Authentic Literacy Research Articles

Understanding literacy as human practice: exploring stories about (people like) us

ABSTRACT This paper examines literacy as a sociocultural, personal and human practice dependent on and derived through relationships between people, settings and culture. Drawing on a recent empirical research study that combines learner, teacher and author perspectives [Curtin (2023) Reading and Writing Pathways Through Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Exploring Literacy, Identity and Story with Authors and Readers. Routledge], I explore how children’s literature may be used to develop meaningful and authentic literacy pedagogies in the primary classroom. The research methodology for this study employed interviews with sixteen international and award-winning children’s literature authors. This paper presents one author's interview from the study in detail in an effort to illustrate the importance of identity and personal resonance in literacy learning. To this end, funds of knowledge [Moll, Amanti, Neff, and Gonzalez. (1992). “Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms.” Theory Into Practice 31 (2): 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534] and light and dark [Zipin (2009). “Dark Funds of Knowledge, Deep Funds of Pedagogy: Exploring Boundaries Between Lifeworlds and Schools.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 30 (3): 317–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596300903037044] pedagogical approaches are applied in a discussion of genre study using (auto) biographical text in the primary classroom. Identity affirming and culturally resonant pedagogies developed seek to engage learners in literacy as a human practice. The paper concludes by considering key insights and ways forward.

Multilingual learners’ literacy identities: ideology and local enactment of a language-restrictive alternative instructional program

This article reports a case study of the local enactment of a supportive mainstream language program in two elementary classrooms in a school district with an increasing number of linguistically and culturally diverse students. The study explores how teachers and multilingual learners (MLs) in this context navigate the school’s supportive mainstream language program, a type of alternative instructional program, that pulls MLs out of their mainstream classrooms for English language development instruction. Most US language education policies currently outline alternative instructional language programs, such as supportive mainstream and sheltered instruction programs, as options for districts and schools. To understand MLs’ literacy development opportunities in such programs, the study examines literacy identity construction through the interaction of participants’ language ideologies and literacy practices as they enact the language program. Drawing on the theory of heteroglossia and works on literacy communities, the article unpacks the nuances of language-restrictive programs that position MLs in deficit light. The findings highlight the dissonance between participants’ ideologies and literacy practices used negotiate their subjectivities, and constructed deficit identities within the school’s dominant hegemonic literacy community. The findings are discussed considering their implications for building authentic literacy communities and incorporating an equity perspective into language policies.

An exploration of preservice teachers’ perceptions of Generative AI: Applying the technological Acceptance Model

Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model, the researchers designed a Google Form survey to explore elementary preservice teachers’(PSTs’) perceptions of using Generative AI (GenAI) as part of an authentic literacy methods course activity. Following the activity, responses to a qualitative survey were analyzed to learn about PSTs’ experience of using GenAI in developing questions for a read-aloud. Findings indicated that many PSTs perceived GenAI as a useful teaching tool. In addition, they shared their concerns that GenAI may limit creativity and teacher agency. We also found a positive correlation between the use of GenAI in the activity and PSTs’ intentions to use GenAI in the future. The study adds to the current literature about TAM with GenAI and underscores the value of GenAI in promoting critical reasoning among PSTs. Pedagogical implications for teacher educators are also discussed.

Creating spaces for emotional justice in culturally sustaining literacy education: Implications for policy & practice

ABSTRACT Drawing from theories of culturally sustaining literacy practices, Black and Latinx Crit, and feminist theories, the authors explore emotional justice as a form of critical social emotional learning to counter the race-neutral emphasis of social and emotional learning focused on universal characteristics and academic aims. They argue that centering the lived experiences of Black and Brown students helps nurture critically conscious subjectivities and opportunities for authentic literacy engagements including students’ reader response, linguistic freedom, and play, among other culturally situated forms of literacy. Their analysis of a Black male student’s literacy experiences and extant language and literacy research centering cultural sovereignty and racial resistance, highlights the role of teachers and school policies as forces that can diminish or exacerbate the well-being of Black and Brown children in schools. The article concludes with recommendations and suggestions for fostering culturally sustaining literacy practices that are emotionally just.

Review of Collaborative Learning Communities in Middle School Literacy Education: Increasing Student Engagement With Authentic Literacy by Jolene T. Malavasic

Review of Collaborative Learning Communities in Middle School Literacy Education: Increasing Student Engagement With Authentic Literacy by Jolene T. Malavasic

Authentic Literacy and Language (ALL) for Science: A Curriculum Framework to Incorporate Science-Specific Disciplinary Literacies into the Elementary Classroom.

Early elementary students are not typically introduced to science-specific disciplinary literacies - the specific ways in which scientists use and interpret language - even though authentic experiences with literacy strategies and tools used within the field may help incorporate learners into the scientific community of practice. The lack of freely available easy-to-use resources to build these literacies in the early elementary classroom may be a contributing factor. The Authentic Literacy and Language (ALL) for Science curriculum framework was developed as a deliberate approach to teach disciplinary literacies in the context of science using three distinct components: Science Investigations, Mini-lessons, and Science Inquiry Circles. Here we outline the development of the curriculum framework and a pilot of a 2nd grade unit based on the framework to teach concepts related to heredity and life cycles. We present findings from the pilot and discuss future directions and implications for the development and implementation of curricular materials using the ALL for Science curriculum framework.

“I Know How to Read and All, but . . .”: Disciplinary Reading Constructions of Middle School Students of Color

This study explores the disciplinary literacy perspectives of middle school students of color attending urban parochial schools and the reader subject positions they took up across content-area classrooms. Qualitative analysis of 19 student interviews and accompanying observations of subject-area classes revealed that students’ constructions of reading, circumscribed by classroom literacy activities, inhibited discipline-specific reading subject positions. In particular, this study highlights how teachers’ reading activities promoted reading as being about accomplishing a task rather than being apprenticed in ways of taking discipline-specific knowledge from text. When the boundaries between students’ home literacy experiences and school disciplinary literacy experiences were more contiguous, and when more meaningful, authentic literacy experiences were provided, students evidenced deeper disciplinary literacy engagement. Educational implications, including troubling disciplinary knowledge to open the disciplines to wider ways of knowing and learning for all learners, are discussed.

Professional Development: Creating Authentic Literacy Experiences in the Classroom

Professional Development: Creating Authentic Literacy Experiences in the Classroom

“Asking, Learning, Seeking Out”: An Exploration of Data Literacy for Teaching

The current study explored preservice and inservice teachers’ perspectives on data literacy for teaching. Semi-structured interviews were employed with 12 teacher candidates in elementary and special education. The findings revealed participants’ misconceptions regarding formative and summative data; their understanding of the value of formative data; perceptions of challenges related to data literacy for teaching including time, making sense of data, and reliability and validity; and candidates’ preferences for authentic data literacy instruction.

‘Just write anything’: exploring the school literacy practices of high school students in the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT Today, many literacy scholars have accepted that there is a continuum of legitimate literacy practices. In view of this, this study explored the effects of schools’ literacy practices on eight high school students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), juxtaposing these practices against the ‘knowledge processes’ framework to determine the extent to which these practices represent the whole literacy practices continuum. The findings indicated that schools predominantly rely upon didactic pedagogy in English and Arabic language classes. However, although such didacticism overshadows authentic literacy pedagogy, there were instances in which the participants ‘wove’ their lived experiences in with their school literacy practices. As students will find ways to break away from purely didactic pedagogy in any case, the authors implore schools to validate students’ lived experiences in the context of literacy instruction.

Better Together on Behalf of Our Children

AbstractThe authors detail how 2,000 teachers facilitating summer camps for 8,000 students across a state for three years engaged families in authentic literacy practices. Building relationships, considering families’ needs and strengths, and providing authentic learning experiences linked with literacy led to positive changes in family engagement and literacy motivation.

#poetryisnotdead: understanding Instagram poetry within a transliteracies framework

AbstractAdolescents are more connected to the globalised world than ever before, with an increased prevalence of social media use amongst youth. Young people are composing multimodal creative works, including digital poetry, to share with an online audience, using platforms such as Instagram. Drawing on transliteracies theory, this case study found that three main themes appeared regarding the nature of literacy practices on Instagram. Community and interactivity were important to poets, especially in regard to feedback. The platform and complementary apps, especially those used for photo editing, afforded poets agency and fostered multimodality when composing, thus highlighting the changing nature of digitised writing practices. Value was placed on the mobility and accessibility of Instagram as a mobile app, for composing and consuming digital poetry. Young people may therefore be considered innovators of multimodal writing who employ ever‐evolving technologies to engage in authentic literacy practices in digital spaces. As a result, this study suggests that the implications of Instapoetry on English pedagogy include the increased exposure and relevance of poetry writing and appreciation, a space for student‐centred writing, reading, and analysis of poems, as well as a relevant method of peer review and collaboration.

Playful Literacies, Creativity, and Multilingual Practices

AbstractEmergent language learners develop literacy through social interactions in multiple, overlapping communities: home, school, peer groups, and popular culture. The author focuses on how classrooms can be spaces that cultivate authentic literacy engagements while incorporating and valuing students’ existing language resources.

Increased Agency through Screens and Co-Creation – Literacy Practices within a Group of People with Aphasia at a Swedish Folk High School

This article aims to analyse characteristics of collective and authentic literacy practices within a group of people with aphasia attending an aphasia course at a Swedish folk high school. The group included 12 individuals with aphasia who were studied during a period of 3 weeks. Ethnographic data consists of video and audio recordings, photos and field notes. Two main characteristics of the literacy practices were identified: digital screens dominated and bridged the online/offline boundary, and shared knowledge enabled the participants to co-create literacy. The literacy practices were emancipatory, because they provided ways for the participants to un-mask their inherent competence, increasing their agency. When the use of digital technology transforms a (formerly non-literacy) practice into a multimodal literacy practice, and when an individual with aphasia becomes part of a literacy co-creation practice, the disability (understood as a relation between individual and environmental characteristics) caused by aphasia is reduced.

Children Creating Multimodal Stories About a Familiar Environment

Storytelling is a practice that enables children to apply their literacy skills. This article shares a collaborative literacy strategy devised to enable children to create multimodal stories about their familiar school environment. The strategy uses resources, including the children's own drawings, images from Google Maps, and the Puppet Pals Director's Pass app, to leverage children's experiences in their school and community contexts for a meaningful and authentic literacy learning opportunity. The children use both paper-based materials and digital technologies to create multimodal stories. The process and work samples are provided to illustrate the strategy in practice.

Advocating for All Children

Advocating for All Children

Family Literacy Practices Surrounding Homework

Examining authentic literacy practices regarding homework in three demographically different family groups was the focus of this study. Parents of school age children identified as living in subsidized housing, parents of school age children working in a university teacher education program and parents of school age children who spoke a language other than English, the language of their school instruction were interviewed for the study. Implications of the study encourage teachers to be conscious of the importance of homework as a tool for providing meaningful activity, communicating information to the home about the classroom curriculum and mainstream practices. Teachers are encouraged to see the bi-directional potential of homework as an opportunity for teachers to learn about family practices through the returned homework.

“We're Already Somebody”: High School Students Practicing Critical Media Literacy IRL (in Real Life)

AbstractAs new media and multiliteracies become an expanding space for reading and writing both in and out of schools, it seems fitting to document events where students are engaged in authentic literacy events. This article tells the story of what happened when a group of news writers chose to publish an editorial in their news magazine critical of an invited speaker. After the story gained momentum through both the traditional press and social media, students experienced a twofold lesson: what it feels like to raise their voices and be heard, and ways to respond to and learn from the backlash of their critique.

Science in Writing Workshop: Enhancing Students’ Science and Literacy Learning

Given the focus of recent standards-based reforms, K–12 students are expected to engage in reading and writing activities across disciplines to strengthen their literacy skills in all content areas. These students are simultaneously called upon to develop understandings of the practices of science and engineering through their K–12 science learning experiences. Therefore, this article aims to address both of these issues by promoting the use of science notebooks to engage students in authentic literacy activities and describing the value of applying the writers’ workshop framework to support such instruction. Particular attention is devoted to discussion of how the writers’ workshop environment can provide rich opportunities for students to develop and refine their understanding of the practices of science through authentic writing-focused learning experiences.

Teaching and Learning in the Global Village: Connect, Create, Collaborate, and Communicate

AbstractThe world is increasingly interconnected through technology. In order to live and work in a global village our students need to develop global literacy. Global literacy incorporates a range of overlapping concepts including an advocacy dimension, global citizenship responsibility, and cultural and linguistic awareness. Further, global literacy encompasses a multiplicity of literacies and is grounded in social, cultural, political, and historical practices and events. The article discusses how educators can harness the power of technology to engage their students in authentic literacy events and practices designed to promote the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students require to develop global literacy in the 21st century. Initiatives and projects designed to create global literacy are described in areas such as connecting communities of readers and writers; creating cultural understanding through literature and folklore; communicating across time and space; and collaborating with learning partners across the globe.