Elementary Education and Perspective-Taking

Empathy is an emotion that can be cultivated in childhood; as society moves more and more to the online word, however, empathy is needed as people are entering a global economy with people from various backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs. The researchers in this study provided a writing intervention to third grade students in order to promote perspective-taking skills that are displayed through their writing. The researchers developed a rubric to accurately determine the effects of the intervention on student writing and whether or not the students developed empathy for the characters studied. This study informed researchers that above all children make connections with all types of people, despite their differences. In addition to learning about the students, the researchers found that educators would benefit from professional development in order to help them teach students about different cultures and further promote perspective-taking.

Investigating the influence of expressive writing exercises on the working memory of middle adolescents and young adults in South Africa

This study investigated the influence of expressive writing on the working memory capacity of middle adolescents (learners 15–17 years old) and young adults (students 18–24 years old) in the South African context. The assumption underlying the research was that expressive writing about a stressful event would reduce unwanted thoughts and the resultant demand on cognitive resources, thereby increasing working memory capacity. Two experiments were conducted involving a sample of 28 school learners and a sample of 38 university students. In each experiment, the participants were assigned to three writing conditions: a factual event for the control group and either just a stressful event, or a solution to a stressful event, for the two experimental groups. It was postulated that the solution-focused group would gain the most from the expressive writing tasks. Working memory capacity assessments were conducted before and after the expressive writing intervention and again about 14 weeks later to test for a long-term effect on working memory capacity. A positive effect was found regarding the working memory capacity of the students, but there was no statistically significant improvement in the working memory capacity of the learners. Furthermore, although the results of the student groups did indicate that an expressive writing intervention may enhance working memory capacity, this effect was not mostly restricted to the solution-focused experimental groups as was hypothesised. Instead, the results suggested that expressive writing exercises may have had a positive effect on the memory performance of all three groups.

“Blackness is not just a single definition”: multimodal composition as an exercise for surfacing and scaffolding student theorizing in a Black Studies classroom

Purpose This study aims to investigate multimodal composition as an exercise or tool for teaching students theory building. To illustrate, an analysis of artifacts comprising a student’s multimodal composition, which was created in response to a multipart literacy assignment on theorizing Blackness, is analyzed. Design/methodology/approach Afrocentricity served as both theoretical moor and research methodology. Qualitative case study, focusing on the case of an individual student, was the research method used. Findings Multimodal composition was an effective exercise for surfacing the multidimensionality of a student’s complex knowledge while simultaneously placing the student in the powerful position of theorist. The process of composing multimodally integrated reading, writing and speaking skills while revealing the focal student’s need for targeted writing intervention. Practical implications The study evidences multimodal composition as a useful exercise for capturing students’ nuanced interpretations or students’ critical theorizing as well as meaningfully incorporating and assessing students’ literacy skills. Originality/value Exposure to preexisting theory alone relegates students to the realm of passive knowledge consumers. This undermines the emancipatory and justice-oriented objectives of critical education, which ideally contributes to social change by challenging dominant power structures and distorted perspectives of marginalized persons. To be empowered agentic learners, students need to be both taught how to theorize and engaged as theorists. This study shows how multimodal composition can be used as a liberatory literacy tool for those intertwined pedagogical purposes.