The authors, members of the PISA/PIRLS Task Force, provide a summary of major gender differences in performance found overall on PISA 2009, along with relevant trends since 2000. The five countries represented by the authors are highlighted in this summary, which includes findings related to the interaction of engagement and reading literacy…

Linked text sets (LTS) offer a promising approach to bring together adolescent students and complex texts, such as those required by the Common Core State Standards, using strategic scaffolding. LTS include a variety of print and media texts that address a guiding question that is meaningful to students such as, "Why is growing up so…

In this column, the authors discuss emerging research in the field of adult digital literacy acquisition. The authors argue that the field of adult digital literacy acquisition has been under-researched, especially in relation to multiliteracies and multimodal literacy practices. Data emerging from a large scale mixed methods study of adults…

During the past several years, middle schools and high schools have been shifting their attention to disciplinary literacy. The Common Core State Standards are explicit in requiring teachers to teach the literacy of science, literature, and history, and even states that are not part of Common Core (such as Texas) are making this shift as well.…

This comparative case study describes the literacy practices of two groups of adolescents as they sought to solve authentic problems through engineering design processes. Three types of data were collected as the groups addressed these problems: video- and audio-recordings of their conversations; adolescent-generated products; and pre- and…

The wide adoption of the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the U.S. has increased expectations for all teachers to prepare all learners to read and write in academic ways. More knowledge is needed about instructional approaches that may lead adolescent English learners (ELs) to meet this goal. Developing academic literacy practices…

This article argues that every teacher is not a teacher of literacy, but instead posits that teachers in content areas must adapt literacy strategies to the content being taught and to the context in which that teaching occurs. Examples of adaptations of a literacy strategy for use in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies…

Countering reactionary attempts to ban social media from schools is a strong research based rationale for bringing social media into the literacy classroom. When used as a medium to explore literature--or more specifically for interactive character journaling--this medium exemplifies how meaning is created by individuals' interactions with…

Through a sharing of personal experience, this article aims to draw attention to the language of schooling--a language, both simple and sophisticated, that many schools, as institutions, devise to communicate with insiders and outsiders. The author argues that there is a mismatch between assumed best practices embedded in this language and the…

How might Korean/Korean American youth cope with everyday life as a minority or a model minority if they had early and consistent exposure to literature depicting the mirrored experiences of Korean/Korean Americans? This study employed qualitative methods and an interpretive approach which enhance understanding of the life experiences, literary…

New literacies research offers valuable insights into young people's everyday literacy practices. Teachers can use the kinds of research outcomes reported here to build on new literacies in appropriate ways for academic purposes.

This article introduces Critical Literature Pedagogy (CLP), a pedagogical framework for applying goals of critical literacy within the context of teaching canonical literature. Critical literacies encompass skills and dispositions to understand, question, and critique ideological messages of texts; because canonical literature is often…

This article shares two National Writing Project Teacher Consultants' interest in examining student engagement in writing flash fiction using mentor texts. Our two-week unit centered on two high school freshmen classes (one class identified as "at-risk" and another class identified as "college prep"), and we found the use…

Young children who are learning to negotiate print experience emerging literacy. For adults who are beginning entrance into the navigation and negotiation of print literacy, the term "burgeoning" is selected as a more accurate portrayal of the nature of literacy extension into adulthood. This phenomenological case study investigates the…

Digital tools have the potential to transform instruction and promote literacies outlined in the Common Core State Standards. Empirical research is examined to illustrate this potential in grades 6-12 instruction.