Describes the formalization of a minicourse in which middle school students would meet once a week for one hour to critique and redesign an embryonic website, investigate and document their environment, and figure out ways to incorporate into the website what they saw, wondered about, and learned. Evaluates the effectiveness of the minicourse. (SG)

Presents a project designed to break down barriers between immigrant and host-culture students using multiple forms of literacy. Focuses on Bosnian students who have recently immigrated to the United States via refugee camps and other nations. Demonstrates that encouraging results can occur when students and families are brought together in…

Considers how the process of efoliation, the peeling back of layers of learning and presenting it in an organized electronic format, holds tremendous promise. Believes that developing an electronic teaching portfolio can be an experience that supports and encourages the developing preservice teacher--an experience that combines reflection and…

Considers how the Harry Potter books help students and adults cope with the struggles of life. Presents several cases in which these books have helped specific students in important ways. (SG)

Considers how in recent years, media literacy education in the classroom has been viewed as a bridge to more sophisticated print literacy. Examines assumptions about the connections between popular media--using television as a specific example--and print literacies. Outlines three approaches to media literacy exploring advantages and disadvantages…

Explores "fanfiction" (fiction written by fans of mass culture, such as "anime," Japanese animation) as a valid literacy practice in the context of the Multiliteracies framework. Strives to understand youth culture better and to make school literacy instruction more responsive to learners' needs. Discusses "Anime" as a source for fanfictions.…

Indicates that the classroom culture and the relationship the teachers form with the students inspire student participation and pride in learning. Examines how agency functioned in an inquiry-based summer school program. Strives to understand how low-achieving students and their teachers perceived choice and decision-making roles while…

Shares the highlights of a teaching unit on bullying along with the effects it had on students and on the current teaching environment. Presents three sections representing prereading, during-reading, and postreading activities that teachers can implement in their own classrooms. Discovers that students were capable of taking a story to a higher…

Highlights how positive and productive student-teacher relationships were developed and sustained using new communication technologies during a program aimed at developing technological literacies for groups of Indigenous middle-school students in Australia. Suggests that incidental e-mail communication between teacher and student provides a new…

Traces an eighth-grade teacher's first year of teaching. Notes times of enthusiasm and fatigue: the "October Slump" and the "May Circus." Suggests that though teachers may be warned about certain slump times, only experience will help them through it. (PM)

Examines the kinds of framing and positioning issues that arise in service sites aimed at literacy learning. Looks at interactions between college students and the middle school students they tutored in after-school programs. Discusses the possibilities that arise when those who teach also serve. Argues that engaging in service learning with…

Investigates whether seventh-grade students who were exposed to the Accelerated Reader during elementary school tend to do more reading of books than those who did not have such exposure. Describes Accelerated Reader, a program in which books are given a point value on the basis of length and reading level. Proposes that students do not become…

Explores literacy performances as a way for students to empower themselves and effect social change. Describes a literacy group called Story Time in a youth-run center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youths. Concludes that literacy performances are a way into opportunities for social change for any marginalized reader and…

Explores strategies for literacy instruction that help high school seniors from different backgrounds expand their reading and writing skills. Examines how to differentiate instruction while keeping high expectations for all students. Describes a project which was based around the passions which sustain students. Details how this project included…

Proposes that literacy learning is social, recursive, personal, and idiosyncratic. Suggests that learning contracts orchestrate child centeredness and increase independence. Concludes that contracts connect previously isolated content area with the personal interests and needs of students, and establishes a classroom climate in which students are…