Literacy Course Research Articles

Research: “So, you’re not homophobic, just racist and hate gay Muslims?”: Reading Queer Difference in Young Adult Literature with LGBTQIA+ Themes

Reading moments of classroom talk as text, we explored how prospective teachers in a Teaching Diverse Young Adult Literature course read and responded to Michael Muhammad Knight’s The Taqwacores, a text with a Muslim LGBTQIA+ theme. Thinking with queer theory—and its constituent concept, homonationalism, more specifically—we examined how discourses of difference, both liberatory and oppressive, were shaped as notions of collective acceptance, tolerance, and inclusion intersected with interpersonal contradictions and contingencies. Using critical discourse analysis to trace how the “queer, Muslim other” was indexed in conversation, we highlight the promises and pitfalls of leveraging diverse youth literature as students examined and extended the privilege of personhood through the particulars of a single text.

Developing 5G+VR Curriculum Resources to Promote Education Research

Financial literacy education is a crucial aspect of school moral education. With the support of 5G network technology and environment, integrating 5G+VR technology into financial literacy courses has become a new challenge. This study aims to enrich students’ learning experience, promote education reform, and bring a new perspective to financial literacy education research by creating financial literacy education scenes. In the context of financial literacy learning, games are a fast and effective learning tool. The subject of this research is to use the visual and interactive features of AR/VR to design a game-based teaching scene that is consistent with the teaching content, attractive, and stimulates students’ interest in learning to improve the learning effect. With the help of 5G+VR technology, students’ classroom experience has transformed from 2D to 3D, from the plane content presented in textbooks and blackboards to more three-dimensional content. For some abstract or invisible content, AR/VR can display visually, which helps to improve cognition and understanding. The specific development process includes three parts. First, determining the development content and designing the script based on the course content and teaching objectives. The second part is communicating with the design company to carry out specific scene development, creating VR scene buildings, objects, characters, etc., and optimizing the scene design. Finally, with the cooperation of communication equipment providers, content providers, and schools, installation and commissioning are completed.

Using Multilevel Modelling to Evaluate Science Literacy and Technology Course of the Indonesian Non-Science Students

In this paper, a science literacy and technology course has been designed and implemented to strengthen the national initiative empowering scientifically literate Indonesian society. This paper is intended to evaluate to what degree non-science undergraduate students can perform this course. The diverse background of non-science students who participated in this study led to the challenge to evaluate their performance more comprehensively contemplating the nested structure of students’ department and faculty setting. In light of the hierarchical nature of the student data, multilevel modelling was used to conduct the analysis. The first level of analysis involved students’ performance and affective attributes measured using demonstrated science literacy assessment (SLA-D) and motivational beliefs (SLA-MB) respectively. Then, the subsequent level of analysis comprised demographic factors gathered from the institutional record. Findings demonstrated that the impact of demographic factors on the students’ performance of science literacy was not substantial. Different settings of students’ department and faculty level drove the association between affective factors and the learning process toward science literacy courses substantially. The multilevel approach controlled the equitable student assessment within the nature of students’ data structure. This paper suggests an implication of advancement regarding educational data analysis and examines the effectiveness of science literacy courses for higher institutions specifically for non-science majors.

A Survey on How College Students in a Statistical Literacy Course Apply Statistics Terms to People

An anonymous survey was given to n = 73 students in an asynchronous online statistical literacy course at a mid-sized Hispanic Serving Institution. Informed by teaching experience, literature on lexical ambiguity, and everyday usage of statistics words and phrases, the first author designed the survey to yield insight into how students view phrases such as “average person,” “random person,” and “outlier person,” and to explore possible connections or patterns with such phrases. Findings suggest that students view phrases such as “random person” in a way much further from standard usage than they do phrases such as “anonymous person.” Considerations such as diversity, agency, and variable identification are identified as possibly affecting usage and meriting further investigation. Recommendations for teaching and future research are provided. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Information literacy and recent graduates: Motivation, self-efficacy, and perception of credit-based information literacy courses

The present study aimed to explore graduate students' motivation, self-efficacy, and perceptions of credit-based information literacy (IL) courses at a research university in China. A mixed-methods approach was employed, with 405 questionnaires and ten follow-up interviews conducted. The findings indicated that graduate students displayed high levels of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy toward the IL course. In other words, they were conscious of the importance of IL in their future academic pursuits. However, only a small portion (18.76 %) of students perceived librarians as the most appropriate person for the course. Moreover, in terms of the format of course format, the majority of participants preferred a blend of lectures and group activities over online learning. There was also agreement among the participants that the focus of IL courses should go beyond basic information search skills and include training in learning strategies. The study also found that gender played a role in shaping motivation and perception levels, with female students generally scoring higher. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for librarians to enhance their credit-based IL courses, catering to the specific needs and preferences of graduate students.

Seeing Things Anew: Hoffmann’s Don Juan: A Fabulous Incident Which Befell a Travelling Enthusiast and Gogol’s The Portrait

Established criticism argues that the influence of the German fantastic stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) on Nikolai Gogol’s Russian supernatural tales was short-lived. This article disagrees. Gogol (1809-1852) achieved literary success in the late 1830s, when the future course of Russian literature was strongly indebted to late German Romantic literary concepts. We trace the relationship of Hoffmann’s short story Don Juan: a Fabulous Incident which Befell a Travelling Enthusiast with the early and late versions of Gogol’s short story The Portrait, showing that Hoffmannesque elements are stronger in the later publication. Our close analysis uses two critical theories: Shlovsky’s concept of defamiliarisation, or ostranienie (Note 1), and Todorov’s theories of the fantastic, the one being apposite on account of its Russian perspective, and the other because of its insights into Gothic literature. We also support our argument by historical and biographical evidence, with the overarching aim of bringing new critical perspectives to the study of the short fiction of Hoffmann and Gogol.

Exploring the phenomenon of hope in adult illiterate Haitians

Snyder's hope theory depicts hope, through the frame of positive psychology, as a cognitive construct with the perceived sense of goal-directed, pathways, and agency thinking (Snyder et al., 1991). Hope levels have been measured in various countries; however, no research to date focused on Haitians. This study, conducted in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, addressed this gap by investigating hope, pathway, and agency levels derived from 135 Haitian-Kreyol adult literacy course participants. This manuscript reports scores of illiterate Haitians' hope levels utilizing Snyder's Adult Hope Dispositional Scale; the scores are explained by Snyder's hope theory taking Haitian cultural and social landscapes into account. Despite the challenging environment and illiterate conditions, Haitian participants reported just below average hope levels, average pathway levels, and low agency levels. These findings suggested this population garnered hope in their everyday lives, despite difficult obstacles.

Our Américas: Writing beyond Borders: Latinx voices in World Literature

Students’ input and identities are prioritized to cocreate a culturally responsive world literature course.

On the Development of Vocal Music Literature Courses in Colleges and Universities

Art songs are a splendid treasure in the long history of China. Art songs are a symbol of China's excellent culture and have been widely valued throughout the ages. Chinese art songs are a kind of historical culture with special charm, and it is a kind of music with profound history and cultural connotation. Vocal literature class in colleges and universities is an important part of art education, and with the development of China's economy and society, vocal literature education in China's colleges and universities has also developed greatly. At present, as China's foreign relations become closer and closer, with the increasing diversification of social life, various foreign cultures are penetrating into the vocal literature teaching in colleges and universities. Chinese art songs are an important part of Chinese traditional culture. Chinese art songs play an important role in the teaching of vocal literature in China. The dissemination of Chinese art songs in China is the key to promote the healthy development of vocal literature education in China's colleges and universities, and all relevant colleges and universities should pay enough attention to it. The article makes an in-depth analysis and discussion on the status and position of Chinese art songs in the vocal literature education of colleges and universities, in order to draw reference to the relevant work in the future.

Useful Objects: Museums, Science, & Literature in Nineteenth-Century America

Useful Objects: Museums, Science, & Literature in Nineteenth-Century America

Developing a learning management system for critical literacy course: A need analysis

In preparing the students to have the ability to interpret texts using critical lenses, to challenge the power relations within the messages and communicate actively in multimodal context, there is a need and urgency of the hybrid learning process to take place. As part of multi-years’ research and development which aims to develop digital module and learning management systems (LMS) for the students, this preliminary needs-based research focuses on the students’ and lecturers’ perceptions regarding the need for developing LMS in the Critical Literacy course in Bachelor of English Language Education, Universitas Negeri Jakarta. The research participants were thirty-two students, and a lecturer who responded to questionnaires, interviews to lecturer, and focus group discussions. The research data was the students’ needs based on Hutchinson and Water’s theory which could be divided into target needs (necessities, lacks and wants) and learning needs. The study was conducted with the qualitative approach with the Successive Approximation Model (SAM) which focuses on Preparation Phase research design. Throughout the information gathering and the Savvy Start, the phase rotated through needs analysis and library study. The results demonstrate that there is a gap between the expected outcomes of the Critical Literacy course and students' ability to understand various texts, especially in understanding the interpretation of data in the form of graphs, tables, and numbers. Also, students need exposure to various texts such as news items, critical analysis of texts, and current issues in education. While the difficulty experienced by lecturers when teaching is that students' language skills (especially reading) are very varied. Also, the lecturer and students want Critical Literacy material that makes students think critically about topics related to critical literacy theory, strategy, and its practice. The preferred activities in this course include debates, discussions, criticizing social campaigns, advertisements and short films, and topics on digital literacy. By this, developing a ready-to-use digital English learning materials that correspond to the students’ and lecturer’s is exigent.Ketwords: needs analysis; critical literacy course; The successive approximation model (SAM)Mengembangkan learning management system pada mata kuliah critical literacy: Sebuah analisa kebutuhanDalam rangka mempersiapkan mahasiswa untuk memiliki kemampuan menginterpretasi­kan teks dengan menggunakan kemampuan berpikir kritis, menantang relasi kuasa dalam pesan dan berkomunikasi secara aktif dalam konteks multimodal, terdapat kebutuhan dan urgensi agar proses pembelajaran hybrid dapat berlangsung. Sebagai bagian dari penelitian dan pengembangan berkelanjutan yang bertujuan untuk mengembangkan modul digital dan learning management system (LMS) bagi mahasiswa, penelitian tahun pertama berbasis kebutuhan ini berfokus pada perspective mahasiswa dan dosen berkaitan dengan kebutuhan pengembangan LMS pada mata kuliah Critical Literacy di Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Negeri Jakarta. Tiga puluh dua orang mahasiswa, dan seorang dosen mengisi angket, melakukan focus group discussion dan wawancara dengan dosen. Data penelitian adalah kebutuhan siswa berdasarkan teori Hutchinson and Water yang dapat dibagi menjadi kebutuhan target (necessities, lacks and wants) dan kebutuhan belajar. Penelitian dilakukan dengan pendekatan kualitatif menggunakan Successive Approximation Model (SAM) yang menitikberatkan pada desain Preparation Phase. Dalam tahap ini dilakukan pengumpulan informasi dan studi pustaka. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat kesenjangan antara hasil yang diharapkan dari mata kuliah Critical Literacy dengan kemampuan siswa dalam memahami berbagai teks, terutama dalam memahami interpretasi data dalam bentuk grafik, tabel, dan angka. Selain itu, siswa membutuhkan banyak paparan berbagai teks seperti news item, analisis kritis teks, dan isu-isu terkini dalam pendidikan. Sedangkan kesulitan yang dialami dosen saat mengajar adalah kemampuan berbahasa mahasiswa (khususnya membaca) yang sangat bervariasi. Selain itu, dosen dan mahasiswa menginginkan materi Critical Literacy yang mampu membuat mahasiswa berpikir kritis dengan topik-topik yang berkaitan dengan teori, strategi, dan praktik literasi kritis. Kegiatan yang disukai dalam mata kuliah ini antara lain debat, diskusi, kritik kampanye sosial, iklan dan film pendek, serta topik mengenai literasi digital. Oleh karena itu, pengembangan materi pembelajaran bahasa Inggris digital yang siap pakai yang sesuai dengan kebutuhan mahasiswa dan dosen menjadi sangat mendesak untuk dibuat.Kata kunci: analisis kebutuhan; mata kuliah critical literacy; The successive approximation model (SAM)

İngiliz Edebiyatı Dersinin Çeviri Eğitimindeki Önemi ve Türkiye’deki Önlisans Çeviri Programlarındaki Yeri

The basic competence a translation education program aims at providing the students with is that of translation competence. Most translation studies scholars working in the field of translation education have declared four competences to be among the basic indispensable sub competences of “translation competence”; namely, cultural competence, critical reading competence, linguistic competence and critical thinking competence. One of the most effective ways of getting students to acquire these competences is including literature courses in the curricula. When the curricula of Applied English Translation Programs that provide associate degree translation education in Turkey are examined, it is seen that English Literature courses are offered in very few universities and vocational schools. In addition, translator candidates graduating from these associate degree programs can have the right to take the vertical transfer exam and receive undergraduate education in the departments of English Language and Literature, American Culture and Literature where they further specialise in such fields as literature and language. This is another reason why acquisition of literary competence may be one of the intended objectives of these programs. Within the framework of these discussions, drawing from the analysis and comparison of the concept of “translation competence” with the competences provided by literature courses, and the intended program outcomes of Applied English Translation Programs, this research aims at arguing that English literature courses are necessary and useful components of the curricula of these programs.

A Biostatistical Literacy Course: Teaching Medical and Public Health Professionals to Read and Interpret Statistics in the Published Literature

We present a unique and innovative course, Biostatistical Literacy, developed at the University of Minnesota. The course is aimed at public health graduate students and health sciences professionals. Its goal is to develop students’ ability to read and interpret statistical results in the medical and public health literature. The content spans the typical first-semester introductory material, including data summaries, hypothesis tests and interval estimation, and simple linear regression, as well as material typically presented in a second introductory course, including multiple linear regression, logistic regression, and time-to-event methods. The focus is on when to use a method and how to interpret the results; no statistical software computing is taught. A flipped classroom approach is used, where students are first exposed to the material outside of class, and class time is devoted to actively exploring and applying the concepts in greater depth. The course structure, the class activities, and feedback from students will be shared. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

An examination of the opinions of teachers working in public education centres on adult literacy programs in the context of functional literacy

Functional literacy is the learning of knowledge and skills for vital necessities as a higher level of basic literacy and then the operational use of this information in individual, socio-cultural, or economic fields. This research aims to examine the opinions of teachers in the context of functional literacy related to the II level primary education program for adults conducted in Public Education Centres. A phenomenological design was used in the study. A total of 12 teachers working in literacy courses in Public Education Centres were included in the study group. This study was conducted by taking the opinions of teachers and concluded that the second-level literacy courses are not sufficient at the social, individual, and educational levels in the context of functional literacy. In the context of these results, it is recommended that the content of the II level primary education program is reconstructed to provide functional skills in a framework that enriches daily life practices focused on the needs of adult individuals.

Challenges and successes of learning to teach critical literacy in elementary classes: The experiences of pre-service teachers

In critical literacy instruction, students analyze and produce text to identify and address societal norms that perpetuate discrimination and oppression. However, little is known about how preservice teachers (PSTs) gain the knowledge and skills to effectively use these practices with young children. This study examines the experiences of 40 PSTs enrolled in a literacy course grounded in Lewison et al.’s (2014) well-known model for critical literacy instruction. PSTs planned, taught, and reflected on their lessons taught to elementary classes. Findings illuminate what they learned about supporting elementary students to become critical readers and writers and the challenges they faced.

From Little Seeds Grow Mighty Trees: Transforming Teacher Preparation Literacy Methods’ Courses during the 2020 Pandemic

ABSTRACT This article describes how three higher education literacy faculty shifted their traditional face-to-face instruction to a combined synchronous and asynchronous delivery in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic and subsequent closure of the university. Faculty share specific lessons that were learned over the first year of the pandemic, and how these lessons guided the redesign and delivery of assignments and activities for required literacy courses in the early childhood and elementary teacher preparation programs. Faculty recognized the great need for resources, both external and internal, in order for them to grow and mature as they entered into the virtual teaching environment.

QoS Guarantee Framework of English Literature Course Online System Based on Concurrent Optimization Network Environment

First, the initial connection isolation method ICS is established to separate false connections generated by malicious network behaviors from normal established connections, and form a controllable initial connection table. A strategy combining extended RSVP protocol and DiffServ model is designed to ensure the realization of QoS in large campus network. The simulation test results show that the application of this model can effectively improve the QoS of large-scale campus networks, and the problems that need to be paid attention to when running the parallel operation of the database management system correctly in the network environment. Especially to prevent data corruption and loss when developing multi-user systems.

Inter-Review

Review Article| February 01 2023 Inter-Review Tom Montgomery Fate, The Long Way Home: Detours and Discoveries. Ice Cube Press, 2022. 168 Pages, Paper, $19.99.John T. Price, All Is Leaf: Essays and Transformations. University of Iowa Press, 2022. 218 Pages, Paper, $19.95. John T. Price; John T. Price John T. Price is the award-winning author of four books of nonfiction, including Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships, Daddy Long Legs: The Natural Education of a Father, and All Is Leaf: Essays and Transformations. He is also editor of The Tallgrass Prairie Reader. A recipient of a prose fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, his work has appeared in numerous journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. He is the Regents/Foundation Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he directs the English Department's Creative Nonfiction Writing Program. He lives with his family in the Loess Hills of western Iowa. More info at: www.johntprice.net. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Tom Montgomery Fate Tom Montgomery Fate Tom Montgomery Fate is a professor emeritus at College DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where he taught creative writing and literature courses for more than 30 years. He is the author of six books of creative nonfiction, including The Long Way Home: Detours and Discoveries, a travel memoir (Ice Cube Press, 2022), Cabin Fever, a nature memoir (Beacon Press), and Steady and Trembling, a spiritual memoir (Chalice Press). A regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, his essays have been widely published and have often aired on NPR and Chicago Public Radio. More info at: https://tomfate.com/. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction (2023) 25 (1): 219–225. https://doi.org/10.14321/fourthgenre.25.1.0219 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation John T. Price, Tom Montgomery Fate; Inter-Review. Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction 1 February 2023; 25 (1): 219–225. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/fourthgenre.25.1.0219 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressFourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction Search Advanced Search You do not currently have access to this content.

Integration of corpus literacy consultation into language teacher education: Course design, implementation, and evaluation

This qualitative study presents a corpus literacy course designed and implemented at an undergraduate language teacher education program in Turkey, and its evaluation by pre-service ELT teachers. The course introduces the main concepts of corpus linguistics, raises future teachers’ linguistic and pedagogical awareness through corpus applications, and introduces them to corpus-informed practices to improve their pedagogical skills. In the first phase of the study, students’ corpus literacy levels were determined through a pre-course survey revealing that most of the participants did not know about corpora and their uses. The second and third phases were devoted to evaluating the course. Initially, student teachers were asked to write minute papers and reflection papers during the semester to evaluate the process. In the final phase, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted after the course to explore their overall evaluations. Findings implied that corpus literacy integration into teacher education programs clearly yields positive outcomes, yet only one course is not enough to popularize it among EFL teachers. Hence, extensive exposure to corpus literacy and curriculum-wide integration in the TEFL programs could contribute to its popularization among future practitioners.

Examination of Asik Davut Sulari Turkish Folk Songs in the Context of Values Education

This research aims to determine the value themes in the examples of Turkish Folk Music registered in the TRT Turkish Folk Music repertoire and whose source person is Aşık Davut Sulari and to raise awareness in the context of the use of our Turkish Folk Music examples within the scope of values education given in Music, Turkish and Literature courses. 
 The material group of the study consists of 18 Turkish folk songs registered in the TRT repertoire and whose source person is Aşık Davut Sulari. These folk songs, which constitute the central theme of the study, were determined through a literature review. The study has a qualitative structure, and content analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used to determine the value themes in folk songs. As a result, 19 different value themes were investigated in the folk songs whose content analysis was made. 
 As a result of the content analysis, the value that was found to be processed the most (in 17 songs) was the “love” value, and the values that were found to be processed the least (1 song each) were “mercy”, “compassion”, “modesty”, “forgiveness” and “austerity”. The folk song in which the most value was determined in the lyrics (7 values) was determined as “Vardım Kırklar Kapısına” and the folk songs with the least value (2 values) were determined as “Bir Yiğit Gurbete Düşse”, “Durnam Gelir Bizim Elden”, “Ey Hamamcı Bu Hamamı”, “Şepke’nin Kavakları”, “Yaban Gülü müsün Sarp Kayalarda” and “Yaz Ayları Geldi Geçti”. Another finding obtained as a result of the content analysis is that the values of “respect,” “sobriety” and “generosity” are not used in any folk songs.