Affirmation, Analysis, and Agency: Book Clubs as Spaces for Critical Conversations with Young Adolescent Women of Color

This paper explores how female urban adolescents of color who participated in a literacy book club during their senior year in high school understood the impact of race, class, and gender oppression on the novels’ characters, themselves, and their communities. Based on transcripts from book club discussions and interviews conducted at the end of their senior year and the end of their first year of college, the authors illustrate how participants affirmed and asserted their voices; analyzed texts for racism, sexism, and classism; and promoted their own and others’ growth and sense of agency as resilient young women of color

A Qualitative Study on Book Clubs and Dialogic Literary Gatherings in Spain and Brazil

ABSTRACT: Some organizations in Spain that seek to foster innovation in reading are keen to establish book clubs or dialogical literary gatherings. However, there are notable differences between these two practices that are not always clear. This paper presents the results of an observational study based on participant observation and interviews with key informants that tackle their similarities and differences in school and social settings. The results show that their differences lie in origin, purpose, methodology, and coordination, among others. The conclusions show different paradigms behind these practices, and organizations should opt for one or the other

Common Core Standards and their Impact on Standardized Test Design: A New York Case Study

With adoption of the Common Core (CCSS) in a majority of U.S. states came developmentof new high-stakes exams. Though researchers have investigated CCSS andrelated policies, less attention has been directed toward understanding how standardsare translated into testing. Due to the influence that high-stakes tests exert on classroomteaching, research is needed to investigate what kinds of changes in test contentare associated with CCSS, as well as the potential impact of these changes on studentsand teachers. Accordingly, this case study examines changes made to one high-stakesexam by comparing pre- and post-CCSS literacy tests administered to high schoolstudents in New York. The study responds to the following: (1) How did the adoption ofCCSS alter the design of high school literacy exams in New York? (2) To what extent doexams represent measures of college readiness as opposed to early college equivalence?(3) What are the implications of CCSS exam adaptations for the goal of preparingstudents to be college and career ready? Findings suggest that the rush toimplement more rigorous CCSS exams resulted in an exceedingly long and difficultexam that is more representative of early college equivalence rather than of collegereadiness.Language Use in Past and Presen