This article explores how research-based principles of vocabulary instruction, embedded in the learning cycle, may be enacted through a variety of strategies across the four core curricular disciplines. Examples of the strategies are provided, drawn from English, mathematics, social studies, and science.

Research establishes that boys underperform in literacy relative to girls. If boys are to be successful on the assessments designed to measure achievement on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and if they are to become lifelong readers, they must be motivated to embrace instruction designed both to prepare them for success and to experience…

This paper describes an analysis of 21 adolescent literacy leaders' tweets over a total of four days. Coding of the tweets revealed that professional educators were tweeting about personal matters nearly as much as they are tweeting about educational matters. These tweeters also suggested resources, sent reports from events such as…

Given the global escalation of gaps between rich and poor, contemporary work in critical literacy needs to overtly question the politics of poverty. How and where is poverty produced, by what means, by whom and for whom and how are educational systems stratified to provide different kinds of education to the rich and the poor? Yet rather than…

Growing efforts in the study of digital literacies push for continued (re)shaping of policy and pedagogical interventions. In this column, we take up concerns in participatory cultures to revisit a longstanding issue pertaining to language. Evident in the literature on digital literacies is an implicit treatment of language, particularly around…

In a time of increased standardization and top-down reform, teachers with democratic and social justice-oriented perspectives must work to create classroom spaces that value student voice and position them as knowledge holders. This article draws on a critical literacy framework to analyze the case study of one teacher working within a teacher…

This commentary offers a critique of literacy pedagogy that focuses solely upon a best practices approach to teaching and learning and argues for a relational pedagogy that relies upon diffractive thinking, reading, and writing.

Digital badges are web-enabled tokens of accomplishment that contain specific claims and evidence about learning and achievement along with detailed evidence supporting those claims. Badges traditionally consist of an image and relevant metadata (e.g., badge name, description, criteria, issuer, evidence, date issued, standards, and tags). This…

This article explores the ways "gamification" can play a role in adolescents' development of vocabulary. Gamification involves the application of game-design thinking and play elements to non-game activities, such as routine homework or classroom lessons. Drawing upon data from in-school and after-school settings, the authors…

Meeting today's challenges in education requires more than adopting new standards. We must ask ourselves if our schools are intellectual communities, places where students are challenged to become the creative, collaborative, questioning thinkers we need them to be.

Increasing recreational reading is a priority in a climate of growing adolescent aliteracy. Raising the social appeal of books has been identified as one potential avenue for arresting this trend. An understanding of the current social acceptability of book reading amongst contemporary adolescents is important in informing an effective approach to…

This article responds to the need for more student voices in digital literacies research by discussing the results of interviews with two college students concerning the roles that their non-academic digital literacy practices can play in first-year college writing courses. The author reviews recent literature that has indicated that value of…

In this column, the author considers critiques of multiliteracies in light of the impact of the seminal article, A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. The author argues that the concept of multiliteracies has been reified and the original meaning of multi has been lost over the years. Particular attention is paid to Leander and…

Adolescents often bring popular culture into school, but often these literacies are not embraced or taught in the English classroom. The author makes the case for using "Glee" in the classroom by demonstrating its persuasive power to disrupt heteronormative notions of gender and sexuality with teens. The author uses a feminist rhetorical…

This article argues that exploration of media coverage of a story like the Boston Marathon bombings, including online comments posted by readers, can support youth in reflecting on and thinking critically about a tragedy while offering opportunities for literacy pedagogy consistent with the goals of the Common Core State Standards for English…