The Hunger Games: Adolescent Literacy and Fan Culture

As part of an online ethnography, I am researching how adolescents around the world engage with young adult literature and fan culture in online affinity spaces. This ongoing research project started in 2011, and it focuses on The Hunger Games, a popular young adult trilogy.  My focal participants are young people, ages 13 to 17, in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Through talking with fans and participating in Hunger Games fansites, I am learning how the culture of online spaces can support youths’ reading, writing, and designing practices and promote the development of their leadership skills.

.

Collaborating with Middle School Teachers to Improve Students’ Literacy Achievement

In this case study, I am collaborating with Mary Louise Gomez and Jessica Gallo at the University of Wisconsin – Madison to design and implement literacy-focused professional development for middle school teachers. Over the 2011 to 2012 school year, we are working with teachers in a socioeconomic and racially diverse school in order to support their literacy instruction across the curriculum. In order to close the school’s achievement gap, we are investigating the relationship between professional development, literacy instruction, and student achievement.

.

Digital Tools, Social Identities, and Cultural Models in Teacher Professional Development

This ethnography examined how English teachers’ technology integration can be supported by professional development. Over the course of the 2009 to 2010 school year, I designed and facilitated professional learning communities at two high schools; participants included English teachers, library media specialists, and technology coordinators. Drawing on microethnographic and critical approaches to discourse analysis, I focused on how teachers’ interactions within the learning community revealed their social identities and cultural models. Results from this study have appeared in English in Australia and E-Learning and Digital Media.

.

iPoetry: Digital Literacy and the Secondary English Curriculum

In this three-year action research project, library media specialist Lora Cowell and I investigated how technology could facilitate high school students’ multimodal composition and critical engagement. As a high school English teacher, I wanted to learn more about how my pedagogy shaped meaningful technology integration in the secondary English curriculum. From 2004 to 2007, Lora and I worked to develop, implement, and reiterate a digital poetry project. We gained insight into how audience and mode shape students’ use of digital tools.  We also learned how professional development can effectively support technology integration in school. Findings from this project have been published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and the International Journal of Learning and Media.

Be Sociable, Share!

•