Implementation of Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts across most of the United States has yielded the rapid creation of new, interconnected literacy assessments, curriculum guidelines, instructional materials, teacher preparation programs, teacher evaluation systems, and professional development. This essay explores two…

Susana Dutro and Ellen Levy are leaders of E.L. Achieve, an organization dedicated to assisting educators in equipping English learners for academic achievement. They see adolescent English learners regularly confronting the challenge of developing the language needed to fully participate in middle and high school classrooms. Their approach to…

Julie Coiro is an assistant professor in the Reading Department at the University of Rhode Island. Her research focuses on adolescents' online reading comprehension development. She has served as co-editor of the "Handbook of Research in New Literacies" (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008), among many publications. In this interview, Coiro…

Michael W. Smith, a professor in Temple University's College of Education, focuses his research on how experienced readers read and talk about texts as well as what motivates adolescents' reading and writing in and out of school. He sees the recent research on adolescents' out-of-school literacies as a challenge to literacy educators to look at…

Darin Stockdill was a secondary school English and social studies teacher in Detroit. His early research with classroom instruction and professional development motivated him to begin doctoral study to explore how schools serving as research sites can become sites for professional development and collaboration. He finds an epistemic perspective on…

Donna E. Alvermann, Distinguished Research Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia in Athens, received recognitions and honors as a scholar/leader in adolescent literacy. Her thoughts about contexts for literacy learning challenge that the divide between in- and out-of-school literacy learning is real and needs…

David Moore interviews Fenice Boyd, an associate professor and associate dean for teacher education in the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. Sociocultural theory informs her work with multicultural literature and its uses across the curriculum. She asks educators to consider opportunity…

In this Research Connections column, Editor David Moore interviews Cynthia Greenleaf, Gayle Cribb, and Heather Howlett. Greenleaf codirects the Strategic Literacy Initiative and leads professional development projects in its Reading Apprenticeship instructional framework. Her approach to disciplinary literacy instruction is based on her findings…

Rene Saldana, Jr., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, is a writer of short stories, poetry, and novels. In order to get his storytelling right, he has relied on his memory when writing memoirs and consulted popular culture and family when writing fiction. In order to get his university teaching right, he reads seminal texts on…

Christine Garbe, a professor at the Institute for German Language and Literature Education at Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany, initially focused her research on youth's socialization as readers. Her professional textbooks in this area are innovative. International comparisons of youth's reading achievement drew her attention to…

Nancy L. Shanklin, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver, is the former director of the Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse, a joint project of the International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English. She advocates secondary-school coaching programs that apply what can be learned from experienced coaches…

This Research Connections column describes the background to and the research base for the San Diego Unified School Districts' federally funded Striving Readers Project. The curriculum for the project was developed out of a longitudinal study into the literacy experiences of secondary students in New Zealand and from exploratory work in San Diego…

Lorenza Lara, Secondary Literacy Coordinator for the Denver (CO) Public Schools, specializes in secondary English Learner (EL) education. According to Lorenza, EL research has shown that educators often confuse youths' regular development in a second language with literacy difficulties. This research also has demonstrated the individuality of…

Elizabeth G. Sturtevant, a professor of education at George Mason University, holds a 33-year record of college-level teaching, scholarship, and service that centers on adolescent literacy. Her research helps clarify the pressures that affect teachers' literacy instruction, the role of secondary school literacy coaches, and adolescent…

Times are exciting for adolescent literacy research! Researchers are examining adolescents' reading and writing like never before. This department, Research Connections, spotlights scholarly efforts aimed at improving classroom literacy instruction for adolescent learners. It takes a broad, disciplined-inquiry view of research, embracing…