Esse trabalho apresenta investigações sobre um curso de formação docente para professores de Ensino Fundamental da escola pública, levando-se em conta conceitos sobre treinamento e formação continuada. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa interpretativa de cunho etnográfico, orientada pelas teorias dos letramentos (COPE e KALANTZIS, 2000,2013; LANKSHEAR E KNOBEL, 2008; GEE, 2000), com enfoque nos letramentos críticos (CERVETTI ET Al., 2001; MONTE MÓR, 2010, 2011, 2013; JORDÃO, 2013; MENEZES de SOUZA, 2011). A investigação tomou como base as seguintes perguntas norteadoras: 1. O que um trabalho colaborativo de formação de professores pode revelar sobre o ensino de língua inglesa para uma sociedade digital e globalizada? 2. Que possibilidades podem emergir dentro de um contexto de letramentos que contribuem para um projeto de formação de professores? A investigação de campo foi conduzida através de observações, entrevistas abertas e registros em diários reflexivos orientaram as análises de pesquisa. O plano da pesquisa visou promover um deslocamento de olhares, tanto da professora-formadora/ pesquisadora, quanto do professor-colaborador. Este trabalho colaborativo de formação de professores considerou a co-responsabilidade e agência do professor- colaborador, inserido num mundo globalizado marcado pela efemeridade e velocidade das escolhas colocadas pela conectividade que exige cidadãos cada vez mais participativos, críticos e engajados social e politicamente. Os dados apontam ainda para a relevância de uma formação continuada que considere um repensar da educação reprodutivista e acrítica, a fim de promover uma prática mais contextualizada, informada e crítica. As possibilidades para a formação continuada emergem nos seus contextos de atuação ao experimentar encontros e desencontros de práticas e pensamentos sobre o que se considera ensinar e aprender língua inglesa. / The aim of this study is to present investigations about a teacher education course for Elementary School teachers from public schools, regarding concepts about training and continuous education. It is a qualitative-interpretative research based on ethnographic views, supported by theories of literacies (COPE e KALANTZIS, 2000,2013; LANKSHEAR E KNOBEL, 2008; GEE, 2000), particularly on critical literacies (CERVETTI et Al., 2001; MONTE MÓR, 2010, 2011, 2013; JORDÃO, 2013; MENEZES de SOUZA, 2011). The current research relies on the following guiding questions: I. What may a collaborative work for teacher education reveal about teaching English in a digital and globalized society? II. What possibilities may emerge inside a literacies-based context to contribute with a teacher education project? The field research was conducted through observations, open interviews and registers in reflexive diaries provided the bases of the research analysis. The research plan aimed at promoting a shift in the views of both teacher-educator/ researcher and teacher-collaborator. A teacher education collaborative work considers the co-responsibility and agency of the teacher-collaborator, placed in a globalized world characterized by the ephemerality and the velocity of choices posed by the advent of connectivity. A world that demands more participative, critical and socially and politically engaged citizens. Regarding this discussion, the research data point out to the relevance of continuous education that considers rethinking reproductive and acritical education, in order to promote more contextualized, informed and critical practices. The possibilities for continuous education emerge in practical contexts when experiencing encounters and disencounters of practices and thoughts about what it means to teach and learn the English language.

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Upon entering tertiary education students have to undergo development with regard to the way in which information is gathered, processed and produced because the academic context (secondary environment) is different to the primary context in so many ways. Students have to acquire the identity or discourse of the secondary environment, in other words they must learn how to behave, interact, believe, speak, read and write in an academic way (Gee, 1996:viii). When students have acquired the identity of the secondary environment they are well on their way to a successful academic career. The choice has been made to focus on one component of identity, namely reading, and specifically academic reading. The latter concept is defined as the process to accept, reject and synthesize incoming information from various sources – the guiding principle in this process is the aim of theorizing. It was found that comprehension of the semantics and function of conjunction markers played an important role in the academic reading process. And that the cloze test is a good method to teach comprehension of conjunction markers. The aim of the current study is to establish whether the use of cloze tests, focused on conjunction markers, will improve academic reading comprehension, within the framework of academic literacy. The empirical research was conducted amongst first year students at the North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus. Participants were selected using the following criteria: they had AGLA111 and they were first year students during 2008-2010. As basis for this research a pretest-posttest control group experimental design was used. The nature of this research is quantitative and a null-hypothesis (H0) was formulated: cloze tests as a teaching method will not improve reading comprehension. Six sets of data were used for this investigation: the January 2008 results, the June 2008 results, the January 2009 results, the June 2009 results, the January 2010 results and the June 2010 results. These sets of data were compared using independent t-tests to establish whether the means were statistically significant. The sets of data were compared looking at - the TAG as a whole and - only the questions that involved conjunction markers. The test in January is written before students commence with their studies and the test in June is written after they have received intervention by way of the academic literacy module. The only intervention in 2008 was the standard academic literacy module – this group serves as the control group. During 2009, besides the standard intervention, students underwent five weeks of cloze tests with conjunction markers as focus – this was the pilot study. The experimental group which had standard intervention as well as nine weeks of cloze tests, was the group of 2010. The results of the experiment show that the effect size was big with regard to the results of the TAG as a whole and medium with regards to the questions that involve conjunction markers. The results were statistically significant in both cases and the mean of the post tests were higher in each event. The finding is that cloze test training focussed on conjunction markers is a good method for improving academic reading comprehension, but more research is still necessary. / MA (Afrikaans en Nederlands), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate museum learning by describing the experiences of selected museum visitors who viewed a specified exhibit. The research question is: How does a museum exhibit function as a literacy event for viewers? The responses to interview questions described what viewing was like for two subjects. The paradigm for this research is New Literacy Studies (NLS). NLS considers the cultural issues surrounding literacy experiences. NLS assumes that language arts reflect cultural differences and literacy involves the process of constructing meaning (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000; Gee, 2000; Street, 1995). This model of literacy considers three factors of literacy: the literacy practice, the literacy event and the text (Barton & Hamilton, 2000). The literacy practice for this dissertation was museum visiting. The literacy event was viewing one museum exhibit. Through research in multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000), objects and written discourse constituted the text. Two high school subjects spent 15 minutes viewing a specified exhibit on separate occasions. They were asked seven questions designed to aid their recall. The Contextual Model of Learning (Falk & Dierking, 2000) was used for describing the phenomenon and for the analyses of the data. The Contextual Model of Learning describes museum learning as the interaction of three spheres: the Physical Context, the Personal Context, and the Socio-cultural Context. The Physical Context was analyzed through narrative description, the Personal Context through micro-analysis (Corbin, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994), and the Socio-cultural Context through Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Meyer, 2001; van Dijk, 2001; Wodak, 2001). The results show the Physical Context of a museum exhibit facilitates viewers in accessing their Personal and Socio-cultural Contexts to make meaning. The data indicated the subjects of this study formed global concepts, supported main ideas with specific details, constructed cause and effect relationships, formed comparisons, and engaged in other types of cognitive behaviors as they interacted with the text. The results also indicated that the Contextual Model of Learning would best describe the literacy event if the model showed the dominance of the Personal and Socio-cultural Contexts over the Physical Contents.

This study explores the effects on student learning of the inclusion of video games within a Language Arts secondary school classroom. Video Games are often disparaged by both parents and educators as having a significantly negative impact on students’ learning and productive use of time. However, previous studies surrounding youth and video games have revealed that youth engagement with games is often highly complex, involving deep critical thinking and encouraging social engagement. New research has shown that, for some youth, video games can serve as a catalyst for further intrinsically motivated learning. In spite of this research, video games remain on the fringes of formal education. This study focuses on a month long unit where video games were used as a primary text within a grade 10 language arts class. The study makes use of an action research processes and is reported using case study approach. Using class observations, notes, and a series of group interviews with participants, four major themes emerged, namely: community, relevance, student engagement, and student success. / Graduate

Thesis advisor: Lisa Patel Stevens / This study uses the construct of design to examine the interplay of texts, tools, and participants to ask, "How are educational environments designed and how do participants interact with designs to create spaces." I approached this question from the theoretical stance that material settings (e.g., schools, classrooms) may be designed for particular uses through institutional norms and purposeful thought (e.g., curriculum guides, technologies, architectural designs), but the way participants take up designs is not given a priori. Using ethnographic methods and spatial theories, I studied the literacy practices of a high school class designed for learning with and through multimodal textual practices, focusing on how this design of learning operated within the institutional norms of a comprehensive urban high school. Data included participant observation, qualitative interviews, and analysis of cultural artifacts, but spatial theories (de Certeau, 1984; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Lefebvre, 1991; Soja, 1989, 1996) and theories of design (Kress, 2003; New London Group, 1995) guided the selection and analysis of the data. Stylistically, this dissertation uses video and hyperlinks as a representational tool to illustrate the connections between conceptual fields and to illustrate how meaning is made and conveyed through the added dimensions of multimodality. The dissonance that the teacher's designs caused with the school's available designs is one of the most interesting findings. By breaking temporal and spatial boundaries of what constitutes a class, an academic discipline, and a teacher/student relationship, the teacher and the students used multimodal literacy practices in ways that offered fewer opportunities to assimilate understandings of what and how it means to learn and teach in school into available designs. The participants' interactions with the designs were mediated, however, by their cultural understandings of the purpose of school, their place in the school, and the potential of learning in school. In other words, the rules and grammars of available designs of school were co-constructive in the active designing by the participants. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

O fazer de professores e alunos tem se mostrado conturbado hoje em dia, em função da presença de elementos tecnológicos na sala de aula, como por exemplo o computador, projetores, lousa interativa e tablets. A constituição das identidades de professores e alunos também se mostra conturbada a partir da emergência de práticas diferenciadas em relação àquelas comumente adotadas pela pedagogia tradicional. Assim, a temática dessa pesquisa é o processo de subjetivação e a constituição da identidade de professores e alunos, sob a influência do discurso pedagógico e do uso das novas tecnologias da informação. A hipótese desta pesquisa é que há dois discursos paradigmáticos coexistindo no ambiente de escola pesquisada, em que duas formas diferentes de pensar e agir na educação estão em conflito, levando à constituição de subjetividades contraditórias e ambíguas. O objetivo geral dessa pesquisa é investigar como essa contradição e essa ambiguidade estão afetando o processo de subjetivação de alunos e professores. Os objetivos específicos são: identificar no discurso de alunos e de professores, a materialização desses discursos conflituosos e quais são os efeitos de sentidos que esses discursos paradigmáticos estão produzindo; e analisar como esses efeitos de sentidos afetam os processos de subjetivação dos alunos e dos professores. Atendemos a esses objetivos realizando dois questionários abertos e escritos em duas etapas, tanto com professores quanto com alunos. Apresentamos os resultados da pesquisa e constatamos a existência desse conflito e a sua influência na subjetivação de professores e alunos. / The performance of teachers and students has been troubled now-a-days, due to the presence of technological elements in the classroom, as an example the computer, projectors, interactive board and tablets. The constitution of identities of teachers and students has also been troubled in relation to those generally adopted by the traditional pedagogy. Therefore, the theme of this research is the subjectification process and the constitution of the identity of teachers and students, under the influence of the pedagogical discourse and the use of the new information technology. The hypothesis of this research is that there are two paradigmatic discourse coexisting in the environment of the school that the research took place, in which two different forms of thinking and acting in education are in conflict, leading to the constitution of contradictory and ambiguous subjectivities. The general purpose of this research is to investigate how this contradiction and this ambiguity are affecting the students and teachers subjectification process. The specific purposes are: to identify in the discourse of students and teachers the materialization of these rowdy discourses and what are the meaning effects that these paradigmatic discourses are producing; and analyze how these meaning effects affect the subjectification process of students and teachers. We attended to these purposes doing two open and written questionnaires in two steps, not only with teachers, but also with students. We presented the results of the research and found the existence of this conflict and its influence in the subjectification of teachers and students.

Through interviews and writing sample analysis of two secondary students who are fan fiction writers, this article examines the tensions between curricular writing and extracurricular fan fiction writing. This study finds students have rich extracurricular writing lives, and they repurpose familiar practices from fan fiction writing for the classroom. This study further discusses the role of genre in effective repurposing. This study argues students who develop genre awareness repurpose their extracurricular writing more effectively to fulfill curricular assignments.

This study establishes a comprehensive methodology for analyzing children's website content, based on both linguistic and rhetorical data, by employing defensible criteria to evaluate both qualitative and quantitative data. By employing genre theory as a prism for examining form, substance, and rhetorical action within children's websites, this study applies that methodology to a purposeful sample of five children's websites. Results of the analysis document the complex multimodal and multilinear nature of the websites studied and identify a possible new genre, the pop culture carousel website.