English Language Learners and Mainstream Instruction to Enhance SEL Literacy

This chapter is grounded in the five social-emotional learning (SEL) core competencies within the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework. The authors present approaches and benefits associated with integrating SEL into literacy development for mainstream students at every grade level. Additionally, they explore how this integration supports English language learners in both academic and non-academic ways. Based on professional experience supported by current research, the authors offer how the incorporation of SEL into literacy instruction supports students' motivation, attitude, peer connections, and academic skill development.

Promoting Self-Awareness and Social Awareness in Middle School Students Through Literature Featuring Diverse Characters

High-quality narrative and informational texts can provide young adolescents with mirrors which reflect their lived experiences and windows into the lives of those with whom they are less familiar. These texts can connect with the social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies of self-awareness and social awareness. Connections between SEL programs and integration with literacy practices are described. Literacy approaches grounded in reader response theory and critical literacy theory provide the basis for reading and understanding diverse texts and support the development of SEL competencies. The chapter presents criteria for selecting high-quality literature, 13 text recommendations for self-awareness and social awareness, and ideas for activities and discussion.

Using Activism to Cultivate Social and Emotional Learning in the English Language Arts Classroom

English teachers' use of reading and writing instruction in a social justice-focused curriculum can include social action projects that encourage students to get involved in activism and also promotes social and emotional learning. This chapter outlines the research behind and steps towards using reading and writing in ways that encourage students to get involved in activism. The assignments and lessons suggested also include social and emotional learning competencies. Two specific texts are used to provide readers with concrete examples of implementing the ideas presented in classrooms.

Students Serving Moms and Meeting the Social and Emotional Needs of Children

This chapter focuses on early childhood, the social and emotional needs of children and their families, use of technology, and use of children's literature in both print form and through digital means. Readers will learn about a service project called Students Serving Moms. Through this service project, pre-service teachers, or education majors, from a teacher preparation program alongside other college students at the university, work with families in the community. This relational service project continued in spite of restrictions from the pandemic due to the members of Students Serving Moms embracing change and using virtual means to work with the children of all abilities and ages in efforts to meet the social and emotional needs of the children. This chapter will benefit teacher educators who may want to replicate this service project at their institutions whether virtually or through face-to-face means. Pre-service teachers will also benefit from reading this chapter as they consider ways they can create connections with children through developmentally appropriate practices.

Gaming Literacy and Its Potential for Teaching Social and Emotional Learning to Adolescent Children

As interactive multimodal texts, video games can teach SEL because of their unique affordances. This chapter investigates how playing video games can teach literacy to adolescent children while also cultivating their opportunities to develop SEL skills. SEL is defined, as is the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) SEL Framework, a set of five competencies that also considers the nested environments that children inhabit. Next, emerging research on adolescent neuroplasticity when video games are used as an SEL intervention is reviewed. How the consumption of interactive media, like video games, affects well-being is explored, followed by the ways in which video games teach literacy through a variety of modalities. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how games and games genre map and align to CASEL's SEL framework.

Supporting Learner Social-Emotional Learning and Literacy in Virtual Environments

An exploratory and descriptive case study of the experiences of secondary learners at a community-based learning center on the Caribbean coast in Latin America, this study explores how the Casa Morpho Community of Learners (CoL) model met the socio-emotional (SEL) and literacy needs of adolescents within various virtual environments during the quarantine in Costa Rica. Using lesson plans, teachers' reflective notes, and a developed Learners reflective survey, the following questions were addressed: 1) How did Casa Morpho's curriculum support learners in virtual environments, and with their SEL and literacy needs during the COVID-19 pandemic? 2) What practices were used and how do learners perceive those experiences?

Young Adult Literature as a Means for Developing and Supporting Socio-Emotional Learning

Addressing the social and emotional needs of students is not only vital, but it should be a priority for all teachers. Teaching social and emotional skills directly influences students' academic ability. Yet, many schools and classrooms do not see the connection between their instruction and curriculum with SEL. Often, schools have set aside a portion of the school day, or a few minutes at the end of the class period, to check in with students or teach specific skills. One way that students can explore their own identities and build a sense of agency is through the use of young adult literature. There are many ways that teachers can incorporate YA in the classroom to build SEL. This chapter focuses on how three current in-service teachers use YAL to address SEL in their classrooms. They each provide a brief background of who they are, their beliefs about using YAL to address SEL in their classrooms, and authentic examples from their instruction. Using these descriptions, the authors hope this chapter will help promote using YAL to address SEL in classrooms.

Literacy as a Support for Social-Emotional and Academic Growth

This overview of childhood brain development makes targeted connections between social-emotional learning (SEL) and instructional supports. Emphasis is placed on how interactions between caregivers/teachers, children, and the environment inform early SEL and literacy skill development. Specific attention is paid to delayed social-emotional development and behavior disorders. Multimodal text sets are offered as a way to increase classroom awareness and understanding related to autism, ADD/ADHD, and ODD. SEL resources and support organization information is also provided.

The Emotional Affordances of Visual Literacy Pedagogy

This chapter focuses on the experience of three educators in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As much as possible, the researcher has worked to maintain the voices of the teachers and highlights concepts of self-expression, editing, and processing of emotions and trauma through traditional and multimodal texts. Findings from the study have implications for the ways that teachers experience traumatic events, the ways that writing can be used for classroom instruction across a variety of modes, and the ways that major political and social events are processed by educators.

Instructional Interactions and Literacy

Teacher social emotional competence has been connected to literacy development as well as broader academic outcomes through the domains of Emotional Support and Classroom Organization of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Despite these findings, teacher development has yet to place an emphasis on social emotional skill development in line with such research. Drawing on diffusion of innovations literature, the authors offer a conceptual model that ties teacher social emotional skill development directly to the instructional support domain of the CLASS, thereby increasing the compatibility of social emotional learning to teaching and learning outcomes, including literacy. The analysis identified perspective-taking and social cue recognition as key opportunities for instructionally-aligned teacher social emotional skill development. The authors make recommendations for methods to increase these skills for teachers.