The NCRLL Approaches to Language and LiteracyResearchSeries was established to advance the organization’s core mission of stimulating research in English language arts education, synthesizing significant research findings, and supporting innovative projects in literacy education.
This distinctive series features concise, accessible paperback books (50-100 pages each) designed specifically for literacy researchers seeking to explore unfamiliar research traditions and methodologies. Unlike introductory texts for novice researchers, these books serve experienced scholars who want to expand their methodological toolkit and understanding of different research approaches.
Book Structure
Each volume in the series follows a comprehensive framework designed to provide both theoretical grounding and practical application. The books begin by establishing the theoretical and epistemological foundations of each research approach, exploring the core assumptions and philosophical underpinnings that guide the methodology. They then delve into the various issues and interpretations within each tradition, examining different perspectives, applications, and methodological variations that have emerged over time.
Purpose and Impact
The Literacy Research Series fills a crucial gap in professional development resources, offering experienced researchers’ practical guidance for incorporating new methodological approaches into their work. Each book bridges theory and practice, making sophisticated research traditions accessible while maintaining scholarly rigor.
Series Editors
The inaugural editorial team includes JoBeth Allen, Donna Alvermann, and David Reinking
Titles in the Original Series
On the Case
Anne Haas Dyson, Celia Genishi
In this seminal book on the construction of case studies in the field of language and literacy, the authors consider in detail what it means to be “on the case.” They evaluate the basic assumptions that ground a qualitative approach to case study methodology, the decisions entailed in designing a case study, and the possibilities and challenges of data collection and analysis. For the novice researcher, this book is an essential manual on how to design and carry out a case study. For the experienced researcher, this book offers fresh insights into the theoretical issues that underpin qualitative case study research.
Arlette Ingram Willis, Mary Montavon, Catherine Hunter, Helena Hall, Latanya Burke, Ana Herrera
This provocative title in the NCRLL Collection is a call-to-action for new and experienced scholars to re-examine their biases and assumptions and adopt a more critically conscious stance in their work. Balancing a historical grounding with contemporary research, this book focuses on how critical theories are manifested in language and literacy research. The authors examine overlooked roots and routes to present-day critical thinking and predict how branches of theorizing may emerge, evolve, and transform research in a democratic society.
David Bloome, Stephanie Power Carter, Beth Morton Christian, Samara Madrid, Sheila Otto, Nora Shuart-Faris, Mandy Smith
This book in the NCRLL Collection provides an introductory discussion of discourse analysis of language and literacy events in classrooms. The authors introduce approaches to discourse analysis in a way that redefines traditional topics and provokes the imagination of researchers. For those who have limited knowledge of discourse analysis, this book will help generate new questions about literacy events in classrooms. For those familiar with this research perspective, it will map diverse new approaches.
The authors weave together narratives of practice and theory that draw on their own field work and that of a novice ethnographer. Their stories take us outside the usual progression of how-to-do-ethnography, which moves from research question to data collection and analysis to publication. Readers learn of the motivations and mishaps behind the authors’ own classic ethnographic studies of language, multimodal literacies, and community practices. The authors use their stories to illustrate the power of curiosity, connection, and continuity in ethnographic pursuits. Keeping language and literacy the central concern, this volume offers practical ways for ethnographers to sustain their attention to a constant comparative perspective and to patterns of co-occurrence in language structures, uses, and values.
Formative and design experiments represent a methodology uniquely suited for educational research. Providing a practical overview of this emerging approach, the authors address the following questions: What is the origin of formative and design experiments and how do they compare to other approaches to investigating interventions in classrooms? How do you conceptualize, plan, conduct, and report formative and design experiments? What practical, ethical, and methodological issues might be encountered? What is the future potential of this promising approach?
This book examines the use of mixed methods for conducting language and literacy research and defines how and why this approach is successful for solving problems and clarifying issues that researchers encounter. Using research findings, the authors explore how an intermingling of multiple methods expands the possibilities of observation and interpretation and, ultimately leading to a more robust validity and deeper understanding. Mixed methods approaches address the challenges of our contemporary language and literacy environment, with its increasing student diversity and technological advances.
Can stories about students and classrooms be the basis for meaningful research? In this book, the authors describe and tell illustrative stories about the potential and limits of narrative for the purpose of inquiry in English education. They argue that narrative inquiry is uniquely suited to the questions educators are asking in the field today. This book introduces us to narrative scholars who engage us in philosophical and methodological discussions, and it describes how narrative works in relation to the telling of a story or stories. It also provides examples of narrative inquiry to inspire you to create academic work that is both imaginative and responsible.
On Narrative Inquiry will be useful to graduate students and novice and experienced researchers who want to learn more about the range of methodological considerations for compiling and presenting narrative accounts.
In this seminal work, the authors provide the first systematic exploration of the philosophical foundations and the historical development of qualitative inquiry. Thorough yet accessible, this volume is an indispensable tool for language and literacy researchers—novices and experts alike.
On Teacher Inquiry could be read as an answer to the question, “Teacher research: What’s in it for the students?” This new volume in the NCRLL Collection addresses the relationships among teacher research, teacher practice, and student learning. The authors observe, analyze, raise questions, design methodologies, and build relationships with colleagues to create the conditions and the contexts that advance student learning. This book offers a framework, examples, and practical guidelines for teacher researchers on how to design and conduct individual and collaborative inquiries that build new knowledge and theories about teaching and learning. On Teacher Inquiry offers a narrative history of social networking as productive inquiry and suggests that practitioners at all levels should continue this tradition as they create and participate in open, Internet-based venues for representing pedagogical knowledge.
