Literature Classroom Research Articles

(Re)membering Home(lands): Generative Analysis of Human Displacement in Children's Literature

AbstractChildren's literature is a powerful pedagogical tool within culturally sustaining literacy classrooms. Drawing from generative metanarrative theory of human displacement, culturally sustaining pedagogies, and critical refugee studies, this research investigates how representations of home(lands) in 30 acclaimed picturebooks about children who experienced displacement could affirm critically informed history and cultivate cultural sustenance. We analyze the narrative structures of time space (chronotope) within and across these stories, as well as the substance therein, identifying troubling generic patterns. We propose strategies for remembering home(lands) through acts of collective imagining.

Language matters: realizing the promise of Complex Instruction for multilingual learners

ABSTRACT Access to core subject-area curriculum for students from immigrant backgrounds who are learning the dominant language of instruction has long been a barrier to equitable education around the world, especially in secondary schools. This article explores the promise of Complex Instruction (CI) to address barriers to access for such multilingual learners, demonstrating what they were able to do with language, literacy, and academic content in CI classrooms in one middle school in California. The article illustrates how the curricular and pedagogical structures of CI classrooms facilitated multilingual learners’ academic engagement and opportunities for language development. It also warns that in order to recognise multilingual learners’ successes, teachers’ conceptions of language and literacy may have to change.

Spatializing literacy-as-events. Literacy in new techno-scholastic environments of lower secondary classrooms

Drawing on recent re-conceptualisations of the established concept of literacy events into literacy-as-events, this article furthers empirical and theoretical understandings of spatiality in classroom literacy. Using a socio-material approach, it investigates spatial formations of literacy-as-events in lower secondary education in new techno-scholastic environments, where the digital and the scholastic have become indiscernible from each other. The empirical material consists of video recordings from Swedish and Danish classrooms, using two cameras and screen-recordings of students’ screens. From a rich data material, three examples were selected for analysis, thinking with notions of spatial imaginaries and the metaphors of network, region, resonance and fluidity to investigate spatial formations as students work with literacy tasks. The analysis shows how literacy in these digitally rich classrooms becomes distributed over a range of distances in the physical classroom space, where we identify projector-laptop, student-laptop and through the screen formations as examples of spatial formations important for what it means to be a student in contemporary digitalized classrooms. The article highlights the importance of further discussions on how digital technology contributes both to new potentials for meaning-making, and to challenges related to managing a constant state of fluidity without reverting solely to traditional regulatory practices.

Mental Health Literacy in the Middle School English Language Arts Classroom: Perspectives from Teachers and Social Support Staff

ABSTRACT Background The prevalence of mental health challenges among adolescents warrants innovative school-based approaches that support students’ mental health literacy (MHL). Purpose In this qualitative case study, we interrogated the experiences of three eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers and two of their school’s social support staff as they conceptualized, developed, and delivered a novel MHL unit of study within their existing curricular framework. In doing so, we sought to better understand the experiences of these school professionals to inform future iterations of the unit. Methods We explicated focus group data to identify themes that emerged regarding participant goals, experiences, and outcomes as they related to unit planning, delivery, and recommendations. Results Generally, practitioners advocated for increased collaboration with each other to overcome professional apprehension and streamline efforts, a need for such a curriculum to enhance student wellbeing, and having access to more school-provided resources. Discussion Themes are contextualized within the current landscape of school MHL programming, and suggestions are highlighted to advance this ELA curriculum-based work. Translation to Health Education Practice Health Educators’ expertise can supplement the ELA curriculum with targeted MHL lessons for students, alleviating teacher role confusion and advancing the goals of the unit by providing psychoeducation.

Considering multiple perspectives and scientific consensus: information literacy in the science classroom

Considering multiple perspectives and scientific consensus: information literacy in the science classroom

The Teacher as Listener: A Theory of Pedagogical Listening in the Literature Classroom

ABSTRACT Getting students talking about a work of literature — sharing and interrogating their own and each other’s textual interpretations and responses — is vital for the teaching and learning of literature. If a classroom community of readers is constituted by such talking, then responsive teaching involves a lot of listening. What, precisely, might be the role(s) of the teacher as listener? Beginning with three classroom vignettes, and then drawing from psychoanalytic theory, pragmatist aesthetics, and philosophy of dialogue, this article theorises a distinctly pedagogical listening. One role of the teacher as a listener in the literature classroom can be interpreting and intervening in ‘textual problems’ that typically arise in moments of confusion or surprise — students’ and/or their teacher’s — throughout interpretive discussion. Such pedagogical listening can instantiate, among other qualities discussed in this article, a double consciousness or divided attention. This article concludes by suggesting specific classroom practices and conditions for pedagogical listening.

What sits, what sticks: moving into lived, disruptive, co-produced filmmaking practices in literacy classrooms

ABSTRACT This article examines two ethnographers’ fieldwork with young people applying co-production film-making methods and three ways to approach youth-led filmmaking work for researchers and educators. Implicit to our argument is a belief, based on several multimodal projects, that filmmaking consolidates literacy skills and gives young people a more expansive, lived, and at times disruptive sense of literacy learning. In this special issue focusing on research into children’s language, literacy and literature, we give readers a way to take forward a living literacies approach to film work in 3–13 literacy teaching and learning.

Navigating affective and sensory fluidity in plurilingual and intercultural pedagogies in English language and literacy classrooms

This article examines the transformation of Australian EAL/D (English as an additional language/dialect) classrooms, transitioning from a monolingual focus on Standard Australian English (SAE) to embracing plurilingual and intercultural approaches in English language and literacy teaching and learning. Employing hermeneutic phenomenological and narrative analyses, the study reflects on the lived experiences of 16 English teachers who learned English as an additional language and migrated to Australia. The research highlights the significance of fluid affective processes, cultural responsiveness, plurilingualism, and intercultural identity development in language and literacy classrooms. Findings emphasise the central role of affect in EAL teaching and its implications for cultural responsiveness and linguistic diversity. The lived experiences of these teachers underscore the transformative potential of diverse teaching strategies that resonate with students on affective and cultural levels. Implications include fostering plurilingual literacy and identity development, promoting global identity, and cultivating intercultural capabilities among learners and educators. Ultimately, the article highlights the paradigm-shifting power of English language and literacy education when enriched with empathy, creativity, and a commitment to linguistic and cultural diversity. This approach not only enhances EAL/D education but also offers valuable insights and implications for other areas of the curriculum and pedagogical practices, promoting a more inclusive and responsive educational environment across disciplines.

Staying with the Climate Trouble

In teaching about climate, when it comes to the troubling question of “what can we do?” I’ve argued that we try to help students stay with, rather than prematurely and inadequately, resolve that trouble and that we do this by inviting them into our own state of not knowing. How to stay with the pedagogical trouble of doing that, including the trouble of trying to contain the despair that an honest account of the climate crisis may provoke? This essay suggests that one approach to that question in the literature classroom is to teach texts in which characters themselves grapple with the question of “what can we do?” Ultimately, the pedagogical challenge is to help shape these textual encounters into an awareness that, especially as it is shared, despair might be something other than a terminal condition—indeed, might be a necessary passage through to whatever comes next.

Att förhålla sig till ovisshet i litteraturundervisningen

Managing Uncertainty in the Literature Classroom: Linda Bondestam’s Climate Change Picturebook Mitt bottenliv in Literary Education Children’s literature on environmental matters puts great responsibility on its readers to solve future environmental problems. Similarly, in an educational context, there are underlying premises that the students should be fostered into environmental awareness, at the risk of climate fiction solely becoming “teaching aids”, providing clear-cut solutions to the climate crisis. In this article, I seek to address these premises by analysing Linda Bondestam’s climate picturebook Mitt bottenliv: Av en ensam axolotl (My Life at the Bottom: The Story of a Lonesome Axolotl, 2020) in relation to literary education. In Bondestam’s picturebook, human consumerism causes an apocalypse but an endangered axolotl survives and thrives. The aim of the article is to discuss the complexity of Mitt bottenliv in relation to literary education. In the analysis, the key concepts are “didactic gaps” (Beauvais) and “staying with the trouble” (Haraway). The article explores what it can entail to stay with the trouble in relation to uncertainty in literary education. Mitt bottenliv can hardly be said to provide clear-cut solutions for the climate crisis. Rather, the complexity of the picturebook creates an ambiguity in the didactic gaps, and an uncertainty to be managed within the context of literary education. This ambiguity enables the reader to stay with the trouble in relation to the picturebook as well as the environmental troubles we are facing, without placing the responsibility of the future upon the reader. Consequently, the article draws attention to the potential of complex picturebooks in literary education, as well as to literary education as a means of managing uncertainty.

Voices From the EFL Literature Classroom: Students’ Attitudes Towards the Use of Multimodal Literature to Improve Their CEFR Literary Reading Competence at C1 Level

Voices From the EFL Literature Classroom: Students’ Attitudes Towards the Use of Multimodal Literature to Improve Their CEFR Literary Reading Competence at C1 Level

Teaching Financial Literacy in Early Childhood Classrooms

Teaching Financial Literacy in Early Childhood Classrooms

A Multi-Site Study of Student Experiences with Code- and Meaning-Focused Literacy in Preschool-Third Grade Classrooms

ABSTRACT Purpose We examine the content, context, and management of literacy learning opportunities in a large, diverse sample in the US and whether these opportunities were differentiated by children’s oral language and decoding skill levels. Method A total of 1,404 children in 153 preschool-through-third-grade classrooms were observed for several multi-hour observations of their literacy time. Children were administered assessments of code-focused and meaning-focused skills before each observation. Results Code-focused instruction was most common in kindergarten and was appropriately differentiated only in this grade. Significantly more meaning-focused instruction was observed in 1st–3rd grades than in earlier grades and there was limited evidence of differentiation of this type of instruction. Conclusion Kindergarten is a focus year for learning to read and children who do not make sufficient progress may face challenges due to limited, undifferentiated learning opportunities in subsequent grades. Meaning-focused instruction time is emphasized in later grades, which is a missed opportunity for younger learners.

Freedom and constraints: English learners’ investment in writing through digital multimodal composing

In the field of teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL), digital multimodal composing (DMC) has been increasingly used as a pedagogical approach to support students' writing. While literature highlights DMC has the potential to encourage EAL learners' investment in writing afforded by digital tools, few studies have explored what contextual factors may shape EAL learners' identities in DMC and how they can impact their investment in English writing. This article reports on a qualitative study that investigates the contextual factors that come into play in EAL students' social identity and investment in English writing through DMC in an academic literacy course in China. Through thematic analysis, this study identifies that students' investment in English writing through the DMC project interacted with two major forces in the literacy classroom setting contextualized in the Chinese education system: freedom and constraints. Under such influence, students took on two conflicting identities: free composers and disciplined language learners. Further, I argue that they experienced tensions in these identities. However, the negotiation of the tensions tended to be productive in terms of students’ investment in English writing, which ultimately fostered an enriched understanding of writing.

Non-STEM majors COVID-19 vaccine impressions improve, and misconceptions resolve, after podcast assignment.

Misinformation regarding vaccine science decreased the receptiveness to COVID-19 vaccines, exacerbating the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on society. To mitigate the negative societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, impactful and creative science communication was needed, yet little research has explored how to encourage COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and address misconceptions held by non-Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics majors (referred to as non-majors). We have previously demonstrated that including expert guest lectures in the vaccine module in the non-major introductory biology course helps combat students' vaccine hesitancy. In the present study, we further address how learning about vaccines impacts student knowledge and impressions of the COVID-19 vaccines through a podcast assignment. As a part of this assignment, non-majors created podcasts to address COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions of their choice. We coded pre and post, open-ended essay reflections (n = 40) to assess non-majors' knowledge and impressions of the COVID-19 vaccines. Non-majors' impressions of the vaccines improved following the podcast assignment with more than three times as many students reporting a positive view of the assignment than negative views. Notably, eight of the nine interviewed students still ended the course with misconceptions about the COVID-19 vaccines, such as the vaccines being unnecessary or causing fertility issues. In a post semi-structured interview following this assignment, students (n = 7) discussed the impact of looking into the specific misconceptions related to COVID-19 vaccines themselves, including improved science communication skills and understanding of different perspectives. Thus, podcasts can provide opportunities for students to improve engagement in valuable societal topics like vaccine literacy in the non-majors classroom.

Enacting Critical Visual Literacy in Norwegian Secondary School EFL Classrooms: Opportunities and Challenges

Enacting Critical Visual Literacy in Norwegian Secondary School EFL Classrooms: Opportunities and Challenges

Arousing Learner Interest and Engagement in a Multilingual Classroom Context: English Second Language Teachers’ Experiences and Strategies

Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to learners of different basic schooling phases is arguably an interesting yet enigmatic phenomenon, which features a variety of factors such as language diversity, curriculum, policy, and cultural factors. This paper sought to explore the experiences and the strategies employed by ESL teachers to aid learners navigate through linguistic diversity in English Second Language classroom contexts. From the interpretivist epistemological stance, the researchers inferred qualitative data through semi-structured interviews from ten (10) purposively sampled high school ESL teachers from one district in Durban. Data was thematically analysed through the Social Constructivist Theory. The study’s findings indicated that the primary approach used by ESL teachers in linguistically diverse classrooms was various languages in English literature classrooms. Furthermore, the study discovered that using various languages arouses learners’ interests and enhances learner involvement in classroom-based activities. In this regard, the researchers concluded that learners are more engaged and motivated to learn to read, analyse and respond to texts in a multilingual classroom than in monolingual classrooms. The researchers further recommend that teachers use strategies beyond the textbook and policy documents to capture the learner’s attention. Using various teaching approaches, codeswitching, and translanguaging are effective strategies teachers and the Department of Education should not shy away from. Keywords: Learner interest, Learner engagement, English as a Second Language, Multilingual classrooms, Literature in English, Code-Switching.

Political emotions in a literature classroom

ABSTRACT The democratic potential of literature education has often been accentuated. In this article, we draw on Gert Biesta’s subjectification conception of democratic education, and view democracy as a concept open for (re)negotiation in the classroom. We are informed by Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic democratic theory, and its view of dissent as a foundational aspect of democracy, in that the struggle itself constitutes the identities of the opponents. Agonistic proposals for democratic education also pay attention to political emotions in the classroom. We pair agonism with Sara Ahmed’s view of emotion as performative to explore how power, identity and emotions are entangled in a student group and how this entanglement is integrated in the students’ conceptions of democracy. The students were in their last year of upper secondary school in Sweden. We analysed audio recordings from three group interviews with a total of eleven students. The interviews followed a literary discussion about the short story ‘Farangs’ by Rattawut Lapcharoensap, which was video recorded. The analysis shows that students referred to emotion when constructing the collective identities of themselves and their opponents, and that the power relations between these collective identities influenced what literary interpretations were centred in the discussion.

Operationalizing Critical Literacy in EFL Classrooms in KSA: Possibilities and Challenges

Using a qualitative research method, this article explores how EFL teachers can operationalize critical literacy (CL) when teaching prescribed textbooks that emphasize functional literacy in EFL classrooms in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). To address this research issue, the action research demonstrated and reflected my experience of using CL in one of my college-level EFL classrooms. The study ends by shedding light on the possibilities and challenges which teachers may need to negotiate and navigate through when implementing CL in EFL classrooms. Data were collected from two primary sources: my teaching reflective journals and classroom observations. The results indicate that students’ engagement, autonomy, voice, agency, and critical conscious awareness can be maintained and promoted when CL is enacted in EFL classrooms. In addition, the findings show that the use of CL can empower students and teachers alike to take on new positions and play different roles in EFL classrooms. KSA can equip its learners with the necessary skills to critically engage with language and texts, empowering them to become informed, active participants in an increasingly globalized world.

Dungeons & Dragons in the Literature Classroom

“The Ballad of Proxima-B” is an educational RPG that promotes learning and collaboration. Students contribute to world-building and game mechanics, creating fictional worlds and characters, including a dystopian Earth, the planet Proxima-B, and alien races. The game incorporates constructivist, constructionist, and Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) principles. The hands-on and collaborative nature facilitates learning, reflection, and a strong classroom community. During gameplay, characters form alliances, encouraging students to reflect on their interactions. Design challenges include workload balance and addressing student anxiety. Game elements emphasize critical thinking and self-reflection, foster collaboration and community, and encourage exploring identity through serious play.