scholarly journals Creating a Book Club with a Critical Approach to Foster Literacy Practices

Folios ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 111-125
Author(s):  
Camila Chaves Barrera ◽  
Claudia Marcela Chapetón
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Book Club ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
After School ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
After School Program

This paper reports the pedagogical experience of creating a book club to foster the reading of short stories from a critical literacy perspective at a high school in Bogotá, Colombia. The Book Club arose as an after-school program where students, who were interested in the proposal, were free to join. First, the paper presents the fundamental concepts that guided the implementation. Then, it describes the central elements of the pedagogical experience: context, curricular platform, procedures, and activities. The final discussion centers on the role of a critical literacy approach that encouraged participants to go beyond concerns about the grammatical and linguistic aspects of the foreign language to focus on meaning-making. Also, to concentrate on responding and transacting with the texts while engaging in dialogic interactions that allowed them to share background knowledge, life experiences, social and individual issues of their realities and interests, and most importantly, enjoy the act of reading in a foreign language as it was seen as a social-situated practice.

Prospective Teachers’ “Turn toward the Critical” in Unofficial Spaces

2014 ◽  
pp. 156-169
Author(s):  
Heidi L. Hallman
Keyword(s):  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Prospective Teachers ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
After School ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
After School Program ◽  
Teaching Learning

This chapter discusses prospective teachers initiating and participating in a community-based after-school program for “at-risk” adolescents. Within this unofficial space, the author used this study to explore the potential for beginning teachers’ orientations to critical literacy to promote a commitment to teaching critically. This chapter also explored the ways that prospective teachers negotiate teacher identity. In contrast to an immediate socialization into “teacher as expert,” the work of prospective teachers in community-based sites facilitates a discussion of the appropriate role of teacher as well as the relationship between teacher/student and teaching/learning.

Picturebooks as Critical Literacy: Experiences and Perspectives of Translingual Children From Refugee Backgrounds

2021 ◽  
pp. 1086296X2110304
Author(s):  
Nermin Vehabovic
Keyword(s):  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Dialogic Reading ◽  
After School ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
School Program ◽  
Literacy Experiences ◽  
After School Program ◽  
Multiple Case

This multiple case study is part of a larger investigation of literacy practices in “Our Home,” an after-school program that provides learning support to children from refugee backgrounds. I asked, “What happens when translingual children from refugee backgrounds respond to multicultural, transnational, and translingual picturebooks?” Informed by critical literacy theories, I illuminate the experiences and perspectives of four children as they interacted with and engaged in dialogic reading of picturebooks; these critical literacy practices, along with observational data, are reported in profiles. Findings from this study reveal the ways in which children from refugee backgrounds found problematic aspects of assumptions in stories, reflected on different and contradictory perspectives, articulated the power relationships between characters, and offered alternative thoughts centered on social justice. This research expands the field’s knowledge of what doing critical literacy work with young translingual students in an after-school program looks, feels, and sounds like.

scholarly journals Engaging English as a Foreign Language Students in Critical Literacy Practices: The Case of a Teacher at a Private University

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Catalina Gómez Jiménez ◽  
Claudia Patricia Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
University Students ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Private University

This paper describes the process English as a foreign language university students and their teacher underwent when engaging in critical literacy practices. Interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, students’ artifacts, and the teacher’s journal were used to collect data in this study. Findings suggest that when students engage in critical literacy practices, they are prone to reflect on the power they have as agents of social change, while developing language skills. However, teachers should be ready to encounter some resistance from students and to struggle with the incorporation of critical perspectives in their lessons, which is understandable considering the emphasis grammar mastering has traditionally had on language teaching and learning.

Questioning the Assumptions of Youth Violence Prevention Programs: The Role of Reflexive Evaluation in Program Development

2003 ◽  
Vol os-20 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-63
Author(s):  
Jack L. Powell ◽  
Timothy Black
Keyword(s):  
Violence Prevention ◽  
Youth Violence ◽  
Intervention Programs ◽  
After School ◽  
Youth Violence Prevention ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
After School Program ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Violence Prevention Programs

Several violence prevention projects are described and critiqued. One particular pilot program conducted with 20 Hispanic youth is reviewed. Evaluation of this after-school program emphasizing violence prevention, vocational training, and peer education revealed that students acquired job readiness skills and self-confidence in making presentations before groups. However, the value of violence prevention training was minimal. We introduce the role of reflexive evaluation to question the underlying assumptions of intervention programs. Specific assumptions of this and of previous programs are identified and critically assessed to foster a dialogue that will modify present practices and generate new ideas for future intervention programs.

Aligning Children's Books With Digital Tools for Reader Response

2020 ◽  
pp. 232-259
Author(s):  
Kristin H. Javorsky ◽  
Laurie A. Friedrich ◽  
Lauri Nichols ◽  
Guy Trainin
Keyword(s):  
Struggling Readers ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
New Literacies ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
After School ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
After School Program ◽  
Authentic Literacy

Through an exploration of three vignettes, the authors share innovative ways young learners and their teachers are responding to children's literature using digital tools in the context of new literacies. In the first example, primary grade students use digital tools to gain agency in their literacy practices as part of project-based learning within a STEAM curriculum. In the second, struggling readers in an after-school program integrate traditional and out-of-school literacies to produce authentic literacy products outside the constraints of standards and established curricula. Finally, an example from a teacher education program shows how the next generation of teachers can become leaders in the use of new literacies through their own experiential learning. Despite the differences in context and content of each vignette, all three demonstrate strong use of literacies pedagogy to guide selection of digital tools for the creation and consumption of text.

scholarly journals Transnational Literacies as Social Remittances: The Role of Language Ideologies in Shaping Migrants’ Online Literacies

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-319
Author(s):  
Tony Capstick
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Social Remittances ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Similar Vein ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract It is now twenty years since the term ‘social remittances’ was taken up to capture the notion that migration involves the circulation of ideas, practices, identities, and social capital between destination and origin countries, in addition to the more tangible circulation of money. In a similar vein, a social theory of literacy sees practices not as observable units of behaviour but rather as social processes which connect people. To identify how literacy practices can be seen as social remittances, I identify how Usman, the key respondent in this study, goes about describing his first six months in the UK by tracing the meaning-making trajectories in our interviews together. I then explore the language and literacy choices that his family and friends make on Facebook as they remit ideas, beliefs, and practices in their transnational literacies. I examine how these practices are shaped by beliefs about language. The article seeks to understand the relationship between migrants’ literacy practices before and after their migrations and how these practices remit ideas and beliefs which maintain transnational migration.

scholarly journals The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale and the Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief: The Italian Validation of Two Instruments for Meaning-Focused Assessments of Bereavement

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Robert A. Neimeyer ◽  
Ines Testoni ◽  
Lucia Ronconi ◽  
Gianmarco Biancalani ◽  
Marco Antonellini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Stressful Life ◽  
Close Relative ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Spiritual Struggle ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Complicated Spiritual Grief ◽  
Stressful Life Experiences

Background: Bereavement is an inevitable event that can cause pain, discomfort, and negative consequences in daily life. Spirituality and religiosity can help people cope with loss and bereavement. Sometimes, however, the death of a loved one can challenge core religious beliefs and faith, which has been found to be a risk factor for prolonged mourning. Objectives: (1) Determine whether the Italian versions of the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (ISLES) and Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief (ICSG) are valid in translation; (2) Evaluate the impact of socio-demographic variables on ISLES and ICSG dimensions; (3) Test whether Complicated Spiritual Grief mediates the relation between meaning reconstruction after loss and integration of the loss experience; (4) Test whether the representation of death as a form of passage or annihilation further moderated the relation between Complicated Spiritual Grief and integration of the loss. Methods: The sample is composed of 348 participants who had lost a loved person in the prior two years. Results: The ISLES and ICSG were validated in Italian and are more appropriately interpreted as having a unifactorial structure. A greater spiritual crisis was manifested in participants with less education, who did not actively participate in religious life, and who had lost a friend rather than a close relative. As hypothesised, spiritual struggle in grief mediated the role of continuing bonds, Emptiness and Meaninglessness, and Sense of Peace in predicting integration of the loss. Furthermore, death representation moderated the impact of spiritual grief on loss, such that those participants who viewed death as a form of annihilation rather than passage reported greater integration of the loss. Conclusion: The role of meaning making in integrating significant loss is partly accounted for by spiritual struggle in a way that can be analysed in Italian contexts through the use of these newly validated instruments.

Incorporating Touch-Based Tablets into Classroom Activities

2016 ◽  
pp. 378-406
Author(s):  
Woonhee Sung ◽  
Junghyun Ahn ◽  
Shi Ming Kai ◽  
Ahram Choi ◽  
John B. Black
Keyword(s):  
Computational Thinking ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Physical Activities ◽  
After School ◽  
Stem Learning ◽  
Classroom Activities ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
After School Program ◽  
And Mathematics

This chapter explores the role of computational thinking in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning and proposes effective classroom strategies that foster computational thinking. In a study conducted in an elementary after school classroom, the authors found that incorporating Computational Perspective Practice (CPP) to STEM subjects fosters higher-level cognitive thinking skills as well as learning in STEM domain. The 10 week-long after school program demonstrates positive effects of incorporating CPP to embodied activities in mathematic units prior to programming practice on learning coding as well as mathematics. The chapter concludes with recommendations for interweaving physical activities and a tablet-based programming application into elementary-level STEM classrooms.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document