This study examined 6th graders' use of the VoiceThread app as part of a science inquiry project on photosynthesis and carbon dioxide emissions in terms of their ability to engage in causal reasoning and their use of the affordances of multimodality, collaboration, interactivity, and connectivity. Students employed multimodal production using…

The article examines high school students' writing composition practices in multimodal instructional environments. We use Rosenblatt's transactional theory to look across the findings of 2 studies that blend traditional and digital modes of instruction in order to explore how modal switching can support students' reading and…

We explore the use of iPads in a diverse urban high school and the ways in which teachers and students were supported to integrate these tools into their instruction. We provided 4 English teachers with 20 iPads with little or no professional development about how to integrate them into their instruction. Using a formative experiment design, we…

This article explores the relationship between critical literacy practice, digital media production, and civic agency in the Council of Youth Research, a youth participatory action research program in which Los Angeles high school students conduct research and create dynamic, multimedia presentations as leaders of a growing youth movement for…

This article examines the case studies of 2 middle grades professional learning communities that focused on teaching and learning with new literacies strategies. The new literacies theoretical lens that frames this study recognizes literacy as multimodal (e.g., print, image, sound) and tied to one's sociocultural identities and…

Dozier illuminates the notion of intellectual unrest and the complexities of mandated professional development for teachers. She challenges readers to reconsider how mandated professional development is crafted and invites literacy coaches to become collaborative critical designers of practices with teachers to help them navigate competing…

Explicit strategy instruction combined with student-directed self-regulation in conjunction with cognitive strategies has proven effective in supporting low-achieving students' reading comprehension. Experts have extended 1 such approach, self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) for the expository reading comprehension Think before reading,…

Historically speaking, reading and writing among African Americans were collaborative acts involving a wide range of texts that held social, economic, political, or spiritual significance. One of the constants of literacy collaboratives was being regularly and purposefully engaged with print within a meaningful social context. During the summer of…

Parental incarceration, poverty, urban violence, and drug use can be underlying factors of academic achievement gaps between Black urban males and their counterparts. These risk factors have the potential to position low-income urban students as struggling readers. Two qualitative case studies obtained from a larger mixed methods study illustrate…

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of a passage-copying measure that could be used to indicate general writing proficiency among secondary school English language learners. Participants were 57 students in 3 high school English as a second language classes. Alternate-form reliabilities for passage copying were…

This article argues that reading interventions are a key dropout prevention strategy. A review of the literature connects reading skills and interventions with events such as grade retention, placement in special education, and high school dropout. In general, data indicate that intensive early interventions positively affect students' reading…

The transition to adult life for students with reading and writing challenges is an area that is not often addressed. The purpose of this article is to relate the informal assessment process to the broader context of high stakes assessment, high school exit exams, diploma options, and transition planning; identify the competencies needed for a…

In this qualitative teacher-researcher one-year classroom study, the author focused upon the literacy strategies that four low-achieving writers used while creating and interpreting music video compositions. The students read a variety of musical and video texts as they composed their own music video project. The guiding question of this research…

This article focuses on representations of youth identity and culture that circulated in a long-term teacher and researcher study group. These representations are important to examine because the way that teachers of adolescents envision their students' identities and cultures relative to that of other adolescents is fundamental to how they…

One of the challenges of providing students with disabilities access to the general education curriculum is their skill in using grade-level materials. Due to their expository nature and specialized vocabulary, textbooks in particular pose challenges for students. This article presents an activity that promotes familiarity with textbook structures…