Early reactions suggest that secondary teachers need support implementing the Common Core State Standards, specifically when teaching close reading strategies with complex disciplinary texts to vulnerable readers. This mixed-methods study conducted in a formative experiment paradigm (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) aimed to provide explanatory theories generated by applying a grounded theory approach to data analysis. An ethnographic case study design framed the grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and the formative experiment. I wanted to understand how two teachers adjusted their curriculum and instruction to create a more rigorous experience for vulnerable readers. I also sought to explore how such an approach affected the academic identities of these students. Teacher surveys, teacher interviews, student interviews, student surveys, student work, reading assessments, classroom observations, and teacher planning sessions provided evidence about how readers in two classrooms make sense of text and the strategies that support their comprehension and engagement during two curricular units that involve close reading of disciplinary texts.

The units were used by students in two Special Day English classrooms at two different school sites and were co-designed by each high school teacher and myself. Reflections upon the first curricular unit informed the planning for the second curricular unit in each class. Also, I followed three students into at least one of their other disciplinary classes to understand their experiences with discipline-specific literacy instruction, both in the language arts and their disciplinary classes. Finally, I interviewed students about their in-school and out-of-school literacy practices, again to look for evidence of transfer from the units to their everyday repertoire of practices.

Results indicate that both teachers, as they implemented the collaboratively planned lessons, asked predominantly open-ended questions that expected students to include textual evidence in their responses and did not have predetermined answers. This behavior was contrary to what I expected at the beginning of my study because I expected teachers might have predetermined answers. When responding to each teacher’s instruction, students referenced the text in supporting the claims they developed on their own. In both classrooms, some of the students’ academic identities improved during the study. All students reported rich relationships with text outside of school; however, only some students experienced success with reading complex disciplinary text in their English class. Overall findings suggest a positive effect of open-ended tasks that require students reference both the text and the knowledge that they bring to the task in forming arguments and applying understandings gained while reading. Future studies including a greater number of teachers from a range of disciplines who implement instruction with more students over a longer period of time would be beneficial in developing a more robust database about the power and influence of close reading practices.

Extensive bodies of literature examining child language acquisition and early literacy development indicate that the language and literacy opportunities young children have at home and in school settings, including the nature of their language interactions with adults and their exposure to books and stories, are consequential for mastery of conventional literacy and long-term academic success (Burchinal & Forestieri, 2011; Catts et al., 2001; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Fernald & Weisleder, 2015). Research reports indicating numerous common and distinct benefits to book reading (e.g., Elley, 1989; Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Neuman, 1999; Becher, 1985) and storytelling (e.g., Isbell et al., 2004; Trostle & Hicks, 1998) for emergent and beginning readers and writers would suggest that children learning in settings where both activities are implemented would be poised to receive the best of both worlds.

This study investigated the affordances for the development of narrative comprehension and academic language that arise when young children participate in both read aloud and storytelling lessons. I conducted an ethnographic case study of an ongoing arts-integrated storytelling program for preschoolers, Language and Learning Through Oral Storytelling, that was collaboratively implemented by a community arts organization and a Head Start agency in four preschool classrooms at a single Head Start site serving large numbers of emergent bilingual students and children diagnosed with disabilities. Two teaching artists with professional backgrounds in theater and dance, one seasoned and one new to the storytelling program, delivered over a period of several months in two classrooms each 12 participatory storytelling sessions organized into four units that were designed to promote understanding of narrative. I recorded, transcribed, and analyzed storytelling sessions to investigate and compare the repertoire of language-promoting pedagogical tools that each teaching artist used to promote the narrative register, academic language, and comprehension for stories.

In addition, I served as a participant observer in the four classrooms, a role that allowed me informally observe the typical read aloud practices of the classroom teachers as well as to record, transcribe, and analyze their read aloud lessons for the focal picture books that anchored each storytelling unit. A fifth preschool classroom located at second nearby Head Start site served as a no treatment control to permit me to examine teacher read aloud practices in a setting outside the influence of the storytelling program. I compared the read aloud practices of the storytelling teachers to each other and to the control teacher to investigate the language-promoting pedagogical tools they used to promote students’ control of the narrative register, academic language, and comprehension for stories during read aloud lessons. Finally, I asked how the affordances of these two learning contexts—storytelling and reading aloud—complemented and contrasted with one another.

Findings indicate that the teaching artists’ pedagogical repertoires were more complex and diverse than those used by the classroom teachers for reading aloud due the wider array of activities used within the storytelling program. The classroom contexts into which the storytelling program was implemented, and the roles played by individual classroom teachers were found to be important contributors to how the storytelling sessions were enacted and experienced in each classroom. The two teaching artists overall used a similar repertoire of language-promoting practices, but the more seasoned artist’s prior experience working with preschoolers in the storytelling program appeared to assist her in designing and teaching heavily scaffolded lessons that minimized misunderstandings with students whereas the new artists’ more relaxed implementation of the storytelling lesson framework and her high expectations for preschool students’ capacity for mature reasoning led to communication problems with students somewhat more frequently. They both strongly emphasized building common knowledge and student observation of and performance of acts of storytelling. The performance orientation placed considerable demands on students’ cognitive, linguistic, motor, and social capacities, while at the same time offering a highly engaging and often exciting forum in which to build understanding of story. This is an important finding given the scope of extant literature on storytelling; in no other study was the storytelling intervention led by professional teaching artists, and in no other study was fully embodied participation by students so emphasized.

The classroom teachers shared many commonalities in their read aloud practices, including the finding that many of the language-promoting practices under analysis occurred only occasionally and sometimes not at all during their read aloud lessons. A major unexpected finding was the low frequency of read aloud lessons and sometimes circumscribed nature of those lessons in the four storytelling classrooms as the result of broader professional, instructional, and social forces that shaped the context for instruction at this site. In contrast, the control classroom was found have a particularly vibrant and effective program of reading instruction due operating under substantially different professional, instructional, and social forces. Students at this site enjoyed listening to and talking about books and at times engaged in emergent independent and partner reading. This finding supports existing literature on reading aloud, which indicates that children who find listening to and talking about books to be pleasurable activities are more likely to read independently once they learn to read (Bus, 2002; Cunningham & Zibulsky, 2011) which can have consequential impacts on their success in school and available life choices, as volume of reading is strongly correlated with general knowledge and reading achievement (Cervetti & Hiebert, 2015; Sparks et al., 2014; Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993).

Close reading is an enigmatic term with a simple definition: special attention to texts. Key shifts in the Common Core State Standards have led to a renewed interest about close reading instruction among researchers and practitioners of K-12 education. Close reading is particularly salient in secondary settings, where calls to raise text difficulty and increase literacy instruction in the disciplines have placed new demands on middle and high school teachers. But even though close reading is now widespread in secondary classrooms, there is very little research to date on close reading instruction. As such we still do not know how these practices will affect students’ reading skills and motivation.

In this dissertation, I offer three article-length contributions to the research base on secondary close reading instruction. First, I synthesize practice-based research on close reading instruction with the aim of identifying best practices for close reading in secondary classrooms. I then present two empirical articles that address gaps in the research literature on adolescent close reading instruction.

In chapter 1, previously published in Adolescent Literacies: A Handbook of Practice-Based Research, P. David Pearson and I offer a vision for a 21st-century close reading pedagogy. This vision was influenced by a historical account of close reading’s place in adolescent classrooms over the past 75 years and a review of research on secondary close reading instruction. We argue that a 21st-century close reading pedagogy must encompass considerations of the reader and his or her sociocultural contexts, accept digital and everyday texts as candidates for close readings, and include purposes for reading beyond knowledge building. In light of these goals, we suggest five principles of adolescent close reading instruction: background knowledge, authentic reading and writing, metadiscursive awareness, critical literacy, and dialogically organized discussion.

In chapter 2, I draw on the principles of close reading instruction outlined in chapter 1 to co-design tests of close reading instruction with a high school chemistry teacher. In this formative experiment, I tested the effect of background knowledge activation on amount and types of questions written about a scientific article; I also tested whether allowing students to choose texts to read about a scientific issue affected the amount of information written on that topic and their motivation to read. In a challenge to Common-Core-era recommendations that background knowledge should be held at bay when closely reading texts, I found that students who had their background knowledge activated with pre-reading activities prior to closely reading an article wrote more argument-generating questions than students who did not engage in pre-reading activities. I also argue that students who were able to choose a text to read closely about a scientific topic online recorded as much accurate information about that topic as students who were assigned a text to read by their teacher.

In chapter 3, I explore an understudied area of close reading instruction: students’ everyday digital close reading practices. This article is an ethnographic case study of students’ out-of-school digital close readings and their teachers’ approach to digital close reading instruction in the classroom. By comparing these two realms through the lens of cultural historical activity theory, I am able to surface tensions and synergies that may lead to recommendations for close reading instruction that leverages students’ existing funds of knowledge about digital literacies. Specifically, I found that when teachers designed digital close reading instruction in the service of promoting student-directed learning, it aligned well with students’ goals when they performed everyday close readings of digital texts at home.

Together, these three chapters suggest new directions for adolescent close reading instruction and research. In chapter 4, I synthesize across the three articles to highlight common themes and conclude with ideas for future research and lingering questions about the nature of close reading.

This study examined the use of sequenced visual images (graphic novels and comic books) to scaffold incidental vocabulary learning and text comprehension while processing visual and textual information. Due to the recent growth of graphic novels as a popular text format, empirical investigation is needed to ascertain its value and to possibly incorporate this format into existing curriculua. This format was hypothesized to be particularly effective for English Language Learners (ELLs) due to the visual, non-linguistically loaded images that accompany text that may scaffold learning. Thus, both primarily English speakers and English Language Learners (ELLs) were examined. In this experimental study, 10th grade students’ ability to incidentally learn the meaning of targeted academic words from reading sequenced visual images versus text-only format was compared. Additionally, the interaction between format (text only versus text with images) and ELL status (English speakers in comparison to ELL) was examined. Further, the role of intrinsic motivation for reading and transportation was investigated, of students reading in each format were evaluated both as an outcome as well as a mediator of vocabulary growth and reading comprehension.

This study showed that 10th grade students learned statistically significant amounts of academic vocabulary from both the script and graphic novel format of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Further, these students showed the equal level of comprehension of the Shakespeare plays across the two formats, with some benefits in the graphic format observed in raw score. In addition, there were significant differences in the Intrinsic Motivation for Reading and Transportation scales depending on the format in which the play was read. The data suggests higher levels of intrinsic motivation for reading (Interest and Enjoyment of Reading scale and Perceived Competence scale) and feelings of Transportation (General and Composite scale) after exposure to the graphic novel format rather than the script version of a play. These significant effects of the graphic novel format were found to superseded the effects of the narrative’s transportative appeal in the Composite Transportation scale. However, only in the Intrinsic Motivation scale of Pressure/Tension felt when reading, students’ feelings were impacted more significantly by the narrative rather than the format. These findings do not show any specific benefit for ELL students in comparison to their predominantly English-speaking peers across all outcome measures. Lastly, moderating effects were unable to be found due to a lack of initial, meaningful relationship between the format and vocabulary learning. Overall, this study proposes an interesting starting point for the discussion of including the graphic novel format in academic environments to further learning and psycho-social benefits for students.

This case study, drawing upon the ecological perspectives (Kramsch, 2002; van Lier, 2004) as a theoretical framework, described the learning experiences of two second generation and first grade Vietnamese English Language Learners navigating between home and school to develop oral and written L1 Vietnamese and L2 English competence for one school year. In the second school year, the focal students' oral and written language samples were collected without classroom observations or interviews. Focal student one had the advantage of learning language in three settings--home, public school, and Vietnamese Sunday School--while focal student two had access to the first two only. A variety of qualitative tools were developed to capture the language affordance, interaction and emergence of ELL learners: (a) observation fieldnotes (b) parent and teacher interviews, and (c) L1 and L2 oral and written reading survey and assessment. Metalinguistic awareness, through language play, language rehearsal and repeated reading emerged as an important mediator of language competence and as an interpretative framework to drive the analytic induction process (Erickson, 1986; Bogdan & Biklen, 2003) that I employed. Data interpretation focused on the L1 Vietnamese and L2 English oral and written modes.

The study findings suggest that when teachers, parents and students collaborate to generate and activate the L1 and L2 language affordances (van Lier, 2000) of Vietnamese ELLs through reflexive form of interaction, language learning and competence will emerge. Awareness of language form and function assisted focal students in developing L1 and L2 oral and written competence. Overall, reading assessment results indicate moderate-high growth by the end of the school year for focal student one. She mastered the early reading abilities, such as letter names and sounds, high frequency word and decodable words in L1 Vietnamese and L2 English. Listening and reading comprehension improved more for L2, compared to L1. Focal student two, who had access to only 2 sites (home and public school), showed low-moderate growth in listening and reading comprehension skills in L2 English. Her L2 early reading skills were high, compared to no improvement in L1. There was no growth in L1 listening and reading comprehension through oral retell and writing tasks. Because observations began at the start of first grade, after one year of L2 English exposure in kindergarten, both focal students used more L2 oral language to communicate with family members, peers and teachers. Focal student one

increased her codeswitching as her fluency improved in both L1 Vietnamese and L2 English at age six. Additional participation in Vietnamese Sunday School was beneficial for focal student one as evidenced by her overall improvement in L1 Vietnamese and L2 English oral and written language competence.

School science has been criticized for its lack of emphasis on the tentative, dynamic nature of science as a process of learning more about our world. This criticism is the guiding force for this present body of work, which focuses on the question: what are the educational benefits for middle school students of reading texts that highlight the process of science in the form of a discovery narrative? This dissertation traces my journey through a review of theoretical perspectives of narrative, an analysis of first-hand accounts of scientific discovery, the complex process of developing age-appropriate, cohesive and engaging science texts for middle school students, and a comparison study (N=209) that seeks to determine the unique benefits of the scientific discovery narrative for the interest in and retained understanding of conceptual information presented in middle school science texts.

A total of 209 middle school participants in nine different classrooms from two different schools participated in the experimental study. Each subject read two science texts that differed in topic (the qualities of and uses for radioactive elements and the use of telescopic technology to see planets in space) and genre (the discovery narrative and the "conceptually known exposition" comparison text). The differences between the SDN and CKE versions for each topic were equivalent in all possible ways (initial introduction, overall conceptual accuracy, elements of human interest, coherence and readability level), save for the unique components of the discovery narrative (i.e., love for their work, acknowledgement of the known, identification of the unknown and the explorative or experimental process to discovery). Participants generally chose the discovery narrative version as the more interesting of the two texts.

Additional findings from the experimental study suggest that science texts in the form of SDNs elicit greater long-term retention of key conceptual information, especially when the readers have little prior knowledge of a given topic. Further, ethnic minority groups of lower socio-economic level (i.e., Latin and African-American origins) demonstrated an even greater benefit from the SDN texts, suggesting that a scientist's story of discovery can help to close the gap in academic performance in science.

An investigation of the relationship between background knowledge and reading comprehension performance on standardized reading tests (the California STAR Test) was conducted with sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade ethnic minority children from low-income backgrounds (N = 68). Predictor variables examined included perceived background knowledge (overall and topic-specific), GPA, basic literacy skills, reading self-concept, race and ethnicity, language background, gender, and grade level. Research questions addressed participants' familiarity with topics discussed in STAR test reading passages and about the predictive nature of participant rankings and ratings of passages, as measured by the Topic Familiarity Ranking Measure and the Topic Familiarity Rating Scale. Results indicated that background knowledge of passage topics had a significant positive association (p < .05) with reading comprehension performance for 30% of the CST passages, for seventh and eighth-grade participants. Hierarchical regression analyses conducted on three of the passages showed that between 7% and 16% of the variance in reading comprehension performance was accounted for by background knowledge, as measured by the Topic Familiarity Rating Scale.

This dissertation is a case- and cross-case analysis of three fourth-grade children -- Bella, Sam, and Ethan -- whose paths to literacy have not been easy. It is also a formative experiment of the support provided for these children over the course of a school year. This research is shaped by Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems theory. Bronfenbrenner argues that we can fully understand a child's development only if we consider all the many proximal and distal elements -- from home and school environments to parental workplaces to potentially oppressive race, class, and gender factors -- that influence that development. Similarly, we can fully understand a child's literacy development only if we consider all the many elements -- from texts to teachers to test publishers to language and culture -- that influence literacy development. Vulnerable reader (Bomer, 1999) is an appropriate term for children who struggle with literacy because it emphasizes the fact that their experience is characterized by a particular sensitivity to disruptions within the literacy ecology. This study is supported by research literature that notes the great variety of challenges faced by vulnerable readers (Buly & Valencia, 2002) and which suggests that beneficial instruction is responsive to each child's specific strengths and challenges (Stevens, van Werkhoven, & Castelijns, 2001).

The protocol of support included approximately 30 one-on-one tutorial sessions focused on each child's individual needs and 30 small group sessions during which time the children researched, wrote, and illustrated their own books, as well as reading and discussing a variety of literature selections. All sessions were audio- or video-taped and later transcribed. Additional data sources included a variety of assessments (an Informal Reading Inventory, miscue analysis, think aloud protocols, and the Metacomprehension Strategies Index among them); semi-formal interviews with teachers and parents, as well as the children; and classroom observations.

Case study findings demonstrated that, while each child became a more effective and engaged reader over the course of the intervention, each did so in ways that were quite unique and reflected his/her particular personality; Bella and Ethan, for example, were obviously active in their approach while Sam was much more reserved. The cross-case analysis determined that a variety of ecosystem factors influenced their development. Bella was most affected by the type of tasks employed in the study design, by an apparent lack of access to the health care needed to overcome low-grade but chronic illness, and by her English learner status. For Sam, instruction that presented reading in the same algorithmic way that characterized math (a curriculum area with which he was successful) was very effective, and an increasing level of comfort with peers supported him as well. Ethan was most influenced by reading texts on topics of great interest, and yet his progress was undermined by frequent moves caused by his family's low socioeconomic status. Formative experiment findings emphasized the importance of building a community of learners in which risk-taking was supported, where help was available when needed, and where success was generously acknowledged. This dissertation provdes a model for Tier 3 Response to Intervention -- an intense level of support producing levels of achievement and engagement worthy of the time and energy expended.

Bold

Room to Read: Tracking the Evolution of a New Secondary School Library

by

Marjorie Cummings Goodin

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

University of California, Berkeley

Professor P. David Pearson, Chair

The purpose of this study was to examine and describe the evolution of a new school library, one that was a site for learning and practicing literacy in collaborative ways. By tracking the construction of school library resources and programs at a secondary school where no library existed, I was able to explore the processes and elements of library formation as it impacts the literacy environment. My hunch was that by improving the available resources in a distributed library, the opportunities for access and choice, and by developing the library dispositions of the students there might be observable changes in students' reading attitudes, engagement and achievement at the school. These library dispositions include developing habits of mind and attitudes that guide student thinking and intellectual behaviors, and that may be measured through actions taken to access library resources and to read independently.

In this study I viewed the school library project as an intervention--one that sought to develop a culture of reading and information use with adolescents--by attending to access, choice, motivation and engagement in reading, and by collaborating with amenable content area teachers on instructional supports. My initial research concerns included how library dispositions are taken up in a school, or not, as a distributed library was developed on site; what barriers and benefits of building library resources and instructional connections to students and content area curricula might be evident; and how increased access to resources might impact the attitudes about reading and reading achievement of a focal group of students. The design research approach allows an examination of the impact of the library as intervention (the product) as it is engineered and adapted with input from the school community (the process).

This dissertation argues that the school library exists in an academic Third Space animated by constant tensions: in the ideological space between traditional in-school instructional goals and out-of-school learning priorities, in the curricular space between explicit curricular requirements and independent learning desires, and in the physical space between facility competitions for access to group learning space versus individual learning space.