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This experimental research study examined the effects of the Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) taxonomy on ninth-grade students’ ability to answer comprehension questions. Participants included 32 incoming ninth-grade students who were required to attend summer school due to poor attendance, grades, and/or standardized test scores. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Experimental group participants received one week of initial strategy instruction followed by three weeks of maintenance activities. Results indicated that the strategy had a negative effect on students’ question-answering ability and raised questions regarding comprehension instruction, length of interventions, and the role of scaffolded support for a target population of adolescent readers. Discussion of the results revolves around interventions, QAR instruction, reading ability, and motivation of the participants.

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The objective of this study was to listen to the perceptions of the experiences of adolescents from a multicultural background as those experiences related to their literacy learning acquisition. Each of the adolescent learners were enrolled in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program in one of the middle schools in the state of Virginia. The experiences, whether positive or negative, would inevitably shape the literacy learning of these multicultural learners as they interacted with family members, with members of the community, and in the academic setting at school.Open ended interview questions were used to gather data for this qualitative, ethnographic research study. This type forum allowed for an open dialogue between the researcher and the adolescent learners. As the researcher, I examined the data to determine how the learners' perceived experiences impacted their literacy learning.This study seeks to contribute to the knowledge base on adolescent literacy. The findings can be used by policy makers and educators who are dedicated to improving the quality of the educational lives of our multicultural learners. It is possible that the findings of this study could be used to inform guidelines for establishing future policies, practices, and strategies implemented in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program in the public schools. / Ed. D.

This study was designed to explore perceptions and lived experiences of avid adolescent male readers, in order to better understand their development as readers. This study explored: (1) how previous reading experiences influence the development of the avid adolescent male reader and (2) how the reading habits and preferences of avid adolescent male readers are socially constructed. Rosenblatt's (1978) Transactional Theory of Literary Work forms the theoretical framework of this study. Rosenblatt (1978) argued that as readers engage with texts, they bring an individual schema to these literary transactions. This prior knowledge and experience are the lens through which the individual reader understands the content of the text. Even when reading the same text, readers respond to the text in individual ways, based on their individual schema. Through the use of a naturalistic inquiry design, data was generated through a series of interviews with the participants. Data analysis was qualitative and iterative, triangulated with multiple interviews, interview mapping, thematic tables, dialogic memos, and researcher field notes. Data analysis led to a better understanding of the development of the avid adolescent male reader, including: (a) the role of family culture on reading identity, (b) peer group influence on reading habits of avid adolescent male readers, and (c) transactional responses of avid adolescent male readers both in and out of educational settings. Data generated during interviews illuminated the complex, individuated and interwoven nature of the elements present in the development of the avid adolescent male reader. Finally, this study gives insight into how understanding the development of these readers may provide teachers with instructional strategies and reading opportunities that support all developing readers. / Ph. D.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction / Jeong-Hee Kim / This phenomenological case study focuses on three secondary special education students’ perceptions of themselves and their lived experiences. The purpose of this study is twofold: First, to understand how secondary special education students perceive themselves as literate beings; and second, to illuminate how secondary special education students understand what it means to be literate and how their lived experiences have shaped their perceptions of being literate. Based on qualitative data, such as, interviews, observations, questionnaire, and a qualitive analysis method, called Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, I have identified three themes of the lived experiences of the participants: 1) Students’ stability and/or instability of their lived experiences influenced their literacy practices; 2) Being identified as special education students did not prevent them from being literate; and 3) Different lived experiences led to different literacy practices. Based on these themes, I provide implications for educators and policy makers including: understanding secondary special education (SSE) students as literate beings; valuing the varied experiences that SSE students bring to classrooms; capitalizing on SSE students’ self-efficacy and resilience to promote students’ literacy; respecting SSE students’ literacy skills on out-of-school literacy; paying attention to the personal dimensions of literacy practices to meet the needs of the diverse learners; allowing SSE students to demonstrate their literacies in multiple ways; and collaborating between general education and special education teachers to benefit all students. The significance of this study resides in that it focuses on the literacy practices of secondary special education students, whose voices have been largely missing in the literature. This understanding of the voice and the lived experiences that secondary special education students bring to the classroom will help educators, policy makers, and curriculum writers find ways to better serve special education students. In so doing, this study reconceptualizes the power of literacy that needs to be fostered in SSE students, so that they can succeed not only in college and career but also in their personal lives.

Thesis advisor: Curt Dudley-Marling / This project was my attempt to rewrite the discourse of schooling within the context of my own classroom to transform it into a dialogic, multilingual, multi-literacy and critical literacy site that offered students opportunities for rigorous and relevant intellectual work. The purpose of this study was to deepen my understanding of the teaching and learning of language and literacies in diverse urban schools so that I might enhance my practice and contribute to the knowledge-base in the field. To that end, I asked: what happens when I broaden what counts as academic discourse and academic texts? Engaging in practitioner inquiry, I studied the discursive space of my ninth grade literacy class in the urban public school where I teach. Throughout the 2008-09 academic year, I collected data in the form of audio-recordings of class discussions and student interviews, student work and a teacher journal. Using critical discourse analysis, I analyzed the discursive space and situated those findings across local, institutional and societal domains. My analysis of the data suggests that urban schools need not rely on scripted and low-expectations curricula that limit ways with words in academic contexts. Instead, I argue that a student-centered and dialogic pedagogy, which centers students not only in classroom discourse, but also in the curriculum by including texts and instructional practices relevant to their lives beyond the school walls, creates a context for student engagement in rigorous intellectual work. To that end, teachers need not devalue particular literacies or ways with words as inappropriate for classroom discourse, but should instead draw on students' funds of knowledge as legitimate resources for learning. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Curriculum and Instruction.

This dissertation study focused on complications and opportunities that surface for classroom learning in the intersections of a teacher’s methods, students’ literacies, and digital space. Though researchers have discussed adolescents’ literacies and participation in out-of-school digital spaces, there persists a need to explore and document the ways educators and students use classroom digital spaces. This study examined the teaching and learning experiences of one teacher and eight students as they collaborate, compose, and produce a literature-based digital role-play. Research questions focused on how the activity of a classroom digital role-play might connect with current literacy reforms, in what ways the teacher’s incorporation of the digital space might shape her classroom identity and pedagogy, and in what ways students’ digital participation might reflect, extend, and negotiate their school-ascribed identities as non-proficient learners. To address these questions, I collected data between March and June 2014 in a 10th grade English language arts classroom of a rural, Midwest public high school. This particular course was designed as an academic literacy support for students labeled as non-proficient school readers. I amassed my data collection from multiple interviews with teacher and student participants, series of classroom observations, student writings, surveys, classroom documents, teaching journals, classroom audio-recordings, and field notes. I analyzed these data using a combination of qualitative methods: ethnographic approaches, narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, and virtual methods. I first created a narrative portrait and analysis of the teacher and students to illuminate participants’ multiple social identities. I next used methods of discourse analysis to examine the teacher and students’ language use in the classroom and digital spaces, to extend my understanding of the way their speech and writing helps them to construct social identities. My findings complicate the way teachers might approach the use of digital spaces. Data reveal ways that the digital role-play space presents disruptions to the teacher’s ways of thinking about her classroom identity and practices. My findings also suggest that the use of a classroom digital space affords opportunities for students to explore their classroom social identities; the digital space flattens traditional school hierarchies in which the teacher leads and students learn. My study is potentially significant in that I explore the way the teacher and students experience and make meaning from the blend of their classroom interactions and digital literacy practices. Further, I argue that folding a digital space into daily classroom life reveals significant possibilities for classroom collaboration, distributed knowledge, and shared learning among students and teacher.