With the implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in over forty states, teachers are putting into practice the CCSS text exemplars of text complexity. Of particular concern for the purpose of this research are the kindergarten and first grade (K-1) read aloud and independent text exemplar lists. While not intended as core reading lists, many schools are using these lists as mandated texts. A fundamental goal of primary school education is to help facilitate readers and one way is through the use of interesting and engaging books to motivate students as readers. At the initial stage of the reading process, selecting quality books for a specific group of students or an individual student constitutes an important aspect in engaging young readers. When a story provides a young reader with a material that encourages connections, their motivation to read increases. Research shows that motivation to read increases if a student identifies with elements of the story such as the characters or the setting. This research takes a close look at the kindergarten and first grade read aloud and independent texts through both a descriptive and a critical analysis to evaluate power dynamics and representations in the texts. The research questions used for this research were: (1) What are the characteristics of the CCSS K-1 text exemplars? and (2) What representations of people of color and women are present in the CCSS K-1 exemplars? The first research question was answered with information gathered from the descriptive analysis. The second question was primarily answered with information gathered from the critical analysis though the descriptive analysis also provided insight. Findings from the analyses provided data when viewed collectively that have implications for teacher educators, classroom teachers, and policy makers.

Adult education has often been described as a start and stop process for second chance learners. Hierarchical, decontextualized, and scripted materials remain prevalent in adult education programs. Differences in and among programs often present barriers to participation that profoundly affect adult learners' lives and literacies. Albertini (2009), Hull, Jury, and Sacher (2012), and Street (2004) call for more innovative, tailor-made programs to support adult learners. The Women's Literacy Network (WLN), a literacy and empowerment program for women, is an innovative, tailor-made program that trains adult women with GEDs as literacy tutors and matches them with women working on their GEDs. In this narrative inquiry, I examine the literacy identities of five WLN tutors through the lens of social practice theory. I conceptualize literacy identities as lived in and through participants' storied lives. Constructions of literacy identity are revealed in participants' histories, stories, and practices and the ways in which they enact and express their literacy identities. Participants' stories are told using a braiding of memoir with narrative ethnography. Each woman's narrative centers on a prominent thread that weaves throughout the fabric of her literacy identity. These threads are then connected across the narratives to reveal how the women were positioned by others, their internalization of or resistance to this positioning, and their own positioning in historical time and space. Findings indicate that participants' literacy identities were rooted in a metaphor of "identity-as-difference" (Moje & Luke, 2009, p.421). Isolation was a common theme, as was the need to affiliate and belong. Participants reported gaining confidence and experiencing a sense of community and belonging. Gender mattered; participants stated that "women understand women." Mothers revealed that their learning influenced and shaped their family literacy practices. According to participants, the WLN offered opportunities to build relationships that helped expand their social networks. Frequent, intense interactions were important in keeping participants connected to the WLN, its coordinators, and each other. Participants framed and reframed their literacy identities, re-positioned themselves in their life roles, and came to revalue themselves as literate beings (K. Goodman, 1996b).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2008. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 13, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-41).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 13, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47).

This dissertation examines the perception and uses of mathematics on the San Carlos Apache reservation. The initial research questions were: 1) To what extent can the identification of Apache mathematics concepts provide a theoretical basis for the inclusion of Apache mathematical knowledge into the classrooms? 2) How will the identification of Apache mathematics use within the community affect the perception of community members' mastery of mathematics in general? Eight enrolled adult Apache community members were interviewed and observed utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods regarding their use and perception of mathematics. The data suggests that the English word "mathematics" represents a narrow perception of mathematics whereas the study interviewees indicated that they engaged in complex mathematical concepts that are identified and discussed as a culturally distinct phenomena, Apache mathematics.

College reading programs are traditionally remedial or developmental in nature and often take a decontextualized skills based approach to reading and to supporting college readers (Holschuh & Paulson, 2013). Skills oriented deficit-based approaches to reading provide deficit-based frameworks for readers to construct self-perceptions. TLS 239 Literacy Tutoring is an undergraduate service-learning course where students learn about reading process and theory and develop strategies to tutor in community schools for twenty-four required hours. Coursework frames literacy as a socially constructed process and students engage in a miscue workshop, strategy presentations and in exploring the reading process. In this study, I examine the coursework of 38 students enrolled in TLS 239 and students' reports of shifting their perceptions and self-perceptions of literacy through coursework that challenged their literacy conceptualizations. In this study, I conceptualize Ken Goodman's (2003) theory of revaluing as restorying through a construct of story (Bruner, 2004; Short, 2012) and a semiotic theory of inquiry (Peirce, 1877), a process of fixating new belief. This struggle, or inquiry into reading provides a framework for students to renegotiate and restory their perceptions of literacy and their self-perceptions as literate. Findings indicate that conceptualizing reading as a socially constructed process including the construct of a reading transaction (Rosenblatt, 1994) and the construct of miscue (Goodman, 1969) was anomalous to college students' perceptions of literacy and caused students to doubt previously held misconceptions about reading. Students reported shifts towards conceptualizing reading as the construction of meaning, shifts towards positive self-perceptions as readers, and shifts in their literacy engagements. Students reported an increase in confidence, reading differently, reading more effectively, becoming metacognitive, reading more assigned readings in college, reading more for leisure and feeling more actively engaged in their other courses. Implications include conceptualizing literacy learning as social and emotional learning and the pedagogical implications of literacy instruction framed within a construct of inquiry.

Play in the school setting is a highly contested issue in today's restrictive academic environment. Although many early childhood educators advocate the use of play in their classrooms and emphasize the importance of play for children's learning and development, children beyond the preschool and kindergarten years are not often afforded opportunities to learn through play in their classrooms. This eight-month study, conducted in a first grade classroom in the outskirts of the Phoenix Metropolitan area of Arizona, analyzed young children's playful responses to literature as they read various books together in the classroom context. The purpose of this study was to develop deep understandings about the affordances of play in response to text within a first grade classroom and to investigate the ways that children utilize play to respond to literature and to construct meaning. This dissertation is informed by these guiding research questions: What are the affordances of play for responding to text in a first grade classroom? 1. What are the sociocultural resources that children use to respond to text? 2. In what ways do first graders incorporate and utilize play to make meaning with texts and each other in the classroom? In order to answer these research questions, I utilized several theoretical frameworks including: sociocultural theories of learning and literacy, the role of play and imagination in development, funds of knowledge, and reader response theories. This study was also informed by recent research findings in the areas of play and culture and play and literacy. I implemented a classroom Reading Center wherein I studied children's cooperative reading transactions and play as reader response. I collected data through classroom observations and field notes, videotaped and transcribed transactions, audiotaped and transcribed conversations and interviews, artifact collection, teacher observations of responsive play, family home visits and interviews, and the use of family story backpacks. This data, analyzed through thematic analysis, the constant comparative method, and grounded theory, revealed rich information about the ways that children utilize play to respond to literature in the classroom setting. The findings of this study provide evidence to suggest that through their play as reader response, their responsive play, children create a social space in the classroom which connects official school literacy practices and academic instruction with their social play practices. In this new space, children's play and talk take central roles in their explorations and uses of literacy. Findings further suggest that play can be seen as a generative source of academic learning, that the notion of response in research and practice be reconceived in the field to include play as a valid and valued form of reader response, and suggest that further research be conducted on children's responsive play.

本論文旨在對台灣區企業施行藝文理念行銷活動作實證研究，以建立企業藝文理念行銷行為模式之觀念架構，並以Sull之關鍵成功因素模式，求得企業藝文理念行銷之關鍵成功因素。本研究選定誠品書店、裕隆汽車、Agnes b.、圓神出版事業機構、以及荷蘭銀行等五家施行藝文理念行銷的企業作深度訪談，除提出企業藝文理念行銷修正後之觀念架構，並發現當理念行銷以「藝術文化」為主題時，應將Kotler主張的參與形式重新定義。 本研究另針對藝文理念行銷的構面影響提出命題，概述如下：企業主題推廣仍為企業建立品牌、知名度塑造時的基本方式，但現有的趨勢漸漸向聯合議題推廣靠攏；企業最在意藝文夥伴與其形象及目標市場是否相合，最重視企業夥伴或公部門夥伴的資源多寡；企業藝文理念行銷動機強調經營者興趣與認同者，活動類型較為多元，最重視議題的獨特性，較不重視議題與產品的關聯性；藝文理念行銷動機強調短期自利或長期自利的企業，活動類型較單一固定，最重視議題的社會顯著性與產品關聯性；另，對議題性質的謹慎選擇搭配靈活的時間運用、整合行銷傳播、本身及合作夥伴的資源分享，為台灣企業施行藝文理念行銷最重視的共同關鍵成功要素。 本研究並對實務界提出以下建議：1. 具通路特質的企業，可善用體驗行銷並持續性舉辦長期或短期活動；2. 注重與合作夥伴目標市場的分享以擴大市場；3. 掌握整合行銷傳播的關鍵為：快速的內部溝通及不輕易更改的核心策略。

Youth experiences with digital technologies demonstrate untapped potential for informing school-based learning responsive to adolescent identity and socialization practices (Ito et al., 2008). This study presents the formation of a collaborative model for appropriating youth and digital practices for developing new literacies with high school students in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands (New London Group, 1996). The research incorporates diversity in technology access and participation of predominately Latino students in English classrooms as a resource to engage literacy development across multiple discursive domains and challenge deficit discourses for Latino youth.The participatory approach combines interventionist research, in the cultural historical tradition of expansive learning (Engeström, 1987) with ethnographic methods for informing curricular practice (González, Moll,&Amanti, 2005; Lee, 2007) and new literacies pedagogy stressing collaborative, critical, and multimodal semiosis infused with Freirian praxis (Coiro et al., 2008; Freire, 1999; Lemke, 2003). Research involved co-developing, co-teaching and daily participant observation within the multiple online and offline spaces of a high school writing course, a weekly after school club begun with students from the class and several additional classrooms. A variety of data illustrates tensions and synergies of migrating practices across systems of activity represented by teacher, researcher and student standpoints. The research maps how socio-spatial relationships among academic and youth discourses, modalities, and participants' classroom positions were reconfigured through the use of digital tools joined with pedagogies responsive to adolescents' social and digital practices.An afterschool group's wiki participation extended students' oral and visual literacies into written expression and gave other participants a model of collaborative practice to guide classroom interaction. Engaging familiar and new tools for inquiries based on youth interests and complementary analytical concepts emphasized the primacy of the social and pedagogical aspects of technology. Students' agency in theorizing identity and developing representational spaces (Lefebvre, 1991) emerged as a key mediator for expanding their literacies across personal and academic contexts. In the collaborative process, participants forged new, hybrid genres, audiences and identities for distributing and developing their literacy practices across false dichotomies of home/school and online/offline spaces, and for reconfiguring normative school literacy regimes.

The North Carolina Public Schools, like other schools in the southeast, have experienced phenomenal growth in their ELL student populations in the last 15 years. This fairly recent influx of ELL students raises questions about the extent to which the schools, and more specifically, the teachers, are prepared to meet the needs of their linguistically diverse students. Unfortunately, few studies to date have investigated how teacher education programs (TEPs) and professional development opportunities are addressing this aspect of teacher preparation. This dissertation addresses the lack of current research as it pertains to both TEPs and professional development experiences of middle school working in the North Carolina Public Schools. Using a mixed methods design that combined survey research with open-ended interviews of focal participants, the author revealed that teachers had had limited preparation experiences at both the TEP and professional development levels. However, those who had had these experiences overall did exhibit some capacity to adapt instruction and relate to their ELLs in positive ways. The preparation, however, also lacked sociolinguistic awareness and awareness about the theoretical foundations that underlie these practices. The author concluded by relating the findings to the current research and discussed recommendations and implications for TEPs and professional development in North Carolina and the southern context.