Reviews Sudia Paloma McCaleb's "Building Communities of Learners: A Collaboration among Teachers, Students, Families and Community," a recent book that talks about how literacy can be nurtured at home while parents and families can be brought into the schools. Compliments the book for its ability to connect complex ideas to the existing realities…

Uses action research methods to describe one classroom in order to urge English educators to invite their students to participate in literacy and social action. Suggests ways that Mikhail Bakhtin's literary theory can help English teachers and English educators discover and better understand the link of word and deed. (NH)

Considers new roles for English educators working toward advocacy, toward truly new knowledge, toward collaborative readings of culture and context, and away from hierarchies. Notes that educators must recognize that it will take everyone to create the educational systems that lead to truly democratic literacies. (SC)

Finds the metaphor of reading the classroom as "text" is (1) easy in that all it takes is an orientation that asks what the classroom has to teach; and (2) difficult in that what it has to teach is complex, multi-layered, and often conflictive. Provides a heuristic to guide teachers in viewing and understanding the classroom as text. (NH)

Teachers are likely to create authentic learning environments for their students only if such contexts exist for them. However, it is more important than ever to look closely at professional development spaces that have been sustained over time in order to bolster teachers' agency, giving them the courage to teach against the grain. In this…