81 Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Popular Culture: Literacy Development Among Urban Youth Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: An educator who substantiates his research with his own classroom experience, Ernest Morrell illustrates how the critical teaching of popular culture can produce powerful academic and social results with urban youth. The author draws from data collected during the eight years that he taught urban teens in the San Francisco Bay area and southern California, and focuses on specific manifestations of popular culture--hip-hop, film, and mass media.... 82 Mixing It Up in Middle School: Themed Booklists to Entice Struggling Adolescent Readers Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: This professional resource by Dana Grisham describes a school-university partnership aimed at "accelerating" the literacy development of struggling middle school readers. Teachers who participated in the project explored the uses of literature in the classroom and created themed booklists that would appeal to their sixth- and seventh-grade students, all of whom were reading at least two grade levels below their peers.... 83 "Side-by-Side": A Technology Education Model for Preservice and Inservice Teachers Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Postsecondary Professional Commentary: This article informs teachers and teacher educators about "Side-by-Side," an innovative program designed to promote technology learning for pre- and inservice teachers. First, authors Diane Tracey, Melissa Heath, and Jodi Truss describe how the project examines future and practicing teachers' attitudes toward educational technology before and after participation in the "Side-by-Side" program.... 84 "I Know Them Better Than Students in My On-campus Courses": Exploring a Personalized Approach to Online Instruction Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Postsecondary Professional Commentary: The study described in this article explores the nature online instruction in a teacher education program. Using data from online bulletin board messages, e-mail messages, informal interviews, chat transcripts, the instructor's teaching journal, and all modules constructed for the online course, researchers conclude that careful course design and the use of detailed instructional scaffolding can effectively support teachers as they learn new approaches to literacy education and try these approaches in their classrooms.... 85 A Cooperative Approach for Facilitating Intercultural Education Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: In this article, authors Claudia Finkbeiner and Christine Koplin provide a detailed definition for intercultural learning, and analyze their own and others' research on the effects and strategies of teaching intercultural learning in the classroom. Their findings support using the ABC's of Cultural Understanding and Communication (Schmidt, 1998) where students discover cultural concepts in a cooperative setting using a five-step instructional method: (1) Autobiography (students write an autobiography that includes key events related to education, family, religious tradition, recreation, successes, defeats, and so on, helping students to build awareness of the personal beliefs and attitudes that form the traditions and values of cultural autobiographies; (2) Biography (students conduct several in-depth, audiotaped, unstructured or semistructured interviews with a person from a culture different from their own, then construct a biography of key events in that person's life, helping them to develop the cultural sensitivity necessary to analyze similarities and differences in the two life stories; (3) Crosscultural analysis and appreciation of differences (students study the autobiography and biography and chart a list of similarities and differences; (4) Cultural self-analyses of differences (students carefully examine the chart from step 3 and use it to write an in-depth self-analysis of cultural differences, explaining the reasons for any personal discomfort or positive response, acquiring insight about others and sense their own ethnocentricity; (5) Plans for home-school connections (targeted for graduate-level students preparing to be teachers where students design yearlong plans for connecting home and school in children's reading, writing, listening, and speaking development, using what they have learned about cultural sensitivity through the ABC's model.... Projects: Writing 6-12 86 "A Horizon of Possibilities": A Critical Framework for Transforming Multiethnic Literature Instruction Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In this article, authors Arlette Ingram Willis and Julia Johnson view literacy as a socially constructed process that takes place within an interpretive community of learners, and examine in depth the political and sociohistorical limitations of the Eurocentric literary canon. As educators and researchers, they reframe and embrace multiple ways of knowing, interpreting, and responding to multiethnic literature, focusing especially on how students respond as readers to African American literature taught in an upper-level high school class.... Projects: Writing 6-12 87 Assessment in Media Education Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: This article traces the work author Chris Worsnop has done in media education assessment and the journey he has traveled in doing that work. It describes the assessment instruments the author has developed for personal and analytical response to media texts, student media productions, and sensitive issues in media texts, connecting them to reading assessment, writing assessment, and book selection and arbitration.... 88 Building Cultural Understanding and Communication: A Model in Seven Situations Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 5–12 Professional Commentary: In this professional resource, Greta Nagel shares several narratives that stem from her varied experiences with the ABCs of Cultural Understanding and Communication technique. Through these narratives Nagel shows that this technique can bring about enhanced interpersonal understandings, provide meaningful opportunities for authentic and integrated practice of all the language arts, and add to the process of building community within the larger group.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Education & Training, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 89 Content Area Literacy Lessons Go High Tech Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: This article addresses literacy and technology as integral tools within content lessons at all levels, beginning with a brief history of content reading instruction as it has developed over the past few decades. This account demonstrates the importance of content reading instruction as a means of providing teachers with tools that can help them help their students learn content material.... 90 Dot.com Lessons Worth Learning: Student Engagement, Literacy, and Project-Based Learning Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts, General Education Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: Beginning with a retelling of a Dot.com commercial where children are thoroughly and excitedly engaged with their reading about aliens, author Martha Rapp Ruddell goes on to detail student engagement, literacy, and project-based learning. At the heart of her discussion lies the potential impact and desired success such project-based learning can elicit.... Career Fields: Agricultural & Environmental Systems, Arts & Communication, Business & Administrative Services, Construction Technologies, Education & Training, Engineering & Science Technologies, Finance, Government & Public Administration, Health Science, Hospitality & Tourism, Human Services, Information Technology, Law & Public Safety, Manufacturing Technologies, Marketing, Transportation Systems Projects: Standards First |