Many literacy teachers are creating contexts for students to learn and use a range of reading comprehension strategies. As useful as reading strategy instruction is, relatively little has been documented on the ways in which reading strategies can become tools for critical literacy. In this paper, the author illustrates how a reading strategy can become a tool for critical literacy, focusing on the specific strategy of visualizing. Drawing on data collected from a yearlong qualitative study of three after‐school book clubs for adolescent girls, the author discusses how adolescents visualize texts and what happens when they share their visualizations. In sharing their visualizations, the adolescents were sharing how they “see” people and the world, and why they see that way. The author argues for a different kind of reading instruction, one in which reading strategies are seen as resources to be used for exploring written texts and texts of students' lives.

No abstract

A growing body of work has contributed to the theorizing and practice of disciplinary literacy instruction at the secondary level. However, there has been relatively little attention paid to pedagogical supports—texts and practices—that can foster historical literacy development in English learners who begin their U.S. schooling in middle or high school. Using discourse data collected from an after‐school literacy program, the author shows how a historical graphic novel can foster disciplinary literacy by helping students approach history as an account. She posits that in order for students to ponder authorial choices, question representations, and grapple with considerations of truthfulness, they have to understand that what they are reading is an account of history—a person's interpretation and construction of the past. The study's findings have implications for practitioners and researchers interested in the intersections of English learners, graphic novels, and disciplinary literacy in history.

This qualitative case study reports on the experiences of six recent-arrival immigrant and refugee girls as they participated in an afterschool program designed to promote critical multicultural citizenship through graphic novels. Analysis of discourse data revealed how the girls explored the interdependence among nation-states and wrestled with the complexities in their new home country. The study's findings challenge deficit perspectives that immigrant youth, who are learning English, are not ready to engage in deliberative discourse around social and global issues. The findings offer a different way of thinking about citizenship education for recent-arrival immigrant youth.

No abstract