Transformational Literacy

Engage, challenge, and inspire students with work that matters Transformational Literacy, written by a team from EL Education, helps teachers leverage the Common Core instructional shifts—building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction, reading for and writing with evidence, and regular practice with complex text—to engage students in work that matters. Worthy texts and worthy tasks help students see the connection between their hard work as readers and writers and their capacity to contribute to stronger communities and a better world. The stories, examples, and resources that permeate Transformational Literacy come primarily from the more than 150 EL Education schools around the country that support teachers to select, supplement, customize, and create curriculum, and improve instruction. The book also draws on EL Education's open source Common Core English Language Arts curriculum—often cited as one of the finest in the country—and professional development offered to thousands of teachers to implement that curriculum effectively. Transformational Literacy combines the best of what EL Education knows works for kids—purposeful, inquiry-based learning—and the new imperative of the Common Core—higher and deeper expectations for all students. Teach standards through a compelling and purposeful curriculum that prioritizes worthy texts and worthy task Improve students' evidence-based reading, thinking, talking, and writing Support students to develop a new mindset toward the challenge of reading complex texts Transformational Literacy introduces an approach to literacy instruction that will engage, challenge, and inspire student with work that matters.

The leading authorities in the field produced this comprehensive resource, which provides strategies and methods for fostering Transformative Learning (TL) practice in a wide variety of higher and adult education settings. The book answers relevant questions such as: What are effective practices for promoting TL in the classroom? What is it about TL that is most helpful in informing practice? How does the teaching setting shape the practice of TL? What are the successes, strengths, and outcomes of fostering TL? What are the risks and challenges when practicing TL in the classroom?

Associate Editor: Seamus King This handbook is a much expanded version of the original Learning Activities Survey published by Dr. Kathleen P. King of Fordham University in 1998. Based on her ground breaking research in this field where she used a mixed methodology research approach to study transformative learning, the book will provide a model of research, firsthand perspective of how research design develops, reprints of articles based on the related research and specific assistance in conducting further research in this area. Over 50 studies around the world have been conducted base on King’s original research, and her work has extended across more than 12 studies since the original publication. Moreover, this volume is a vital research companion book to King’s popular book, Bringing Transformative Learning to Life (Krieger, 2005). Based on our history with the prior edition (it is sold out); this book will have wide appeal among adult education human resource development, psychology and counseling researchers, students, professors, and practitioners, and it serve as an excellent textbook or personal introduction studies of foundations of adult learning, applied research or transformative learning. Professors and students of adult learning, counseling, human resource development, staff development, educational administration and leadership, psychology and other social sciences use this as a guide for research studies especially in the area of adult learning and/or transformative learning. Readers will find that this handbook provides an overview of King’s transformative learning research dating back to 1997, a manual for use of the research tools, a research methodology and an approach to open new vistas of research. The first manual (published in 1998) is now out of print and this 10th anniversary edition not only fills the gap, but also continues where it stopped. This handbook delineates the original model and the expanding and evolving research which has developed from 1997 to 2008. More than a manual, instead this book uses a variety of formats to accomplish this goal: reflection, formal discussion, instructions, technical information, personal and learner stories, selected research articles, and several modified forms of the original Learning Activities Survey (LAS) instrument.

You can't improve performance in an organization without measurement---but how you measure matters. Traditional measurement systems can create dysfunction and distrust. This breakthrough approach provides an alternative---a roadmap for moving, with little or no disruption, toward a more mature, effective, and transformative+D18 measurement system.

The Handbook of Transformative Learning The leading resource for the field, this handbook provides a comprehensive and critical review of more than three decades of theory development, research, and practice in transformative learning. The starting place for understanding and fostering transformative learning, as well as diving deeper, the volume distinguishes transformative learning from other forms of learning, explores future perspectives, and is designed for scholars, students, and practitioners. PRAISE FOR THE HANDBOOK OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING "This book will be of inestimable value to students and scholars of learning irrespective of whether or not their emphasis is on transformative learning. It should find its way to the reference bookshelves of every academic library focusing on education, teaching, learning, or the care professions." PETER JARVIS, professor of continuing education, University of Surrey "Can there be a coherent theory of transformative learning? Perhaps. This handbook goes a long way to answering this question by offering a kaleidoscope of perspectives, including non-Western, that consider the meaning and practice of transformative learning." SHAUNA BUTTERWICK, associate professor, University of British Columbia "This handbook will be valuable and accessible to both scholars and practitioners who are new to the study of adult education and transformative learning and to more seasoned scholars who seek a sophisticated analysis of the state of transformative learning thirty years after Mezirow first shared his version of a then-fledgling theory of adult learning." JOVITA ROSS-GORDON, professor and program coordinator, MA in Adult Education, Texas State University

The Review of Adult Learning and Literacy: Connecting Research Policy, and Practice, Volume 4 is the newest addition to a series of annual publications of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) that address major issues, the latest research, and the best practices in the field of adult literacy and learning. Volume 4 opens with an overview of significant recent developments in the field. Subsequent chapters cover a wide range of topics critical to the success of adult education and literacy services in the United States: *issues of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation; *the role of workplace education in building adults' basic skills; *the role of new learning technologies in adult education and literacy; *adult developmental theories and their implications for the teaching of adult basic education and English for speakers of other languages; and *traditional and contemporary adult learning theories, including an annotated bibliography of key resources. Intended for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners dedicated to improving the quality of adult basic education, adult English for speakers of other languages, and adult secondary education programs, Review of Adult Learning and Literacy, Volume 4 is an essential resource for the field.

Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women’s Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries traces the evolution of Black women’s literacy practices from 1892 to 1934. A dynamic chronological study, the book explores how Black women public intellectuals, creative writers, and classic blues singers sometimes utilize singular but other times overlapping forms of literacies to engage in debates on race. The book begins with Anna J. Cooper’s philosophy on race literature as one method for social advancement. From there, author Coretta M. Pittman discusses women from the Woman’s and New Negro Eras, including but not limited to Angelina Weld Grimké, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, and Zora Neale Hurston. The volume closes with an exploration of Victoria Spivey’s blues philosophy. The women examined in this book employ forms of transformational, transactional, or specular literacy to challenge systems of racial oppression. However, Literacy in a Long Blues Note argues against prevalent myths that a singular vision for racial uplift dominated the public sphere in the latter decade of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. Instead, by including Black women from various social classes and ideological positions, Pittman reveals alternative visions. Contrary to more moderate predecessors of the Woman’s Era and contemporaries in the New Negro Era, classic blues singers like Mamie Smith advanced new solutions against racism. Early twentieth-century writer Angelina Weld Grimké criticized traditional methods for racial advancement as Jim Crow laws tightened restrictions against Black progress. Ultimately, the volume details the agency and literacy practices of these influential women.

From EL Education comes a proven approach to student assessment Leaders of Their Own Learning offers a new way of thinking about assessment based on the celebrated work of EL Education schools across the country. Student-Engaged Assessment is not a single practice but an approach to teaching and learning that equips and compels students to understand goals for their learning and growth, track their progress toward those goals, and take responsibility for reaching them. This requires a set of interrelated strategies and structures and a whole-school culture in which students are given the respect and responsibility to be meaningfully engaged in their own learning. Includes everything teachers and school leaders need to implement a successful Student-Engaged Assessment system in their schools Outlines the practices that will engage students in making academic progress, improve achievement, and involve families and communities in the life of the school Describes each of the book's eight key practices, gives advice on how to begin, and explains what teachers and school leaders need to put into practice in their own classrooms Ron Berger is Chief Program Officer for EL Education and a former public school teacher Leaders of Their Own Learning shows educators how to ignite the capacity of students to take responsibility for their own learning, meet Common Core and state standards, and reach higher levels of achievement. DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase.

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

This book describes the path ahead. It combines system transformation researchwith political economy and change leadership insights when discussing the needfor a great mindshift in how human wellbeing, economic prosperity and healthyecosystems are understood if the Great Transformations ahead are to lead to moresustainability. It shows that history is made by purposefully acting humans andintroduces transformative literacy as a key skill in leading the radical incremental change