Literacy Practices Research Articles

The Prosōpon of Jesus’ Soul in Origen’s Homilies on Psalm 15 (16)

Abstract Prosopological exegesis was integral to the trinitarian theology of several second- and early third-century Christian theologians who argued that the different divine personae or prosōpa that speak in biblical texts were distinct from one another in reality. Unlike these predecessors, Origen’s use of prosopological exegesis in the Psalms occurs in a less polemical context and gravitates towards Christology and ecclesiology rather than trinitarian theology. In his homilies on Psalm 15 (16), Origen identifies the soul of Jesus as a speaking prosōpon distinct from, and acted upon by, the divine Word. This instance of prosopological exegesis highlights the distinctiveness of Origen’s theological use of this literary practice. In particular, I argue that Origen draws conclusions of soteriological and ecclesiological relevance from his notion of the speaking prosōpon of Jesus’ soul, which mediates a kind of communicatio idiomatum between the human Christ and the Church.

‘You come as a human being…’: exploring sense of equality in arts interventions through an ethnographic study of Shared Reading

Research shows that the arts hold a particular potential for promoting health, well-being and social inclusion for vulnerable people. However, the use and consumption of the arts tend to be...

Peer tutoring as an empowering literacy practice for bilingual Students with Interrupted Formal Education

Peer tutoring as an empowering literacy practice for bilingual Students with Interrupted Formal Education

“Nepantla is a Place Just Like the Ocean”: Bilingual Teachers Explore their Identities through Multimodal and Artifactual Testimonio

AbstractBilingual teachers of Color navigate many in‐between spaces as they forge hybrid teacher identities; Chicana feminist scholars have referred to these crossroads between cultural ideologies, values, and beliefs as spaces of nepantla. In this qualitative case study, we analyzed the work of 31 teachers from two cohorts of multilingual educators who participated in a summer bilingual endorsement course and subsequent bilingual teacher induction meetings. These teachers identified as Latine, Asian/Asian American, Native American, or multiracial, and taught in Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Japanese, and English‐medium settings. As course instructors and induction facilitators, we engaged participants in a series of multimodal and artifactual testimonio sessions and collected data in the form of multimodal and artifactual testimonios, coursework, interviews, and video recordings of testimonio sessions. Framed by bringing Chicana feminist conceptualizations of testimonio and nepantla into conversation with theories of multimodal and artifactual literacies, we analyzed participants' testimonios and found they used images, voice, video, and artifacts to unearth their histories; to forge resilient identidades nepantleras; and to express connection and solidarity with students that informed their present and future pedagogical practices. This study suggests the potential for researchers and teacher educators to leverage hybrid literacy practices, like multimodal and artifactual testimonio, while creating spaces that facilitate identity exploration and development for multilingual teachers of Color. Significantly, this multilingual teacher identity development allows for articulation of connection and solidarity with multilingual students, which teachers perceive as consequential in shaping their pedagogical and advocacy commitments.

Beyond the Observable

This research focuses on one teacher’s lived experience as he contributes towards a broader understanding of possibilities and constraints afforded by technologies, materials, and relationality during this recent shift in pandemic pedagogy. The pandemic drastically altered the way curriculum is enacted as there were shifts in the learning environment, the subject matter, and the way teachers and students engaged in literacy practices. To understand this shift, we explore: What are the participating teacher’s perceptions about how multiliteracies are utilized for classroom practice and pedagogy? How did this teacher’s pedagogy continue or change once the pandemic influenced curriculum enactment? This paper focuses on how one grade 6 teacher explored this pandemic pedagogical landscape in his classroom. This experience contributes to learning from the past, navigating the present, and continuing to shape the future of effective instruction in an elementary classroom.

The Sea and Underwater Transport in Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute for Taxi Poetry

ABSTRACT This article discusses the link between public transport and literary practices by analyzing Imraan Coovadia’s 2012 novel, The Institute for Taxi Poetry. In this novel, Coovadia comments on South Africa’s palimpsestic history from the precolonial to the postcolonial. One way in which Coovadia does this is through the motif of the taxi. The taxi refers to a mini-bus taxi which in South Africa is a form of public transport primarily used by people from working-class backgrounds. Another way concerns the proposal of a fictional genre that plays a prominent role in this novel: taxi poetry. The article explores the ways in which the novel uses the taxi and submarine vessels to open up the geography of the sea as a transport surface whose impact on the histories of the dispossessed is visible from both below and above the waterline. Through engagement with the humanities turn in mobility studies and with scholarship in the oceanic humanities from the Global South, the article argues that the national and terrestrial readings of public transport in African literature(s) undervalue the sea, a prominent transport arena in Coovadia’s novel, as both a space of transit as well as a public space with shared transnational histories. The article engages the novel’s imagined literary sub-genre to evaluate how the text’s subterranean extensions of the South African taxi industry, and public transport generally, unearth the layered narrative of South Africa as nation.

Exploring One Colombian Adolescent’s Diverse Literacies in his Rural Community

A deficit view of rural language learners’ out-of-school literacy practices has permeated formal educational and language policy globally. Intergovernmental organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for instance, have often portrayed rural learners in Global South countries as having literacy deficits if their language skills are not in alignment with the practices valued in school contexts. These deficit representations are often instrumentalized as a tactic to oppress and exclude rural students’ literacies and language traditions from educational policy and curricula. Throughout this article, the authors – both language educators researching young people’s diverse literacy practices – aim to address and combat such problematic omissions. Following a sociocultural, multiliteracies framework, we analyzed two semi-structured interviews and accompanying artifacts to feature the literacies that a 14-year-old rural Colombian youth engages with daily. Results illuminate the myriad language practices honed outside of formal learning contexts, including family-based literacies, oral and embodied forms of communication, analyzing and composing with multimodal texts, and developing critical skills with digital texts to question national power relations and forge activist identities. The authors discussed the benefits of an expanded view of literacy – particularly for educators – in hopes of contributing to equity-based research advocating the recognition and inclusion of rural students’ vernacular literacies across formal learning spaces.

Communicate to Care: Implementing Health Literacy in a Pediatric Ears, Nose, and Throat Clinic.

Despite positive outcomes in controlled trials, organizations have been slow to adopt health literacy practices. The purpose of the Communicate to CARE (Clear Communication, Achieve Understanding with Teach-Back, Receptive to our patient family needs, Empathetic care delivery) study was to use theories and strategies from implementation science to scale up health literacy practices in a pediatric Ears, Nose, and Throat (ENT) clinic. Expanding on previous efforts that simply reflected on barriers, the CARE team identified barriers within the local context pre-implementation to select strategies to directly address barriers during health literacy implementation. The RE-AIM framework was used to evaluate the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of health literacy practices. Over 18 months, the CARE team delivered multiple implementation strategies, including external facilitator, microlessons, preparing champions, audit and feedback, local consensus discussions, and small test of change. We tailored health literacy practices to clinic team roles to accommodate the clinic workflow. ENT team mean ratings on acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility remained >4 indicating a high likelihood of successful implementation. Caregiver always ratings significantly increased from baseline to 12 months for easy-to-understand medication instructions (74%-96%), test results (54%-96%), know what to do if had questions (89%-96%), and encouraged to talk about health problems (76%-90%). Caregiver ratings dropped slightly at 18 months, indicating a need for booster training. While one third of caregivers reported Teach-Back practice across all time periods, the ENT team reported increased practice from baseline (42%), 6 (61%) and 12 months (70%). Over the first 12 months, the external facilitator delivered implementation strategies with weekly contact, tapering contact over the final 6 months. The local champion became engaged in the CARE study through a quality improvement project with meaningful outcomes for the clinic and an incentivization program for scholarly endeavors. Lunch and learn sessions helped build relationships between the CARE and ENT team to discuss and problem solve issues. The 5-item CAHPS health literacy composite proved to be sensitive to changes during implementation of health literacy practices. Integrating these items into standard follow up surveys with patients and families would help realize the return on investment for health literacy implementation. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2024;8(3):e166-e174.].

Foreign views on the culture of Soviet Kazakhstan: an analysis of historiography

The research conducted by American scholars focused on themes such as nationality, language, religion, politics, modernization, and cultural change. These scholars sought to understand the implementation of Sovietnational policies in a multi-ethnic society like Kazakhstan and the delicate balance between Soviet identityand ethnic identities within the union. Language reform and its impact on cultural and linguistic diversitywere also explored, along with the interaction between Islam and the secular ideology of the Soviet state. Theeffects of Soviet modernization programs on Kazakhstani society, including the disruption of traditional prac-tices and ways of life, were investigated. Moreover, the study examined how Soviet policies influenced cul-tural institutions, literary practices, and artistic expression, highlighting the tensions between conformity toSoviet norms and the preservation of a distinctive Kazakh cultural identity. The article acknowledges that thebroader global dynamics of the Cold War era influenced the interpretive frameworks and assumptions ofthese scholars. As part of an intellectual tradition shaped by Western liberal values, American scholars oftentook a critical stance toward the Soviet system. Their research emphasized the failures, problems, and resistance generated by Soviet policies, including state modernization, national policies, and language reforms.The article concludes that despite valuable contributions from scholars such as Wheeler, Allworth, and Con-nolly, a comprehensive examination of Kazakh culture during the Soviet period through the lens of foreignhistoriography remains lacking. It highlights the need for further research to deepen our understanding of themultifaceted aspects of Sovietera Kazakh culture, shedding light on the complexities and contradictions inherent in the Soviet project.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Financial Literacy and Management among Household Women in Lahore

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Financial Literacy and Management among Household Women in Lahore

Emotionally Empowered Learners: Promoting Emotional Literacy Practices at Government Primary Schools

Emotionally Empowered Learners: Promoting Emotional Literacy Practices at Government Primary Schools

PENINGKATAN PEMAHAMAN LITERASI KEUANGAN PADA SISWA SEKOLAH DASAR

MI KH Badrussalam is one of the educational institutions at the elementary level located in Malang City. This madrasah has been established since 1926 during the colonial period. In 2022, MI KH Badrussalam has a total of 52 students and 7 teachers. One of the problems of this madrasah related to students is the lack of students' understanding of financial literacy. This is due to the unfavorable economic conditions of the family, so that many financial literacy practices cannot be carried out optimally. However, this does not stop madrasah from continuing to try to grow students' skills in managing finances. Based on the description of the problems above, the PPM team provides training related to financial literacy to increase students' understanding of good financial management. There are three methods that will be used in this activity, namely lecture, discussion and question and answer. The PPM team and partners believe that this training on financial literacy can provide benefits for both parties. The result of this training is that students' knowledge and skills regarding financial literacy increase.

Philosophy of digital literature

There were a vision, a philosophy, and an intellectual trend that lie behind every phenomenon in the universe as a pressing need for its age and general features. The digital literature is the literature of the age and its openness to other worlds made the study seek to understand and clarify that philosophy which sits behind the digital literature, attempting to go beyond what is known in terms of literary practices. This study aims to reveal this philosophy which was embodied from the current philosophy based on freedom and absolute openness, leading to appearance of the digital literature that reinforces this philosophy which constitutes its formation and release. Therefore, the study intended to explore the digital texts in some digital platforms to reveal these practices and their differences through the selected digital literary texts. The study also traced the impact of this philosophy on the text by observing the act of interaction and how it is done by the interactive creative recipient, whose interaction exceeded the previous negative receiving, and was close to the space of the writer in producing, reading, and interacting with the text. At its beginning, the study showed the relationship of philosophy with literature, art, and knowledge. Then, the study attempted to elucidate the philosophy of digital literature and sought to reveal its characteristics and effects, using the analytical descriptive approach. It also utilized a semiotic approach and the convergence theory to analyze texts and read them critically. The study concluded with the results and recommendations.

THREE IMAGES OF POLISSIA. A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN POSTCOLONIAL COLORS

The paper examines the images of Volyn Polissia and its inhabitants in the works by the writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Based on the methods of comparative and postcolonial studies, the research focuses on the novels “Friendship” (1905) by Lesia Ukrainka, “Malashka” (1881) by the Polish writer G. Zapolska, and “Olesia” (1898) by the Russian author A. Kuprin. The phenomenon of the Volyn-Polissia text provides an opportunity to clarify the topic in historical and cultural dimensions. The narrative structures of the three stories are considered as matrices for perceiving, understanding, and describing reality. The peculiarities of literary practices in topographical and anthropological cataloging of the ‘other’ were also investigated.For a long time, Polissia was under the control of neighboring states. The approach of the Polish and Russian authors to the ‘appropriated territories’ was distinctively invasive (imperial). The positions of cultural and state dominance legitimized the ‘other’ as a secondary and subordinate figure. Thus, the efforts of the colonizers were directed at lowering the native and elevating the stranger. The stranger, as represented in the characters of G. Zapolska and A. Kuprin, was a carrier of higher morality, intelligence, culture, etc. Through total control, he acquired the ‘right’ to rule over those ‘inferior’ to him. In the stories “Malashkaˮ and “Olesiaˮ, which are very similar in their main points, this mechanism is clearly revealed in the female images. The depiction of the local population as wild, aggressive, and drunken ‘creatures’ also attests to the authors’ views.In contrast, the story “Friendship” is perceived as a tale of the national affirmation of the Ukrainian region. Lesia Ukrainka doesn’t idealize the residents of Polissia but clearly shows their distinctiveness. The writer’s characters are Ukrainian and Polish girls of the same age. They have different destinies due to their differing backgrounds. The depicted worlds are independent, which is evidenced by the life of their representatives.

Working with constructs of inclusion for understanding teachers’ literacy practices and their impact on student learning

ABSTRACT The paper explores teachers’ language literacy practices in underprivileged, inner-city schools in Athens, Greece, and their implications for student learning and educational inclusion. The current developments of global/European and national education policy agendas on literacy and inclusion inform the research questions of the study. Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse frames our analysis on the reproduction of social inequalities through schooling and informs our discussion on the discursive means and the pedagogic practices for their interruption. Findings, based on interview data and classroom observations, indicate that global discourses on inclusion, (re)articulated in the disadvantaged school settings of the study, invest the notion of inclusion with three different meanings: a. inclusion as assimilation and absorption into the dominant culture and society; b. inclusion as therapy for students’ emotional ‘traumas’; and c. inclusion as recognition of difference. We argue that these constructs of inclusion shape teaching practices that either promote or undermine student learning and empowerment.

Os MULTILETRAMENTOS ALIADOS AO USO DAS TECNOLOGIAS DIGITAIS NO ENSINO DE LÍNGUA PORTUGUESA

This research analyzes the use of digital technologies in multilingual practices, as reported in the final papers developed by Portuguese language teachers who graduated from the third class of the Professional Master in Language (PROFLETRAS) at UNEMAT/Sinop, in the field of Applied Linguistics. The research is qualitative-interpretive and documentary. Although the final papers show good results, the process of effective literacy practices, from a multi-learning perspective, proved to be quite complex, mainly due to the almost total lack of technological support provided by most of the public schools where the teachers who completed the program worked and developed their research.

Listening to teachers talk about multimodality and multimodal texts: considerations for the national English curriculum

Multimodal texts are an integral part of children’s lives. Rapid advancements in media and mobile technologies have increasingly expanded children’s capability to view, share, design, and produce multimodal texts. However, Australia’s updated English curriculum falls short of offering teachers a metalanguage to help children understand the complex ways linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, and spatial modes work together to convey meaning. This article reports qualitative research on teachers talking about multimodal texts within their pedagogy and literacy practice. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with eight early years and primary Australian teachers. Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is the analytic framework utilised in the research. From teachers’ talk, findings show that if children are to be effective multimodal text users, analysts, designers, and creators, the curriculum should not privilege particular modes and their associated metalanguage but provide teachers with a metalanguage for all modes of meaning-making.

Finding an (Ecological) Niche in the Postdigital Taskscape: The Role of Strong Literacy and Poor Pedagogy in Primary School Pupils’ Online Literacy Practices

This paper uses a postdigital, postphenomenological lens to examine what happened when an online platform, a wiki, was used to support writing practices in an inner London Key Stage 2 classroom. It understands a postdigital approach to education as one which takes account of the imbrication of technology in our everyday life without valorising it or making hyperbolic claims about what it can do. Avoiding utopian or dystopian accounts, it unpicks what happened when students were allowed to compose multimodal texts beyond the classroom on topics that interested them. Using a postphenomenological approach, it looks at the materiality of the technology in praxis in the different spaces where it was used. It uses as a heuristic Ingold’s concept of the taskscape, recently developed by various scholars as a site not of romantic bucolic human activity but as somewhere where sociomaterial practices are contested as we wrestle for resources within our immediate environment. As students travel between these different taskscapes of home, school and the wiki, it examines how they enact the affordances around them in their transformation from apprentices to more skilled practitioners of literacy. It follows their trajectories-of-becoming when they move between these taskscapes, growing into knowledge as they weave lines of literacy across online and offline spaces. It argues that reviving Gibson’s notion of the ‘ecological niche’ allows us to understand why some find the paths between these spaces easier to tread than others.

Preparing Students for Communicating in Business: A Framework for Informing Literacy Practices

Preparing students to communicate in business has often been an overlooked area within literacy studies. With current calls by Cardon et al. (2024) to focus on core competencies in the business communication classroom with the emergence of generative AI, it is more important than ever to remember Berkenkotter and Huckin’s (1994) explanation that students will always learn in a form of “situated cognition embedded in disciplinary activities” (p. 3). This project, as a result, provides a framework to explore student experiences with business communication before students arrive on a college campus to better inform higher education stakeholders.

Exploration of Critical Skills For Teachers In Digital Literacy Practices Education Program

The increasing penetration of the internet and digital devices significantly impacts learning in technological media. Teachers play an important role in improving their competencies through training programs supported by the government. Dompet Dhuafa's Digital Literacy Education Training for Trainers program aims to improve digital literacy among Sekolah Guru Indonesia (SGI) activists. The program includes training in copywriting, learning video creation, the concept of Society 5.0, and future internet professions. The top five participants' work was certified by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, highlighting a novel approach as few participants developed strong comprehension and critical thinking skills. This research explores the critical thinking ability of the best participants in the digital literacy program, specifically in creating learning videos that obtain intellectual property rights. The method used was phenomenology, in-depth interviews were conducted with five top participants. The findings of this study revealed three main components affecting the implementation of the program: mastery of critical thinking, lack of mastery of critical thinking, and difficulties in improving participants' critical thinking skills. These results underscore the importance of critical thinking in educational training and the challenges in developing this skill among teachers.