Deepening Conceptual Understanding: Analyzing Forms of Engagement With Elementary Black Boys and Multimodal Disciplinary Texts

• In Event: 34.036 - The Promise and Reality of Technological Tools in Support of Literacy and Language Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This qualitative study examined the tasks and culture of Boys College, an elementary group of Black boys (n=18) as they engaged with texts across ten disciplines. This 20 week study provided 2 hours of literacy instruction weekly, grounded in an exponential growth model. The researcher used a content engagement framework(Gresalfi & Barab, 2011) that acknowledges multiple forms of engagement to code data from instructional videos, student artifacts, analytic memos, and classroom observations for forms of engagement with disciplinary texts. Preliminary findings indicate that students benefit from considering forms of engagement with disciplinary text, tools, and practices. The boys relied on multiple digital and print resources to demonstrate their learning through writing, discussion, and questioning with print and multimodal texts.

Author

• Shawndra Allen, University of Illinois at Chicago