Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Marjorie R. Hancock / In today’s classrooms, literacy instruction is undergoing tremendous transformations as new technologies demand new literacies. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how integration of technology supports the emergence of new literacies, within the context of an electronic reading workshop in a fifth-grade classroom. The electronic reading workshop provided students multiple opportunities to response to e-books, both as readers and technology users. First, e-book tools allowed the participants to engage in a spontaneous response process as the plot unfolded. Second, students responded to teacher-constructed prompts in electronic literature response journals. Analysis of the journals revealed responses from three broad categories: 1) personal meaning making, 2) character and plot involvement, and 3) literary criticism. Third, students engaged in conversational response while participating in asynchronous message board discussions. The students composed and posted their own response prompts. Analysis of the message board transcripts suggested five types of student-constructed prompts: 1) experiential prompts, 2) aesthetic prompts 3) cognitive prompts, 4) interpretive prompts, and 5) clarification prompts. Virtual guide response projects provided a fourth opportunity for response to e-books. Working in groups, students created virtual guides to the literature in which they visually represented their personal interpretations of the e-books. The virtual guides were published as multi-modal PowerPoint presentations including sounds, images, animations, and hyperlinks. As students conceptualized, researched, published and presented their virtual guides to the literature, they used new literacies to fully exploit the potential of the available technologies. The electronic reading workshop provided a learning environment in which students interacted with each other as they made sense of and accessed the available information and communication technologies. In particular, socially constructed learning occurred through threaded discussions on an electronic message board and development of virtual guide response projects. Educators must be responsive to today’s learners. This study illuminated the expanded possibilities for integrating technology and literacy within the context of an electronic reading workshop. Findings of the study suggest technology integration supports the emergence of new literacies, while the new literacies support students’ utilization of available technologies.

Läs- och skrivsvårigheter är inte enbart ett växande problem i skolan utan även ett samhällsproblem. Den ökande kravbilden på läsförmåga i samhället bidrar till betydelsen av att utarbeta verkningsbara läs- och skrivstrategier bland elever med läs- och skrivsvårigheter. Samtidigt visar forskning att allt fler lärare känner en oro i att undervisa i lässtrategier, en oro som i mångt och mycket grundar sig i okunskap. Eftersom utvecklingen av lässtrategier utgör ett bedömningsunderlag i nationella provet i svenska och dessutom betonas i läroplanen (Lgy11) är det ett aktuellt forskningsämne som både belyses nationellt som internationellt. Forskning visar att det råder en slags konsensus kring vad som elever med god läsförmåga och läsförståelse har jämfört med vad elever med läs- och skrivsvårigheter inte har. Till exempel saknar de sistnämnda eleverna kompetens att göra inferenser och förutsäga kommande information i det de läser. Däremot går meningarna ibland isär vilka läs- och skrivstrategier som kan ha effekt för läs- och skrivutveckling och det är inte sällan brist på kunskap när det gäller att tillämpa läs- och skrivstrategier i praktiken.

Malmström Amanda och Stigson Ulrika (2017). Ett nytt kapitel - lärares tankar om och reflektioner av digitalt- och traditionellt läsande i svenskundervisningen.A new chapter - teachers’ thoughts on and reflections of digital and traditional reading in the Swedish classroom. Malmö Högskola. Ämneslärarprogrammet. Denna studie undersöker högstadielärares erfarenheter av och kunskaper om läsning i digitala och traditionella medier. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes på två skolor med totalt insamlat material från fem informanter. Vi ville undersöka vilka olika medier som används i svenskämnets läsundervisning och vilken funktion och roll de tillskrivs. Vidare ville vi undersöka hur kunskaperna kring de olika medierna är. Resultatet av vårt insamlade material visar att våra informanter anser att det finns tydliga för- och nackdelar med både digital och traditionell läsning. Detta i sin tur, präglar läsningens funktion och roll i undervisningen. Bland annat upplever de att elevernas inställning till läsning över tid, och i takt med det allt mer digitaliserade samhället har förändrats. De anser också att elevers läsning skiljer sig betydligt åt beroende på vilket medium som används. Resultatet pekar också på en uppfattning om att läsundervisningen har fått fler möjligheter till variation, något som informanterna anser har både för- och nackdelar.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Writing is an important skill throughout learners’ schooling trajectory because it is through writing that learners need to situate meaning and sense-making across the curriculum. Writing proficiency becomes even more important when learners access tertiary studies. Yet studies suggest that most students struggle with academic writing. Various authors suggest that writing has not been taught appropriately especially in secondary schooling contexts in South Africa and that writing becomes even more daunting for Second Language speakers of English when they reach tertiary education. There is abundant literature on students’ challenges with academic writing and ways to address academic writing challenges but the use of digital storytelling in relation to academic writing development is recent and distinctively underexplored in the literature.

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The purpose of this study was to examine students' representations of their literate identities in what Gee (2008) calls Discourse that developed among 105 high school students— 103 10th-grade and two 11th-grade students—using a wiki for class work, collaboration, and social interaction. The theoretical frame for the present study was drawn from of four bodies of literature. Through a reciprocal process of positioning self and others (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999), individuals come to form and display their literate identity (Heath, 1991) within a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). Their interactions reflect norms, values, and accepted ways of being within the Discourses to which they belong (Gee, 2008). Data analysis procedures employed in this study were similar to those commonly associated with qualitative data analysis. I used a recursive process of coding and searching for patterns and themes to analyze students' writing on the class wiki. Analysis of the wiki posts revealed that students employed 18 written devices within the Discourse of the wiki. In addition, within the online Discourse that emerged on the wiki, students occupied nine positions in relation to the others in the community. Findings of this study suggest that students developed a community of practice where norms for participation in the Discourse of the wiki were constructed by its members. Students represented their academic and social literate identities online through the combination of devices they used and the positions they enacted in the Discourse of the wiki.

This qualitative study focused on the strategies that two marginalized seventh graders used as they completed an Internet inquiry project about survival. The participants spent time over a four-week period in three phases—selecting a topic, locating information, and presenting information. Participants completed journals and participated in interviews. The participants' online searches and how they organized their presentations were recorded. The researcher took field notes. These four data sources were used to determine subcategories in each phase to document the strategies they employed as they completed the project. Participants used phrases and questions as they decided on key words to locate information. The majority of the sites they visited ended in the .com domain. They used different web browsers and spent varied amounts of time reading websites once they decided on key words and selected sites. Each participant approached the project uniquely and met the requirements to complete it.

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Research with young children, critical literacy and new technology is limited (Burnett, 2009; Carrington, 2006; Marsh, 2005.) The purpose of this study is to describe the literacies produced in a second grade classroom, through podcasting, where the teacher attempted to frame my teaching from a critical literacy perspective. The study of this classroom reveals the literacies that come within a critical literacy structure for learning as well as those developments that were significant during the classroom's creation of a podcast. Such efforts also reveal the social practices of a teacher and her students as well as the identity and positioning work of selected individuals. A case study approach was used to provide the unique details that describe the classroom experiences of students engaged in such literacy work. The information that this study provides will be useful to researchers and educators as they seek to understand the shifts and possibilities of what critical literacy involves in a second grade classroom. Key findings include changes in the children's literacy learning when engaged in critical literacy and the literacy work that occurs with the use of technology. / Ph. D.

Voice is an integral part of writing instruction, and over half of state writing assessments include voice on scoring rubrics; yet, there is a dearth of research on voice and writing instruction with adolescents. Increasingly new literacies and digital tools are being used in the high school English classroom but with relatively little known about how these tools can teach voice during writing instruction. This qualitative single-case study examined how a public school, ninth-grade English teacher used new literacies to develop voice in students' writing and participants' perception of these instructional choices. The sample included the teacher and 14 students, and data collection included classroom observations, participant interviews, motivation inventories, reflective logs, state writing scores, students' writing folders, and wiki documents. An iterative process of inductive and deductive analysis led to key findings about instructional planning, purposeful writing assignments, teacher feedback, and participant response. Findings indicate that further attention is needed with respect to text structure development, writing pedagogy, and voice in writing; teachers' response to students' writing in digital environments; and motivation and adolescent writing. / Ph. D.