Annotated Bibliography of Strategies to Support Adolescent Literacy Learning

Sarah Costelloe Graduate Research Assistant Cornerstone

In recent years, there has been a great deal of research on adolescent literacy teaching and learning, resulting in a variety of recommendations about instructional approaches and strategies that are most effective in intermediate grades classrooms. Meltzer (2001) broadly sums up a great deal of this research, noting that the "best practices" identified include:¹

• making connections to students' lives
• having students interact with each other and with text
• creating responsive classrooms
• teacher modeling, strategy instruction, and uses of multiple forms of assessment
• emphasis on reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking
• creating a student-centered classroom
• vocabulary development
• understanding text structures
• recognizing and analyzing discourse features
• supporting the English, math, science, or social studies classroom through literacy development

• The NCTE Commission on Reading suggests that young adult learners need ongoing exposure to a variety of genres through texts that offer "multiple perspectives on real life experiences," and that these texts should include print, electronic, and visual media. Students should also be given opportunities to participate in "authentic" conversations about texts and to think critically about how they engage with these texts. This, the Commission feels, may be facilitated if teachers are equipped with a range of reading material that will meet the diverse needs and interests of students at all levels of difficulty (NCTE 2004).
• Greenleaf et al. (2002) argue that students should be exposed to variety of genres, including "culturally familiar and relevant literature" (487). Furthermore, they argue it is necessary for adolescent literacy learners to be taught how to read different texts in the various content areas, as well as higher level thinking strategies that they can practice while reading the various materials in the content areas (490).
• Athanases' (1998) study showed that when teachers were committed to "exploring diversity through literature," students were given opportunities to explore different genres and texts that included "authentic portrayals of diversity" (280). Athanases observed that this was possible because the teachers "scaffold[ed] students' meaning-making through teacher modeling, sample discussion questions, and use of literature logs and journals" (281). As a result, students engaged in conversations about gender inequalities, as well as other social inequalities, both inside and outside of the classroom (287). Here, teachers have the opportunity to act as a support that may encourage students as they interact with and respond to texts. Further, when students are "invited to talk back to literature," they may be able to have conversations about difference, and to learn about other ethnic and cultural experiences (Athanases, 1998, 276, 288).

• Several authors have studied how involvement and responses to literacy learning have the potential to contribute to students' creation and understanding of gender, race, and class identities.² They have determined that engaging adolescents in reading and discussion of diverse texts allows them opportunities to discuss, critique, and challenge stereotypes, and representations in texts.
• Athanases (1998) explains that texts provide students with opportunities to think about culture, diversity, and social inequity as they are constructing their own identities (288). In this way, texts can help students form positive identities as they break away from stereotypical understandings of self and others.
• Bean and Readence (2002) acknowledge, "contemporary young adult literature offers a vicarious window on social actors that adolescents can relate to in dilemmas in their own lives" (207). Further, Bean and Moni's (2003) work demonstrates how young adult fictions is a good vehicle through which students may relate to, and grapple with, conflicts and issues faced by characters, such as racism, divorce, pregnancy, substance abuse, family conflicts, and political injustice. In addition, adolescents may consider character identity and values as they are shaping their own "worldviews" and identities (642). As students compare and contrast character conflicts and choices through discussion, they may compare them with their own attempts to deal with, and respond to, similar conflicts (Bean & Moni, 2003, 639).

• Reciprocal Teaching (RT) was designed to assist students who have difficulty in decoding and comprehending text. Reciprocal teaching allows students and teachers to take turns leading discussions based on shared texts, and each member of the group is expected to lead the discussion at some point. The four main strategies used to guide Reciprocal Teaching discussions are questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting. Palincsar and Herrenkohl explain that these strategies scaffold dialogue (2002, 26-27).
• As students and teachers engage with texts in a collaborative, social context, students and teachers are both "making their thinking public as they apply the strategies to understanding the text." Further, they "are called upon to shared their own expertise and knowledge in making sense of the text, and to assist one another in doing so." Initially, the teacher delivers instruction about how to use the strategies and models how they are used when engaging with texts. Eventually, the discussions are sustained by the students, with the teacher assisting when students are unable to move forward in the reading of a text (Palincsar & Herrenkohl, 2002, 28).
• Under the Reading Apprenticeship model, students and teachers are "engaged in a shared inquiry into reading, language, and literacy," while each person is viewed as a teacher, as well as a learner. Teachers are also recognized as having expertise as experienced readers in the content areas that they teach (Jordan et al., 2001, 15-16). This, in turn, can act as a resource to foster teacher and student learning (Schoenbach et al., 2003, page 1 online). At the same time, students' strengths are drawn upon as students' in- and out-of-school resources, backgrounds, and multiple literacies are acknowledged and welcomed. In other words, Reading Apprenticeship acknowledges the diverse languages, cultures, experiences, and perspectives of both teachers and students (Jordan et al., 2001, 15-16).
• Reading Apprenticeship is largely based upon the work of Vygotsky, in that students' learning is viewed as "socially mediated." Modeling, mentoring, and scaffolded support act as ways for teachers to apprentice students as they engage in "intellectually challenging tasks" (Jordan et al., 2001, 16). Through teacher professional development, the Reading Apprenticeship work promotes:³
  • Fluency;
  • Building awareness of self as reader;
  • Goal setting and ownership;
  • Confidence; and
  • Strategic control
  Accordingly, the Reading Apprenticeship model is based on the premise that the social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building dimensions of learning must be attended to. (Jordan et al., 2001,17).
  • In addressing the social dimension of learning, teachers may encourage students to share the many diverse texts that they have experience and expertise in, including "video manuals, magazines with ads for video games, car and wrestling magazines, materials from the internet, the lyrics of hip hop songs." Further, the Reading Apprenticeship model encourages collaboration, where students are given the opportunity to share their knowledge and understandings of texts (Jordan et al., 2001, 17-18).
  • As students learn about one another's interests and experiences with texts, a sense of community is established amongst members of the classroom. The personal dimension of the Reading Apprenticeship model "focuses on developing and extending students' individual identities and self-awareness as readers" (Jordan et al., 2001,18). Further, attention is paid to students' out-of-school skills, their emerging sense of self-as-reader, and students' goals and purposes for teaching (WestEd, 2004, "The Reading Apprenticeship Framework"). While students share their background knowledge, they are also given opportunities to learn about others' background knowledge (Jordan et al., 2001, 18).
  • In attending to the cognitive dimension of student learning, teachers may encourage their students to engage in conversations that draw upon the four strategies promoted by Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1983) - questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting. For example, students may keep reciprocal reading logs and are then asked to participate in reciprocal teaching (Jordan et al., 2001, 19-20). Under this model, teachers begin to address the knowledge-building dimension of student learning early in the school year by providing students with opportunities to share, use, and further develop their prior knowledge. Further, teachers may introduce students to works from a variety of genres and may invite students to identify different kinds of texts and their purposes (Jordan et al., 2001, 20; WestEd, 2004).
  • In Reading Apprenticeship classrooms, students are provided with opportunities to think about their thinking through metacognition as they are encouraged to reflect on what they know and how they have come to know it. Through metacognitive conversations, teachers and students develop "new knowledge, strategies, and dispositions to reading." Greenleaf et al. (2001) explain that metacognitive conversations allow participants to share their "their reading processes, strategies, knowledge resources, motivations, and interactions with and affective responses to texts" (10). Teachers may model this strategy by "thinking aloud" in class and by giving students a list of metacognitive sentence starters or strategies to use when they think about and reflect upon their reading (Jordan et al., 2001, 22). Whole-class discussions, small-group dialogue, written reflections and logs, and letter writing are additional tools that aid this metacognitive conversation (Greenleaf et a., 2001, 10). To get them to be aware of their thinking processes, students are asked to identify the tools or strategies that they have used to make sense of a text as a way to get them thinking. Students are also encouraged to "talk to the text" (Davey, 1983) by recording questions, thoughts, or reactions on a piece of text that they are reading (Jordan et al., 2001, 22-3).
• The I-Search process, developed by Ken Macrorie (1988), is one way to support student-centered inquiry and engagement. The I-Search process allows students to choose a topic that they wish to research, often within a thematic unit or topic that the class is exploring. In conducting their research, students are encouraged to rely upon both primary and secondary sources of information.
• At the completion of their research, students present their findings. This presentation often takes the format of a paper, offering a summary of what the student knows; an explanation of the research topic and questions and why they were chosen; documentation of the research activities; and reflection on what was learned or discovered in the research process.⁴ Teachers often guide the I-Search process by leading students through various stages that help them identify meaningful questions, collect and organize their information, and present their research findings.⁵

Bridging in- and out-of-school literacies to foster student engagement and support academic literacy learning:

• As more research is conducted on out-of-school literacy practices, there are grater opportunities for learning how to bridge in- and out-of-school literacies. This will require both acknowledging and incorporating out-of-school literacies into classroom practice, which could act as a support for adolescent literacy learning and identity development (Alvermann, 2003; Bean & Readence, 2002; Moje, 2002).
• McCarthey (2001) notes that reading and writing workshops have been beneficial in encouraging literacy practices for students of diverse backgrounds if they allow students opportunities to make these literacy practices personally meaningful by encouraging students to draw upon interests and experiences from their out of school contexts (126).
• Millard (1997) argues that teachers must become more aware of the cultural traditions in students' homes and communities, while also attending to "the additional impact of the world of multimedia." Collectively, she argues, this knowledge should be incorporated into teachers' instructional practices in ways that will link children's in- and out-of-school experiences (8).

Reading Comprehension Strategies

There is a great deal of research on instructional strategies that will strengthen students' reading comprehension skills. To support adolescents' literacy learning, we will draw upon a variety of these strategies.

• Based on their research, the Pearson and Fielding (1991) make recommendations for teaching reading comprehension. They suggest that students benefit when teachers implement strategies that build recall and knowledge of text structure, and that students comprehend material better when they actively interact with texts. They also urge teachers to help students rely on prior knowledge and experiences to connect these with text content to improve their reading comprehension. In addition, teachers should help students actively monitor their comprehension to assist them in learning how to understand what they read. Finally, they cite research that shows students improve their comprehension and recall skills when they are asked to summarize texts.⁶
• Buehl's (2001) discussion of interactive modeling of reading comprehension emphasizes the importance of activating and developing background knowledge prior to reading, fostering student motivation and engagement, and helping students to develop both cognitive and metacognitive strategies for reading.⁷
• Bean (2003) explains several comprehension strategies that may be reinforced through the use of young-adult literature in the classroom. A sample of these strategies includes:
  • Anticipation-Reaction Guides are composed of a "series of statements at the three levels of comprehension—right on the page, think and search, and on your own" (7). In preparing these statements for a chapter or long selection of text, teachers: identify the concepts to be emphasized, consider challenges that may arise as students read the text, create three or four statements for pre- and post-reading discussion, provide students with the statements, and engage students in a conversation that allows them to reconsider their responses to the statements in light of new information discovered in the text.
  • Discussion guides may be used to "engage students in issues that cut across fiction and nonfiction materials" and help structure post-reading discussion and reflection (9).
  • The Dinner Party activity shared by Bean allows students to "invite" characters from a novel (or other form of text) to their home for dinner and conversation. Students take on the role of specific characters, guided by prompt questions and the roles of the various characters. At the end of the role playing, students reflect on any key issues that arose in the discussion, as well as connections to other content area concepts (15).
• The United Federation of Teachers gathered several instructional tools in their publication on "Active Literacy Strategies." Several of these strategies lend themselves to supporting students' reading comprehension, including:⁸
  • Pre-reading strategies are designed to assist students in integrating material that they read with what they already know. These strategies ultimately support reading comprehension as they:⁹
    • activate and build background knowledge
    • elicit feelings and experiences around a specific topic
    • set a purpose for reading
    • generate curiosity
    • foster identification with characters
    • motivate students
  • A graphic organizer is "a cognitive map in which important aspects of a concept, topic or unit of study are identified and arranged in a visual pattern with appropr1ate labels." Graphic organizers may assist students in reviewing materials, pre-writing activities, and connecting prior knowledge with new information.¹⁰ Examples of graphic organizers include cause and effect charts, sequence charts, Venn diagrams, and main idea and details graphic organizers.¹¹
  • Semantic Mapping "is a visual diagram which helps students see the relationships between words and concepts." This activity allows students to brainstorm ideas, such as a list of related words to a topic, and then organize them into "logical groups or categories" that will foster greater understanding and future retrieval of information.¹²
  • Discussion Webs encourage critical thinking by requiring students to "take a position for or against a particular point of view and requires them to establish and support evidence for their selected point of view." Support for the positions may come from the text itself or from the students' point of view. Once students have prepared their positions and supporting evidence for their positions, the teachers facilitates a whole class discussion where students share opposing views on a statement or position.¹³
  • Double Entry Journals allow students to pull interesting or meaningful information from a text and then respond with a reaction or related experience as a way of explaining why the selected text is meaningful to them. In addition to linking reading and writing, this activity may be used to spark conversation between students as they engage in either whole group or smaller literature group discussions. ¹⁴
  • Reading Logs are more structured than double entry journals because the teacher offers students specific prompts for writing after they have read a portion of text. These logs "help students focus on information, compare it, find patterns, ask questions, predict, summarize, shift perspectives, activate prior knowledge and remember what was learned."¹⁵
• Through "Questioning the Author," students are prompted to reconsider the notion that textbooks are infallible or above criticism. In doing so, students are encouraged to challenge or question difficult texts, instead of assuming that they are personally responsible if they do not understand the material or information that is written. This approach is designed to help students build an understanding of text ideas, as opposed to just learning or memorizing facts and information from the text (Beck & McKeown, 2002, 44).
• To scaffold students' learning and to support their use of the Questioning the Author strategies, teachers may explain the strategies and their purpose, teach and model how to use them, and allow students to practice putting them to work. Initially, the teacher "intervenes at selected points and poses queries to prompt students to consider information in the text" as a way to guide the discussion. Students respond to these questions and other students and the teachers are invited to "build on, refine, or challenge" these responses (2002, 44).
• Questioning the Author encourages readers to engage with the text and become more active in "constructing meaning from the text" as they think about the ideas being presented by the author of the text. While reading texts, students are asked to discuss the ideas that the author is trying to convey and to decide whether the author has been clear in attempting to do so (1993, 561-2). Students may consider the following:¹⁶
  • What is the author trying to tell you?
  • Why is the author telling you that?
  • Does the author say it clearly?
  • How could the author have said things more clearly?
  • What would you say instead?
• Questioning the Author helps students take a more active attitude towards the texts that they are engaging with because they are encouraged to make the text more understandable (if necessary) by discussing the ideas and putting the information into their own words.

Metacognitive Strategies

Wilhelm (1997) argues that teachers should make use to student experiences to engage them in the reading process. In addition, he supports the use of reflective response and notes that as students read and respond to their reading, they should be encouraged to "make visible what they [are] doing, thinking, and feeling" (40). To support students in doing this, Wilhelm offers a variety of activities and instructional strategies, including letters, a variety of protocols, and dramatic representations of text. Included are:

• Literary Letters are written by students to be shared with the teacher and other students. These letters include reflections about a student's reading and may require students to explicitly state how they are reading, noting what they are seeing, feeling, thinking, and doing during reading (41).
• The Think Aloud Protocols that Wilhelm has used in his instruction include free-response protocols, cued-response protocols, two-column written protocols, and visual protocols. Each of these protocols requires students to pause during their reading to think aloud about their reading processes and about their reactions to the text. Through the use of these protocols, teachers may get a glimpse of how students are "thinking about their thinking and their reading " (42).
• Symbolic Story Representation is an artistic form that allows students to represent a scene from a text, as well as their reading processes and reactions to the text. Students use cutouts to symbolize characters or their qualities, important settings or scenes, themes in the book, and themselves as a reader. After creating this visual representation, students meet with the teacher or members of the class to explain why they have chosen the visual cutouts that they are presenting. Next, they use the cutouts to "both dramatize the story events for their audience and recount their readerly experiences of these events" (43)
• Interrogating the Text encourages students to be reflective while they are reading, questioning various aspects of the text, including the plot, specific scenes, and the author's use of literary elements and structures. Students may also consider the significance of aspects of the text as they reflect on how they are interacting with the text (75).
• Wilhelm introduced drama to the classroom as a way to "extend the reader" (87) by inviting them to participate in "story theater" or enact "story events" (89). By turning reading into an active process in the classroom, Wilhelm found that dramatic and artistic activity can help readers "both experience and learn from text" (91). These dramatic activities can assist students in entering, seeing and elaborating upon "the story world," relating to characters, and connecting literature to their own lives (Chapter 4).

Supporting Critical Reading and Discussion of Texts

• The findings shared by researchers of adolescent literacy largely point to the importance of engaging students in critical reading, discussion, and response to texts.¹⁷ Hagood (2002) explains that critical literacy "is about making students more knowledgeable and aware of the texts that surround them and ones they choose" (248). Morgan (1998) expands the definition, explaining that critical literacy instruction provides opportunities for challenging the "culture and knowledges in the text- putting them up for grabs, critical debate, for weighing, judging, critiquing" (157).
• Bean and Moni (2003) posit, "Critical literacy shifts the boundaries of discussion between teacher and students, changes relationships, and generates substantive conversations about texts. The texts themselves become manipulable, transparent constructions that can be accepted or rejected, and in which multiple meanings are explored" (646). Here, students may be encouraged to take a critical stance toward reading that will lead them to engage with texts, as opposed to rejecting them. Structural prompts, subject reader positioning, examining gaps and silences, and classroom conversations that encourage students to consider alternative expressions of identity construction are some of the critical literacy strategies shared by Bean and Moni (2003).
• Reader response circles, literature study circles, cooperative learning groups, and opportunities to respond to readings in writing also teach students to respond to literature critically (DeBlase, 2003, 634-5) and aid students in constructing or shaping their social identities (Broughton & Fairbanks, 2002). DeBlase argues, "girls need critical reading strategies in order to 'talk back' to the text and to question or resist patterns of male dominance and power or traditional models of love and heterosexual relationships." Further, through readings of diverse texts, girls may being to "locate the contradictions between a text's representation of reality and the reality of their own lives" (634). Finally, McCarthey and Moje (2002) point to the possibility for teachers to help students resist or challenge the identities and positions that are often ascribed to them as adolescents (19).

WORKS CITED

Bean, T.W. (2003). Using Young-Adult Literature to Enhance Comprehension in the Content Areas. IL: Learning Point Associates.

Bean, T.W., & Moni, K. (2003). Developing students' critical literacy: Exploring identity construction in young adult fiction. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46(8), 638-648.

Bean, T.W., & Readence, J.E. (2002). Adolescent Literacy: Charting a Course for Successful Futures as Lifelong Learners. Reading Research and Instruction, 41 (3), 203-210.

Beck, I.L., & McKeown, M.G. (2002). Questioning the Author: Making Sense of Social Studies. Educational Leadership, 60(3), 44-47.

DeBlase, G. (2003). Acknowledging agency while accommodating romance: Girls negotiating meaning in literacy transactions. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46 (8), 624-635.

Greenleaf, C.L., Schoenbach, R., Cziko, C., & Mueller, Faye L. (2001). Apprenticing Adolescent Readers to Academic Literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 71(1), 79-129. Retrieved online on December 12, 2004.

Greenleaf, C.L., Jimenez, R.T., & Roller, C.M. (2002). Reclaiming secondary reading interventions: From limited to rich conceptions, from narrow to broad conversations. Reading Research Quarterly 37(4), 484-496.

Jordan, M., Jensen, R., Greenleaf, C. (2001). 'Amidst Familial Gatherings': Reading Apprenticeship in a Middle School Classroom. Voices from the Middle, 8(4), 15-24.

Macrorie, K. (1988). The I-Search Paper. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

McCarthey, S.J. (2001). Identity construction in elementary readers and writers. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(2), 122-151

McCarthey, S.J., & Moje, E.B. (2002). Identity Matters (Conversations). Reading Research Quarterly, 37(2), 228-239.

McDaniel, C. (2004). Critical literacy: A questioning stance and the possibility for change. International Reading Association, 472-481.

McKeown, MG., Beck, I.L., & Worthy, M.J. (1993). Grappling with text ideas: Questioning the author. The Reading Teacher, 46, 560-566.

Millard, E. (1997). Differently Literate: Gender Identity and the Construction of the Developing Reader. Gender & Education, 9(1).

Moje, E.B. (2002). Re-Framing Adolescent Literacy Research for New Time: Studying Youth as a Resource. Reading Research and Instruction, 41(3), 211-228.

NCTE. (2004). Research on Adolescent Literacy and Recommendations. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/collections/adolescentliteracy/resources/116836.htm on
October 10, 2004.

Palinscar, A.S., & Herrenkohl, L.R. (2002). Designing Collaborative Learning Contexts. Theory into Practice, 41(1), 26-32.

Schoenbach, R., Braunder, J., Greenleaf, C., & Litman, C. (2003). Apprenticing Adolescents to Reading in Subject-Area Classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan. Retrieved through http://www.wested.org on January 4, 2005.

WestEd. (2004). "The Reading Apprenticeship Framework." Retrieved from http://www.wested.org/stratlit/about/RA-2pg.pdf on January 4, 2005.

Wilhelm, J.D. (1997). You Gotta Be the Book. NY: Teachers College Press.

² See McCarthey, 2001; DeBlase 2003; McCarthey & Moje, 2002.