Examining Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Planning for Culturally Relevant Disciplinary Literacy

This qualitative multiple case study examined four preservice teachers’ planning and perceptions of planning for culturally and socially relevant disciplinary literacy instruction in secondary disciplines. Four disciplines were represented: art, English, history, and physical education (P.E.)/health. This research sought to understand how a secondary literacy course and its requirements, with a particular focus on culturally relevant disciplinary literacy (CRDL) instruction. Particularities of the four disciplines of study represented were also considered to inform crosscontent literacy coursework. Findings indicated preservice teachers (PSTs) recognized potential of CRDL to engage students in critical thought. However, core disciplines (English and history) had varying viewpoints of the reality of such instruction compared with noncore disciplines (art and P.E./health), and all PSTs struggled to perceive CRDL as a primarily student-focused approach to instruction.

School leadership and whole-school support of struggling literacy learners in secondary schools

The needs of struggling literacy learners beyond the early years of schooling warrant greater attention. For struggling literacy learners to attain their academic, vocational, and social goals, schools should position literacy as a whole school priority and enhance opportunities for student literacy learning across all learning areas. However, it is not known if literacy is typically supported as a whole school commitment in contemporary secondary schools. This paper draws on survey data from the Australian nation-wide 2019 Supporting Struggling Secondary Literacy Learners (SSSLL) project. Findings suggest that many mainstream secondary school teachers do not perceive that there is a whole-school approach to support struggling literacy learners in their schools, or that there are adequate strategies and supports to meet the needs of struggling literacy learners in their schools. Findings also suggest that regardless of place, school leadership commitment to ensuring that struggling literacy learners have their literacy skills developed across all learning areas may be crucial to the realization of a supportive whole-school culture for struggling literacy learners.

Oral reading: practices and purposes in secondary classrooms

Purpose This paper aims to investigate teacher-initiated whole-group oral reading practices in two ninth-grade reading intervention classrooms and how teachers understood the purposes of those practices. Design/methodology/approach In this qualitative cross-case analysis, a literacy-as-social-practice perspective is used to collaboratively analyze ethnographic data (fieldnotes, audio recordings, interviews, artifacts) across two classrooms. Findings Oral reading was a routine instructional reading event in both classrooms. However, the literacy practices that characterized oral reading and teachers’ purposes for using oral reading varied depending on teachers’ pedagogical philosophies, instructional goals and contextual constraints. During oral reading, students’ opportunities to engage in independent meaning making with texts were either absent or secondary to other purposes or goals. Practical implications Findings emphasize the significance of understanding both how and why oral reading happens in secondary classrooms. Specifically, they point to the importance of collaborating with teachers to (a) examine their own ideas about the power of oral reading and the institutional factors that shape their existing oral reading practices; (b) investigate the intended and actual outcomes of oral reading for their students and (c) develop other instructional approaches to support students to individually and collaboratively make meaning from texts. Originality/value This study falls at the intersection of three under-researched areas of study: the nature of everyday instruction in secondary literacy intervention settings, the persistence of oral reading in secondary school and teachers’ purposes for using oral reading in their instruction. Consequently, it contributes new knowledge that can support educators in creating more equitable instructional environments.

Positioning Adolescents in Literacy Teaching and Learning

Secondary literacy instruction often happens to adolescents rather than with them. To disrupt this trend, we collaborated with 12th-grade “literacy mentors” to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with 10th-grade mentees in a public high school classroom. We used positioning theory as an analytic tool to (a) understand how mentors positioned themselves and how we positioned them and (b) examine the literacy practices that enabled and constrained the mentor position. We found that our positioning of mentors as collaborators was taken up in different and sometimes unexpected ways as a result of the multiple positions available to them and institutional-level factors that shaped what literacy practices were and were not negotiable. We argue that future collaborations with youth must account for the rights and duties of all members of a classroom community, including how those rights and duties intersect, merge, or come into conflict within and across practices.

Classroom Contexts and the Construction of Struggling High School Readers

Background/Context In high schools, student readers navigate different classrooms, disciplinary domains, teachers, peer groups, and texts. Research suggests that through these ever-shifting contexts, youths demonstrate varying literacy skills and identities. Yet, schools assign static labels to students (e.g., struggling reader), and little research has examined how youths’ reading changes across classroom spaces. Purpose/Objective During this school year-long study, I shadowed youths identified as struggling readers across their classes to examine (a) how their reading-related skills, practices, and identities varied and (b) what classroom contexts appeared to mediate their reading. Participants Focal participants were 8 ninth graders identified as struggling readers, 14 comparative peers, 8 teachers, and the school literacy coach. Research Design I conducted a two-phase qualitative study in a culturally and linguistically diverse high school. During an initial ethnographic phase from September to November, I conducted open-ended ethnographic interviews and made observations to identify contexts that appeared important in mediating youths’ reading. Then, during a structured phase from December to June, I used protocols to conduct semistructured interviews and weeklong shadow observations of eight students identified as struggling readers, and I compared their experiences to those of youths not labeled as such. Data Collection and Analysis Data sources were 425 hours of observation, 66 interviews with youths and teachers, reading assessments, and school artifacts and records. I used constant comparative analysis to systematically and iteratively code across all data sources. Conclusions/Recommendations Analysis showed that students’ and teachers’ interactions with particular classroom contexts not only identified reading difficulty but also constructed “struggling readers” regardless, sometimes, of students’ skilled, engaged reading. Overall, youths tended to participate in limiting contexts that positioned them as deficient readers. However, when classroom contexts focused on disciplinary literacy and building trusting relationships, youths positioned themselves as readers and learners. I discuss these promising, albeit rare, classroom contexts with attention to the pivotal role that student-teacher interactions played in constructing the contexts over time. Findings have implications for the reconceptualization of adolescent reading difficulty, the organization of secondary literacy programs, and future directions for adolescent literacy research.

Doing History: A Study of Disciplinary Literacy and Readers Labeled as Struggling

Scholars contend that disciplinary literacy is a productive route for all secondary learners, including those identified as struggling readers, to build knowledge. Relatedly, scholars point to disciplinary literacy as a socially just alternative to decontextualized skill instruction and deficit positioning. Yet, little research has examined how instructional contexts facilitate these youths’ participation in disciplinary literacy practices. I present the case of one ninth-grade history classroom. Participants were three students and one teacher. Data sources included 48 hr of observations, 11 semistructured interviews, ongoing ethnographic open-ended interviews, and classroom artifacts. By closely examining the enactment of one lesson and situating the analysis in the class’s yearlong academic and social trajectories, I show how disciplinary literacy provided avenues for youths to wrestle with and critique historical texts, compare perspectives across sociohistorical periods, see themselves in history, and disrupt deficit positioning in school. I discuss implications for secondary literacy and social studies education.