Using Online Texts About U.S. Immigration in a Middle-Level Classroom of Highly Diverse Students

• In Event: 63.087 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 11 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 63.087-7 - Reading and Searching Online: Critical Uses of Texts

Abstract

The current political climate fosters acute anti-immigrant sentiment. At the same time, teachers are working to teach vocabulary concepts and foster technological literacies, including critical literacy skills. The purpose of this study was to uncover the ways in which middle level students in a highly diverse school engaged with online texts as they learned about immigration in the context of their own experiences. The findings from this study offer insight into how students engage with curriculum about highly charged political ideas that also personally affect them.

Authors

• Mary F. Rice, The University of New Mexico

• Mark Stevens, Fairfax County Public Schools