Boys' literacy underachievement continues to garner significant attention and has been identified by journalists, educational policymakers, and scholars in the field as the cause for much concern. It has been established that boys perform less well than girls on literacy benchmark or standardized tests. According to the National Assessment of…

This study is shaped by an underlying theoretical assumption that literacy is a cultural practice, shaped by and shaping social factors such as culture, gender, politics, and economics. As a result, this article focuses on the literacy practices of two mothers who participated in the study. Because of their Aboriginal ancestry and the historical…

As the second decade of the new millennium begins, the authors state that it would seem appropriate to look once again at the status of literacy education as it affects adolescents and adults. Each year since 1997, an article appears in the periodical "Reading Today" listing the topics in literacy that are receiving varying degrees of attention,…

Modeled in this column is the teaching of a text mapping routine that supports students reading and remembering the salient features of the text. The authors renamed the story mapping technique "text mapping plus" because they found that as students added relational words and graphics to their maps their retells of both fiction and nonnarrative…

Although United States citizens generally pride themselves on their understanding and acceptance of diversity, all too many of them harbor a fear of Muslims, which transformed into widespread bigotry after September 11, 2001. Knowing that young adult literature can be a powerful means of negotiating understanding of the other, this article…

In this article, the authors address the construct of "academic vocabulary." First, they attempt to bring some clarity to a constellation of terms surrounding academic vocabulary. Second, they compare and contrast definitions of academic vocabulary. Third, they review typologies that researchers and writers have proposed to organize academic…

The film "No Impact Man" tells the story of 40-something Colin Beavan, his wife Michelle Conlin, their 2-year-old daughter Isabella, and dog Frankie and their decision to go "off the grid" in an effort to have no personal net impact on the environment for a year while living in New York City. The film highlights the family's struggles to stay true…

This article reports on findings from a school-based action research project with aboriginal adolescent students attending an alternative school in Canada. As a Freirean response to these marginalized students' school failures, the researcher engaged students in a critical multiliteracies approach to language and literacy learning. Based on…

Critical literacy has been on the map of literacy pedagogy internationally since the time of Freire, and more commonplace in the United States in the last few decades. However, in this column the authors argue that the common practices of critical literacy are insufficient for critical engagement with texts. The tools of critical literacy are…

In an October 2008 "JAAL" Commentary, Moje took issue with the teaching of generic reading strategies in the middle and high school content areas. She argued for teachers to provide "disciplinary literacy" instruction, focusing on the specific kinds of reading and writing that go on in content areas. The present article concurs with that argument…

This study investigated average yearly reading growth norms of at-risk middle school students as a function of start of year reading grade level. Data for this study were collected from an urban school in the western United States over five years and tracked the yearly growth of 2,485 seventh- and eighth-grade students using a Lexile-linked…

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…

This article presents the author's response to Rafael Heller's critique of her commentary on foregrounding the disciplines in secondary school literacy teaching and learning. Heller challenges the idea of approaching secondary literacy instruction from a disciplinary perspective by arguing that rather than teach young people the literate practices…

Members of a site of the California Writing Project conducted the study in this article in partnership with a large, urban, low-SES school district where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. Over an eight-year period, a relatively stable group of 55 secondary teachers engaged in…

This essay examines the problem of defining critical thinking and demonstrates how critical thinking is less a determinable process or set of procedures than a constellation of attitudes, habits of mind, role relations, and participation motives. It demonstrates further why college instruction in critical thinking in composition…