Questions whether traditional schooling will survive electronically mediated changes. Notes that "pop culture pedagogy" uses many modes of transmission that are capable of presenting a variety of textual forms, and that popular music offers provocative texts. Samples issues surrounding pop culture and nonschool literacy that are central to the…

Explores fiction for adolescents and young adults published by Longacre Press, New Zealand, a small independent publishing house founded in 1994. Notes teenage fiction is a specialist area of this publisher although they also publish general nonfiction, historical, and art books. Discusses works published in the themes of clashes and coping,…

Defines "culture,""identity," and "struggling reader" and explores several assumptions underlying the cultural construction of struggling readers and how such assumptions influence their reading identities. Uses those assumptions to interpret a case study of a ninth-grade boy. Offers suggestions based on the student's case for working with other…

Uses the "ABCs" of lesson planning so teachers can put the theory of active learning into practice and make learning more meaningful for their students. Concludes that teachers can make reading and learning more meaningful for their students by tying together the three themes of building student interest through attention grabbers, teaching the…

Explains that the author reads the Harry Potter books because of their impact on middle-school-age kids and their appeal to children ages 9 to 15. Explains also that she works in professional development, especially literacy, and that she connects kids and teachers to the books. Admits that she reads the books because "they are wonderful." (SG)

Examines adolescents who faced many comprehension challenges when studying diverse history content. Focuses on the challenges that an innovative history chapter with embedded texts presents to middle-grade students and the strategies and stances that student readers use in relation to these challenges. Examines the nature of students' historical…

Examines literacy and work in a high-performance workplace: a factory in South Africa. Conducts the study where workers have secure jobs and are part of a globalised enterprise with a declared policy of empowering workers. Shows that the employees commonly experience their workplace as a highly stressful environment where new learning and…

Situates reading within a broad perspective that integrates work on cognition, language, social interaction, society, and culture. Argues that reading and writing cannot be separated from speaking, listening, and interacting, on the one hand, or using language to think about and act on the world, on the other. Introduces "social languages" as a…

Suggests that aspirations to de-school society and empower young people to be independent producers of culture are part of a wider debate. Notes that new partnerships between school and popular culture need to be developed at a number of different levels. (SG)

Describes a course on the use of technologies for learning that studies the World Wide Web, multimedia, communication and collaboration software, tutoring systems, virtual reality, and other new digital technologies. Explores what educators are beginning to learn from this investigation of the past and future of learning technologies through use…

Notes that while many adults seem to be rejoicing in the fact that the Harry Potter books have brought the pleasures of book reading to a new generation of young readers, Harry Potter is also entering the realm of popular media culture. Discusses and analyses the effect Harry Potter books have on children and on society. (SG)

Describes a project that restructured the curriculum of a remedial reading course to incorporate a critical literacy pedagogy, and which led to skill improvements for the students. Notes that the curriculum developed emphasizes the interrelatedness of processes of reading and writing as well as critical reading and writing within an academic…

Presents annotations of 30 works of adolescent literature (published in 1999) chosen as the result of voting by students in five different regions of the United States. Notes that the goals of the project are to encourage young people to read and to make teens, teachers, librarians, and parents aware of new literature for young adults. (SG)

Considers how adolescent discourse patterns outside of school can illuminate the stance students take in the classroom. Presents a narrative of two seventh-grade students, both marginalized by the academic and social aspects of school. Notes how in attempts to be accepted, both boys used the power of language to establish a dominant stance in the…

Looks at a cross-curriculum innovation in which students engage in reading, writing, problem solving, interaction with simulations and databases, and performing various hands-on activities. Describes a project that provides students with the opportunity to participate in many of the new literacies while teachers learn new skills using these same…