{"title":"Composing Meaningful Connections Across High School and College Contexts","authors":"Bethany Monea","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70065","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The question of how students navigate the transition from high school to college writing is of perennial concern to teachers and researchers of adolescent and adult literacy. This study contributes to this conversation through an in-depth analysis of the composing experiences that a group of eight, first-generation-to-college Latina students found most meaningful during their four years of high school and their first semesters of college. Comparing these compositions' modalities, contexts, topics, and motivations reveals the importance of identity-affirming composing experiences and the opportunity for expanding the range of composing modalities for students across secondary and postsecondary settings. Artifacts of participants' meaningful composing ranged from self-portraits and sculptures created in high school to memoirs and research proposals written in college. Their descriptions of why these compositions mattered to them illustrate the necessity of and methods for creating meaningful connections between students' identities, communities, and literacy practices as they connect their writing across high school and college contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jaal.70065","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148753300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Literacy Identity Construction, Negotiation, and Resistance Among Middle School Students of Color in Online Learning","authors":"Eugene Kwasi Gyekye, Priscilla Marfo","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70070","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This qualitative multiple case study examines how middle school Students of Color construct, negotiate, and respond to literacy identities within classroom-based online learning contexts. Guided by racialized identity development in learning contexts, the study examines how access, participation, and recognition shaped students' experiences of competence and belonging during digital literacy instruction. Data were collected over 9 months at an urban middle school and included more than 300 h of classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, and digital artifacts from Google Docs, used for collaborative writing and peer feedback; Epic, a digital reading platform supporting teacher-assigned and student-selected texts; and Raz-Kids, a guided reading platform that supported oral reading, self-monitoring, and rereading. Findings show that students constructed literacy identities through agentic participation, collaborative interaction, and culturally and linguistically meaningful literacy practices. Recognition was negotiated across peer interactions, digital platform affordances, and institutional assessment systems, although these systems were not consistently aligned. While classroom digital platforms supported iterative participation and visible growth, institutional measures often constrained how students' literacy practices were recognized. These findings extend scholarship on racialized identity development and sociocultural literacy by demonstrating how classroom-based digital learning environments shape opportunities for competence, belonging, and recognition among middle school Students of Color.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148753299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Language and Literacy in Transition: Reimagining Inclusion and Educational Futures in a Global Context. By Elena Domínguez Romero, Jelena Bobkina, Frank Serafini, and Marta Carretero (eds.), Cham: Springer, 2026. 131 pp. ISBN: 978-3-03-216903-7","authors":"Hengzhi Hu, Xi Heng","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70069","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148753251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Finding Voice Across Platforms: Asian American and Asian Transnational Youths' Identity Negotiation in Social Media Spaces","authors":"Zixin Chen, Anqi Zu, Betina Hsieh","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70067","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite being one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States (U.S.), Asian heritage youth are often essentialized by dominant literacy ideologies as quiet, obedient, or culturally foreign, leaving their identity negotiation underexamined and insufficiently supported. This qualitative study examines how first- and second-year Asian American and Asian transnational college students use social media literacy practices to sustain heritage connections and navigate bicultural identities across platforms. Drawing on a qualitative research design that includes surveys, in-depth interviews, and youth-generated social media diaries, the analysis identifies two clusters of practices. First, participants amplified heritage identities by using youth-centered popular culture as entry points to heritage learning and by strategically curating self-presentation to make Asian cultural affiliation socially legible online. Second, participants negotiated bicultural identities through distinct digital strategies: transnational youth more often differentiated platforms according to cultural and social purposes, while second-generation Asian American youth more fluidly engaged with blended streams of heritage and U.S.-based content. Our findings position social media as a Third Space (Bhabha 1994; Gutiérrez 2008) constructed through Asian heritage youths' agentive digital literacy practices, where they draw on cultural and linguistic resources and make hybrid identities visible.</p>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jaal.70067","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148616982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sidra Zaheer, Jenn Yong Sanders, K. Emerson Foster
{"title":"Freedom Dreaming With Young Adult Literature: Engaging Students in Critical Gender Analysis","authors":"Sidra Zaheer, Jenn Yong Sanders, K. Emerson Foster","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70066","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study explores how college undergraduate students read young adult literature through a critical gender lens in a general education course. Drawing on critical literacy, gender theory, and discourse theory, we examined students' written work to understand how they constructed, questioned, and reimagined gender and power in the texts they read. Applying a critical content analysis, we identified three themes: (1) leveraging personal transactions as interpretive tools strengthens students' critical gender analysis; (2) students developed critical consciousness in four recursive ways—identifying gendered norms, analyzing how norms function, developing systemic understanding, and envisioning structural change; and (3) some students demonstrated an emerging intersectional analysis of how gendered power intersects with other systems of power. This article offers secondary and tertiary educators practical insights on using the Gender Harm and Healing Lens to support students in freedom-dreaming and reading-as-resistance.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148616852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sarah K. Burriss, Blaine E. Smith, Hannah H. Ziegler, Ana Villanueva, Menton Deweese, Angela Eeds
{"title":"“Young Scholar[s] on the Beat”: Multimodal Composition as a Form of Critical AI Literacy Pedagogy","authors":"Sarah K. Burriss, Blaine E. Smith, Hannah H. Ziegler, Ana Villanueva, Menton Deweese, Angela Eeds","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70064","url":null,"abstract":"<p>“AI literacy” includes both technical competencies and critical engagement with social and ethical dimensions of AI, but <i>literacy</i> approaches are underrepresented in how we conceptualize and teach its core components. In this paper, we focus on youth multimodal composition as a form of AI literacy pedagogy, analyzing the video products and written reflections of 22 11th grade students who composed video public service announcements about AI ethics issues of their choosing. In our findings, we report on trends in student video content, including (1) the overwhelmingly negative portrayals of AI, especially related to school-based surveillance and punitive treatment relating to AI; (2) the complex interdependence of human and machine responsibility for harm; and (3) the persistence of students' messages of hope in the face of their cynical representations. Next, we show how students (1) experienced composition as joyful, creative collaboration and (2) connected composition and AI literacy learning. We discuss the implications of these findings for critical AI literacy pedagogy, offering suggestions for future practice and highlighting areas for further development and pedagogical innovation.</p>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jaal.70064","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148616148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Using Cellphilms to Promote Translanguaging and Critical Digital Literacies in Teacher Education","authors":"Jennifer Burton, Aya Ceilidh Halliday","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70063","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Teacher education in increasingly digital, multimodal, and AI-mediated contexts must prepare pre-service teachers (PSTs) to critically engage with technology, language, and identity. This article explores the use of cellphilms—short, participant-created mobile videos—as a pedagogical approach for developing translanguaging-oriented critical digital literacies in ESL teacher education. Drawing on a critical action research study conducted at a Canadian university, we examine how PSTs engaged in a scaffolded five-stage assignment consisting of metaphor creation, storyboarding, peer feedback, production, and reflection to explore their evolving understandings of language, identity, and teaching. Findings show that PSTs mobilized translanguaging and multimodal resources to interrogate dominant language ideologies and reimagine their professional identities as language educators. The cellphilm process positioned PSTs as active meaning-makers and knowledge producers, supporting deeper connections between theoretical concepts and lived experience. This discussion also highlights key challenges, including uneven technical proficiency and the importance of sustained scaffolding throughout the process. Pedagogical implications point to the need for intentional support when integrating cellphilms in teacher education.</p>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jaal.70063","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148615484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“I Want Others to Know:” Digital Storytelling as Participatory Multiliteracies Pedagogy for Refugee Adults","authors":"Melissa Hauber-Özer, Kelly Leavitt, Reese Betts","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70062","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Shifting policies and increased polarization around immigration underscore the need for classroom practices that foster inclusion and resilience, enabling learners to navigate complex sociopolitical landscapes in a new language. Participatory action research has long been understood as a form of adult learning, and participatory arts-based research (PABR) methods have powerful potential for dispelling stereotypes, cultivating empathy, and highlighting the resilience and cultural, linguistic, and practical knowledge refugees bring to their new communities. Resulting from an ongoing community-based participatory research project in the Midwestern United States, this paper examines the process and products of a 10-week PABR workshop with refugee adult English learners through the lens of Critical Refugee Studies. Findings indicate that using photovoice and digital storytelling enabled learners to express complex experiences, affirm their identities as knowledge producers, develop critical consciousness, and challenge dominant refugee narratives by articulating both the structural causes of displacement and their own agency and advocacy for change.</p>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jaal.70062","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148466808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Solace, Mobility Strategies, and Meritocracy: High School Seniors Acquiring Social Class Literacy Through Young Adult Literature","authors":"Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides, Rebecca Ashley","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70061","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Addressing social class in literacy education through literature instruction matters because of the rich classed experiences in the texts taught, but also because of the social class messages gleaned from such texts. In a U.S. culture which propagates the dominant ideology of meritocracy, complicating students' understandings of social class in the meanings they draw from texts and those they draw about themselves matters. This high school study featured a social class literacy curriculum that foregrounded cultural understandings of social class focused on cultural and social capital. Students took up complex understandings of social class which they applied to their lives in three ways: they gained solace from their learning, and they appreciated learning mobility strategies to apply to their lives. Most significantly, they reinforced problematic meritocratic discourses reflecting a need for a structural critique of class in curriculum.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148358017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Math to ELA: Can a Community Cultural Wealth Pedagogical Framework Transfer Across Disciplines?","authors":"Crystal M. Menzies, Christian D. Schunn","doi":"10.1002/jaal.70058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.70058","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This qualitative case study explored how four high school English Language Arts teachers engaged with a Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) pedagogical framework originally developed for mathematics instruction. Teachers participated in a workshop series that introduced them to an empirically-derived CCW pedagogical framework and explored its application to ELA contexts. Through semi-structured interviews, we analyzed teachers' descriptions of their implementation of specific CCW practices and shifts in their reported pedagogical beliefs. Teachers reported leveraging multiple forms of capital, particularly social, linguistic, familial, and navigational, through practices like peer collaboration, heritage projects, and student-generated learning tools. Teachers also reported shifts from deficit-oriented, teacher-centered instruction toward asset-based, student-led pedagogy. Teachers valued the CCW framework for providing concrete practices that legitimized asset-based approaches. These findings suggest that the CCW pedagogical framework may serve as a practical guide for bridging theory to practice in assets-based pedagogy across disciplines.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47621,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148282360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}