<p> This investigation explores the manifestation of motivation as well as the systematic strategies that speech-language pathology graduate students employ to facilitate motivation in struggling learners. A qualitative paradigm was utilized to study three participant dyads, each one consisting of a child with a language disorder and a speech-language pathology graduate student. The primary source of data was video transcript analysis of a total of 17 representative shared reading sessions. The findings of this study demonstrate that motivation to participate in shared reading is manifested in the continued willingness of the child to participate in shared reading and that motivation was facilitated by the graduate clinician via a variety of therapeutic strategies. </p><p> Eleven common patterns emerged. 1) motivation as sustained participation, 2) a distinct set of functional therapeutic strategies were employed, 3) a wide range of therapeutic strategies were employed, 4) variable but systematic application of the different strategies, 5) interweaving of bursts of mediation and singular episodes of mediation, 6) utilization of collaborative therapeutic strategies/culture of co-investigation, 7) a high level of support prior to turn allocation, 8) successful communicative and reading attempts, 9) responsive collaboration by participants, 10) engagement even in the presence of struggle, and 11) rare occurrence of avoidant behaviors. Results indicate that motivation to engage in learning to read was the result of a wide range of instructional, evaluative, and interactional strategies that worked together to promote motivation to read. In response to these strategies, each participant produced responses that were overwhelmingly successful and even expected. These key variables helped to facilitate therapeutic interaction that was characterized by motivation and success.</p><p> Ultimately, it is apparent that motivation to read is best facilitated by complex, multi-faceted strategy use led by instructional strategies with a significant presence of evaluative and interactional strategies. It can be concluded that the participant behaviors that indicate motivation include primarily successful, expected responses that were facilitated by meaningful, strategic interactional devices.</p>

Research has shown that language arts can provide a motivating and meaningful way for learners to interact and hence, help promote second language acquisition. Aiming to examine the feasibility of the incorporation of language arts into the Hong Kong New Senior Secondary (NSS) English Language Curriculum, this study sought voices from the main parties involved in the innovative change through investigating students’ responses to language arts and teachers’ efforts to shape the curriculum innovation. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from a local secondary school. Student questionnaires were administered to 129 senior secondary students (grades 11‐12) in this study. Focus group interviews with 14 students and semi‐structured individual interviews with 11 English language teachers were also conducted to explore senior secondary students’ and teachers’ views towards the use of language arts materials in their classrooms and to elicit their perceived advantages and constraints of integrating language arts into the NSS English Language curriculum at school. Although the students and teachers expressed positive views on language arts as a result of enjoying different learning activities and opportunities for collaborative learning, they displayed mixed feelings about its conduciveness for enhancing learners’ English proficiency and preparing for the public examination – the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE). The study concludes that in initiating an innovative change in the Hong Kong school context, teachers encounter challenges, such as time constraints, syllabus coverage, their self‐efficacy and readiness that evolve mostly due to the paradigm shift from traditional to contemporary pedagogies. Pedagogical implications are discussed and suggestions are presented to overcome such constraints to enhance the workability of such innovations in the local secondary education setting. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study investigates the effects of writers attending to the informational needs of their readers at different times during composing. Each of 76 university freshmen enrolled in 7 sections of freshman composition and literature was randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: (1) no attention to audience, (2) attention to audience before and during drafting, (3) attention to audience before and during revising, and (4) attention to audience before and during both drafting and revising. Students' original and revised essays were scored holistically for overall quality and given separate holistic scores for organization, structure, development, grammar and mechanics, and attention to audience. Due to lower inter-rater reliability and other factors that are fully discussed, the study yielded no significant results.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate whether or not there was any change in behavior on the part of teachers who participated in a university graduate level course which used an inservice format. The course in question was on the effective construction of elementary school language arts curriculum. The subjects were those who had taken the course and who volunteered to participate in the study. Ten of the twenty who finished the course volunteered. The data was collected by conducting two interviews and administering two questionnaires. During the interviews, the research technique of stimulated recall was used to help the subjects remember past experiences. The first questionnaire determined to what extent the subjects were likely to distort their self-reporting on the second questionnaire. The second questionnaire was used to collect data in reference to how the subjects saw their roles within the framework of the inservice course. Instrumentation consisted of: Interview quides, Part I and Part II; the Reynolds Social Desirability Scale; and the Role Perception Scale. All but the Reynolds Social Desirability Scale were developed by the researcher. An analysis of the data provided ample evidence to support the following conclusions: (1) A university level graduate course in language arts curriculum development can be regarded as inservice education. (2) A positive change in the way teachers think about the influence of effective curriculum development on student growth can occur within the framework of a graduate level course in elementary school language arts curriculum construction. (3) Teachers actually implement their personal language arts curriculums constructed as a course requirement for a graduate level course in elementary school language arts curriculum construction. (4) The university instructor plays a prominent role in bringing about change in thinking and behavior on the part of teachers taking a university graduate level course in elementary school language arts curriculum construction.

No description available.

<p> Gender, physiological states, self-regulation, and writing achievement in relation to student writing self-efficacy were examined using a mixed-method approach. Student writing self-efficacy, physiological states, and self-regulation were investigated through surveys and student interviews. Male and female students were selected from two northeast Georgia suburban high schools. Student achievement was measured from the Georgia Milestones test given to 11th grade Language Arts students. A 3 x 2 ANOVA was conducted to research the significance of gender, physiological states, self-regulation, and achievement with writing. Students were given two surveys on self-regulation and writing self-efficacy. </p><p> Findings revealed certain physiological states, such as how a student feels when writing, and self-regulation, how a student copes with these physiological states and how the student adjusts to overcome these obstacles significantly interact with one another. However, writing self-efficacy did not make a significant difference on writing achievement. Writing self-efficacy, physiological states, self-regulation, and writing achievement were gender neutral, meaning gender did not have a significant interaction or make a difference on the results of the surveys or achievement in writing through the Georgia Milestones. </p><p> This research was conducted so that findings could be of value to educators when teaching writing and help them understand the intrinsic value of writing, as well as to make educators aware of the physiological states students experience when writing, to help them better understand how students self-regulate when writing, and to demonstrate how this may play a role in writing achievement.</p>

This thesis had its inception in the mind of the writer when, disturbed by third grade children's lack of interest and low level of linguistic achievement, she endeavored to find both a more effective means of encouraging children to acquire the tools of language and a more effective method of teaching children the fundamentals of language arts. The writer determined, therefore, to investigate an integrated language arts program in the hope that it would prove to be a more effective method of teaching.

In Manitoba, a new English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum focusing on language and literacy practices invites learners to authentically and meaningfully engage with a variety of texts in the classroom. This thesis supports educators by valuing their professional judgment, as they are provided with researched text selection criteria and called upon to evaluate and choose texts of rich quality for use with children in classrooms in the beginning years of school (Kindergarten–Grade 2). Drawing upon this ELA curriculum, the author questions, provides insight, and reflects on how a variety of multimodal texts could be incorporated into the classroom learning by interweaving the four key literacy and language practices that represent valued ways of thinking, being, and doing in ELA. The author’s insights are presented in a written workshop format, in which a critical literacy stance is adopted in order to examine, discuss, and analyze an assortment of multimodal texts. / May 2016

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

The personal literacy experiences English Language Arts (ELA) teachers have are an important factor in shaping their pedagogical thinking about literacy. More research is needed, however, on the relationship between literacy experiences and pedagogical thinking for preservice teachers implementing new literacies such as transmedia stories. Transmedia stories are an emerging twenty-first century storytelling form in which a narrative is told over multiple texts and media platforms and is often extended further by reader contributions. Theoretical research has suggested that transmedia stories can be used in the ELA classroom to teach both traditional literacies and 21st century literacies. While researchers, scholars, and educators have begun to theorize about how such stories might benefit literacy and ELA education, little empirical research exists as to how these narratives are perceived by teachers and how this new literacy might actually be implemented in a classroom. Research is needed on how preservice ELA teachers engage with transmedia stories and how this relates to their perceptions of teaching this new literacy. The current study addressed this research need by investigating how preservice ELA teachers perceived, read, and created transmedia stories and how they saw implementing these texts in an ELA classroom. Specifically, this study asked: 1) In what ways does engaging with a transmedia story influence how preservice ELA teachers perceive transmedia stories?; 2) In what ways does reading a transmedia story influence how preservice ELA teachers perceive implementing transmedia stories in the classroom?; and 3) In what ways does creating a transmedia extension text influence how preservice ELA teachers perceive implementing transmedia stories in the classroom? To investigate these questions, the study used Hawley-Turner and Hicks’ (2015) Connected Reading Model as a theoretical framework to conceptualize transmedia stories as a new literacy that encourages different ways of encountering, engaging with, and evaluating texts. An exploratory case study design was used, and data were collected from ten preservice ELA teachers in a purposefully selected course on adolescent literacy and young adult literature through a pre-and post-survey, reading logs, a reflection, a participant-created transmedia extension text, a visual map of reading, an individual interview, and a focus group. The data sources were analyzed through inductive, deductive, and focused coding. From this analysis, the study found that the preservice teachers perceived transmedia stories as enjoyable, immersive, interactive, creative, and social and saw implementing these stories in an ELA classroom to: engage students; develop technological and media literacy; scaffold to canonical literature; and develop comprehension, literary analysis, and writing skills. While the preservice teachers experienced transmedia story engagement as a new literacy and were optimistic about the new possibilities afforded by such engagement, these results suggest that the preservice teachers most often perceived implementing these texts as tools to scaffold to the standards and goals of a traditional ELA curriculum and were less likely to integrate transmedia storytelling as a transformative new literacy defined by the new ethos elements they experienced and identified. These findings reflect research on how teachers often leverage new literacies to teach a traditional curriculum. The findings also suggest that preservice teachers negotiate between experience and ideology when implementing new literacies, sifting through their personal literacy experiences for where these experiences align with their existing education ideologies when thinking about how to implement new literacies. Building on such research, the study aims to contribute to transmedia studies research, teacher education research, and the field of English Education by investigating how the sample of preservice ELA teachers engaged with and perceived teaching transmedia stories and by paving the way for future empirical research on transmedia stories, new literacy implementation, and preservice teacher education. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Teacher Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2017. / August 31, 2017. / english education, new literacies, preservice teachers, teacher education, transmedia stories / Includes bibliographical references. / Shelbie Witte, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Sherry Southerland, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Don Latham, University Representative; John Myers, Committee Member; Melissa Gross, Committee Member.