September Newsletter

By Scott Storm, New York University & Harvest Collegiate High School

In the public high school where I teach, I’m a part of a department of English teacher-researchers who, for the last seven years, have been investigating adolescents’ literary sensemaking. By literary sensemaking, I refer here to the processes of making meaning with an attention to both form and content from a wide variety of artifacts across modalities. I see sensemaking as constructing meaning from a wide variety of texts— including books, magazines, graphic novels, websites, images, video, music, and multi-modal works. What makes this sensemaking literary is the focus on not only a comprehension and engagement with the content of the text but also with the text’s form. Literary sensemaking of a novel, for example, focuses not only on what the text says but also how the text is written. Looking at word choice, figurative language, punctuation, and syntax is a necessary part of this kind of sensemaking. If the text is a still image, then formal visual elements such as color, line, shape, and composition are also important to consider. A video might have linguistic elements that deserve close reading but may also demand a focus on camera angles, framing, lighting, and other effects. Importantly, this kind of analysis is not done at the expense of talking about the content of the text, but rather this focus on form must work to enrich the discussion of content. But why would a group of English teachers find value in studying how students engage with literary sensemaking? Because we have seen that at its best this kind of literary reasoning can be a powerful vehicle for social justice teaching and ...

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Published in 2013, following the very first JoLLE@UGA Winter Conference, Dr. Jenn Graff’s piece, “Children’s Literature as Tools of and for Activism: Reflections of JoLLE’s inaugural Activist Literaciesconference,” simultaneously reflects on the now annual event and presents the ways that children’s literature can be both tools for and of activist thought and action. Beginning with a brief summarization of the conference that includes the theme, Activist Literacies: Inspire, Engage, Create and Transform, location, and keynote speakers, Graff’s piece immediately immerses readers in the event’s undeniable energy and passion, as attendees gathered to combat “the continual marginalization of people, culture, and ideas” (2013, p. 137). Further, as Graff shares, children’s literature implicitly and explicitly acted as a conduit for attendees of the conference to explore this marginalization and the factors that contribute to its perpetuation. To engage in this work specifically and to adopt an activist stance with children’s literature, as conference attendees did, readers must “consider not only who tells the story but also how the story is told and who the idealized reader is” (p. 138).

Graff then provides readers with exemplary texts that feature youth activists and activist storylines crafted by activist authors, additional narratives and works of art that work to build necessary community, and picturebooks that push against the traditional boundaries of a story. Collectively, these representations of literacy speak to the goal of “improving the lives of our communities and the world” (Graff, 2013, p. 141). As educators and students alike, the readers of JoLLE continue to ...

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Andressa Molinari is a PhD student at the State University of Londrina (UEL, Brazil) in the area of Education, and is currently a visiting research scholar at The University of Georgia, in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. Andressa is also the editor of the Scholar Speak Out (SSO) section at JoLLE, and a member of the Brazilian Association of Applied Linguistics (ALAB). She is an assistant professor at UEL, working in the Language department and an English teacher in the public educational system in the city of Londrina. Her research interests include English Language teacher development, language policies, and having as a principle the preparation for democratic citizenship as an integral part of a critical agenda for teacher training, adopts the deliberative pedagogy, in order to explore the potential of English language classes to train teachers from the perspective of citizenship education. Her current research focus is on the Internationalization of higher education and English Language teacher development. The aim is to shed light into how public policies can influence significantly on teacher training and the enhancement of learning and teaching in higher education, in the realm of internationalization. Andressa holds a Master´s degree in Applied Linguistics, a specialization in English Language teaching education. She enjoys being in the nature. Whenever possible, she practices outdoor sports such as climbing, swimming and hiking.

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