Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

From the Editors

2016; Wiley; Volume: 59; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/jaal.492

1936-2706

Emily Neil Skinner, Margaret C. Hagood,

Digital Storytelling and Education

Dear Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Community, “Hear Me,” the cover title for this issue, features a photograph taken of a mural in Brussels, Belgium, by Manning Pruden, who was a double major in art and education and now “bounces around the world discovering the convergence of the two disciplines.” The mural depicted in the cover image was created as an HIV/AIDS awareness visual shared during Gay Pride week. This issue highlights visual literacies enacted across the globe as powerful texts that demand to be not only seen but also heard. Constance Steinkuehler opens the issue with “Parenting and Video Games,” arguing that digital media literacy scholars should shift their focus from adolescents in relative isolation to families as a system, thereby addressing the historical, economic, and material contexts that shape parenting and media use. Next, Carol Ann Davis presents a commentary written in collaboration with Newtown poets Maddie, Kiera, Barb, Paula, and MacKenzie. “Of Rather Than in a Place: Writing in and From Community” describes the formation of the Newtown Poetry Project, which was created to support the community of Newtown, Connecticut, after the horrific elementary school shooting by engaging parents and children in grades 3–6 in poetry writing. Even though the topics were not focused on the shooting per se, the process of creating visual images through poetry allowed for the community members to be heard. Department columns this month focus on timely issues of coding and science literacies. W. Ian O'Byrne's Multiliteracies department presents “Computational Participation: Understanding Coding as an Extension of Literacy Instruction,” a column that O'Byrne coauthored with Quinn Burke and Yasmin B. Kafai to advocate for coding as a means for engaging adolescents in the workings of Web-based media. Burke, O'Byrne, and Kafai argue that understanding the computational concepts of digital applications offers adolescents the opportunity to become more discerning end users and innovative designers of new media. In her Disciplinary/Content Area Literacies department, Victoria Gillis coauthors “Disciplinary Literacy Through the Lens of the Next Generation Science Standards” with Ana Houseal, Mark Helmsing, and Linda Hutchison. This column talks back to the notion that adolescents are ill suited to the kinds of thinking advocated by disciplinary literacy scholars and instead draws on the Next Generation Science Standards to make a case that discipline-appropriate literacy abilities are already embedded in national standards for English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Following, the Literacy Lenses article “Biomedical Sciences From a New Perspective,” written by high school student Grace Lady, describes the positive effects of her biomed teacher's innovative teaching practices on her learning and engagement. The first feature article of the issue, “Responsible Grammar Rebels: Using the Hunger Games Trilogy to Teach the Intentional Sentence Fragment” by Amber M. Simmons, illustrates how grammar instruction can be engaging and motivating by connecting to pop culture and conceptualizing grammar as a set of choices instead of a list of rules. Elizabeth R. Padgett and Jen Scott Curwood's feature article, “A Figment of Their Imagination: Adolescent Poetic Literacy in an Online Affinity Space,” draws on sociocultural perspectives to present a case study that investigates ways that youths write, read, and critique poetry in an online affinity space. Rawia Hayik's article, “What Does This Story Say About Females? Challenging Gender-Biased Texts in the English-Language Classroom,” describes her teacher research in a Middle Eastern EFL classroom where she facilitated critical literacy pedagogies to critique Cinderella tales and the traditional female positioning in literature, media, and pop culture. “Bridging In-School and Out-of-School Literacies: An Adolescent EL's Composition of a Multimodal Project” by Jeongsoo Pyo features the case study of a Korean adolescent English learner who used various modalities to produce a comprehensive project that connected in-school and out-of-School literacies. The final two feature articles depict the power of visual literacies in graphica formats. Michael Bitz and Obiajulu Emejulu's print-based feature article, “Creating Comic Books in Nigeria: International Reflections on Literacy, Creativity, and Student Engagement,” describes their professional development project with Nigerian teachers to develop a comic book curriculum in which Nigerian youths could develop, design, and share original comic books. Stephanie Jones and James F. Woglom present “From Where Do You Read the World? A Graphica Expansion of Literacies for Teacher Education,” a graphic memoir scholarly article that argues for the expansion of critical literacies in teacher education. Through reflecting on her own lived experiences accompanied by Woglom's graphica art, Jones models how contemplating one's own lived experiences can serve as a springboard for considering a repertoire of ways of thinking/speaking/being toward social justice. The Text Review Forum columns provide several text suggestions. In his Visual and Digital Texts column, Stergios Botzakis evaluates apps and websites that assist teachers, students, and other interested readers in learning about DNA, genes, heredity, and genetic disorders. Next, James Blasingame reviews two texts in his Print-Based Texts column: 13 Days of Midnight by Leo Hunt and My Fight/Your Fight by Ronda Rousey with Maria Burns Ortiz. Finally, in Marcelle M. Haddix's Professional Resources column, Maima Chea reviews Other People's English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy by Vershawn Ashanti Young, Rusty Barrett, Y'Shanda Young-Rivera, and Kim Brian Lovejoy. As you peruse the pages or screens of this issue, we hope that the multimodal images enrich what Pruden referred to with her cover art as “hearing” authors’ messages and inspire your teaching and research of multimodal literacies with adolescents and adults. Happy reading!