-evaluate (e.g., Yes, using this strategy helped me reach my reading goals). Teachers can use these resources to assess progress or give detailed feedback. Teachers may also selectively use digital literacy self-assessment surveys developed for teenagers (Rodríguez-de-Dios et al., 2016) or all age levels for various categories. These tools often use expansive categories of digital competencies (e.g., personal security, digital ethics), which demand the assessor’s purposive and constructively valid application. The quality of students’ mental representations—cognitive materials that individuals build with their minds (Kalantzis et al., 2016)—of multiple texts can be assessed as well. For example, consider an objective for a 7th-grade science class: to understand the differences between animal and plant cells. The online multimodal texts might include videos, charts, and illustrations that contribute to students’ understanding of cells’ appearance and different functions. A related assessment should help teachers check on students’ mental representation or knowledge-building, as well as how they use multimodal meaning-making strategies and which aspects of the multimodal representation appear to be most use­ ful for student understanding (Mason & Florit, 2018). Assessing student essays also helps teachers infer how mental representations are transformed, linked, synthesized, or originated (Leroy et  al., 2022; Magliano et al., 2018). These aspects can be assessed using a scoring rubric and communicated through feedback for students to improve the quality of their strategies. For example, a student may describe how she compared the appearance of plant and animal cells based on her understanding of illustrations, words, and videos from the online multimodal text. The teacher may infer that she used a multimodal integration strategy to build knowledge and give high scores with feedback on the appropriateness and effectiveness of particular strategies along with instruction to bolster those strategies. Asking students to think aloud during digital reading can be helpful when assessing strategies. McGrew (2021) used think-aloud interviews and screen recordings to examine high school students’ website evaluation and article comparison tasks. The rubrics used for assessment were divided into three grades: mastery, emerging, and beginning, depending on whether the reader found the website resourceful and provided a clear rationale for the decision. These students also used ad-hoc self-check­ lists while strategically evaluating websites (e.g., Does it cite or link other sources? Is it free from adver­ tising?). By applying this integrative example to their digital literacy assessment, the teacher may collect students’ candid reflections (e.g., what was easy or difficult, where they lost navigation, or what mode they preferred or not) useful for assessment, as well as resources for the instruction. Multimodal Digital Classroom Assessments (MDCAs; Fjørtoft, 2020) is another example of multimodal literacy assessment that has students combine two or more modes for learning and present them for performance assess­ ments. For example, students collaboratively discuss or think aloud while reading or producing mul­ timodal texts online. They often integrate linguistic (e.g., speaking or written words) and at least one other mode (e.g., images, gestures) to show how they learn. Criteria can be developed according to the target content and multimodal literacy goals (e.g., using two or more different modes to present). 303

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The digital environment allows for collaborative assessment and individual learning with evolving resources (e.g., dialogue, text-based chats, avatar movements, digital documents, logfiles) supported by the possible use of automated scoring. Effective classroom assessment should support the classroom by meeting teachers’ and students’ needs, encouraging interactions between students and teachers or students themselves, and being grounded in what is known from research (Afflerbach et al., 2018). The constructs and operation of digital literacy assessment discussed here will provide resources to meet those needs and support the innovation of digital literacy assessment. Assessment of digital literacy represents the opportunity to observe an evolutionary process. Digi­ tal literacy involves reader strategies that share much in common with traditional print reading and requires new reader strategies and approaches to reading. Related assessment should describe and evaluate both. As always, the ability of assessment to evolve as the nature of reading and literacy and reading change is a key to assessment effectiveness.

Comprehensive Assessment of Student Readers’

Development and Achievement

We noted earlier in this chapter that reading curriculum and assessment are increasingly tied to a par­ ticular notion of “reading science.” Phenomena that are seemingly straightforward to measure—such as students’ phonics knowledge and use and literal comprehension of text—are demonstrated to influence literacy development as test scores from treatment and control groups are compared and significant differences are sought. Here, tests exert considerable influence on how reading development is con­ ceptualized. There is a simple view of reading that is often conflated with a too-simple perspective on students’ reading development and thus on assessing this development. The influence of the “science of reading”—characterized by proponents as the means to effective reading instruction and student reading achievement—is difficult to overestimate. Given that there are five “pillars” for reading success derived from the report of the National Reading Panel, it is not surprising that the vast majority of reading assessment focuses on these very cognitive strategies and skills: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, if reading and literacy are conceptualized as more than the strategies and skills of the “science of reading,” it is apparent that critical elements of students’ literacy development—and related assessments—are missing. As to these missing elements, consider these questions: Can we envision students’ reading develop­ ment without considering their motivation and engagement for both texts and related tasks? Should we expect students who have histories of challenge and failure as readers to possess sufficient selfefficacy to believe that they can succeed and martial related effort? How can students’ independence and success ever be imagined without the necessary metacognitive guidance? Consideration of these questions leads us to the observation that the assessment of critical aspects of students’ reading develop­ ment and achievement is extremely thin, or nonexistent. Pintrich (2003) noted: Academic cognition is effortful, but it is not isolated, rather it is socially mediated and supported, and it is not cold, but hot, in terms of the involvement of motivational and emotional factors. (p. 679) We contend that  students’ reading development and reading achievement involve both cognitive strategy and skill development and other influential factors, including motivation and engagement, metacognition, and self-efficacy. The influences of these factors on reading development are welldocumented, yet they are rarely assessed. It follows that assessments should help describe growth in these areas.

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Motivation and Engagement When students receive instruction that fosters motivation and engagement, their text comprehen­ sion increases (Taboada et  al., 2017), as motivation influences students’ reading competence and behavior (Schiefele et  al., 2012). Research demonstrates the relationship of students’ motivation with reading strategies and skills (Morgan & Fuchs, 2007). However, motivation and engagement are not a consistent target of either formative or summative assessment. If the successful teaching of reading is conceptualized as contributing to students’ enthusiasm and motivation and engagement, teachers should have a means for evaluating students’ growth in these areas. Fortunately, there are materials and procedures that can aid the concerted effort to bring the assessment of motivation and engagement more to center stage. The Motivation to Read Profile—Revised (MRP-R; Malloy et al., 2013) seeks to describe students’ reading motivation and the contextual factors that influ­ ence this motivation. The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS; McKenna & Kear, 1995) examines students’ attitudes towards reading, which can inform teachers’ creation of reading text and task scenarios to encourage student motivation. A more recent assessment, the Motivation for Online Reading Questionnaire (MORQ; Li et al., 2019) provides detailed information on students’ motivations and engagement with online reading in four distinct areas: value (believing that reading and researching online is both useful and important); self-improvement beliefs (students’ beliefs that effort can improve their online reading and researching); self-efficacy (students’ beliefs about their ability to read and conduct research successfully online); and curiosity (learning more about topics of one’s interest for the purpose of enjoyment). As with metacognition and self-efficacy, teachers have “front row seats” that allow them to observe and listen in relation to students’ motivation and engagement. Observed enthusiasm and effort—or observed resignation and inattentiveness—during reading can be the evidence used by a teacher to warrant further investigation of a student’s reading motivations. Subsequent information provided by assessments such as ERAS or MRP-R comple­ ments the data gathered during classroom routines.

Metacognition Next, it is well-known that metacognition is a major contributor to students’ reading development and achievement. For example, Allen and Hancock (2008) found that elementary students’ reading achievement improves as they participate in a metacognitive instruction intervention, while Boul­ ware-Gooden et al. (2007) found that metacognitive strategy instruction increases both third graders’ vocabulary growth and reading comprehension. In his study, Slavin (2013) revealed that metacognition instruction increases students’ reading comprehension and vocabulary. That metacognition positively impacts students’ development and performance is evident (Veenman et al., 2006). It follows that effective curriculum and instruction—along with suitable assessments—are needed to describe how (and if) students are developing metacognitive mindsets and strategies for read­ ing. The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory–Revised (MARSI-R; Mokhtari et al., 2018) describes the nature of metacognitive reading development as it focuses on metacognitive and cognitive strategies. In addition to instruments such as MARSI-R, teachers’ observations and strategic questioning can also inform the nature of students’ metacognitive development. Informal and published reading inventories can also provide accounts of students’ comprehension monitoring. Additionally, miscue analysis, which is self-corrections made while reading, can provide teachers with detailed descriptions of how students use metacognition in reading. Further, conversations with stu­ dents, student behavior checklists, and students’ journals are all potential sources of information that help describe metacognition in action.

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Self-Efficacy Self-efficacy operates in most acts of reading, but attention to self-efficacy is missing in most assessment programs. Self-efficacy figures in students’ belief in self, and how they conceptualize the ability to suc­ ceed, including if and how they will succeed. Bandura (2006, p. 165) noted: Among the mechanisms of human agency, none is more central or pervasive than belief of per­ sonal efficacy. Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to act, or to persevere in the face of difficulties. Whatever other factors serve as guides and motivators, they are rooted in the core belief that one has the power to effect changes by one’s actions. In essence, Bandura proposes that when people believe they can reach their goals through their actions, they are motivated and engaged. They persist. In contrast, when they do not believe they will succeed, they have little incentive to give effort or to persevere. Such differences in student readers characterize accomplished and struggling students, respectively. Self-efficacy is a positive influence for students who believe they will succeed, while it is debilitating for students who do not believe that they will succeed. Students with high self-efficacy consider difficult reading to be a challenge to be met and persevere when challenged (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003). In contrast, students with low self-efficacy expect that they will not succeed and therefore do not meet the challenge. Highly efficacious students are metacognitive, setting goals and monitoring and evaluating their reading work (Zimmerman, 2000), while students with low self-efficacy in reading avoid reading and related work that is considered dif­ ficult (Guthrie & Wigfield, 1997). Classroom observation that identifies students who give up easily, who are inattentive, and who are distracted from text and task provides helpful initial information to teachers, who can then follow up with assessment that provides details on the nature of a student’s self-efficacy. The Reading SelfEfficacy Questionnaire (RS-EQ; Carroll & Fox, 1997) is such an instrument, as students are asked to respond to descriptions of a specific classroom reading task (e.g., read out loud in front of the class). Students indicate their self-efficacy beliefs about what they can (and cannot) do by indicating where they are positioned on a 7-point continuum. The Self-Efficacy for Learning Form (SELF; Zimmer­ man et al., 2005) describes classroom reading tasks and asks students to report the probability that they would (or would not) be able to do particular tasks. The Myself As A Learner scale (MALS; Burden, 2012) focuses on students’ general academic self-concepts, and the Children’s Perceived Self-Efficacy (CPSE; Bandura, 1990) scale assesses self-efficacy in a wide range of academic and social contexts. Clearly, we do not want for assessments that help us better understand the influences of metacogni­ tion, motivation and engagement, and self-efficacy on students’ literacy development and achievement. To not include such assessments in our regular evaluation of student growth and learning means that we are operating without information on the totality of students’ literacy growth, and that we lack information as to where our instructional efforts might make the most difference. Without such assess­ ments, we are limited in our ability to determine reading program quality, teaching effectiveness, and the breadth and depth of student learning. Efforts to move beyond conceptualizing reading as a col­ lection of strategies and skills and include previously neglected aspects of student reader development must be supported.

Teaching Students Self-Assessment Assessment should focus on all valued outcomes of reading instruction. In the prior section, we argued that key influences on students’ reading development and reading achievement, including motivation and 306

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engagement and self-efficacy, are regularly overlooked by most reading assessment programs. Metacogni­ tion is a further critical influence, as it allows students to ultimately take control of their reading and suc­ ceed with independence. According to Borkowski and Turner (1990), metacognition involves: knowledge about cognition, awareness of one’s own thinking processes, comprehension of requirements for learning, control of learning processes, and regulation of cognitive procedures . . . the mindful regulation of one’s own learning processes (is) the heart of metacognition. (p. 161) Students who self-assess are proactive in setting goals, choosing appropriate strategies, and monitor­ ing their learning (Zimmerman, 2008). Further, metacognitive students understand the relationship between their effort and reading outcomes, and this contributes to increased motivation and engage­ ment (Greene & Azevedo, 2007). Successful student readers independently plan their reading and set goals, monitor their work in relation to goals, read strategically, and determine their progress toward and attainment of those goals. Given the centrality of self-assessment for students’ reading success and given the increasingly com­ plex reading text and task standards that students are expected to meet, self-assessment should be an instructional focus. Because reading assessment serves as a vehicle for teaching self-assessment, it adds a necessary complication to the assessment audience/purpose agenda, requiring that teachers teach and conduct assessment. Goals and instructional approaches for teaching self-assessment are well-explicated and suitable for most reading instruction scenarios (Afflerbach, 2022). Students benefit from self-assessment at both local (when students self-assess continually as they read) and global (as students learn to better under­ stand their strengths, needs, and become more mindful individuals) levels. Veenman and colleagues (2006) described three general goals for helping students learn to self-assess their reading. First, explicit instruction in how, when, where, and why to self-assess is necessary. The value of metacognition becomes apparent to students as they gain increasing independence in reading. Metacognitive selfassessment strategies can be modeled, explained, and demonstrated in a manner similar to teaching reading comprehension strategies. By thinking aloud when modeling self-assessment, teachers can demonstrate goal setting, comprehension monitoring and fix-it strategies, and checking for progress toward reading goals. Second, teachers’ instruction of self-assessment must be situated in authentic and meaningful learning contexts. Students must be engaged and invested in learning for them to garner effort and maintain the attention required for self-assessment. Introducing self-assessment to students in manageable chunks is preferable, as self-assessment brings with it a set of cognitive demands and an independence mindset that must be coordinated with the student reader’s task at hand. Third, there must be continual teaching of metacognitive strategies and mindsets. The thread of self-assessment should be apparent in all reading instruction, not restricted to occasional appearances. Teachers have considerable options for helping students to become metacognitive and to take increasing responsibility for self-assessment, including checklists. As checklists are introduced, explained, and modeled by the teacher, they can be internalized by students. Consider the following checklist question: _____ Does that make sense? Proposing this question to students and then modeling when to ask the question can mark the onset of students becoming aware of the necessity and workings of metacognition. The question also serves as a continuing reminder that we read to understand. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine successful independ­ ent reading without the habit of asking (and ably answering) such a question. 307

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Once a student has learned the process and value of asking, “Does that make sense?” further ques­ tions can be introduced, explained, modeled by the teacher, and then adopted by students. Consider the following additional question: _____ Is there a problem? This second question directs students’ attention to a blockage in meaning and continues the movement toward students accepting the responsibility for monitoring their reading. Over time and accompanied by teachers’ scaffoldings and explanations, a gradual release of responsibility (Pearson  & Gallagher, 1983) on the teacher’s part and acceptance of responsibility on the student’s part can occur. As students build these rudimentary self-assessment routines, further metacognitive questions can be added to the checklist. We note that beginning such checklists early in students’ reading careers allows for the building of quite sophisticated self-assessment routines across the school years, preparing students for the increasingly complex text and task combinations they will encounter in later grades. (For more on these complexities, see the “Digital Literacy Assessment” section.) _____ What is the problem? _____ Can I fix the problem? The following additional questions can be added as students build-out their self-assessment strategies and mindsets. _____ How can I fix the problem?

_____ How do I know I fixed the problem?

_____ How do I get back on track to continue my reading?

The consideration of this set of questions (or paraphrases of these questions) helps demonstrate how all accomplished readers are exceedingly metacognitive, and how self-assessment makes a significant contribution to successful reading. Further, the questions represent an immensely valuable but often overlooked aspect of assessment—teaching students to do assessment for themselves. Further oppor­ tunities for teaching students self-assessment reside in the use of rubrics or shorthand guides for what students must do to earn specific grades. Learning to reference a rubric while undertaking a reading task can move students further on the path to self-assessment. Finally, while our discussion in this sec­ tion is limited to teaching self-assessment as part of reading and literacy programs, the benefits of selfassessment and becoming metacognitive are, of course, schoolwide and lifelong.

Conclusion In this chapter, we reviewed what we consider to be key aspects of reading and literacy assessment. Consideration of the nature and utility of assessments should always be conducted with attention to context. Early in this chapter we described the often-powerful influences that impact assessment fund­ ing and choices. It is important to acknowledge that among assessments, tests have privileged status that complexify advocacy for other forms of assessment. Effective assessment is always planned and used with attention to the consequences of that assessment—for students, teachers, schools, and parents. An inventory of possible positive and negative consequences complements the consideration of traditional validity and reliability ratings of all assessments. A focus on formative and summative assessment should support the two important roles of supporting teaching and learning, and then certifying learning,

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respectively. Formative and summative assessment should be clearly linked, have reciprocal benefit, and be supported by an appropriate balance of resources. The chapter also focused on specific types and uses of assessment. The effective assessment of digital literacy is an urgent need. As technology changes acts of reading and literacy, assessments must be up to the task of describing related student growth and achievement. As our understanding of reading and literacy development evolve, the powerful influence of factors including motivation and engagement and self-efficacy are better understood. Using assessments that describe the state of these factors in students and their influence on literacy should be a priority, as this will support effective instruction. Finally, good teaching should lead to students’ independence in reading. Metacognition is at the center of independent reading, and teaching metacognition and self-assessment are worthwhile goals.

References Afflerbach, P. (2016a). Handbook of individual differences in reading: Reader, text and context. Routledge.

Afflerbach, P. (2016b). Reading assessment: Looking ahead. The Reading Teacher, 69(4), 413–419.

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15

SELF-REGULATION AND

EXECUTIVE FUNCTION IN

LANGUAGE ARTS LEARNING

Kelly B. Cartwright, Ana Taboada Barber, Sharon K. Zumbrunn, and Nell K. Duke Introduction A primary goal of education is to empower students to become independent, self-directed learners across their lifespan (Brookfield, 1983). Language arts education shares this goal: effective language arts instruction should not only provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to understand and produce language orally and in print; it should also help students become self-regulated language users who are self-directed in their use of oral and written language. Self-directed language users know when and how to activate and build on prior knowledge to enhance their understanding of text and self-initiate the organization of an essay or an oral retelling of a text. In other words, self-directed stu­ dents are able to manage their own language and literacy processes—not just in school, but throughout their lives. This chapter describes the important role of self-regulation in the language arts. We begin with def­ initions of self-regulation, provide a brief historical review of theoretical perspectives in self-regulation, and link what is known about executive functions with the development of students’ self-regulation. We then review current research on self-regulation in the language arts, particularly on reading and writing as these areas have been the focus of research investigating roles of self-regulation in the lan­ guage arts. We close with research-informed instructional recommendations for supporting students’ self-regulated language arts learning and offer directions for future work in this area.

What Is Self-Regulation? Self-regulation involves a collection of factors (actions, behaviors, cognitions, and emotions) that con­ tribute to students’ abilities to manage their own learning. The development of self-regulation begins early in life as children learn to use oral language to self-direct their actions (Bodrova et al., 2011), making language a central feature of self-regulatory processes and paving the way for the development of the collection of skills needed to self-regulate in school contexts. Consider the following answer from a 12-year-old (7th grade) student when asked what makes students self-regulated in school, which illustrates well the multifaceted nature of self-regulation processes: It’s focusing on your work and doing what you’re supposed to do, not doing what you want to do. And with a big task, like a project or paper, it’s breaking it down into smaller bits so you don’t DOI: 10.4324/9781003334392-18

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get stressed or overwhelmed. I do it because I want to, but also for my goals: I have short-time goals and long-time goals. Most of my self-regulation is based off of goals. If I didn’t have any, I wouldn’t be doing as well. One of my teachers (in 5th grade) had us set goals for ourselves, and that helped. Now, consider a recent scholarly definition of self-regulation from the Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance (Schunk & Greene, 2018, p. 1): “self-regulation refers to the ways that learn­ ers systematically activate and sustain their cognitions, motivations, behaviors, and affects, toward the attainment of their goals.” As you can see, our student-generated description of self-regulation aligns well with this scholarly definition of self-regulation and highlights several key factors that underlie suc­ cesses and difficulties with students’ management of their learning in academic contexts. Our student: • highlighted cognitive skills like the ability to focus (i.e., control attention) and inhibit impulses, • described purposeful strategies for managing academic tasks, such as breaking larger tasks into smaller subtasks, • illustrated the importance of motivation in self-regulation (i.e., wanting to do academic tasks: although we will touch on motivation in this chapter, Guthrie and Wigfield provide a more thorough description of motivation in the language arts in Chapter 12 of this volume), • underscored the important role of goals in promoting self-regulation; that is, he described his selfregulation processes as goal-directed, • emphasized the impact of emotional states on self-regulation (e.g., avoiding stress, avoiding being overwhelmed), and • highlighted the role of others, such as teachers, in serving as resources and supporting autonomy in the learning process. Although this may seem like a disparate list of student behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, these work in an integrative fashion to help learners succeed in language arts learning.

History and Theories of Self-Regulation Work in self-regulation in education traces its roots back to social and cognitive perspectives in psy­ chology such as Albert Bandura’s (1977, 1986) social-cognitive theory, which focused on the triadic interaction of behavioral factors, internal personal factors (e.g., beliefs, self-efficacy, cognitions), and environmental factors (e.g., input from others, such as teachers or parents) in reciprocally determining individuals’ actions. In later writings, Bandura (1989) emphasized the important role of personal agency in determining (i.e., regulating) individuals’ actions. One of Bandura’s contemporaries, John Flavell (1977, 1979) examined self-regulation through a cognitive lens and emphasized the development of children’s abilities to reflect on, monitor, and strategically manage their own mental processes. Flavell (1979) coined the term metacognition to describe such “thinking about thinking.” These early perspectives on self-regulation were applied by educational researchers to better under­ stand students’ self-regulation within academic domains such as the language arts by focusing on the roles of academic self-concept, metacognitive monitoring, and strategy use on student learning (e.g., Zimmerman, 1986, 1989, 1990). These scholars emphasized that self-regulated learners bring impor­ tant knowledge, skills, and dispositions to academic tasks to support their success, such as: (a) relevant knowledge about the discipline they are learning (e.g., letter-sound knowledge, vocabulary, and text structure knowledge in the language arts); (b) knowledge of key tasks and procedures important to the discipline (e.g., knowing how to decode print in reading or encode print in writing; strategies for comprehending text or managing the writing process); (c) the ability to reflect on their thinking and 313

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monitor progress in the discipline (i.e., they have metacognition); and (d) motivational and affective dispositions that support success in the discipline (e.g., self-efficacy or competence in specific tasks such as silent reading) (Pressley & Ghatala, 1990; Pressley et al., 2003). Studies of the processes involved in reading (e.g., Myers & Paris, 1978; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983; Pressley, 1976) and writing (e.g., Graham  & Freeman, 1985; Harris  & Graham, 1985) confirmed the importance of self-regulation processes, such as metacognitive knowledge and self-directed strategy use, for language arts learning. However, these perspectives didn’t address the role of cognitive self-regulation processes, called executive functions, in academic learning—a point we take up later. At about the same time, another relevant perspective on self-regulation emerged in the fields of personality and clinical psychology called self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000), which suggests that people’s motivation to grow and change is driven by three innate psychological, universal needs: their needs for competence, connection to others, and autonomy. SDT proposes that people become self-determined, or fulfilled, when their needs for autonomy, relatedness to others, and competence are met. Deci and colleagues (1991) suggested specific applications of SDT to education, proposing that the extent to which students are afforded and develop a sense of autonomy, feel connected to others in school settings, and develop competence in different dimensions of their learning, shape and influence their intrinsic motivation for learning. Students who are intrinsically motivated tend to be self-determined students who can deploy self-regulated behaviors in their academic pursuits. As you can see, SDT overlaps considerably with other perspectives on self-regulation and identifies specific aspects of students’ lives that can support the development of self-regulated learning in school (Liu et al., 2016). However, SDT has been applied to understanding language arts learning less frequently than the social-cognitive perspectives we described earlier (see Cartwright et al., 2020b; Taboada Barber et al., 2020a; Zumbrunn et al., 2019 for recent work that did so). Taken together, these perspectives identify internal factors (e.g., competence, motivation, and emotional states such as anxiety or enjoyment) and externally driven actions (e.g., teachers’ or parents’ autonomy-supportive language and actions and feedback from others) that can facilitate or hinder the development of selfregulation over time. However, theories of development and well-being, such as SDT, focus on a continuum of motivated or self-determined behaviors, but like the early cognitive perspectives described here, they do not always establish specific links to the cognitive dimensions of self-regulation that support learning. Other bodies of knowledge, which we describe in the following section, can help expand that understanding to provide a fuller picture of the development of self-regulation in students.

Recent Perspectives Integrating Executive Functions and Self-Regulation Historically, work on goal-directed, self-regulated academic learning, typically studied under the umbrella of educational psychology, has progressed separately from work in developmental science on the neurocognitive processes that underlie goal-directed behavior, called executive functions. However, scholars from both fields have recently recognized that executive functions emerge before and underlie self-regulated behaviors in many areas of life, including academic pursuits (Cummings et al., 2022; Diamond, 2016; Hoyle & Dent, 2018; Miyake & Friedman, 2012; Nigg, 2017; Perry et al., 2018; Taboada Barber, Cartwright, & Klauda, 2020a). As such, executive functions are processes that fall under the broad umbrella of self-regulated learning. In fact, our 7th grader’s description of his selfregulation earlier in the chapter included references to attentional control and inhibitory control, both executive functions that underlie a student’s ability to manage progress toward academic goals. Executive functions are neurocognitive self-regulatory processes associated with frontal lobe functioning that enable individuals to manage goal-directed pursuits and include, at the very basic level, the ability to regulate attention. Three core (or basic) executive functions—working memory, inhibition, 314

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and cognitive flexibility—work in an integrated fashion to help individuals manage goal-directed tasks (Cumming et al., 2022; Diamond, 2016; Miyake et al., 2000). Working memory involves the ability to hold information in mind (storage) while using or manipulating some of that information (processing), such as holding a paragraph’s topic in mind while writing the sentences that comprise the paragraph or holding a character’s name in mind while reading in order to link it to a pronominal reference to that character several sentences later. Inhibition, also called inhibitory control or self-control, involves the ability to suppress impulses in order to engage in goal-directed behavior, such as inhibiting mindwandering to maintain focus on a reading or writing task. Finally, cognitive flexibility involves the ability to adapt behavior and shift or switch focus between ideas or tasks, such as switching between thinking about words’ meanings, spellings, and sounds or switching attention back and forth between strategy use and meaning construction in reading and writing tasks. Attention regulation, working memory, and inhibition typically emerge earlier in development than cognitive flexibility, and all of these skills develop rapidly in infancy (Sheese et al., 2008) and the remainder of early childhood, but continue to develop through adolescence and beyond (Anderson et al., 2001; Davidson et al., 2006; Konrad et al., 2005). Each of these lower-level self-regulatory exec­ utive functions, although usually occurring below the level of students’ awareness, undergird higherlevel self-regulated actions like planning, organization, strategy use, and monitoring, which are often described as complex executive skills (Dawson & Guare, 2018; Meltzer, 2010; Roebers et al., 2012). For example, planning involves setting and working toward a goal (Cartwright, 2023), which usually involves breaking larger tasks into smaller ones, such as breaking an essay assignment into subtasks (like our 7th grader suggested earlier in the chapter). As an example, consider how lower-level executive functions can support planning—and the exe­ cution of a plan—in the following ways. Attention regulation helps students maintain focus on the task at hand (e.g., constructing an outline or writing an introductory sentence to grab readers’ attention); working memory enables students to hold their overall goal in mind while working (e.g., remembering that the introductory sentence, and all the other sentences they will write, need to relate to the goal of their essay); and cognitive flexibility supports switching focus back and forth between subtasks and goals (e.g., considering the overall writing goal, switching to check the subtasks in the writing outline, then switching yet again to the composition process for a particular sentence). Planning recruits inhibition, too, by helping students suppress behaviors or thoughts that might distract them from their goals (e.g., suppressing the impulse to check social media or think about yesterday’s baseball practice instead of focusing on writing). Other higher-level executive skills such as organization are supported by lower-level executive func­ tions. Organization is the ability to recognize order and impose order on objects or ideas, and it works hand-in-hand with planning by enabling students to identify subtasks and place them in a logical order to support their work toward a goal. Likewise, strategy use, such as when students purposefully employ extra cognitive processes to support learning (e.g., imagery or inference that support understanding of a text), and monitoring, such as when a student continually checks progress toward a goal by assessing whether their actions move them closer to meeting it, each recruit the lower-level executive func­ tions of attention, inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, which support higher-level self-regulation in language arts tasks (e.g., Follmer & Sperling, 2016; Follmer & Tise, 2022; Roebers, 2017; Roebers et al., 2012).

An Integrative Look at the Development of Self-Regulation Understanding the development of self-regulation in language arts requires understanding how basic and more complex executive skills (i.e., self-regulated thinking processes) develop in students. Difficul­ ties in higher-level processes such as strategy use, planning, or monitoring might stem from weaknesses 315

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in lower-level self-regulated cognitions (i.e., executive functions, such as impaired attention regulation, limited working memory, inability to inhibit impulses, or a lack of cognitive flexibility). Indeed, lowerlevel self-regulatory executive functions like these support higher-level strategic processes in reading in English monolingual and emergent bilingual 1st to 4th grade students (Taboada Barber, Cartwright, Stapleton et al., 2020a). Figure 15.1 depicts the development of self-regulation processes, whereupon lower-level, implicit self-regulatory executive functions subserve higher-level, explicit self-regulatory behaviors. Figure 15.1 also includes attention to the internal and external factors that can facilitate or obstruct the develop­ ment of self-regulation in students. However, because our focus in this chapter is on the development of self-regulation in the language arts, we do not attempt to illustrate the many ways these internal and external factors interact, are related to one another, and mutually influence one another and self-regu­ lation. For additional information on these processes, see Pressley et al. (2003), Schiefele et al. (2012), and Guthrie and Wigfield (this volume). The center column in Figure 15.1 illustrates the development of self-regulatory-executive processes, which progress from simple to complex. The leftmost column lists internal processes that can facilitate or obstruct students’ self-regulation and executive function processes, and the rightmost column lists external factors that can facilitate or obstruct self-regulation and executive function processes. Also see Diamond (2016) and Perry et al. (2018) for additional infor­ mation on the development of self-regulation. As an example of the ways these factors work together in development, let’s consider Maria, a 4th grader who is reading an expository text on weather patterns and climate change to gather new information for a report she is writing for her school library on climate change. At the very basic level, Maria must manage her attention, focusing purposefully on the text and inhibiting distractions, such as her best friend at the desk nearby. Maria needs to hold sentence-level and paragraph-level information in mind, constantly updating the meaning for the text as new key ideas are incorporated in working memory. Not only that, but Maria must flexibly shift her focus between the text she is reading, strategy use, and the overall goal of finding information to support later writing. To accomplish these tasks,

Internal Influences on Self-Regulation Internal Facilitative Factors High Intrinsic Motivation High Self-efficacy High Competence Positive Emotions (Enjoyment, Hope)

Self-Regulation and Executive Function Processes Planning Strategy Use Monitoring Reasoning

Higher-Level (Explicit)

External Influences on Self-Regulation External Facilitative Factors Autonomy Support Effective Feedback

Clear, Explicit Instruction

Emphasis on Process

Cognitive Flexibility Internal Obstructive Factors Low Intrinsic Motivation

Low Self-Efficacy

Low Competence Negative Emotions (Anxiety, Hopelessness)

External Obstructive Factors

Lower-Level (Implicit)

Attention Inhibition Working Memory

Figure 15.1 Processes Involved in Self-Regulation

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Controlling Approaches

Ineffective Feedback

Negative Feedback without Instruction Emphasis on Products/Grades

Self-Regulation and Executive Function in Language Arts

Maria may need to use reading strategies such as visualization, inference, and comprehension monitor­ ing, as well as other learning strategies such as note-taking, to help her reach her goal of gathering information to support later writing. These executive function and self-regulation processes (the middle column in Figure 15.1) are sup­ ported by internal facilitative factors such as those listed in the leftmost column in Figure 15.1 (e.g., Maria’s senses of self-efficacy or competence in reading and writing, as well as her interest in and motivation to learn more about the topic of her assignment). Other internal factors can impair or obstruct stu­ dents’ self-regulated learning, such as when students do not believe they are competent readers or writ­ ers and/or when they feel anxious or overwhelmed by school tasks (as pointed out by our 7th grader at the beginning of this chapter). Finally, external factors can facilitate or obstruct self-regulation in language arts, too. For example, Maria’s teacher reminded her to start with a topic and goal for her paper and then to keep that goal in mind to direct her reading, note-taking, and writing processes. That is, Maria’s teacher provided guidance for Maria’s self-regulated reading and writing by helping her set her goals. If Maria’s teacher were to give Maria a choice of what text to read, or which of two self-selected goals for reading to choose, she would be providing Maria with a degree of control over her learning and reading; she would provide autonomy support for Maria’s reading. Maria is fortunate that her teacher and parents have provided explicit autonomy support and effective feedback on her prior efforts in language arts tasks, and they have expressed belief in her ability to manage her language arts learning. These external factors that facilitate self-regulation, identified at the top of the rightmost column in Figure 15.1, contrast with external factors that obstruct self-regulation, such as controlling approaches and ineffective feedback/negative feedback without instruction that would have hindered Maria’s approach to her learning from text. These factors may seem intuitive to educators—we know what self-regulated students look like in our classrooms, and we have a sense that internal and external factors may affect self-regulation. How­ ever, theories and research in the language arts have not typically integrated attention to self-regulation and executive function until recently. For example, the Direct and Indirect Effects Models of Reading and Writing (e.g., Kim, 2020; Kim & Graham, 2022), the Direct and Inferential Mediation Model of Reading (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007), and the Writer(s) within Community Model of Writing (Gra­ ham, 2018) include attention to executive functions and self-regulated, strategic processes. Likewise, the Active View of Reading (Duke & Cartwright, 2021) includes attention to self-regulatory processes such as executive function, strategy use, and motivational influences on reading. We are encouraged by these attempts to integrate work on executive function and self-regulation into our understanding of language arts processes and note that the field still has work to do in this area.

What Does the Research Say About the Roles of Executive Functions and

Self-Regulation in Language Arts Learning?

Recent comprehensive looks at the scientific evidence have consistently shown that self-regulation predicts success in language arts tasks. For example, Spiegel et al. (2021) conducted a meta-analysis of 299 studies and found that lower-level executive functions—inhibition, working memory, and cogni­ tive flexibility—were related to oral language skills (i.e., grammar/syntax, listening comprehension, and vocabulary) and reading skills (i.e., reading comprehension, reading fluency, and decoding) in kindergarten to 6th grade students. Likewise, Robson and colleagues (2020) conducted a meta-analysis of studies on behavioral self-regulation in children aged 3 to 12 years. Their analysis assessed a variety of measures such as parent, teacher, and child-self-report measures, and behavioral measures like the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task, which asks children to inhibit impulses by touching their toes, for example, when told to touch their head. Across 150 studies, Robson et al. (2020) found that behavio­ ral self-regulation predicted success in reading, writing, and oral language (i.e., vocabulary) activities. 317

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Pandey et al. (2018) recently conducted a meta-analysis of 49 intervention studies that showed that self-regulation-based interventions improve literacy (i.e., reading, letter-naming, and vocabulary) and other important life outcomes such as social skills and mental health across childhood, from 2 to 17 years of age. These comprehensive looks at self-regulation’s associations with students’ language arts outcomes point to the potential importance of self-regulation for language arts instruction, which we address here. The brief review of research that follows is organized according to the processes involved in the development of self-regulation depicted in Figure 15.1. First, we address the roles of lower-level execu­ tive functions and higher-level self-regulatory behaviors (the center column in Figure 15.1) in reading and writing. Next, we describe research on internal facilitative and obstructive factors that can affect students’ self-regulation in reading and writing tasks (the leftmost column in Figure 15.1). Finally, we review research on external facilitative and obstructive factors that can affect students’ self-regulation in reading and writing tasks (the rightmost column in Figure 15.1). We close the chapter with recom­ mendations for practice based on this review of research.

Lower-Level Executive Functions and Reading Lower-level executive functions are each related to success in reading outcomes. For example, atten­ tional control (the ability to manage one’s attentional focus) contributes to reading comprehension beyond decoding and language comprehension in elementary students (Conners, 2009) and is more important for reading comprehension outcomes than for word reading outcomes in secondary students (Arrington et al., 2014). Of the lower-level executive function skills, working memory has been the most studied with respect to reading, contributing to reading comprehension beyond word reading and language comprehension skills (Nouwens et al., 2021; Wu et al., 2020) and to word reading abil­ ity (Christopher et al., 2012) in elementary students. Similarly, inhibition contributes longitudinally to elementary students’ reading comprehension from 1st to 4th grades (Kieffer et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2020), and is significantly lower in children (Borella et al., 2010) and adults (De Beni et al., 1998) with reading comprehension difficulties. Inhibition also contributes to word reading outcomes in elementary (Altemeier et al., 2008) and secondary (Arrington et al., 2014) students. Finally, cognitive flexibility contributes to word reading (Altemeier et al., 2008; Cartwright et al., 2019) and reading comprehension (Cartwright et al., 2020b; Kieffer et al., 2013) in elementary students and to reading comprehension in adults (Cartwright et al., 2020a). Why might these lower-level executive skills be important for reading? Well, students must be able to focus their attention on reading tasks, inhibit distractions and irrelevant word meanings, hold the overall meaning of text in mind and update it while working their way through text, and switch back and forth between key types of information essential for reading. Recent work suggests that lower-level executive functions help students to manage and coordinate these many reading processes that must occur simultaneously while reading (Cartwright et al., 2020a; Taboada Barber et al., 2021). Moreover, instruction that targets the reading-specific ways executive function skills undergird read­ ing processes improves reading comprehension (e.g., Cartwright et al., 2020b; Zipke et al., 2009) and word reading (Cartwright et al., 2019; Dyson et al., 2017) for students. For example, teaching students to consider multiple meanings of words and inhibit inappropriate meanings for context (Zipke et al., 2009) supports reading comprehension in elementary students. Not surprisingly, knowledge of both common and academic meanings for lexically ambiguous words (e.g., the word difference, which can mean dissimilarity in everyday discourse but means the answer to a subtraction problem in math) contrib­ utes to elementary (Cartwright et al., 2022) and secondary (Logan & Kieffer, 2017) students’ reading comprehension. However, students’ knowledge of academic meanings for such words is limited (Cart­ wright et al., 2022; Logan & Kieffer, 2017), indicating a need for instruction in this area. 318

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Moreover, teaching students to flex between pronunciations of words (e.g., considering that wind might have a short i sound and be an element of the weather or have a long i sound and be an action done to maintain a clock’s function) supports and improves word recognition processes (Dyson et al., 2017; Savage et al., 2018; Steacy et al., 2022). Finally, teaching students to flexibly switch back and forth between graphophonological (letter-sound) and meaning-focused aspects of words supports reading fluency (Cartwright et al., 2019) and reading comprehension (Cartwright, 2002; Cartwright et al., 2017, 2020b) in elementary students, particularly for students who struggle with reading. We will return to these interventions when we share recommendations for practice at the end of the chapter.

Higher-Level Self-Regulation and Reading Recall that lower-level executive functions undergird higher-level self-regulatory behaviors such as planning. Planning is a known contributor to reading comprehension (e.g., Locascio et  al., 2010), which makes sense because skilled readers are explicitly planful and strategic in their approaches to reading tasks, especially when they read to build knowledge from text (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). Indeed, elementary students with better reading comprehension exhibit better reading-related plan­ ning than their peers (Condor et  al., 1995; Dermitzaki et  al., 2008). Furthermore, teaching plan­ ning by helping elementary and secondary students focus on goals for reading facilitates their reading comprehension (Gaa, 1973, 1979) and the ability to find information in texts relevant to one’s goals (Dreher & Brown, 1993). Keep in mind, though, that teaching goal-setting is more effective when instruction includes explicit teaching of strategies to accomplish comprehension goals (i.e., processfocused goals) as compared to instruction that focuses only on the desired outcome of reading tasks (i.e., answering comprehension questions correctly, which is a product goal) (Schunk & Rice, 1989). Furthermore, teaching students to set reading goals and employ strategies to accomplish those goals is even more effective when students receive feedback (an external, facilitative factor) on the effectiveness of their strategy use and progress toward their goals (Schunk & Rice, 1991). In addition to developing students’ word reading abilities, oral language, and content knowledge, teaching a number of self-regulatory reading comprehension strategies has also been shown to support reading comprehension growth (Duke et  al., 2021; Shanahan et  al., 2010). Such strategies include monitoring comprehension and engaging in strategies as needed when problems with understanding arise; attending to the text’s structure; summarizing and retelling; visualizing; asking oneself questions while reading; activating background knowledge and making use of that knowledge along with the text to make predictions; and drawing inferences. For example, when 6th graders were taught “gap filling” inferences using background knowledge that was well within their knowledge repertoire, they became increasingly aware of how to use their background knowledge in effective ways to make infer­ ences from text (e.g., Elbro & Buch-Iversen, 2013). Specifically, these 6th graders were scaffolded in their inference-making by using graphic organizers (first modeled and pre-filled by the teacher, then with progressively less information and used only when needed) so that students were able to answer knowledge-demanding inference questions. Instruction was structured so that the students had a clear understanding that (a) a “gap filling” inference meant that they had to use their background knowl­ edge; (b) mapping the information from the graphic organizer to the texts required considering both while reading the text; and (c) learning how to become less teacher- and graphic organizer-dependent on their inference-making. Another comprehension strategy that lends itself well to student-autonomous and self-regulated reading is student text-based questioning (Taboada  & Guthrie, 2006; Taboada Barber, 2016). Our work has consistently shown that when teachers explicitly teach question levels (from factual-level to highly conceptual-level questions) in relation to science or social studies content, students become increasingly better at asking text-based questions, and increasingly use text to answer them. The fact 319

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that students are taught increasingly difficult question levels provides a cognitive structure that gives them confidence in formulating text-based questions and increased self-regulated reading through their attempts to answer them. In sum, reading instruction that is cognitively rich and explicitly teaches self-regulation processes can lead to improved reading comprehension and other related high-level reading skills. In fact, a recent meta-analysis of effect sizes from 333 intervention studies demonstrated that interventions that target self-regulation processes improve students’ reading skills over and above the effects of instruc­ tional interventions that target usual components of reading instruction such as word recognition and language comprehension (Burns et al., 2023), particularly for striving readers, underscoring the importance of self-regulation instruction in the classroom and providing additional avenues for meet­ ing learners’ needs.

Lower-Level Executive Functions and Writing Like reading, writing recruits lower-level executive functions. For example, in a study of secondary students, working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility predicted English achievement, which included measures of reading, writing, spelling, and handwriting (St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006). Likewise, Berninger and colleagues found that attention and cognitive flexibility contributed to writing abilities (a composite of rapid automatic letter writing, multiple modes of writing, and hand­ writing speed) in elementary and secondary students with writing difficulties. Inhibition and cognitive flexibility also contribute to typically developing students’ written expression, assessed with a com­ posite of word writing fluency, ability to combine sentences, and paragraph writing (Altemeier et al., 2008). Finally, inhibition and cognitive flexibility contribute significantly to the quality of elementary students’ essay writing (Rocha et al., 2022). Holistic quality ratings of students’ writing were based on “creativity (originality and relevance of ideas), coherence (clarity and organization of the text), syntax (syntactic correctness and diversity of sentences) and vocabulary (diversity, interest and proper use of words)” (Rocha et al., 2022, p. 1919). Taken together, these findings indicate that lower-level self-regulatory executive functions are important for writing. This makes sense because writing requires students to focus attention on the writing task at hand (at the most basic level of encoding spoken words into printed forms or at more advanced levels, such as composing coherent paragraphs to achieve an essay-writing goal), inhibit dis­ tractions, maintain information in working memory while writing, and shift flexibly among components of writing, such as between writing goals, higher-level self-regulation strategies, and elements of the composition process. We address higher-level self-regulation strategies in writing in the next section.

Higher-Level Self-Regulation and Writing Similar to reading, higher-level self-regulatory behaviors are required for successfully navigating the complex and often difficult nature of writing tasks (Graham, 2006). Self-regulated writers are able to set appropriate goals for their writing tasks, make a suitable plan for accomplishing the goals they set, organize their ideas in a way that will make sense to their reader, monitor progress toward their writ­ ing goals, revise their text, and manage the cognitive and motivational challenges that arise throughout the writing process (Zimmerman & Risemberg, 1997). However, the degree to which students are self-regulated in their writing varies a great deal (Varier et al., 2021). In our work, we’ve found that students who are more strategic in their writing are often more self-efficacious about their writing ability (Zumbrunn et al., 2016), more open to feedback about what they’ve written (Ekholm et al., 2015), and experience greater writing success (Zumbrunn et al., 2019, 2020) than their peers who are less strategic. 320

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Evidence across several studies suggests that students are able to learn how to be more self-regulated in their writing (for a meta-analysis of meta-analyses, see Graham & Harris, 2017). For example, 5th and 6th grade students who received either planning or sentence-combining instruction produced longer texts of higher quality than their peers who received standard writing instruction (Limpo & Alves, 2013). Findings from other studies suggest that teaching students when, how, and why to plan and revise their writing can have a positive impact on writing performance (Bouwer et al., 2018; De Smedt et al., 2020; Fidalgo et al., 2015). Tested in over 100 studies, the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD; Harris & Graham, 2017) instructional model is an effective approach to teaching students strategies and processes for self-regulating their writing with students as young as 1st grade (Zumbrunn & Bruning, 2013) as well as for typically-developing writers and students with learning disabilities (Graham et al., 2013). The SRSD model of writing instruction integrates five key characteristics to support developing writers: (a) scaffolded and explicit instruction of self-regulation strategies (e.g., planning, revising), general writing strategies (e.g., vocabulary use), and genre-specific writing strategies (e.g., parts of a story); (b) active collaboration among the teacher, students, and their peers; (c) individualized goals, instruction, and feedback tailored to each learner’s needs; (d) criterion-based instruction; and (e) the introduction of new/upgraded strategies over time (Harris et al., 2008). Students who are taught using the SRSD approach typically make significant and meaningful gains in their knowledge of writing, writing selfefficacy, and writing quality (Harris et al., 2009). Findings across meta-analyses of writing interventions with elementary students (Graham et  al., 2012) and secondary students (Graham & Perin, 2007) consistently identify strategy instruction as the most effective. Importantly, and similar to teaching students to be more self-regulated readers, strategy instruction is most effective when it is explicit (Harris et al., 2008). As such, teachers play a critical role in the extent to which students have an opportunity to learn how to be self-regulated literacy learners—a topic we will turn to later in the chapter.

Students’ Internal Factors That Influence Self-Regulated

Language Arts Learning

Let’s consider again the definition of self-regulation that guided the writing of this chapter from Schunk and Greene (2018, p. 1): “Self-regulation refers to the ways that learners systematically activate and sustain their cognitions, motivations, behaviors, and affects, toward the attainment of their goals.” This definition (and the student’s description of self-regulation with which we opened the chapter) highlights internal motivations and affects (emotional states) as important components of students’ selfregulated learning. As depicted in Figure 15.1, internal factors can influence students’ self-regulated language arts learning. These may include facilitative factors such as positive emotions and motivation. But these may also include obstructive factors, such as negative emotions or a lack of motivation for language arts tasks.

Facilitative Internal Factors As we noted earlier, consistent with self-determination theory (Deci et al., 1991), students who develop a sense of autonomy in school tasks, feel connected to others in school settings, and develop compe­ tence in different dimensions of their learning have greater intrinsic motivation for academic tasks and can deploy self-regulated behaviors in their academic pursuits. Indeed, intrinsic motivation contributes significantly to learners’ reading and writing performance (Taboada Barber, Gallagher, et  al., 2015; Taboada Barber et al., 2018; refer to Guthrie & Wigfield, Chapter 12 in this volume), as do students’ reading (Lee  & Jonson-Reid, 2016) and writing self-efficacy (Pajares  & Valiante, 1997; Zumbrunn 321

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et al., 2020). Additionally, motivation-focused and efficacy-supportive instruction can improve lan­ guage arts outcomes for students (Guthrie et al., 2004; Taboada Barber, Buehl, et al., 2015). Likewise, students’ positive emotional states related to academic tasks (e.g., enjoyment and hopeful­ ness) are significantly related to their interest, effort, strategy use, and performance in academic tasks (Pekrun et al., 2002). For example, elementary students who perceive themselves to have greater con­ trol (i.e., autonomy) over reading tasks are less likely to feel negative emotions about reading, such as anxiety, thus supporting reading comprehension performance (Zaccoletti et al., 2020a). Also, positive emotions are significantly related to elementary students’ reading comprehension and to their ability to update information in working memory (a lower-level self-regulatory executive skill, see Figure 15.1; Zaccoletti et  al., 2020b). Similarly, elementary students’ positive writing-related emotions are con­ nected to their writing self-regulation and writing performance (Zumbrunn et al., 2019). Although research on positive emotions and language arts learning is relatively limited in comparison to research on cognitive self-regulation, these findings suggest educators’ efforts to foster positive emotions in language arts will support students’ language arts performance.

Obstructive Internal Factors The reverse of engaged, motivated language arts learning—that is, students with low perceptions of their competence for reading and writing, and students with low intrinsic motivation to read and write—presents an unfortunately all-too-familiar scenario for many teachers. These students might come with cognitive struggles with language arts tasks, that, if not attended to appropriately, lead to a downward cycle of low motivation to read and write (Taboada Barber et al., 2022). Or, perhaps worse, students might come to the classroom with a sheer indifference to reading or writing. Alterna­ tively, teachers might face students who show no overt cognitive challenges, but who still display low motivation or low efficacy for reading and writing tasks. In both cases, the inter- and intra-individual variability is high. What is common is that these students do not think of themselves as good readers or writers and/or do not see language arts learning as an important goal in their school lives. Compared to positive emotions, there is more research focused on the role of negative emotions in language arts learning. When we asked elementary students to draw a picture of a recent experience they had with writing and how that experience made them feel, many students’ illustrations (see Fig­ ure 15.2) highlighted the negative emotions that can arise during the writing process—unhappiness, apathy, frustration, and anxiety (Zumbrunn et  al., 2017). Importantly, for the majority of children who portrayed their negative emotions and also included their teacher in their drawing, we found there was greater relative distance between the teachers and students compared with children portray­ ing their positive emotions. Students who experience negative emotions such as writing anxiety often also experience low self-efficacy for writing, low perceived usefulness for writing, and low writing performance (Pajares & Valiante, 1997). A recent meta-analysis of 34 studies of children, adolescents, and adults examined negative emo­ tions, such as anxiety and depression, in typically developing and struggling readers. The analysis found that struggling readers across the lifespan were significantly more likely to have negative emotions than their peers with better reading achievement (Francis et  al., 2021). Similarly, Taboada Barber et  al. (2022) recently compared 3rd to 5th grade English monolingual (EM) and emergent bilingual (EB) students on reading anxiety and reading achievement. Although both EM and EB students’ anxiety was negatively related to their reading achievement, effects of reading anxiety on EB students’ read­ ing achievement were significantly greater than for their EM counterparts. Negative emotions such as reading anxiety have been demonstrated to have stronger relations with reading achievement outcomes than students’ positive feelings about reading (Ramirez et al., 2019). In a study of 1st and 2nd grade students, Ramirez and colleagues (2019) recently found that reading anxiety in the fall significantly 322

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Figure 15.2 Children’s Drawings and Responses about their Experiences with Writing

predicted word reading achievement outcomes the spring, and that greater anxiety was associated with lower reading scores (i.e., they found a negative correlation). In addition, fall reading scores predicted spring reading anxiety. Furthermore, although students’ positive feelings about reading were related to their reading achievement outcomes, the relationships were not as strong as those between reading anxiety and reading outcomes, suggesting that negative emotions may be more influential than positive emotions in these young students’ reading development. Finally, reading anxiety negatively predicted students’ positive feelings about reading. That is, students who were anxious about reading were less likely than their peers to like reading. Based on their data, Ramirez and colleagues (2019) suggested a possible bidirectional and cyclical relation between reading anxiety and reading outcomes, as poor reading may foster anxiety in students as well as anxiety contributing to poor reading. This assumption was recently confirmed by McArthur and colleagues (2022) in a comprehensive study of multiple, large longitudinal datasets from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia that examined reading, cognitive variables, and emotional health (assessed with measures of anxiety, emotional dysregulation, depression, reading self-concept, and poor peer relations) in 5- to 11-year-old children. McArthur and colleagues (2021) found that although reading and emotional health were not consistently related at age 5, reading achievement at age 7 predicted emotional health at ages 9 to 11. Taken together, these studies suggest a vicious cycle across development in which students’ struggles with reading may affect their emotional health, producing increased anxiety about reading and decreased reading self-efficacy, which, in turn, negatively impact future reading growth.

External Factors That Affect Self-Regulated Language Arts Learning External factors such as teachers’ behaviors and feedback also influence students’ self-regulated lan­ guage arts learning. Based on the understanding that students’ emotions affect language arts learning, scholars have begun to integrate emotion-focused instruction into literacy interventions with positive results. For example, Daniels and colleagues (2020) found positive effects for a writing interven­ tion combining focused feedback on strategy instruction and instruction about maladaptive beliefs toward writing on student writing self-efficacy and text production. In another study, Francis and colleagues (2021) recently implemented a combined reading and anxiety-reduction intervention with 8- to 12-year-old students who had comorbid reading and anxiety difficulties. Students completed two baseline pretests of anxiety and reading achievement 12 weeks apart, then completed the combined reading and anxiety intervention for 12 weeks. Students’ reading outcomes increased significantly, and their anxiety symptoms decreased significantly in the intervention period. In a similar study, Vaughn 323

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and colleagues (2021) tested a reading intervention combined with an anxiety-management program (RANX) and found that it drastically improved students’ reading comprehension outcomes in compar­ ison to business-as-usual instruction; furthermore, their RANX intervention yielded stronger effects on reading comprehension than a comparison intervention that involved the same reading interven­ tion, but had students practice math facts instead of anxiety reduction strategies. Finally, when explor­ ing anxiety about reading in Emergent Bilingual (EB) and English Monolingual (EM) elementary students, Taboada Barber et al. (2022) found that students’ reading anxiety negatively affected not only their reading comprehension, but also their engagement with text. Specifically, feeling anxious about reading affects not only students’ comprehension of a text but also their self-efficacy and their interest in reading. Teacher behaviors that aim to counteract anxiety such as having students read self-selected books in pairs on a topic of interest rather than reading out loud without a goal for reading (an anxietyinducing behavior) might lead to reduced anxiety about reading, increased engagement, and increased self-regulated reading. Taken together, these findings suggest educators can modify students’ negative internal states through initial awareness of what teacher behaviors may provoke anxiety, thus removing (or reducing) obstacles to the development of self-regulated language arts learning. Finally, external factors such as feedback and support from teachers and others significantly influ­ ence students’ self-regulated language arts learning. For example, Goetz and colleagues (2013) con­ ducted an innovative study of the relationship between teachers’ practices and students’ learning across academic domains, including the language arts. They asked 121 8th and 11th grade students about their own academic-related emotions and perceptions of their teachers’ practices in real time across ten days. The teachers’ practices clustered together on two important dimensions: supportive presentation style, which included features such as understandability, illustration, enthusiasm, and fostering atten­ tion, and excessive lesson demands, which included instructional features such as lack of clarity, difficulty, pace, and level of expectation (Goetz et al., 2013). Importantly, teachers’ supportive practices were related to students’ positive emotions such as enjoyment of and pride in learning, whereas teachers’ excessive lesson demands related to students’ negative learning-related emotions such as anxiety, anger, helplessness, and boredom. Similarly, Zumbrunn and colleagues (2019) found that students’ percep­ tions of their teachers’ writing enjoyment positively related to their own writing enjoyment, writing self-regulation, and grades. These findings suggest that teachers’ practices are important for—even determiners of—students’ internal emotional states that facilitate or detract from their self-regulated learning. In short, teacher practices matter for students’ self-regulated learning. This conclusion is bol­ stered by studies showing that teachers can be taught to adopt autonomy-supportive practices during instruction that positively impacted high school students’ self-regulated engagement in learning across multiple academic subjects, including language arts (Reeve et al., 2004) and 4th grade Spanish speak­ ing emergent bilingual students in reading (Taboada et al., 2010). Not only are teachers’ autonomy-supportive behaviors important for students’ learning in school; parents’ autonomy-supportive behaviors matter, too. For example, Guay and colleagues (2013) exam­ ined the numbers of students’ autonomy-supportive relationships across the students’ mothers, fathers, and French teachers in 1,407 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students in Quebec, Canada, where French is the dominant language (thus, the French teachers in this study were the students’ language arts teach­ ers). Students were divided into three groups based on their perceptions of autonomy support assessed with six items per adult (e.g., “With respect to my studies, I  feel that my mother/father/teacher provides me with choices and options” p. 377). Group 1 perceived low autonomy support across all three adults; Group 2 perceived low support from fathers, but moderate to high support from mothers and teachers; and Group 3 perceived all three adults to be autonomy-supportive. Group 3 students, or those who perceived the greatest number of autonomy-supportive adults in their lives, had signifi­ cantly greater achievement in (French) language arts than their peers with fewer autonomy-supportive adults. Also, the students who perceived that they had two to three autonomy-supportive adults in 324

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their lives (Groups 2 and 3) had significantly higher intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and self-regulation than their peers who did not experience autonomy-supportive relationships with father, mother, and language arts teacher. Similar to intervention findings with teachers, parents can also learn to use autonomy-supportive practices with students at home, which positively impact the students’ motivation, engagement, and feelings about school (Froiland, 2011, 2015). Taken together, these find­ ings indicate that adults’ supportiveness of students’ autonomy in language arts learning is an important factor in students’ self-regulation and achievement in language arts.

Recommendations for Practice So, what can educators take away from the research on self-regulation in language arts learning? Fortunately, for educators and students, lower-level and higher-level self-regulatory processes (the center column in Figure 15.1) can be supported in the classroom with positive effects on language arts achievement. Not only that, but educators can actively promote students’ motivation, posi­ tive emotions, and autonomy, which support students’ language arts performance as well. Here we list several ways educators can take advantage of research in this area to support their students’ self-regulated language arts learning. For additional instructional recommendations on supporting self-regulated executive functions in language arts learning, see Cartwright (2023) and Limpo and Olive (2021).

Reading • Support students’ attention to contextually-appropriate word meanings (and inhibition of inap­ propriate word meanings) by teaching them multiple meanings for lexically ambiguous words and sentences (Yuill, 2009; Zipke et al., 2009). • Support students’ ability to be cognitively flexible in word reading by teaching them to flex between possible pronunciations of printed words; that is, teach them to have a set for variability in their approach to decoding tasks (Dyson et al., 2017; Savage et al., 2018; Steacy et al., 2022). • Support students’ ability to flexibly consider the letter-sound (graphophonological) and meaningfocused (semantic) aspects of printed words when reading, using a GSF intervention that requires students to sort printed words simultaneously by graphophonological and semantic features (Cart­ wright, 2002; Cartwright et al., 2017, 2019, 2020a) to improve their reading comprehension and reading fluency. • Support students’ working memory and self-regulation in reading by using graphic organizers for inference-making, which help students to see how they must supply information from their own world knowledge to make gap-filling inferences from text (Elbro & Buch-Iversen, 2013).

Writing • Support students’ executive functions for writing sentences with sentence framing, sentence expan­ sion, and sentence combining (Graham et al., 2012; Datchuk & Rogers, 2018; Pennington et al., 2018; Saddler & Graham, 2005). • Support students’ self-regulation of the writing process using the self-regulated strategy develop­ ment (SRSD) instructional model, which includes both explicit instruction and careful scaffolding to improve students’ executive functions during the writing process (Harris et al., 2018; Graham et al., 2013). SRSD can also be used to support students’ acquisition and flexible use of general strategies (e.g., vocabulary use), and genre-specific writing strategies (e.g., parts of a story) (Harris et al., 2008). 325

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General • Implement interventions that have been shown to foster literacy motivation, including attribution training, interest-based interventions, and multi-component motivational interventions (McBreen & Savage, 2021). • Implement instructional practices that have been shown to foster literacy motivation, including establishing the relevance of reading and writing tasks, offering choice in tasks, designing tasks to present achievable challenges, and providing opportunities for collaboration (Guthrie et al., 2007). • Engage children in setting goals for their learning and monitoring their progress toward obtaining their goals (Fuchs et al., 1985; Gaa, 1973, 1979; O’Shea & O’Shea, 1994; Stevenson, 2016). • Explicitly teach and model the use of comprehension strategies and provide students with guided and independent practice in implementing those strategies in the service of their reading and writing goals (e.g., to build knowledge on a topic of interest) (Harris et al., 2008; Shanahan et al., 2010).

Summary and Directions for Future Work Self-regulation matters for language arts learning. Understanding the development of self-regulation in language arts requires understanding how students develop basic and more complex executive skills (i.e., self-regulated thinking processes). Indeed, lower-level self-regulatory executive functions support higher-level strategic processes in reading in English monolingual and emergent bilingual 1st to 4th grade students (Taboada Barber, Cartwright, Stapleton et al., 2020b). Fortunately, self-regulation interventions can improve language arts performance in students beyond the effects of word recognition and language comprehension interventions (Burns et al., 2023). In particular, self-regulation processes are supported by educators who foster students’ autonomous learning, intrinsic motivation for reading, self-efficacy, competence, and positive emotions around and in relation to language arts tasks. However, student lower-level (i.e., executive function) and higher-level self-regulatory processes and the internal and external factors that influence them have typically been studied separately from one another. In addition, these factors have not been frequently examined together within particular content domains such as language arts. We encourage future work that takes a more integrative look at self-regulation processes and their accompanying factors to offer the field a more comprehensive understanding of the ways we can develop independent self-regulated learners in our classrooms.

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EPILOGUE AND NEW

DIRECTIONS

State of the Field: The Research We Have, The

Research We Need

Carol D. Lee, Lesley Mandel Morrow, Susan B. Neuman, and D. Ray Reutzel

One might say that we are at a critical nexus in the field of language arts. Once again, educators are being bombarded by calls from the press and from policymakers in the name of educational reform. Consequently, the publication of this Handbook is extremely timely, providing clear and important evidence to bear in the language arts field. In this epilogue, we attempt to bring together contrasting perspectives on the state of the field. To do so, we draw on a learning ecology framework that bridges social-cultural and activity theory captured within an integrative understanding of the science of human learning and development to address how we think about language arts, teacher education, community involvement, and the virtual environment that encompasses digital media. Although the report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, How People Learn (1999) has largely addressed how cognitive pro­ cesses unfold through active constructivist inquiry, a more complex representation of human learning and development has emerged across psychology (cognitive, social, cultural), learning sciences, human development, and the neurosciences (C.D. Lee et al., 2020; Nasir et al., 2020). Syntheses of big ideas from across the disciplines—the science of human learning and development—capture learning and development as unfolding in complex interactive systems. These big ideas include a set of dispositions that inform our efforts to make sense in the world (C.D. Lee, 2017). Among other issues, they include the proposition that: • Our neurological systems entail dialogic relations between thinking and feelings. The emotional salience we attribute to experience matters (e.g., attachment is essential). • Perceptions of the self along multiple dimensions—of others, of tasks, and settings—matter for effort and motivation (e.g., including self-identities around membership in cultural communities that include race, ethnicity, and gender, among others). • Our brains are deeply malleable across the life course. • Learning unfolds as our evolutionary-driven dispositions are taken up in routine cultural practices. These routine cultural practices take place within and across multiple settings. • Learning also unfolds across multiple dimensions of time: ontogenetic time (where one is in the life course), micro-genetic time (our moment-to-moment experiences in a given setting), and culturalhistorical time (e.g., the Great Depression, Millennials, etc.).

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These broad propositions represent a complex interactive system in which there is no single fac­ tor that determines outcomes. This complex interactive system is the cauldron of development, the space in which learning unfolds. We know that learning involves knowledge, as well as epistemology and ethics. More often than not, knowledge, regardless of the topic, entails conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and content. Epistemology involves our dispositions toward valuing complex­ ity or assuming that knowledge is simple and knowable in simplistic ways. And as we use knowledge to do things in the world, our knowledge-informed actions often presume some set of assumptions about right and wrong, about good and evil, and about our relationships and commitments with others—or not. What are the implications of these broad propositions for what is entailed in people, particularly young people, learning to read, to compose in multiple genres and with multiple artifacts, and to use language to communicate, especially in highly specialized settings? (C.D. Lee, 2011; C.D. Lee et al., 2016). We submit the following propositions about instructing students to read, compose, and use language: 1. Instruction must make visible the sense-making processes required to interrogate texts by including sense-making processes that are specific to reading in different content areas and for different pur­ poses. This includes attention to language, with special attention to language variation and registers. 2. Instruction must be designed to help learners feel efficacious and safe and see the relevance of texts and tasks to their goals and the goals inherent in the classroom setting—such as socialization and expectations for participation. 3. Instruction must be designed to build meaningful social relationships among all actors in the settings. 4. Instruction must anticipate the cognitive, emotional, epistemological, and ethical demands of the literacy work students are expected to carry out. This includes pushing the boundaries beyond cur­ rent efforts to document sources of complexity in texts. 5. Instruction must recruit the multiple repertoires of knowledge, dispositions, epistemological stances, and ways of using language embedded in the routine cultural practices in which youth participate. Connecting prior knowledge to new targets of knowledge is a long-standing principle of cognition, but we are now able to expand the range of what prior knowledge can embody. Rel­ evant prior knowledge can go beyond content (for example, topics explored in texts), but can also include epistemological dispositions (e.g. epistemologies about relations between humans and the natural world in indigenous knowledge systems) and language repertoires (e.g. genres of figuration and argumentation in African American English recruited in literary interpretation and argumenta­ tion; translanguaging practices among English Language learners around meta-linguistic resources) (Bang & Marin, 2015; de Los Ríos & Seltzer, 2017; C.D. Lee, 1993; Orellana, 2009). These big ideas for an expanded view of instruction in the language arts raise important challenges to teaching, whether in the contexts of schooling or community settings, as commercial curricula available typically do not embody them. This means that teachers, ideally studying collectively as pro­ fessional communities of practice, must bring this breadth of knowledge to interrogate commercial and other materials for learning as resources and not as recipes. The other side of the challenge is that we do not have assessments—large-scale or small—to capture these multiple dimensions that contribute in essential ways to learning. Our assessments are most typically used for sorting and accountability, not to inform development, academic competence, or self-actualization. With that being the case, we need to ask: What role does prior knowledge play in influencing how students perform on compre­ hension tasks? What indicators do we have around epistemological orientation, growth mindset, and self-efficacy?

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An Example: Comprehension Assessment The problem with assessment may be clearly exemplified in the area of comprehension, which is limited in several ways. First, we do not have available assessments of language comprehension that seek to understand how language users’ and readers’ perceptions of tasks are activated as they engage in comprehension. What we might think of as a set of psycho-social variables at play as comprehension unfolds are sometimes referred to as contextual variables (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), for example, includes such indicators in surveys attached to their reading assessments. Attention to such variables holds the possibility that the outcomes of our assessments are more useful because they offer insights into the range of supports that are needed to improve comprehension. Yet reading and language comprehension are best understood as a form of ill-structured problem solving (Cho & Kim, 2020; Hatano & Inagaki, 1986). This is because the comprehension processes that need to be invoked are dependent on the text and the task (Valencia et al., 2014). On the whole, language users and readers cannot fully anticipate in advance what problems a given text will pose. On the other hand, expert comprehenders, especially those who are experts in comprehending texts within disciplines or specialized genres, do bring to acts of comprehension an anticipation of the kinds of problems a text might present (C.D. Lee & Spratley, 2010). For example, expert readers of literature recognize the indicators of a genre like fables, and in so doing anticipate that they will meet non­ human characters who embody human traits; or they recognize a text as a mystery and anticipate that some crime will occur and the plot will be about figuring out who did it. However, even with such disciplinary and/or genre knowledge, the reader cannot fully anticipate how a given author will struc­ ture the text and use language. Such meaning-making is always exploratory and tentative. The focus on teaching students to be metacognitive is intended to socialize a mindset of tentative exploration. That comprehension is a form of ill-structured problem-solving poses specific challenges to teach­ ing and is not sufficiently addressed in our field. Typically, commercial curriculum asks students to pro­ vide outcomes of comprehension. Rarely do we find curriculum that engages students in developing robust knowledge of meaning-making strategies. Such strategies include knowledge of genres, espe­ cially discipline-specific genres, knowledge of sentence structures, linguistic knowledge (e.g. anaphora, language indicating causal relationships, problems of figuration, etc.), and academic language. To prepare students to develop such competencies, teachers must anticipate the sources of com­ plexity that assigned texts will pose (Goldman & Lee, 2014; C.D. Lee & Goldman, 2015). Typically, this has involved determining Lexile® levels for texts. The problem here is that Lexiles capture only a few dimensions of text complexity, typically vocabulary and sentence length. There are other ways to measure text complexity, but they are not widely used in schools, and accessing them to apply to the texts a teacher may choose to use is neither easy nor practical. This is because unlike Lexiles, these tools do not include lists of widely read texts in the K-12 sector. Teachers have to copy and paste por­ tions of a given text to retrieve a measure of text complexity, which may not apply to the entire text. In addition, these tools typically do not include indicators of sources of text complexity relevant to reading in the disciplines. Commercial curricula almost never attend to issues of text complexity beyond Lexile® levels. It is possible for teachers to identify sources of text complexity, but this is more likely to be accomplished if teachers are working in professional learning communities, ideally in their own schools, to carry out such analyses. A useful target for research would be to make available resources for teachers to carry out such analyses. This problem of text complexity also poses interesting issues around the organization of text sets in units of instruction. More often than not, text sets are organized around common themes, which makes perfect sense on the one hand. On the other, students need opportunities to learn to

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tackle particular kinds of comprehension problems with regularity. Finding main ideas and details is an outcome of comprehension, as is making inferences. However, we do not typically teach students how to go about figuring out the main idea or how to make inferences, and we don’t pay attention to linguistic knowledge, which is a pivotal tool for making sense of texts (including main ideas and infer­ ences). Our field and practice undervalue the range of linguistic knowledge repertoires that students from diverse backgrounds bring to interrogating and producing texts. There is research documentation of the range of and kinds of linguistic repertoires that students from across diverse communities can bring to acts of comprehension. Reading and language com­ prehension are deeply impacted by the language repertoires that students in the K-12 sector bring to making sense of texts. While there is certainly a need for students to learn academic registers they will meet in texts (Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Uccelli et al., 2015), particularly in disciplinary texts, linguistic repertoires also include modes of reasoning (e.g. reasoning about figurative language in the African American speech genre of signifying), epistemological dispositions (e.g. valuing language play and modes of argumentation that are signaled by specific uses of language), and reasoning across languages (e.g. as shown by research on trans-languaging by bilingual youth who may not be dominant in Eng­ lish) (de Los Ríos & Seltzer, 2017; C. D. Lee, 1993, 1995; Orellana, 2009; Geneva Smitherman, 1977; Valdes, 2002). We continue to underplay the linguistic repertoires of students for whom English is not their first language, as well as students who speak what are often identified as non-dominant dialects; although presumptions about power and privilege associated with different dialects ignores the reality of hybrid linguistic practices that are pervasive, particularly in popular media (G. Smitherman, 1995). Related to these cultural issues around language, there is insufficient attention in the field to how issues of cultural diversity play out with regard to the range of texts that students are likely to explore in the K-12 sector. For example, in the literature curriculum, there is a lack of integrating texts from diverse cultural traditions; in the social studies and history curriculum, there is a lack of texts, par­ ticularly primary and secondary source documents, that invite interrogation of conundrums involving systemic issues that contribute to inequality; and science texts lack explorations of, for example, indig­ enous knowledge systems around the natural world. Reading in the disciplines is another area in which there is emerging attention, but not enough (Goldman et al., 2016; C.D. Lee & Spratley, 2009). As students move through the grades, especially middle and high school, there are increasing demands for them to comprehend texts in the content areas such as literature, social studies/history, science, and even mathematics. Reading in the disciplines entails types of texts, epistemological orientations, modes of reasoning, and specialized ways of using language (C.D. Lee et al., 2016; Martin & Veel, 1998; Wineburg & Reisman, 2015). In all of these core content areas, there is insufficient attention paid to teaching students how to read, how to engage in disciplinary argumentation, and how to use the language of the disciplines. This problem is exacerbated because there are virtually no assessments readily available for teachers to assess disciplinary comprehension. Therefore, when we examine the research we have and what we need, it is clear that greater attention needs to be placed on the complexity of comprehension assessment for the broad diversity of students we serve.

Teacher Development and the Language Arts Another broad area of research that needs to be tackled is teacher preparation. Numerous studies have focused on improving teacher preparation and literacy practices in schools, with the intent of improv­ ing outcomes for primary grade students (Reutzel et al., 2005, 2014). With the current attention given to the Science of Reading (SOR) and its focus on a Simple View of Reading (SVR) [D (Decoding) +(x) LC (Language Comprehension) = R (Reading)] in schools and educator preparation programs, we risk repeating a mistake of the past. It seems that the K-20 education “system” is perpetually caught up in the Aristotelian philosophical trap of attempting to reach the golden mean by going to the extremes, 336

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especially in early ELA instruction. Ardent proponents of SOR point to the need for systematic, sequential, and explicitly taught phonics instruction as the chief hallmark of quality instruction. If the history of early literacy instruction is any guide, it should have taught us that as the Simple View of Reading (SVR) takes hold in today’s schools and educator preparation programs, with a pri­ mary emphasis on phonics instruction, we once again risk focusing so intently on the “D” of decoding that the “LC” of language comprehension may be largely ignored. If we are to avoid repeating the instructional mistakes of the past into the future of 21st-century English Language Arts instruction, we will need to assure that sufficient instructional time and necessary attention is devoted to language comprehension as a critical element of early literacy instruction (NELP, 2008).

Why Language Comprehension? It turns out that language comprehension (LC) is not only a strong predictor but a causal element in facilitating young students’ later reading comprehension and written compositions (Calfee & Miller, 2005; NELP, 2008; Duke et al., 2014; Gillam et al., 2018). LC is highly reflective of and reliant upon the depth and breadth of young students’ prior knowledge and lived experiences (Tyner & Kabourek, 2020). Research has long shown that the more students know about content knowledge in text, the better they will comprehend it (Pearson et al., 1979). Cognitive profiles of elementary school-aged students with reading comprehension difficulties have shown that they often have simultaneous weaknesses in oral language comprehension and process­ ing (Duff & Clarke, 2011; Duke et al., 2014). In fact, Catts et al. (1999) found that approximately 70% of students with poor reading comprehension in the second grade also demonstrated significant oral language deficits in kindergarten. Similarly, young students with poor language comprehension skills in kindergarten have been shown to be at a higher risk for developing reading comprehension problems in later years (Catts et al., 2002). Nation et al. (2010) found that oral language weaknesses in poor comprehenders at age 8 were not a simple consequence of their reading comprehension impair­ ment, but rather reflected persistent prior weaknesses in expressive and receptive language, language comprehension, and grammatical understanding. As a consequence, weakness in oral language com­ prehension in the early grades is increasingly viewed as a contributing and causal factor affecting poor reading comprehension in later grades (NELP, 2008; Duke et al., 2014). Gillam et al. (2018) found that teaching young children to model oral storytelling on the basis of narrative models of text not only increased their language comprehension of such texts, but also language production of such texts. They also found that training in narrative text language comprehension and production resulted in successful future reading comprehension outcomes.

Building Young Students’ World Knowledge Children need access to world knowledge to augment LC instruction in the early years. Consequently, future young students will need access to a cohesively, deliberately, and coherently designed knowl­ edge curriculum (Wexler, 2019, 2020). Building early literacy instruction on a planned, sequential knowledge curriculum vastly increases the chance of narrowing what has been and continues to be a pervasive and persistent knowledge gap among young students’ early literacy outcomes. In future ELA instruction for young children, we need to be as concerned that all students, but espe­ cially those who come to school with limited background knowledge and lived-experiences about the “great big world out there,” will be greatly benefitted in their later reading comprehension and written composition experiences as they acquire content knowledge in their early ELA instruction (Calfee & Miller, 2005; Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Reutzel et al., 2005). But pursuing a knowledge-based curriculum alone will also be insufficient to assure effective language instruction in the early years of 337

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ELA instruction. There must also be deliberate efforts to link the selection of increased numbers of information texts for reading aloud to the sequence and elements of the knowledge-based curriculum. Teachers, both those in preparation and those in current practice, will need to acquire the ability in the future to evaluate and/or design a process that integrates the selection of information texts for “LC” instruction with the sequence and content of an adopted or locally produced knowledge-based curriculum. As such, colleges and schools of education and school districts will need to include this training as an integral feature of future teacher preparation and in-service teacher professional develop­ ment programs (Reutzel & Fawson, 2022). One outstanding example of a successful local effort to deliberately design a knowledge-based curriculum linked to the selection of books to be read and studied in elementary literacy instruction is found in the network of Success Academy Schools in inner-city New York City (Pondiscio, 2019). A horizontally and vertically aligned and articulated knowledge-based curriculum linked to carefully designed text selection processes for early ELA instruction will be of great consequence in facilitating young students’ development of oral language comprehension both now and later to help them better comprehend written language. We must not stop with a knowledge-rich school curriculum linked to text selection processes: if LC instruction in the early years is to successfully support later reading comprehension and written composition instruction, the design of LC instruction in the early years would be wisely predicated upon and linked to a robust theory of and empirical research on text comprehension.

Text Comprehension as a Template for Language Comprehension

Instruction

Language comprehension is built upon understanding and learning from spoken text. This is accom­ plished by constructing and integrating knowledge and lived-experiences across cultures and relation­ ships into a coherent mental re-representation of text stored in long-term memory (Willingham, 2017). Some language researchers have successfully designed LC instruction by looking deeply into levels of text comprehension as a framework or template (Calfee & Miller, 2005; Gillam et al., 2018). Our most robust and empirically supported theory on text comprehension, Construction-Integration (CI) theory, explains how one goes about the act of comprehending text language in traditional/digital printed forms (Duke et al., 2011; Kintsch & Kintsch, 2005). As students process and organize language experiences in their minds, the result is a type of language-based text representation—what L. Rosenblatt (1978) once called the poem or what W. Kintsch called the situation model (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Language comprehension, therefore, is far more than the ability to decode auditory or visual input. It is also much more than social and cultural experiences. It is at its roots a profoundly language-based, cogni­ tive process resulting in a constantly evolving situation model of one’s life moment by moment and day by day (Willingham, 2017). The “text” we encode using oral language is saved and retrieved from our cogni­ tive/neurological networks in the mind, which preserves, organizes, and makes accessible our life’s lived experiences across cognitive, social, and cultural realms of existence. As such, we are constantly and actively constructing and integrating the events of life to create new texts as we comprehend spoken language. CI Theory is a useful template for planning LC instruction. Language (text) comprehension, as framed by CI theory, occurs on three levels: • Level 1: Building a micro-text base—processing words and sentences and linking terms, • Level 2: Building a macro-text base—organizing words and sentences, and linking terms into larger, coherent structures, and • Level 3: Integrating the constructed text base and schema-based knowledge to create a situation model of language/text comprehension. 338

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CI theory provides a template or framework for understanding Common Core ELA standards and their effective use. The ELA CCSS reading standards for literature and information were clearly informed by or built upon Kintsch’s CI model of text comprehension (Reutzel et al., 2016). To illus­ trate our point, consider the obvious connections between CI Text Comprehension Theory’s three levels and the three levels of ELA CC State Reading Literature and Informational Text State Standard Clusters shown here: • Cluster 1: Main idea and details—words, sentences, and linkage of ideas among sentences, • Cluster 2: Author craft and structure—purpose, complexity, and text structures, • Cluster 3: Integrating knowledge and ideas—Bringing together text-based knowledge with schemabased knowledge in the mind to learn from text. Given these obvious connections of CCS ELA Standards to text comprehension processing levels, there are some fairly clear implications for teaching these standards to facilitate language comprehen­ sion in service of future reading comprehension and writing composition. Standards should not be taught one at a time: instead, after selecting a text, three standards selected from each of the three levels of the CC State Reading Standard Clusters should be taught as a part of repeated reading aloud of text to deepen language comprehension. For example, in the first reading of a 2nd grade informational text, the teacher selects one stand­ ard from the “main idea and details” cluster of standards, such as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.1 — Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. In a second reading or close reading of the text, the teacher might select yet another standard from the “author craft and structure” cluster of standards, such as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY. RI.2.5 — Know and use various text features (e.g., captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently. In a third and final reading of a text, the teacher might select a final standard from the “integrating knowledge and ideas” cluster of standards, such as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.8 — Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text.

A Focus on Early Language Comprehension Instruction That Works! To develop young student’s language comprehension capacity, it is important that teachers select texts that contain challenging words, ideas, and content. Lonigan and Whitehurst (1998) described an evidence-based repeated read aloud technique called dialogic reading (DR) that can be used to provide effective language comprehension instruction through more challenging texts. Results of Lonigan and Whitehurst’s (1998) research showed that after only six weeks, the children who participated in DR scored significantly higher on both receptive and expressive language skills than students in the control group who did not participate in DR. Perhaps coincidentally, the DR intervention is also designed to be taught at three levels (Flynn, 2011) approximating the three levels of CCS Reading Standard clusters and Kintsch’s three levels of text comprehension in the C-I model. In Level 1, students identify objects and actions in text illustrations with a focus on eliciting words and sentences from students. In Level 2, students discuss open ended questions such as “what do you see on this page?” or “tell me more.” Language expan­ sions are gradual, adding only one or two words to students’ language during per session. In Level 3, students discuss answers to questions about the story’s plot or the steps in a procedural information text. Questions for discussion may also focus on students’ personal experiences such as, “have you ever seen one of these?” or “have you ever been to or on a _____?” In Level 3, teachers also help students discuss story structure, simple expository text structures, and authorial craft such as allegory, allusion, 339

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flashbacks, and foreshadowing. Teachers also help students form a situation model for the texts as they are discussed to intentionally develop their LC capacity. Without a doubt, an exclusive focus on decoding without an accompanying commitment to devel­ oping students’ language comprehension does not enact the full scope of even the Simple View of Read­ ing. We need to broaden our view of LC and ELA instruction in schools, classrooms, and in teacher preparation and professional development programs. Failure to do so is likely to imperil the future of ELA instruction for yet another generation of young learners.

Family and the Development of the Language Arts The manner in which the Language Arts are taught in school has been studied and debated. The Science of Reading promotes the Simple View of Reading as the systematic teaching of decoding and language comprehension. Others profess that reading requires a more comprehensive view. The National Reading Panel Report (2000), the National Early Literacy Report (2008), the Rand Report (2002), and the Common Core State Standards (2010) are important documents that add to our knowledge about the processes involved in teaching children to read, write, listen, and think critically. We also know that it takes teachers with exemplary skills and practices (Pressley et al.; Morrow & Casey, 2003). We need to think about a well-orchestrated curriculum including phonics, language, knowledge, strategies, motivation, identity, and empathy. The field also needs to embrace the concept of “It Takes a Village” (Clinton, 2006) for literacy instruction to be successful. Promoting the Language Arts includes students, educa­ tors, families, and the community (Pearson et al., 2023; Duke and Purcell-Gates, 2003). We recognize that literacy learning takes place in many settings embodying multiple repertoires of knowledge, dispositions, and ways of using language embedded in routine cultural practices. There­ fore, the complex nature of learning the Language Arts must involve more than the school setting. It is necessary to recognize the importance of the family in the development of these skills. According to Rosenblatt (1988), children from all cultures and socio-economic backgrounds bring literacy experiences to school from their homes. When involving families in literacy development, we need to address how children’s cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds affect their literacy develop­ ment. We also need to be aware that their literacy experiences may not align with the goals of the school’s Language Arts program. We must view cultural and linguistic differences as valuable opportu­ nities to be embraced rather than problems to be solved. This requires the development of a complex and multifaceted relationship between culture and learning, and knowledge about the backgrounds of the children in our classrooms (Gay, 2013). In other words, we need to practice Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) for children and their families to make literacy relevant for the students we serve. CRT is grounded in a belief that the differences among ethnic and cultural groups are normative to the human condition and valuable to personal and societal development (Gay, 2010). This is a departure from the view that cultural and linguistic differences contribute to children’s learning difficulties and underachievement. According to Ladson-Billings (2021), CRT includes (1) literacy for academic success (teaching skills, knowledge and proficiencies), (2) literacy as cultural competence (teaching in ways that honor and affirm students’ cultures) and (3) literacy as sociopolitical consciousness (teaching in ways that connect to the real world, helping students to apply academics to solving problems related to margin­ alization and inequities). Literacy defined in this way uses multiple theoretical perspectives for learning related to cognition, the sociocultural environment, and theories related to power and justice.

Research on Family Involvement in Literacy Development Research related to the value of family involvement in literacy development has been carried out at many grade levels and with different populations of students. Large-scale investigations by Henderson 340

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and Mapp (2002) and Houtenville and Conway (2008) found that parent involvement in their chil­ dren’s literacy development from early childhood resulted in students with higher grades, better social skills, lower rates of retention, and higher rates of high school graduation and postsecondary study. There are many mainstream characteristics of home environments that promote literacy. Research­ ers who have studied the families of children who are successful in the Language Arts have consistently found common characteristics: • Family members read to their children and help them with reading and writing. • Family members read a variety of materials, including novels, magazines, newspapers, and workrelated information. • Family members own and borrow books for themselves and their children. • Family members make frequent visits  with their children to libraries and bookstores (Morrow, 2020; Morrow & Young, 1997). • Family members read and write by choice during their free time. • Family members value reading and writing as important activities. Books are associated with pleas­ ure, and literacy activities are rewarded. • Family activities are well organized, with schedules, clear rules, and designated responsibilities for members. • Family members interact socially, emotionally, and intellectually. • Family members have meals together and engage in discussions (Anderson et al., 2010; Zeece & Wallace, 2009; Hindin et al., 2017). Although these characteristics are important for a child’s literacy development, educators need to be sensitive to the reality that children from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds may not share these experiences. This does not mean that children who aren’t exposed to these activities lack literacy in their homes. It means that we must consider the range of children’s literacy environments and discover ways to build upon them.

Diversity and Family Literacy In 2018, The U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics (2018) reported that the population in our schools was 47% White, 15% Black, 27% Hispanic, and 5% Asian. Our schools are made up of many races, languages, ethnicities, religions, and families who do not speak English. There is evidence that many low-income, minority, and immigrant families cultivate rich contexts for literacy development in the form of storytelling, singing, and read­ ing and discussing the Bible (Schrodt, Fain, & Hasty, 2015; Morrow, 1995). However, their efforts are different from the school model that we are accustomed to, and may not have an influence on school success (Heath, 1983; Paratore et al., 2003). The approach to family literacy must avoid cultural bias, and programs must be supportive rather than intrusive (Auerbach, 1989; Bryant & Maxwell, 1997). In studies interested in understanding ways in which literacy is used within diverse families, empha­ sis is placed on the richness of the cultural heritage and experiences, rather than on perceived educa­ tional deficits. With that perspective, educators can better understand the literacies that exist in diverse families and can help make literacy instruction in school more meaningful for family members and children. For example, Delgado-Gaitan (1992) carried out a study to determine the attitudes of Mexi­ can American families toward the education of their children, and the roles played by these families. The study demonstrated that the Mexican American parents provided special areas for study in their homes for their children, in spite of space limitations. The parents wanted their children to succeed in school and rewarded them for doing well. They sought the help of friends, relatives, and others 341

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to assist them or their children with school-related matters. Parents also believed that a person can­ not be considered well educated through “book learning” alone, but must also learn to be respectful, well-mannered, and helpful to others. Family stories about life in Mexico guided the children’s moral learning. From the findings about these families, one could conclude that schools need to respond to Latinos’ concerns that children learn good manners and respect in school and that the curriculum should include oral history and storytelling, which are important aspects of the Latino culture (Paratore et al., 2003; Rodriguez-Brown, 2010). The schools need to respond to language barriers and help with problems that these families will encounter.

Parent Involvement Programs Family Literacy needs to be an integral part of the school program. In a meta-analysis of 51 stud­ ies (total sample of 13,000 students), Jeynes (2012a) examined the effects of several forms of par­ ent involvement programs on the academic achievement of preschool through 12th-grade students. Regardless of the type, parent involvement programs were significantly related to students’ academic achievement. His findings illustrated that programs including parents and children reading together and parents and teachers collaborating as equal partners to enhance children’s academic and/or behavior outcomes were the most successful. In their studies about engagement, Fan et al. (2012) and Guthrie and Barber (2019) found that parent involvement programs influenced school motivation among stu­ dents of differing socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, specifically Asian American, Hispanic, Cau­ casian, and African American students. Results also found that family programs created high aspirations on the part of parents for their children, and enhanced students’ school motivation across all different groups regardless of socioeconomic status.

Establishing Successful Programs and Activities Because no two communities are the same, family literacy programs need to be tailored to the needs of those they serve. Following are some guidelines for creating successful family literacy programs. • Respect and understand the diversity of the families you serve. • Build on literacy behaviors present in families. These behaviors should be identified, respected, preserved, and used. • Be aware of the home languages within the community so that materials can be translated. • Family literacy programs should not take a “fix the family” attitude. Rather, they should view fami­ lies as a supplement to the interactions that already exist. • Hold meetings at various times of the day and days of the week to accommodate all schedules. • Hold meetings in accessible locations that are friendly. Provide transportation if needed. • Provide childcare and refreshments at meetings. • Include writing together, reading together, and activities that are fun and interesting. • Work with family members alone and with parents and children together. • Provide functional activities that families consider useful, such as child-rearing concerns. • Provide opportunities for family members’ participation in school activities during school hours. There is substantial research suggesting that family literacy programs create supportive connections between home and school. At the same time, it must be recognized that more research in this area is sorely needed. We must understand how literacy learning takes place in multiple settings within and outside of the school context. Consequently, engaging and involving the family and community mem­ bers may act as an important catalyst for children’s development in the Language Arts. 342

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Digital Media and the Language Arts It would be wrong to end this epilogue without a consideration of technology and its place in the language arts. Throughout our history, stories have been used to delight and teach children, yet the medium or material forms in which these stories are told has dramatically shifted in the last several dec­ ades. Today, the same story now routinely crosses media boundaries from print, TV, web, and hands-on materials. Increasingly, a child’s initial exposure to a story is as likely to come from experiencing it in digital forms as it is from print. However, current research has largely focused on the impact of various forms of media on children’s learning. A substantial body of research has focused on the learning effects of digital books (Bianca­ rosa & Griffiths, 2012; Miller & Warschauer, 2014) and print books. Generally, researchers (Furenes et al., 2021; Richter & Courage, 2017) have attributed differences in impact to the medium of instruc­ tion (e.g., “paper advantage,” (Clinton, 2019), the age of the child (e.g., “video deficit,” (Anderson & Evans, 2001), and/or the amount of scaffolding from an adult (e.g., co-viewing, (Strouse et al., 2013), with evidence of both positive and negative effects on children’s comprehension and vocabulary devel­ opment. For example, a recent quantitative meta-analysis of 39 studies examining reading on paper versus on-screen concluded that differential effects were equivocal (Furenes et al., 2021). Nevertheless, the question of which medium may be superior under what condition seems to overlook what is happening in the current media environment. Children as young as 3 years old are viewing over two and a half hours of screen media per day; by age 8, the average number of hours is 4–6 hours; by the teen years, it approximates 9 hours per day (Neuman et al., 2021). Moreover, today’s young children are multiplatform users, likely to take advantage of a variety of devices includ­ ing tablets, smartphones, TV, and print books (Rideout & Robb, 2020). Children might see renditions of their favorite storybook characters in a live performance, an educational TV series, and learning games, among many other forms. Consequently, rather than comparing one medium to another, often in isolation, it might be more useful to focus on learning from multiple media platforms and the ways that different symbol systems might contribute to children’s learning (Neuman et al., 2021). For example, book-reading, with its slower pace and static pictorial information may allow for greater auditory attention to the words in the text. Screen media, with its representation of visual images and movement, might support a focus on how words are related to the actions in a story and their meaning. Each medium, therefore, may expose children to a different set of processing tools, which, in combination, may contribute to chil­ dren’s word learning and comprehension. Under this assumption, exposure to a topic from multiple media platforms may elicit a synergy effect, supporting greater learning than with exposure to a single medium alone (Neuman, 2009). Fisch and his colleagues (2016) are among the first to propose that learning from multiple platforms might create a more powerful learning opportunity than from a single medium alone. The theoretical rationale behind this idea is that students’ ability to apply concepts in one context might transfer to a new context. Years ago, for example, Salomon and Perkins (1998) suggested that varied practice with different media helped learners create a mental representation of an idea that could become less con­ textualized or tied to a particular context over time. Therefore, if children encounter multiple treat­ ments of similar educational content using multiple platforms (e.g., print, TV, games), the result could be a richer mental representation, greater retention, and a more nuanced understanding of the content. Several studies have explored this possibility. Probably the best known is a study of Sesame Street and Between the Lions (Linebarger et  al., 2004), children’s TV programming for 2- to 7-year-olds, that added hands-on ancillary materials designed to support early literacy development. Researchers compared pre- and post-test growth in children’s story comprehension and found that children who saw the programs and used the additional materials gained the most in comparison to viewing the 343

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program alone (Linebarger & Piotrowski, 2010). Likewise, in a randomized controlled trial, Penuel and his colleagues (Penuel et al., 2009) found that the Ready to Learn program, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting/Public Broadcasting Corporation project which included video, games, and activities for children, benefited from having multiple media to improve the skills of low-income preschool­ ers. Both studies produced patterns that were consistent with each other: each found that educational media users showed significant pre-to post-test growth in their comprehension of content compared to control groups. Still, while these data are compelling, there has been little research to date to explicitly examine whether multiple media presentations might benefit children’s early language and literacy. Does greater learning occur when children are exposed to two media presentations as compared to one? To be clear, this question differs from the work by Mayer and his team, who have conducted a substantial body of research on mul­ timedia learning. Rather, it asks a question about the synergy of learning from multiple media platforms. A recent study addressed this question (Neuman et al., 2021). This study included 140 preschoolers who either viewed or listened to two stories, repeated either with a single medium (traditional book or video) or two different media (book and video). The target of interest in this case was to determine which treatment might be most effective for children to acquire vocabulary incidentally. Results of the study indicated that gains in incidental word learning were significantly stronger when children viewed two different media rather than a single medium alone. Furthermore, children’s word learning was sustained when these words were transferred to a different story. This research may have important practical implications. Today, the media in which stories are communicated have shifted dramatically, with quality educational programing burgeoning on digital formats in recent years. We need to take advantage of a broader range of ‘texts’ to help our children become literate. It is time to take advantage of the multiple representations of stories and the potential added benefit they may produce for children’s incidental word learning. What are the potential benefits of synergy across media platforms? There are several possibilities (Fisch et al., 2013): • Motivating reluctant readers. Starting with a video of a concept might engage learners to become interested in a topic. It can be a useful means of reaching an individual student through the medium (or media) that he or she finds most appealing. Furthermore, each medium tells its story using different symbol systems (e.g. action, music, sounds), which may support individual differ­ ences in preferred modes of learning. • Repetition and reinforcement. Presenting new vocabulary and concepts in different contexts may encourage generalization of that concept. Because children have seen its applicability in many contexts, there is the potential for deeper learning. Varied practice is seen as applying word learning and concepts to situations and contexts beyond the ones that were learned. • Transfer to different contexts. Lessons learned from one medium may be applied to another, enhancing children’s general knowledge and extended learning from a second medium. Nevertheless, since multiple platform learning is still a new and emerging field, there are many key questions that need to be addressed. Although there is some research to suggest its potential, further research will be invaluable to help us understand children’s interactions with these media, and to iden­ tify ways in which multiple media can be used most effectively for education. This Handbook has brilliantly described the research we currently have for supporting students in the language arts. Yet it is clear that there is more work to be done. In this epilogue, we have attempted to outline the research that is needed in comprehension assessment, teacher development and practice, family and community involvement, and digital media. We look forward to engaging our language arts community in this important endeavor. 344

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INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. AAL (African American Language) 168 AAVE see African American Vernacular English (AAVE) Abas, S. 122 ableism 244 Abolitionist Movement 171, 172 Abolitionist Teaching 171–172 Abugasea Heidt, M. 232 academic discourse 31–37; in English Language Arts 36; history 37–38; in mathematics 36; in science 36–37 academic vocabulary 34–35 access to curriculum 104–105 Acevedo, M. 120 active learning 87, 227 “activating,” idea of 51 Active View of Reading 45, 317 Acuerdo Nacional para la Modernización de la Educación Básica (ANMEB) 14 Adams-Campbell, M. 120 adaptive teaching 227–228 Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi, S. 120 ADHD see attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Adichie, C. N. 129 adolescent literature: books for 153–154; definition of 145; history of 142–144; National Assessment of Educational Progress 148, 149; in verse novel 151–153 adolescent students 59, 195, 231, 271, 287 adult feedback 84 Advanced Placement Language and Composition teachers 149

Afflerbach, P. 278, 279, 294, 298 African American English (AAE) 168 African American Language (AAL) 168 African Americans 180; communities 122; English spoken by 163; literature 60; students 164, 191–193 African American Vernacular English (AAVE) 168, 192–193 Afrofuturism 172 aggressive/bullying-type behavior 241; see also lack of safety and connectedness, negative behaviors Aho, T. 123 ALA see American Library Association (ALA) Albers, P. 99, 101 Alexander, J. 152 Alexander, K. 152 Alexander, P. A. 301 Alexander, R. 248 Alfaro, C. 14–16 algebra, express with oral and written language skills 61 Alim, H. S. 168, 196 All American Boys (Reynolds and Kiely) 168 Allen, K. 305 Allington, R. L. 53 Allmond, A. 231 All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team (Soontornvat) 149 Al Otaiba, S. 214 alphabetic knowledge 46–47 Alter, G. 123

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Index Alvarado, J. 171

Alvarez, A. 189

American Born Chinese (Yang) 143

American Library Association (ALA) 97, 154

American Revolution 163

American Sign Language (ASL) 120

American Speech-Language Association

(ASHA) 28

Anderson, C. 149

Anderson, L. 143

Anderson, R. C. 269

Angay-Crowder, T. 109

ANMEB see Acuerdo Nacional para la Modernización de la Educación Básica (ANMEB) Annie on My Mind (Garden) 144

Anti-Black Linguistic Racism 168, 169

anti-LGBTQ+ laws 242

Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy 168, 169

Applebee, A. N. 57, 87

applied science model 13

Arabic language 8, 30

Arbor, A. 194

Archeology of Self 169–170 Archibald, J. A. 185

Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret (Blume) 143

articulatory gestures 47

ASHA see American Speech-Language Association (ASHA) Asian American picturebooks 119

asking questions 229, 299

ASL see American Sign Language (ASL) aspirational capital 188; see also community cultural wealth assessment see literacy assessment asset-based approaches 187

assisted reading 54; see also fluency attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

212, 248

Au, K. H. 164

audio-assisted reading 54

authenticity 117, 119–120 autism 204

autobiographies 149, 166, 197

Axelrod, Y. 230

Aydin, A. 151

background knowledge 35, 45, 50, 51, 63, 150,

272, 337; gap filling 319; learners 76

Bacon, J. 171

Baker, L. 270, 279

Baker-Bell, A. 168, 169

Bakhtin, M. M. 32

Ball, A. F. 181, 182, 193

Bañales, G. 87

Bandura, A. 224, 226, 270, 306, 313

Banks, C. A. M. 164, 180

Barber, A. T. 342

Barrett, R. 197

Barton, R. 106, 108

Bashir, A. S. 215

Battiste, M. 185

Bazemore-Bertrand, S. 126

Bazerman, C. 74

Beach, R. 61, 100

Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry

(Orr) 152

Beck, I. 57

Becker, W. C. 56

Becoming (Obama) 149

beginning reading 45–52; texts 50

Bell, C. 151

Bereiter, C. 73, 74, 76

Bergin, D. 280, 282

Beyond Your Perception (BYP) 166

Big Bad Wolf 26

bilingualism 15

biographies in graphic format 150

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People

of Color) 170

Birkenstein, C. 32

Bishop, R. S. 229

Bishop, S. 129

BL see Black Language (BL) Blachowicz, C. L. Z. 35, 56

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color

(BIPOC) 170

Black Americans 11, 122., 162

BlackCrit 167

Black Girls’ Literacy 165–167 Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power,

and Pleasure of Reading and Writing

(Oliver) 162

Black Language (BL) 168, 169; definition of

192–194

The Black Language Demands (Baker-Bell)

192, 196

Black Language Syllabus 196

#BlackLivesMatter 168, 242

Black Radical Imagination 127

Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to

the Amen Corner (Smitherman) 191

blended learning 105

Blume, J. 143

body-coda decoding 49

Bolden, T. 149

Booktoks 231

The Book Whisperer (Miller) 146

Borkowski, J. 307

Borsheim-Black, C. 168

Botelho, M., J. 118, 119, 134

Boulware-Gooden, R. 305

Bourdeaud’hui, H. 25

Boykin, A. W 283

350

Index Braden, E. G. 121

Bransford, J. 15

Brave New World (Huxley) 22

Brayboy, B. M. J. 184

British education system 8

Britt, M. A. 301

Britton, J. 23

Brodsky, J. 147

Brown, A. L. 36

Brown, F. 162

Brown, K. W. 172

Brown, S. 106, 231

Brownell, J. 25

Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson) 153

Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka

162, 242

Bruce, B. 99

Burchinal, M. 282

Butler, O. E. 143

BYP (Beyond Your Perception) 166

Cadden, M. 152

Callow, J. 107

Cameron-Faulkner, T. 23

Campano, G. 103

Canon of English 185

Capin, P. 207

Cappello, M. 103, 104, 106–108, 111

Caribbean English 192

caring classroom environments 257–260 Cartwright, K. B. 325

CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and

Emotional Learning) 151

Castagno, A. E. 184

Castek, J. 61

casual speech 24; see also registers of spoken language Catts, H. W. 337

CCCC (Conference on College Composition and

Communication) 194

CCSS (Common Core State Standards) 75,

108, 109

CCSSI (Common Core State Standards

Initiative) 71

CFT (counter fairy tales) 166

Chall, J. S. 46, 63

Changing the Equation: 50+ Black Women in

STEM (Bolden) 149

Charity Hudley, A. H. 197

ChatGPT 110

Chavez, C. 15

The Children’s Hour (Wadsworth) 152

children’s literature: anti-oppressive 117;

anti-racist 117; author and illustrator

identities in 119–120; critical content

analyses of 123; critical literacy 117;

K-12 educators 124–128; lack of diversity

in 118; longevity and vastness of 116;

picturebooks 118–119; publication

of 117; research in 116, 128; social

justice 117; stock stories/counterstories

120–121; systematic exclusion in

121–123; in teacher education programs

128–133

Children’s Perceived Self-Efficacy (CPSE) 306

Chile: challenges, teacher education programs 14; ELT programs 13; English teacher education programs 12–13; second language teacher education 13–14 Chinese Heritage School 106

Chinese Language Arts teachers 87

Cho, B. Y. 302

Cho, H. 127

The Chocolate War (Cormier) 143

Chomsky, C. 54

choral reading 54

Christ, T. 127

CI theory (Construction-Integration) 338–339 Civil Rights Act of 1964 162

Civil Rights Movement 63, 179, 180

Clark-Gareca, B. 106, 111

class 10, 11, 23

classroom conversation 124, 127, 128

classroom implementation 86–88 classroom learning 26–27 classroom practices 186–187 classroom relationships 254–257 Cline, Z. 15

CMA (Critical Multicultural Analysis) 118

Coakley-Fields, M. R. 230

code-centric approaches 46

cognitive flexibility 315

cognitive monitor 72

cognitive processes: extra, to support learning 314; neuro-, in executive functions 314; in reading comprehension 269; in writing 70–71, 73, 207–208 cognitive skills 25

code-switching 169, 193–194; see also translanguaging cognitive theory 30

Cohn-Vargas, B. 246–249 Coiro, J. 301

Cole, M. W. 230

Coleman, J. J. 121

collaboration: in culturally relevant curriculum

190, 249; in digital spaces 85; of high-

school students/students/peers/teachers

171, 234, 250, 276, 283, 321; of schools

286; skills 250; teacher 133; in writing 86

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional

Learning (CASEL) 151, 286, 287

collaborative reasoning 83, 272

collaborative tasks 39

351

Index collaborative translation approach 230 Colley, C. 36 Collins, S. 143 The Color Purple (Walker) 192 Common Core State Standards for the English Language Arts see Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Common Core State Standards (CCSS): as controlling factor in choice of instructional material 148 – 149; and digital literacy 108 – 109; narrowing view of literacy and teaching practices 223 – 224; promotion of binary/ oversimplified versions of children’s books 128 – 129; writing expectations 75 Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) 71 communication 32 – 35 Communities of Color 187, 188 community cultural wealth 187 – 188 complementary learning 13 comprehension difficulties 206 – 207 comprehension strategies, reading 307, 319, 326 comprehensive approach to vocabulary instruction 56 – 57 comprehensive vocabulary program 57 compulsory schooling 58 computer-assisted instruction (CAI) 215 – 216 Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) 270, 271, 283; motivation 276 – 277 conceptual publications 130 – 131 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) 194 Construction-Integration (CI) theory 338 – 339 The construction of negotiated meaning: A social cognitive theory of writing (Flower) 74 construction process, knowledge of 180 consultative speech 24 content integration 180 content knowledge 13, 35, 38 – 41 content-rich English Language Arts (ELA) 38 Conway, K. S. 341 Cooper, A. 164 Core Content Framework 4 Cormier, R. 143 Coronavirus pandemic 62 “correct” English 163 Cote-Meek, S. 185 counter fairy tales (CFT) 166 COVID-19 pandemic 98, 242, 285; Social Emotional Learning 286 – 289 CPSE (Children’s Perceived Self-Efficacy) 306 craft model 12 – 13 CREE (Critical Race English Education) 161, 162 Creech, S. 152 critical classroom conversations 124 – 128 Critical English Education 167

Critical Language Pedagogy (CLP) 168 critical literacy 62 – 63, 164 – 165 The Critical Merits of Young Adult Literature (Hill) 146 Critical Multicultural Analysis (CMA) 118, 122 Critical Race English Education (CREE) 161, 162, 167 – 168 critical race theory (CRT) 119, 120, 122, 162, 167, 187 critical thinking 14 Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) 122 The Crossover (Alexander) 152 CRT (critical race theory) see critical race theory (CRT) CRT (Culturally Responsive Teaching) see Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) cultivating diversity as a resource 251 – 253 cultural hegemony 163, 186 Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) 340 Cutler, L. 87 CWS (Critical Whiteness Studies) 122 cyber racism 242 Dallacqua, A. K. 231 Daniel, S. M. 230 Daniels, S. 323 The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games (Thomas) 143 Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow (Gates) 149 Darling-Hammond, L. 15 Dávila, D. 126 Davis, M. H. 278 Dawson, C. M. 111 The Death and Resurrection of a Coherent Literature Curriculum (Stotsky) 147 Deci, E. L. 314 Decker, D. M. 283 decoding 49 – 50, 318, 325; and comprehension difficulties 207; difficulties 206; fluency 52 – 54; vocabulary 55 – 57 deep reading 54 – 55; see also fluency De La Paz, S. 61 Delgado-Gaitan, C. 341 Deliver Us from Evie (Kerr) 144 Deloria, V., Jr. 184 de los Ríos, C. V. 62 Delphi procedure 3, 16 DeNicolo, C. P. 189 Department for Education (DfE) 4 De Roock, R. S. 172 Desimone 87 Developing Strategic Writers (Philippakos) 82 developmental delay 204 Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) 29 Dewey, J. 32, 99, 224

352

Index DfE (Department for Education) 4

dialogic reading (DR) 339

Diamond, A. 316

Digital Democratic Dialogue (3D) 171

digital literacies 97; application 108–109;

assessment 108–109; construct validity and 301–302; operation of 302–304; standards 108–109 digital media 343–344

digital pedagogies 102–108, 106

digital storytelling 106–108

Dill, E. 283

DiPardo, A. 98

Direct and Inferential Mediation Model of

Reading 317

direct instruction 39

Disability Studies 123

disciplinary literacy 60–62

disciplinary reading instruction 60–62

discourse-intensive work 36

discourse and communication 32; see also

academic discourse

DisCrit 123

The Distance Between Us (Grande) 150

diversity and family literacy 340–341

Djonko-Moore, C. 124, 128

DLD (Developmental Language Disorder) 29

Dobbs, C. L. 60

Dockrell, J. E. 211

The Door of No Return (Alexander) 153

Dore, R. A. 26

Douglass, F. 171

DR (dialogic reading) 339

The Dream House (Machado) 154

Drewry, R. J 104

dropout 241; see also lack of safety and

connectedness, negative behaviors drug use 241; see also lack of safety and connectedness, negative behaviors

DuBois, W. E. B. 164, 179

duolog reading see paired reading

Durán, L. 189

Dyches, J. 61

Dyson, A. H. 230, 232

ELA see English Language Arts (ELA) Early Childhood Longitudinal Study,

Kindergarten Class of 1998 to 1999

(ECLS-K) 210

EB (emergent bilingual) see emergent bilingual (EB)

Ebonics 163, 168, 193, 194

EBPs (Evidence Based Practices) 76

economics 296–297

Education 2.0 8

EFL (English as a Foreign Language) 12, 13, 110

The Egyptian Context 7–8; paradoxes 9;

textbooks 8–9

ELA see English Language Arts (ELA) El Deafo (Bell) 151

Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) 305

eloquent oral reading, development of 52

EM (English monolingual) 322

Emdin, C. 169, 248, 252

emergent bilingual (EB) 322, 324

emergent reading 45–52; knowledge development in 50–51 empirical publications 131–132 EngageALL (Engagement Model of Academic

Literacy for Learning) 61

Engagement Model of Academic Literacy for

Learning (EngageALL) 61

England: Standard English in classroom, use of 6;

state-funded schools in 4; teachers in 6;

University of Nottingham 6

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) 12, 13, 110

English as an Additional Language (ELA) 110,

125, 206; in indigenous students 185–186

English as a Second Language (ESL) 12, 108,

110, 191; in Mexico 14

English Language Arts (ELA) 61, 77, 161, 204,

336–337; academic discourse in 36;

caring classroom environments 257–260;

classroom relationships 254–257;

cultivating diversity as a resource

251–253; and digital media 343–344;

external factors 323–325; family and

development of 340; instruction 337–338;

self-regulation in 317–321; student-

centered teaching 248–250; students’

internal factors 321–323

English language learners (ELLs) 56, 191

English language theory 13

English Literature 5, 6

English monolingual (EM) 322, 324

English school system 4, 5

English teachers: in Mexico, 14–15; high school, free reading and reading assignment 147; social justice oriented, experiment 130–131 English teacher education programs, Chile 12–13 English teaching field experience 13

Enlightenment studies 164

equitable English Language Arts (ELA): Abolitionist Teaching 171–172; Afrofuturism 172; Archeology of Self 169–170; Black Girls’ Literacy Collective 165–166; critical literacy 164–165; Critical Race English Education 167–168; Historically Responsive Literacy 166–167; language variation 163–164; Linguistic Justice 168–169; literacy 162–163; multicultural education 164; practice 165; segregation 162–163; sociocultural perspectives 163–165; speculative literacy 170–171

353

Index equity pedagogy 103–104, 180

ERAS (Elementary Reading Attitude Survey) 305

ESL (English as a Second Language) 12

Eurocentric studies 120, 163, 164, 167, 185, 187

Every Student Succeeds Act 223

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians

But Were Afraid to Ask (Treuer) 150

Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) 76

executive functions 314–315 extended phonation 49

eye-movement tracking 212

Facebook 100, 110

false beliefs, understanding of 26

familial capital 188

family literacy 340–341; activities 342; diversity

341–342; parent involvement programs 342

Fan, W. 342

Farivar, S. 283

Farry-Thorn, M. 49

Fatmawati, E. 104

feedback, concept of 7–9

feedback activity 105

A Fine Dessert: Four centuries, four families, one

delicious treat (Jenkins) 121–122

The First Part Last (Johnson) 143

Fisch, S. 343

fixed/frozen speech 24

flex model 105

flipped-classroom model 105

Flores, N. 194

Flores, T. T. 125, 130, 189

Flower, L. S. 71–75, 74, 208

fluency 27, 304, 317; handwriting 79; reading

52–54; typing 79

Flying Lessons & Other Stories (Oh) 144

Fontno, T. J. 133

formal speech 24

formative assessments 298–300

Forzani, E. 273

Francis, D. 323

Freire, P. 165, 224

Froiland, J. 281

funds of knowledge, the 188–190

Gambrell, L. B. 229, 279

Garcia, A. 170–172 Garcia, P. O. 12

Garden, N. 144

Gardner, R. P. 117

Garrels, V. 215

Gates, H. 149

GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary

Education) 5

gender disparities 10

gender inequality 11

gender issues 62

genderless languages 11

General Certificate of Secondary Education

(GCSE) 5

generative change theory 181–183 generic masculine see masculine generics Ghanaian English 192

Gilbert, J. 87

Gillam, S. L. 337

The Giver (Lowry) 143

Glenn, W. 59

Global North 9

Go Ask Alice (Sparks) 143

Goetz, T. 324

Golos, D. B. 120

Gomez, B. E. 13

Google Docs 85

Google Meet 98

Gough, P. 205

GPCs (grapheme-phoneme correspondences) see grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) Graff, G. 32

Graham, S. 74, 87

grammatical gender languages 10–11 Grande, R. 150

grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) 45,

46, 48–50

graphic organizers 215

Gray, W. S. 267, 268, 269

Great Depression 267

Great First Eight (Duke) 63

The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 145

Green, J. 143

Greene, D. T. 166

Griffin, T. M. 28

Guay, F. 324

guided instruction 39

Gunderson, M. P. 61

Guthrie, J. T. 268, 269, 271, 273, 274, 278–280,

281, 283, 342

Gutiérrez, K. D. 251, 281

Haddix, M. M. 172

Hairrell, A. 56

Hall, L. A. 59–60

Hall, V. C. 281

Halliday, M. 23, 26, 102

Hancock, T. 305

Handsfield, L. J. 195

handwriting 75, 79

Hanford, E. 46, 50, 296

Hao, L. 106

Hard words: Why aren’t kids being taught to

read? (Hanford) 46

Hardy, K. 252

Hare, J. 185

Harper’s Magazine 147

354

Index Harris, K. R. 215

Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone

(Rowling) 143

The Hate U Give (Thomas) 144, 146, 169

Hattie Big Sky (Larson) 40

Hayes, J. R. 71–75, 208

Hayik, R. 63

Henderson, A. T. 340–341 A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich

(Childress) 143

Hesse, K. 152

heuristic function, language 24

Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother Found My

Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction

(Krosoczka) 151

Hicks, D. 36

hidden feelings, understanding of 26

Hidden Figures Young Readers’ Edition (Shetterly) 149

Hiebert, E. 145

Hierarchy of Needs 240

higher-level self-regulation: reading 319–320;

writing 320–321

high-leverage reading practices 60, 61

high-quality spoken language 6

Hinton, S. E. 142, 143

Hip Hop music 63, 166

Historically Responsive Literacy 166–167

Hodges, T. S. 133

Hoffman, J. W. 172

Holes (Sachar) 146

Holland, D. C. 226

homophobia 172, 244

Homza, A. 133

Hong, A. L. 102, 109

Horn, M. 105

Hosseinu S. 110

Houtenville, A. J. 341

Hsiang, T. 87

Hua, T. K. 102, 109

Huey, E. 53

Hughes, J. 282

The Hunger Games (Collins) 143

HURIER (Hearing, Understanding,

Remembering, Interpreting, Evaluating,

and Responding) 25

Huxley, A. 22

Hwang, H. 38

ICT (information and communication

technologies) 110

IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education

Act) 204

idea generation difficulties 208–209

identity 58–60; development 108

identity safe teaching: belonging 240;

English Language Arts 247–260;

marginalization 241; othering

240; political and social climate

241–243; school climate and

culture 240–241; and self-reflection

243–244; Stanford Integrated

Schools Project 244–247; systemic

oppression 241

Ideological Analytical Dimension 102

IF-MT (Integrated Framework of Multiple Text) 301–302 imaginative function, language 24

immigration 62, 63, 121, 126, 163, 242, 256

Inden, R. 226

independent activities 40–41 Indianapolis Public Schools Course of Study for

1902 53

Indigenous Education 185

Indigenous Peoples 183–185 Indigenous Young Adult Literature (IYAL) 185

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

(IDEA) 204

inductive reasoning 38

infants: interactions with caregivers 23; language

development in 24

information and communication technologies

(ICT) 110

informative function, language 24

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) 4

in-service teachers 12, 13, 110, 128

Instagram 151

instructional transformations 14

instrumental function, language 24

Integrated Framework of Multiple Text (IF-MT) 301–302 intellectual disabilities 204

interactional function, language 24

International Literacy Association 141, 154,

222, 248

International Reading Association (IRA) 96

International Society for Technology in Education

(ISTE) 108, 109

International Study of Avid Book Readers 149

Internet 98

intimate speech 24

intrinsic motivation, reading 271

IRA (International Reading Association) 96

Iran-Iraq war 150

“irregular” words 49

Ishizuka, K. 119

Islamic Revolution 150

Islamic traditions 8

ISTE (International Society for Technology in

Education) 108, 109

ITE (Initial Teacher Education) 4

It’s Trevor Noah: Born a crime (Noah) 149

Ivey, G. 230

IYAL (Indigenous Young Adult Literature) 185

355

Index Jackson, A. 191, 195

Jacobson, L. 252

James, W. 52

Jang, H. 278

Jeynes, W. 342

Jiménez, L. M. 125, 127, 131

Jimenez, R. T. 189, 230

Jocius, R. 124

Johnson, A. 143

Johnson, H. 118, 119, 134

Johnson, L. L. 167, 168

Johnson, L. P. 169

Johnston, P. H. 227, 229, 230

Jones, S. 281, 287

Joos, M. 24

The Joy of Reading (Miller and Lesesne) 146

Just mercy: A true story of the fight for justice

adapted for young adults (Stevenson) 149

Karkouti, I. M. 9–12 Kelly, L. B. 124, 128

Kendi, I. X. 149

Kendrick, M. 106

Kerr, M. E. 144

Kervin, L. 101

Kesler, T. 125

Key Stage 3 (KS3) 4–5 Key Stage 4 (KS4) 4–5 Kim, E. J. 119

Kim, M. K. 211

Kim, Y.-S. 25, 26

King, M. L., Jr. 241

Kinloch, V. 195

Kinzer, C. 98

Kirkland, D. E. 191, 195

Kleekamp, M. C. 127

knowledge development, in emergent comprehension 50–51 The knowledge gap: The hidden cause of

America’s broken education system—And

how to fix it (Wexler) 50

knowledge hypothesis 35

knowledge of planning 75

knowledge-telling 76

knowledge telling process 74

knowledge transforming model 74

Koss, M. D. 119

Krosoczka, J. 151

KS3 see Key Stage 3 (KS3)

KS4 see Key Stage 4 (KS4)

Ku Klux Klan terrorism 162

Kumashiro, K. K. 185

Kwok, O.-M. 282

lack of safety and connectedness, negative

behaviors 241

Ladson-Billings, G. 164, 169, 340

Lafferty, K. E. 107

Landa, M. 132, 133

Langer, J. A. 87

language 10; definitions of 22; demands 16;

development in young children 23–25;

forms 33; genderless 10; grammatical

gender 10; listening 31; masculine

generics, use of 10, 11; natural gender 10;

progressions 15; reading 31; scaffolds 16;

speaking 31; supports 16; writing 31

language comprehension (LC) 45, 50, 52, 318,

320, 326, 335–337; students’ world

knowledge 337–338

language variation 163–164 Larson, S. C. 61

Latinx children, curriculum design for 188–190 Lawrence, W. J. 107

leads to knowing, in early childhood 26

Leander, K. 98

Learned, J. E. 59

learning disability 204

Learning Policy Institute 233

Learning to Read: The Great Debate (Chall) 46

Leddy, S. 185

Lee, A. 11

Lee, A. Y. 195

Lee, C. D. 195

Lee, T. 184

Leland, C. 124

Lesesne, T. 146

“letter-of-the-week” approaches 46–47 letter teaching 47

Levin, J. 99

Levy, R. 100

Lewis, C. 100–101 Lewis, J. 151

lexical semantics 27

LGBTQ+ communities 62, 117, 126, 240,

242, 248, 251, 256, 258; characters

in picturebooks 121; populations 129;

suicides by 241, 249

Li, M. 96, 108, 110

Limpo, T. 325

Linares, R. E. 231

linguicism 10

linguistic capital 188

linguistic diversity 106–107 Linguistic Justice 168–169 Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy,

Identity, and Pedagogy (Baker-Bell) 169

linguistic knowledge 25

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis) 29

List, A. 301

listening skills: cognitive perspectives 25; HURIER model 25; and learning 26–27; linguistic knowledge 25; theory of mind 25–26

356

Index literacy assessment: consequential validity 297–298; construct validity 301–302; digital literacy 301–302; economics 296–297; engagement 305; formative and summative 298–300; media 296; metacognition 305; motivation 305; science of reading 295; self-efficacy 306; testing 294–295 literacy knowledge 45

Little Red Riding Hood 26

Long Way Down (Reynolds) 144

Lonigan, C. J. 339

Looking for Alaska (Green) 143

Lopez, M. 190

López-Robertson, J. 127

The Los Angeles Times 143, 144

Love, B. L. 167, 169, 171, 172

Love That Dog (Creech) 152

lower-level executive functions: reading 318–319;

writing 320

Lowry, L. 143

Luke, A. 165

Machado, C. 154

Machado, E. 125

Make Lemonade (Wolff) 152

Mallinson, C. 197

MALS (Myself As A Learner scale) 306

Mameli, C. 233

Mann, H. 52–53 Mapp, K. 340–341 March: Book three (Lewis and Aydin) 151

marginalization 241

Marsh, J. 100

MARSI-R (Metacognitive Awareness of Reading

Strategies Inventory-Revised) 305

Martin, A. 12

Martin, J. L. 172

Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model 9

masculine generics, use of 10, 11

Maslow, A. 240

mathematics 5, 36

Mathis, J. B. 107

Mattison, R. E. 210

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (Spiegelman) 150

McArthur, G. 323

McBreen, M. 269

McCarty, T. 184

McGrew, S. 303

McNair, J. C. 229

McRae, A. 281

MDCAs (Multimodal Digital Classroom

Assessments) 303

MD-TRACE (Multiple Documents Task-based Relevance and Content Extraction) 301–302 meaning-centric approaches 46

media 296

Meherali, S. 285

MENA (Middle East North Africa) 9

Mencken, H. L. 34

Mesmer, H. A. 50

metacognition 305, 313

metacognitive awareness 181

Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies

Inventory–Revised (MARSI-R) 305

Mexican American 62, 63, 164, 188, 341

Mexicanos Primero 15

Mexico: Curriculum Standards 14; education system 14; English as a Second Language in 14; transnationally mobile students 15; transnational teacher preparation 15–16 Meyer, C. K. 127

Meyer, T. 106, 111, 143

Microsoft Teams 98

middle and secondary school readers 57–58; disciplinary reading instruction 60–62; identity 58–60 Middle East 8, 9–12 Middle East North Africa (MENA) 9

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

(Wadsworth) 152

Miller, D. 146

Miller, H. C. 130, 131

Miller, M. E. 231

Miller, S. D. 230

Milner, H. R. 169

Ministry of Education and Technical Education

(MOE) 8

Mirra, N. 102, 170–172 model fluent reading, students 53–54; see also fluency Model-Practice-Reflect instructional cycle 80

MOE (Ministry of Education and Technical

Education) 8

Moeke-Pickering, T. 185

Moll, L. C. 164, 188

Monster (Myers) 143

morphological skills 27

MORQ (Motivation for Online Reading Questionnaire) see Motivation for Online

Reading Questionnaire (MORQ)

Motivation for Online Reading Questionnaire

(MORQ) 305

Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) 270

Motivation to Read Profile-Revised (MRP-R) 305

“mouth moves” for sounds see articulatory gestures MRP-R (Motivation to Read Profile-Revised) see Motivation to Read Profile-Revised (MRP-R) MRQ (Motivations for Reading Questionnaire) see Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ)

357

Index Muhammad, G. E. 165–167, 169, 171, 190

multicultural education 164; Black Language 192–194; classroom practices 186–187; community cultural wealth 187–188; culturally and linguistically complex classrooms 183–185; family wealth 187–188; funds of knowledge 188; generative change 181–183; history of 179–180; Indigenous Communities 183–185; indigenous students 185–186; language ideologies 194–195; Latinx children 188–190; in United States 179; U.S., Black Language 191–197; youth 188–190 multiculturalism see multicultural education multilingual learners 30–32 multiliteracies, definitions of 97–98 multimodal composing 231

Multimodal Digital Classroom Assessments

(MDCAs) 303

multimodal literacies 300; access to curriculum 104–105; assessment 107; conceptual frameworks 102–103; definitions of 97–98; equity pedagogy 103–104; identity development 108; implications 109–110; linguistic diversity 106–107; theoretical frameworks 102–103 multiple disabilities 204

Multiple Documents Task-based Relevance and Content Extraction (MD-TRACE) 301–302 My Darling, My Hamburger (Zindel) 143, 145

Myers, W. 143, 144

My Princess Boy (Kilodavis) 125

Myself As A Learner scale (MALS) 306

National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) 46, 340

National Reading Panel (NRP) 46, 53,

294–295, 340

National Reading Research Center (NRRC)

269, 270

Native English speakers 56, 189

natural gender languages 10–11 navigational capital 188

NCES (National Center for Educational Statistics) see National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) see National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Necochea, J. 15

NELP (National Early Literacy Panel) see National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) Neuman, S. B. 51

neurolinguistics 23

Newbery Medal 147, 152, 153

New Literacy Studies 97, 99

New London Group 97

The New York Times 144, 153

New Zealand classroom 61, 269

Noah, T. 149

No Child Left Behind Act 128, 223, 295

nonverbal reasoning 27

novice/inexperienced writers 76

NRP (National Reading Panel) see National Reading Panel (NRP)

NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) see National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) NASBE (National Association of State Boards of Education) see National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) Nation, K. 337

National Assessment of Educational Progress

(NAEP) 109, 141, 142, 148, 207, 303;

reading framework 148

National Association of State Boards of

Education (NASBE) 286

National Book Award for Young People’s

Literature 144, 147, 151

National Center for Educational Statistics

(NCES) 30

National Commission on Writing Report 71

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

96, 132, 141, 154

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 36

National Curriculum 4, 6

Oakland California Board of Education (1997) 163

Obama, M. 149

The Odyssey (Homer) 284

Olive, T. 325

Oliver, S. S. 162

one-size-fits-all-approach 47

online learning 104, 275

Online Resources for African American Language

(ORAAL) 196

OpenAI 110

oppression matrix 11

ORAAL (Online Resources for African American

Language) 196

oral language skills 4, 23; children in early grades 28; and code-based skills 28; content knowledge 35, 38–41; Developmental Language Disorder 29; discourse 28; knowledge hypothesis 35; morphological 27; multilingual learners 30–32; phonological 27; pragmatics 28; semantics 27; syntax 28; teacher knowledge of 29–30 oral reading 52–54, 295

Orelus, P. W. 10

Orientalism 119

Oros, E. 281

358

Index Orr, D. 152

Out of the Dust (Hesse) 152

The Outsiders (Hinton) 142, 145

#OwnVoices 131

Ozeri-Rotstain, A. 212

PACT (Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension

of Text) 214

Pahl, K. 99, 100, 101

paired reading 54

Palincsar, A. M. 36

Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote (Tonatiuh) 126

Pandey, A. 317

Pangrazio, L. 97

parent involvement programs 342

pedagogical content knowledge 13

pedagogy 102; equity 103–104 PEN America 126, 153, 154

people of color 10, 144, 163

Peralta, L. R. 231

Perkins, D. 343

Perry, J. 4–7 Perry, N. E. 316

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Satrapi) 150

personal function, language 24

Peterman, N. 127

Phillips, B. 25, 26

phonemic awareness (PA) 47–48, 51

phonological awareness 28, 47–48, 206

phonological memory 206

phonological skills 27

picturebooks 116, 117, 128, 134, 135;

award-winning 123; classroom-based

studies of 127; K-12 educators 124;

multicultural content analyses of

118–123

Pidgeon, M. 185

Pintrich, P. 304

PISA (Programme for International Student

Assessment) 335

planning process 72

Polleck, J. 168

Powell, J. 240

pragmatics 28

prejudice reduction 180

preservice teachers 12–14, 16, 130–132, 229

Pressley, G. M. 316

Pressley, M. 227

preview-view-review approach 230

Price-Dennis, D. 166

print, concepts of 48–49

professional development 86–88

professional growth 10, 88

Programme for International Student Assessment

(PISA) 335

Progress 8 (P8) 5

project-based learning 51

Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension of Text

(PACT) 214

Prose, F. 147

psychological wellbeing 10

publications: conceptual 130–131; empirical 131–132; range of 129–130 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) 296

public schools 12

QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) see Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) 4

Quast, E. 125, 126

Quinn, J. M. 210

race/racism 10, 11, 58, 120, 185, 244, 248;

anti-Black linguistic 193, 197; cyber

242; language-based 193; linguistic

168, 169; by Mexican American people

62; structural and systemic 186; in U.S.

Students 63

Rainey, E. C. 61

Ramirez, G. 322, 323

Ramos, L. 13

Rand Report 340

Rapp, E. H. 132, 133

Readers Theater 55

reading: access to explicit instruction in 213–214; beginning 46–47; cognition 211–213; Concept Oriented Reading Instruction 276–277; critical literacy 62–63; decoding 49–50; disciplinary instruction 60–62; emergent 46–47; fluency 52–54; in grade 2 45–52; in grades 3–6, 53–57; and identity 58–60; instruction 62–63; in middle and secondary school 57–63; motivation vs. engagement 270, 272–274; phonemic awareness 47–48; phonological awareness 47–48; print concepts 48–49; Reading Engagement for Academic Learning 277–278; students with disabilities 205–207; texts 50 REading as problem-SOLVing (RESOLV) 302

reading engagement: diverse students 282–285; ethnic groups 281–282 Reading Engagement for Academic Learning (REAL) 277–278 Reading First Initiative 223

Reading is Fundamental (RIF) 274–275 reading motivation: emotional health 288–289; engagement 270, 273–274; ethnic variations in 279–280; history of 267; intrinsic 271; personal 267; print exposure 268–269; Reading is Fundamental 274–275; research 278–279; self-efficacy 270–271; social 272; Social Emotional Learning 288–289;

359

Index students’ agency 272–273; systematic inquiry 269–270; teachers’ mindsets 275–276; valuing 271–272 Reading Rope 45

Reading Self-Efficacy Questionnaire

(RS-EQ) 306

REAL (Reading Engagement for Academic Learning) 277–278 reasoning 32; inductive 38; nonverbal 27;

scientific 36; verbal 27

Rebellino, R. L. 168

Rebound (Alexander) 152

Reciprocal Teaching 6

Redd, T. M. 196

Reese, D. 120

Reeve, J. 233, 272, 273

reflective model 13

reflective practice 14

regulatory function, language 24

registers of spoken language 24–25 repeated reading see deep reading Research on Diversity in Youth Literature

(Miller) 130

resistant capital 188

RESOLV (REading as problem-SOLVing) 302

re-storying 170

reviewing process 72

revision 73

Reynolds, J. 144

Reynolds, T. 61

rhetorical problem 75

rhyming 48

Rice, M. F. 63

rich vocabulary 56

RIF (Reading is Fundamental) 274–275 Risemberg, R. 74

Robson, D. A. 317

Rodríguez, N. N. 119, 122, 132

Rodríguez, S. C. 121

Rogers, B. 268, 269

Rogoff, B. 251, 281

Roitsch, J. 214

Romo, J. J. 15

roots, rules, ramifications (3Rs) 195

Rosa, J. D. 194

Rosenblatt, L. 340

Rosenthal, R. 252

Rosenzweig, E. Q. 272, 274, 275, 278, 279

Roser, N. 124

rotation model 105

Rouet, J. F. 301

Rowe, D. W. 231

Rowling, J. K. 143

Rowsell, J. 99–100, 101

RS-EQ (Reading Self-Efficacy Questionnaire) 306

rubrics 84

Rudman, M., K. 118, 119, 134

Sac, A. 147

Sachar, L. 146

SAE (Standard American English) 163, 168

SAFE (sequenced, active, focused, and explicit) 286

Salomon, G. 343

Samuels, S. J. 55

Sanders, E. A. 47

Santibañez, L. 16

Santos, M. 15

Sarigianides, S. T. 168

Satrapi, M. 150–151 Savage, R. 269

Sawyer, R. K. 227

SBRR (Scientifically Based Reading Research) 46

Scales, R. Q. 229

Scardamalia, M. 73, 74, 76

Schiefele, U. 316

Schlackman, J. 280

scholarship 58, 124

school culture 180

School Library Journal 154

science education 36–37 science of reading (SOR) 295, 336

Scientifically Based Reading Research (SBRR) 46

Sciurba, K. 122

Scott O’Dell Award 147, 152, 153

Sczesny, S. 10, 11

SDG 4 (Sustainable Development Goals,

especially) 9

SDT (self-determination theory) 314, 321

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. 169, 170

secondary-age students 58

second language teacher education (SLTE) 12,

14; content knowledge 13; pedagogical

content knowledge 13; pedagogical

knowledge 13

Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP) 14

Sefton-Green, J. 97

segregation 11

SELF (Self-Efficacy for Learning Form) 306

self-assessment 306–308 self-blended model 105

self-determination 214–215 self-determination theory (SDT) 314, 321

self-efficacy 8, 76, 224, 226, 270–271, 306

Self-Efficacy for Learning Form (SELF) 306

self-reflection 243–244 Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) 78,

82, 212, 321, 325

self-regulation 74, 84; definition 312–313;

development of 315–317; executive

functions 314–315; facilitative internal

factors 321–322; higher-level self-

regulation and reading 319–320; higher-

level self-regulation and writing 320–321;

history and theories of 313–314; lower-

level executive functions and reading

360

Index 318–319; lower-level executive functions

and writing 320; obstructive internal

factors 322–323; processes 316

semantics 27

Senden, G. 10

sentence combining 83, 86

SEP (Secretaria de Educacion Publica) 14

sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (SAFE) 286

Serafini, F. 102, 301

service-learning experience 13

SES (socioeconomic status) 10, 12, 282, 287

sexism 10, 11, 244

Shakespeare, W. 147

Shanahan, C. 61

Share, D. L. 47

Sharing, Me, Importance, Liking, and Engage

(SMILE) 273, 274

Shetterly, M. 149

Short, K. G. 116, 118

Shulman, L. 13

silent reading 53

Simple View of Reading (SVR) 336–337 Simpson, A. 128

Sims Bishop, R. 141, 146

Singer, B. D. 215

SISP see Stanford Integrated Schools Project (SISP) Skerrett, A. 63

Sleeter, C. 13

SLLs (Spanish language learners) 15

SLTE see second language teacher education (SLTE) Smagorinsky, P. 63

Smalls, C. 281

SMILE (Sharing, Me, Importance, Liking, and

Engage) 273, 274

Smith, M. 195

Smith, P. 127

Smitherman, G. 168, 191, 193, 196

Snyder, C. 16

social and emotional learning (SEL) 151, 241

social capital 188

social class 58

social contexts, writing 71–75 Social Emotional Learning (SEL) 286–289 social gender inequality socialization, processes of 23

social justice 6, 7, 13, 14, 63; gender 64; racism 64

social motivations 272

social semiotics 97, 102

social structure 180

sociocultural theory 23

socioeconomic status (SES) 10, 12, 280, 282, 287

The Song of Hiawatha (Wadsworth) 152

Soontornvat, C. 149

SOR (science of reading) 295

Souto-Manning, M. 169

Spanish language learners (SLLs) 15

Speak (Anderson) 143

speculative literacies 170–171 speech/language impairment 204

spelling 75, 83

Spence, L. K. 60

Spence-Davis, T. 168

Spiegel, J. A. 317

Spiegelmann, A. 150

Springer, S. 189

SRSD (Self-Regulated Strategy Development)

78, 82

Staats, C. 243–244 Staker, H. 105

Stamped: Racism, antiracism, and you (Reynolds

and Kendi) 149

Standard American English (SAE) 163, 168

Stanford Integrated Schools Project (SISP): methodology 244–245; purpose 244–245; safe schools, identification of 246–247 Stanovich, K. E. 271

StAP (Student Agency Profile) 233

state-funded schools, England 4

Stephens, R. 119

Stevens, M. 63

Stevenson, B. 149

Storch, S. A. 28

Stotsky, S. 145, 147

Strekalova-Hughes, E. 127

student agency: adaptive teaching 227–228;

dispositional dimension 225–226;

interactions with texts 229–230; in

literacy research 227; methodological

approaches for 232–233; modalities

231–232; motivational dimension 226;

opportunities 223–224; positional

dimension 226–227; practice 227;

visioning 229

Student Agency Profile (StAP) 233

student-centered teaching 248–250 students’ agency 272–273 students learning 7, 14, 27, 79, 81, 109, 195, 324

Students’ Right to Their Own Language 196

students with disabilities: cognitive underpinnings 211–213; computer-assisted instruction 215–216; reading difficulties 205–207; reading trajectories 209–210; selfdetermination 214–215; types of 204; visual supports 215; writing difficulties 207–209; writing trajectories 210–211 Stutz, F. 273

Suggate, S. P. 47

Sullivan, H. 169

summative assessment 298–300 Sunde, K. 46–47 suspension 241; see also lack of safety and connectedness, negative behaviors

361

Index Sustainable Development Goals, especially

(SDG 4) 9

SVR (Simple View of Reading) 336–337 Svrcek, N. S. 232

Swain, H. H. 133

Sweet Valley High (Pascal) 143

syntax, oral language 28

systemic oppression 241; see also lack of safety and connectedness, negative behaviors Taboada Barber, A. 322, 324

Takei, G. 151

Tan, L. 107

Tatum, A. W. 58–59

teacher accountability 14

teacher development 336–337

teacher education programs: conceptual

publications 130–131; empirical

publications 131–132; range of

publications 129–130; research,

scholarship, and teaching 132–133;

themes 129; theories 129

teacher educators 6, 16

teacher knowledge, oral language development

29–30

teacher-led modeling 105

teacher modeling 39

teachers of English see English teachers

Teachers’ Standards 4, 5

The Teacher’s Word Book (Thorndike) 56

Teaching Elementary School Students to Be

Effective Writers (Graham) 76

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

(TESOL) 110

Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively (Graham) 76

TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other

Languages) 110

text-based skills 28

textbook publisher 8–9

texts, beginning readers 50

That Was Then. This Is Now (Hinton) 143

The Baby-Sitters Club (Martin) 143

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston) 192

theory of mind (ToM) 25–26

The Simple View (TSV) 45, 51

They Called Us Enemy (Takei) 151

thinking, understanding of 26

Thomas, A. 143, 144

Thomas, E. E. 121–123, 127, 171

Thorndike, E. L. 53, 56

3D (Digital Democratic Dialogue) 171

3Rs (roots, rules, ramifications) 195

Tichavakunda, A. A. 103

Tierney, W. G. 103

Tighe, E. 27

TikTok 100, 151

Toliver, S. R. 127, 161, 166, 171, 172

ToM (theory of mind) see theory of mind (ToM)

Topping, K. 54

Toste, J. R. 269

transcription difficulties 208

translanguaging 230–231

translating process 72

transnationally mobile students 15

transnational teacher 15–16

Treiman, R. 49

Treuer, A 150

Trinidadian Standard English 192

Tschida, C. M. 131

Tseng, M. 233

TSV (The Simple View) 45, 51

Tucker, C. 105

Tunmer, W. 205

Turner, L. 307

Tutu, D. 243

Twilight (Meyer) 143, 145

Twitter 110

two-way pedagogy 15

Tyler, R. 267

typing fluency 79

Tyrrell, S. M. 131, 132

United Kingdom 4–7 United Nations 9

United States (U.S.) 9; multiculturalism 179; Muslim child migrants in 122; reading fluency in 52; teach writing 87; transnationally mobile students 15; transnational teacher preparation 15–16 University of Nottingham 6

Unrau, N. J. 269, 280

Uruguayan teacher education programs 13

U.S., Black Language (USBL) 191–197 Vadasy, P. F. 47

valuing of reading 271–272 Vasudevan, L. 231

Vaughn, S. 323

Veenman, M. 307

Veiga, F. 233

Veliz, L. 110

verbal reasoning 27, 45, 63

verbal short-term memory see phonological memory The Verse Novel and a Question of Genre

(Cadden) 152

Vickery, A. E. 122

visual supports 215

visual texts 104

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) 106, 110–111 vocabulary 6, 8, 13; academic 34–35;

comprehensive program 57; development

of 45, 55–56; knowledge 28, 30;

362

Index morphology instruction 57; rich environments 56; teaching 56–57 Voice 21 (charity) 6 Volz, A. 126 Vorobel, O. 108 vowel alert 49 vowel flexing 49 VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) 106 Vygotsky, L. 226 Vygotsky, L. S. 19, 22, 23

word recognition 45, 50, 55, 213, 273, 295, 319, 320, 326 Words of Oral Reading and Language Development (WORLD) 51 working memory 27, 73, 75, 205, 210–213, 315–318, 320 workshop model 232 WORLD (Words of Oral Reading and Language Development) 51 Wright, T. S. 130 Writer(s) within Community Model of Writing 74, 317 writing 71; access to explicit instruction in 213–214; basic skills 79; classroom implementation 86–88; classroom instruction 81–82; cognition 211–213; cognitive processes 71–75; community of 79–80; daily time for 77; difficulties 207–209; elementary practice guide 77–80; engagement and collaboration 86; evidence-based practices 76–77; formative assessment 84–85; goal setting 84; instructional approaches 76–77; instruction and feedback 81; learners’ challenges with 75–76; Model-PracticeReflect instructional cycle 80; planning 72; problem-solving aspect 72; process of 71; professional development 86–88; and reading 81; responsibility from teacher to learner 82; reviewing process 72; secondary practice guide 80–81; sentence combining 85–86; social context 71–75; strategy instruction 81–82; students with disabilities 207–209; teaching writing process 77–78; trajectories 210–211; translating 72; 21st-century digital writing tools 85; work of authors 83 written speech 75 Wynter-Hoyte, K. 195

Wadsworth, H. 152 Wagner, R. K. 206 Walczak, A. 12 Walker, R. M. 60, 104, 111 Walton, G. 278 Wambach, A. 149 Wang, J. H.-Y. 280 wanting, understanding of 26 Waples, D. 267 Wargo, J. M. 121, 124, 171, 172 wars and political unrest 62 We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide (Anderson and Bolden) 150 Web 2.0 tools 100 Webb, K. S. 196 Webb, N. M. 283 Wei, X. 209, 210 #WeNeedDiverseBooks 117, 141 Wenger, E. 226 Wesley, C. H. 179 West, R. F. 271 Wexler, N. 50 Whitehurst, G. J. 28, 339 White Mainstream English (WME) 168, 192 White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (Anderson) 149 Whitney, S. 280, 282 Whole Novels for the Whole Class: A StudentCentered Approach (Sacks) 147 wide reading 55; see also fluency Wigfield, A. 269, 270, 273, 275, 278, 279 Wilkes, R. 13 Wilkinson, A. 23 Wilson, A. 147 Windschitl, M. 36 Wineburg, S. S. 37 Wohlwend, K. E. 100 Wolff, V. 152 Wolfpack: How young people will find their voice, unite their pack, and change the world (Wambach) 149 Wolsey, T. D. 7–9 The Woman Warrior (Hong Kingston) 145 Wood, S. 124 Woodson, C. 164, 179 Woodson, J. 152, 153, 164

YAL (Young Adult Literature) 185 YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) 143 Yang, G. 143 Yazzie-Mintz, T. 184 Yeager, D. 278 Yi, Y. 109, 120 Yosso, T. 188, 251 Young, C. A. 121 Young, J. L. 166 Young, V. A. 197 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) 143, 148 Young Adult Literature (YAL) 185 young children, language development in: academic performance 5; academic progress of 6; classroom learning 26–27;

363

Index curriculum design for 188–190; English

as a Foreign Language 12; English as a

Second Language 12; HURIER listening

model 25; learning skills 6; listening skills

25; read/write 23; registers of spoken

language 24–25; socioeconomic status

10, 12; stages 24; theory of mind 25–26;

U.S.-born 15

The Youngest Marcher (Levinson) 122, 123

YouTube 100, 151

Zapata, A. 101, 108, 124, 125

Zhai, F. 287

Zhang, S. 30

Zhang, X. 30

Zimmerman, B. J. 74

Zindel, P. 143

Zoom 98

Zumbrunn, S. 324

364