May Newsletter

By Shelley Wong, George Mason University

I was excited and honored when the Editor of Scholars Speak Out, Kate Batson, invited me to contribute to this column. For the past year, I have been a visiting Fulbright scholar from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia to Birzeit University in the West Bank, the occupied Palestinian territories. Birzeit University is a leading university in Palestine and the Middle East. It is rated within the top 2.7 universities internationally by QS World Universities Ranking (https://www.birzeit.edu/).

In the year before I arrived in Palestine from the U.S., Israeli authorities denied—or significantly delayed—issuing visas to fifteen of the Birzeit University faculty with foreign passports (Kundara, 2018). When a visa is denied, it means that a professor—no matter how worthy their past contributions nor how innovative their new research projects—can no longer stay and must pack up and leave. Similarly, when the processing of a professor’s visa is significantly delayed, it can create undue anxiety. Not knowing if you will...

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As a teacher educator who teaches content area literacies to pre-service teachers, I am constantly seeking materials, activities, and opportunities to expose my students to pluralist perspectives in their teaching endeavors. I want their comfort zones and perceived boundaries to be challenged and continually consider how to sustain the myriad cultural, linguistic, social, racial, ability, and gender backgrounds of their students.

The article,Learning In/Through Collaborative Poetry Translation: Documenting the Impact of Poetry Inside Out with High School-Aged English Language Learners, by Park (2015) showcases ways pre-service teachers can use collaborative poetry translation and discussions to engage their emergent bilingual students in literacies learning. It also provides a framework for (pre-service) teachers to become involved in professional learning opportunities to meet the “challenges of standards-based reforms and accountability mandates” (Park, 2015, p. 145). This article is definitely worth a second visit!

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Lacy Brice is a Ph.D. student at The University of Georgia, in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, and is currently the Academic Book Review Editor for the Journal of Language and Literacy Education (JoLLE). Her research interests include the transition from oral reading to silent reading, adolescent motivation and self-regulation during writing experiences, and teacher education. Her ongoing research addresses how teacher beliefs influence classroom reading opportunities. Lacy also teaches two courses at the University of Georgia focusing on reading instruction and assessment in the elementary classroom. Previously, she received her master’s degree in Learning, Teaching and Curriculum in Literacy Education at the University of Missouri, a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and spent 17 years as a K-12 educator. In her free time, Lacy enjoys reading historical fiction, traveling, and trying new restaurants in the Atlanta area.

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