Language Arts - Volume 85, Issue 1, 2007

This study describes the interactions of three adult-child reading partnerships in a program that matches corporate volunteers with “at risk” students for weekly hour-long story reading sessions. Using discourse analysis within a sociocultural framework, the researcher identified variation in the way these partners were constructing the act and purposes of reading.

This study describes one kindergarten classroom in which informational books and other nonfiction resources were used in the context of a long-term scientific study. Children became proficient in locating information and interpreting content-specific textual features in the process of making sense of their scientific observations and sharing them in a collaborative community. In turn, they expressed their growing knowledge through informational writing and visual representations. The evolving social dynamics of the classroom played a key role in the children’s learning.

This article focuses on the evolution of the classroom literacy block as a learning space where teachers and students renegotiated activities for independent vocabulary and word work within a high–stakes reform environment. When a second grade classroom teacher and literacy support specialist decided to co-teach, they invited all students in the classroom community to design and manage independent activities.

This paper describes a collaborative relationship between a community member and an eighth grade English teacher that was documented through an ethnographic study during an entire school year. The community member taught a weekly poetry workshop where students are encouraged to take risks in their writing and also take a critical stance towards various topics with their writing. The supportive environment and critical engagement led to what I refer to as a “metaphorical space” where students could use creative language to envision possibilities and communicate their knowledge while developing their knowledge of language and literacy.

In this policy essay, Jay Lemke urges us to “re-engineer education” so that instead of offering an outdated and ineffectual technology of education called “formal schooling,” we might create multi-generational, multi-site environments where communities collaborate to develop knowledge, deep understanding and critical perspectives.

This study describes how an African American teenager documents the gentrifying urban landscape of New York City’s Harlem, critiques the increasing presence of whiteness in the area, and makes connections between his urban community and the rural community of a 6th grader by performing narratives of place.

In anticipation of the “Expanding Spaces for Learning” themed issue of Language Arts, we wanted to create a context in which leading theorists and educators could be in dialogue about transforming spaces and ways of learning.

With the increasing number of books published for children each year in the US (according to Publisher’s Weekly sales figures for US trade books in 2004 were $22.8 billion) we sometimes neglect to look beyond our own borders to discover the many excellent authors and illustrators from around the world who are creating wonderful books for children. These talented people often bring important insights to stories of the human condition.

Children and educators from two continents learn together through the sharing of art, poetry, music, native language, letters, e-mails, stories, literature, gifts, and resources. Through the celebration of sharing one another’s lives, the children have opened their eyes to awareness of culture first hand as they bond the global educational community through friendship and love.