<p> This study was conducted to determine how immigrants and the immigration experience are represented in current young adult (YA) literature. In the study, I asked the following questions: Who are the immigrant characters in recent YA books? Why do they come? How do they experience immigration? How are they perceived or treated by others? A content analysis methodology was used to examine, from a critical literacy viewpoint, recent young adult novels with immigration themes. Data were analyzed by identifying and interpreting patterns in themes across 22 YA novels with immigrant protagonists or other important characters, published between 2013 and 2017. Data indicated that the protagonists in the study reflected current immigration trends fairly accurately, came to the United States primarily to escape violence or persecution in their home countries, experienced a variety of challenges, tended to hold onto their home country cultures, and were often the objects of racism, but also found kindness and friendship in the United States. Teachers who desire to include authentic immigrant literature in their classroom libraries should consider from whose perspectives the books have been written, and learn about the authors&rsquo; backgrounds and the messages that authors want to convey through the books that they write. In addition, immigrants can be encouraged to write children&rsquo;s and young adult books, sharing their experiences and contributing to the supply of realistic immigrant literature with complex and authentic immigrant characters.</p><p>

In this current era of rapid demographic shifts and high stakes school reform, studies that explore the academic and social responses of students to critical language pedagogies are very much needed as resources for education policymakers and teachers. Through a combined ethnographic and systemic functional linguistic approach, this study explores the textual and classroom process of 5th-grade Puerto Rican students engaged in a SFL-based curricular unit on literature. Three interrelated questions guide the research: how SFL-based pedagogy supports students in developing an understanding of how to write literature and to accomplish social and political goals; and on a wider level, how institutional policies and practices constrain and facilitate teachers in developing such pedagogies. To address these issues, the dissertation draws on a critical sociocultural theory of language and literacy that sees language as a semiotic process and text as a web of previous texts and contexts woven together for a specific communicative purpose. To analyze ethnographic and classroom data, the study draws on concepts from Bloome and Egan Robertson (1993), Dyson (1997, 2003), and Keene and Zimmermann (1997). The comparative SFL analysis of literary source texts and students' writing is based on the work of Eggins (2004), Halliday and Matthiesen (2004), and Thompson (1996). Analysis of the data reveals that students in this SFL-based curricular unit learned in very different ways to interweave patterns of meaning from literary source texts into their literary and other academic writing. Furthermore, the students' access to a wide variety of literature and scaffolding activities afforded them different entry points into literature that resonated most strongly for each of them (Dyson, 2003). On an ethnographic level, a history of school-university-partnerships and school reform initiatives in the research site facilitated teachers' implementation of critical language-based curricula. Implications of this study for K–12 practitioners and researchers are discussed at length. They include the importance of the explicit use of intertextuality in heightening students' awareness of language as a pliable repertoire of choices and the crucial role school-university alliances need to play in supporting teachers and students in urban school classrooms.

<p> Advancements in medicine have allowed surgeons a menu of options in post-mastectomy breast reconstruction. A conundrum exists, however, in flap selection when faced with varying patient body types. In the case of the athletic patient who does not have the appropriate amount of donor site tissue to warrant a Transverse Rectus Abdominus Musculocutaneuos Flap (TRAM) the Transverse Musculocutaneous Gracilis Flap (TMG) is an appropriate alternative due to its functional and aesthetic benefits. An intricate and timely process, the TMG procedure can be difficult to understand for the layperson. Therefore, a need for a condensed and standardized description exists. By breaking the process down and illustrating the procedure one can effectively deliver the information for use across all realms of publication and education.</p>

This thesis explores the role of youth workers who utilize the arts in Soacha, Colombia. Through a historical and anthropological lens the findings reveal the objectives of the workers and the impact the work has as an intervention with the children. Through the case study of nine youth workers and two administrators of the local NGO, La Fundación Proyecto de Vida, I show how a comprehensive approach strengthens youth's social and personal capacities. This Colombian model of intervention includes workshops that cover areas such as music, visual arts, movement, physical health, and the environment. In addition to the workshops the organization provides psychological resources through family counseling, art and psychodynamic therapy, along with onsite cafeteria service. Ultimately I illustrate how this comprehensive, arts-based approach to support the youth can break the cycle of violence that is otherwise perpetuated by the lack of governmental social programs.

<p> This study investigated the perceptions of teachers of grades three, four, and five regarding differentiated instruction in conjunction with Standards-Based Report Card as aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The purpose of this study was specifically seeking teacher perceptions on how these phenomenon interact, as well as teacher to parent communication, student awareness of standards, and reassessment practices. </p><p> The sample (n = 140) consisted of regular education teachers, grades three, four, and five from districts in both Illinois and Missouri. These districts used a Standards-Based Report Card at one or more of these intermediate grade levels. The participants completed a survey designed to determine teacher perceptions of the effect of differentiated instruction on the Standards-Based Report Card in conjunction with the Common Core State Standards. This survey was developed to answer the six research questions. </p><p> The researcher analyzed the data descriptively and inferentially. The researcher concluded that districts need more training and need to promote teacher buy-in. The descriptive results demonstrated teacher perceptions about communication, student awareness, and reassessment. Overall, teachers do not perceive that they are communicating more due to the Standards-Based Report Card. Teachers tend to agree that students are aware of their progress as a result of the Standards-Based Report Card and that they are reassessing in math and ELA. The researcher concluded the study by suggesting recommendations for further research in the area of Standards-Based Report Cards at the intermediate level.</p><p>

<p> This narrative inquiry explored the ways in which four mid-career English teachers construct themselves as W/writers and how those writerly identities are performed in their pedagogy. I curated data collected from extended interviews, journals, personal and professional writings to build narratives of these teachers-as-writers. Through these narratives and metaphorical thinking (Lakoff &amp; Johnson, 1980), I analyzed the wholeness of each participant&rsquo;s experience with writing.</p><p> Then, in stage two of the study, I used data collected from teaching observations to build a continuum of process &mdash;> product, employing Goffman&rsquo;s (1974) frame analysis to place the teachers within that continuum. This continuum represented the stable thread that continued through the teachers&rsquo; personal and professional identities and led to three insights: (1) Those teachers who identified as Writers were more comfortable teaching writing processes (2) The desire to be seen as a &ldquo;kind of W/writer or teacher&rdquo; brings risk writing instruction and (3) Agency provides Writers a way to mitigate the risk of teaching writing.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative research project is to describe the scaffolding strategies used by a teacher to engage and support students as they work within the continua of biliterate development in the fifth-grade Spanish language immersion classroom. As language immersion programs and dual language schools continue to grow in popularity in Canada and the United States, this study seeks to illuminate and interpret a teacher&rsquo;s work with students in the Spanish Language Immersion Program (SLIP), a research site located in the urban Midwestern United States.</p><p> This instrumental case study employed the lens of Sociocultural Theory to explore the principal research question: How does the teacher scaffold student development of biliteracy within language and content instruction in the immersion school context? The research also explores pre-planned scaffolding versus interactional scaffolding, as well as the tensions and forces within the broader context that the teacher encounters while working with students in this bilingual educational environment. Classroom observations, teacher interviews, administration interviews, and artifacts were analyzed using methods borrowed from Grounded Theory.</p><p> Findings from this study highlight the characteristics of the Community of Practice created by the teacher in this classroom that include a focus upon encouragement, knowledge, organization, and literate habitus. Additionally, two visual models were created to present the data including: &ldquo;Scaffolding Episodes in the Development of Biliteracy,&rdquo; to illustrate the task-oriented support provided by the teacher, and &ldquo;Centripetal versus Centrifugal Forces,&rdquo; to present the forces and tensions that the teacher faced within the historical phases of the Spanish Language Immersion Program.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation focuses on the literacy practices of three focal students who composed multimodal comic memoirs about the emotional struggles and obstacles they faced related to being labeled academically gifted and talented. As a qualitative action research study (Hewitt &amp; Little, 2005; Munn-Giddings, 2012), in which the teacher of the focal classroom was the primary researcher, a sociocultural framework (Dunsmore &amp; Fischer, 2010; Wertsch, 1991) was employed to investigate the three focal students&rsquo; uses of multimodal composition to address the research questions: RQ1, In what ways do gifted secondary students use the comics medium to produce multimodal memoirs? RQ2, What experiences do gifted secondary students represent when they design comic memoirs? and RQ3, What do gifted secondary students reveal about competing representations of race, gender, class, and giftedness as they depict themselves in comic memoirs? To address the research questions, the researcher used a qualitative case study design (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2009), collecting data over five years (2013&ndash;2017) while teaching a literature-based comics class at a summer enrichment program for gifted secondary students. Based on a conceptual framework comprising the intersections of literacy practices related to multiliteracies (Sanders and Albers, 2010) and multimodalities (New London Group, 1996) in connection with visual literacy skills (Frey &amp; Fisher, 2008), data analysis included a variant of grounded theory (Glaser &amp; Strauss, 1967), Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2005), which takes a cartographic approach to the collection and analysis of data within the study&rsquo;s situation, including its environment, social spheres, and setting. Findings point to the focal students&rsquo; deep-seated emotional turmoil related to gender, racial, and gifted identities; reports of emotionally debilitating social and academic expectations connected to giftedness; and personal narratives of being silenced and socially alienated. Implications are discussed concerning how the unique visual literacy strategies available while making comic memoirs helped the focal students gain perspective on and insight into their struggles with identity and related social and cultural practices.</p><p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: John (Jack) Miller.