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Due to the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic, the use of advanced technology in language education is currently on the rise, with English education being no exception. Simultaneously, the advancement and expansion of technology provide English as a foreign language students with multiple channels and opportunities to reinforce the four skills of English (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) to varying degrees both inside and outside the classroom. While previous studies have highlighted the feasibility and sustainability of blended learning in facilitating English skills, few studies have investigated the impact of mobile blended active language learning (MBALL) on promoting the English critical reading skills of Thai high school students. In hopes of filling this gap, the present study used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to investigate the effects of MBALL on improving Thai high school students' English critical reading skills and their opinions on the use of MBALL. Pre- and post-tests were used to compare the students' critical reading scores before and after the MBALL implementation. A questionnaire was used to determine the students' opinions on the use of MBALL, and individual semi-structured interviews were employed to obtain more-detailed information. The results of the tests revealed that the Thai high school students' English critical reading skills had improved after implementation of the MBALL curriculum. Furthermore, the findings of the questionnaire and interviews suggested that the Thai high school students were enthusiastic about the use of MBALL.

Background: Given the high levels of homophobia that exist in South Africa, including in its schools and universities, it is imperative that university lecturers develop integrated and transdisciplinary curriculums to educate pre-service teachers about sexuality and to empower them to incorporate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI)-inclusive resources into their own classrooms. Aim: This study aimed to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning by reflecting on how English literary studies can contribute to sexuality education. Setting: The context for this study is a specific undergraduate English module that forms part of the foundation phase and intermediate phase teacher education curriculums at the University of Johannesburg. Methods: This study is a self-reflective analysis of how the methodology of close reading, which is central to English literary studies, can be used to support sexuality education. Results: Despite the prevalence of homophobia in South African society, when undergraduate students in this English module (n = 356) were asked to write an essay about the representation of same-sex sexuality in a short animated film, none of them made homophobic comments. Conclusion: Paying particular attention to the analytical methodology of close reading, the author argues that a narrow focus on the storytelling techniques used within a narrative text -- in a way that deliberately excludes students' personal opinions about same-sex sexualities -- offers a powerful way of facilitating a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of homophobia and heteronormativity.

"Best behaviour" picturebooks, also known as "making good habits" or "teaching good manners" picturebooks, have explicit educational intentions that imply a culturally hegemonic voice. Despite this problematic characteristic, these picturebooks are welcomed by both parents and the market in China. Using extant picturebook theory of picture-text relationships, narratological, paratextual analyses and translation theory, this article seeks a better understanding of how this hegemonic voice is formed, resolved or consolidated via a critical reading of three best-selling "best behaviour" picturebook series available in the Chinese market. One is the original Chinese-language WaiWaiTu-ZiKongLi series (Little Bunny series). The second series is the translated United States series, Hands Are Not For Hitting, now a Chinese best behaviour publication. The third series is a translated rendition of Pete the Cat series, which did not serve any evident educational purpose in its original English-market form but has been identified to cultivate good character on the Chinese covers. These publications commonly present straightforward picture-text relationships of two-dimensional stories and characters. Most importantly, adults hold power in these best behaviour children's books. We argue that both the construction and disruption of hegemonic thinking co-exist in these picturebooks, reflecting the nature of adult power plays. At the same time, these best behaviour picturebooks serve as a good example of how hegemonic notions work within specific cultural and pedagogical contexts.

Canadian multicultural picturebooks greatly influence both children's and educators' being and becoming. Identity is closely related to our engagement with literacy practices. In this article, two researchers who immigrated from mainland China engage in autobiographical narrative inquiry, a methodology that asks the researchers to self-face, and to "world"--travel to our earlier landscapes, times, places, experiences and relationships. In personal, educational and academic settings, we tell and retell our storied experiences of critically reading four multicultural Canadian picturebooks. Such experiences are analysed through the theoretical lenses of transnational identity, immigrant parent knowledge, mirrors and windows, and no single story. The experiences of reading, reviewing, teaching and researching Canadian multicultural picturebooks have been constructing, mediating, engaging, and exploring our own identities. The personal nature of autobiographical narrative inquiry allows a transformational understanding of the construct of such multiple, complex and ever-shifting identities. We hope to shed light on the importance of negotiating one's transcultural and transnational identity in multicultural picturebooks, as little work presents minority educators' and adult newcomers' voices of reading Canadian multicultural picturebooks. By making visible our critical reading experiences, this inquiry opens space to maximise the outcomes of utilising children's literature in teaching and learning.

Reading comprehension questions scaffold deeper comprehension, help students to analyze texts, improve students' thinking skills, and help them realize permanent and meaningful learning. By comparing reading comprehension questions used in Turkish lessons with student-generated comprehension questions in terms of level, this study aimed to determine question resources' capacity to affect students' questions. Using a multiplecase study research method, this study examined Turkish textbooks' reading comprehension questions, teachers' questions generated during lessons and teachers' questions produced for the text provided, and student-generated questions. Data were collected using the Demographic Information Form, Teacher In-Term Question Collection Form, Teacher Questions Collection Form, and Student Question Collection Form. In addition, textbooks were used as another data source. The data were analyzed using content analysis. The results revealed that the textbook questions were mainly of a low level require remembering and understanding information. Similar results were obtained for those teachers' questions. However, it was determined that the teachers' questions produced based on the texts were at a higher level than those produced during the lessons. Comparatively, it was also revealed that the rate of low-level questions produced by students was higher than those in textbooks and teacher questions. Furthermore, high-level critical questions were found to be limited in all resources. When students' questions and questions produced by other resources were compared, the closest relationship was found between the students' questions and questions produced by teachers during lessons.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of exposing learners to authentic online reading materialson their written outputs (writing summaries and reflective essays). The quantitative method specifically the one-shot pretest-posttest experimental design was adopted. An online course was designed learners writing through reading authentic materials. Through the guidance of the teacher, learners discovered the conventions of paragraph writing from their critical reading of authentic materials and then applied these conventions in their own writings. A writing test with an analytic rubric was designed to measure students' writing performance. Results of the study about writing summaries and writing reflective essays show a significant improvement in students' performance after their critical reading of authentic materials. The study recommends the use of authentic online courses for enhancing EFL writing performance.

Synthesizing academic literature into new knowledge through writing is a core skill that doctoral students engaged in research must learn. However, developing efficacy in synthesis skills as an academic writer is a culturally and cognitively demanding process that occurs over many years, requires abstraction, and draws upon critical reading skills. Doctoral reading is an invisible part of training, despite large reading loads in doctoral coursework. Further, reading, writing, and researching skills are co-constructed at the doctoral level as previously described by Kwan (2008). The purpose of this essay is to describe how the primary author used her experience as an EdD student, science teacher, and writer to develop a method that addresses doctoral reading challenges. The novel method described here combines categorical reading strategies with social collaborative annotation (SCA). This method centers on active, categorial reading to deconstruct arguments in the primary literature by identifying claim, evidence, reasoning, implications, and context (CERIC), which can serve as a critical reading pedagogy in existing courses, reading clubs, and seminars. Combining CERIC with SCA tools--ranging from homemade variations of Google Suite to purposeful annotation software, such as Hypothes.is.--can support an efficient doctoral reading process. This essay illustrates several worked examples and explores how this process supports retrieval, engagement, collaboration, inclusion, and community, particularly in online learning environments. Significant implications of this work are to make hidden reading expectations explicit and transform professor-centered transmission models of learning to student-centered sociocultural models of learning. The essay proposes next steps for testing the approach's effectiveness in online doctoral learning.

Digital culture has penetrated most aspects of our lives. Yet it has also dragged us into paradoxical situations and profound uncertainty. This, in turn, requires digital learning process that is capable of fostering mature individuals characterized by specific creativity; the kind of creativity rooted in prudence, deep insight into life as well as broad and integrated personal vision of the world. This research aims to see the extent to which digital learning process is conducive to the fostering of this type of creativity. This is an exploratory research with qualitative approach, conducted by means of questionnaires, in-depth interview and focus group discussion. Gen-Y and Z students from 13 Universities in West Java, Indonesia, were chosen for observation and interview, continued with focus group discussion in two courses which are Critical Reading and Cultural Entrepreneurship classes. The result shows that the practice of online learning so far contains some inherent constraints to meet the need. Some basic constraints pertain to the condition of the students themselves. Despite the flaws, however, online learning process also has some good potentials in fostering the required creativity, provided it incorporates 'engagement experience' and some strategies to 'go beyond data' in accordance with the students' suggestions themselves.

Background: In South Africa, developing criticality among learners is essential for their careers in school and outside school. However, knowledge and understanding of critical literacy within the schooling context is unclear, with only patchy guidance available for teachers. Objectives: An intervention project was set up to discover how community signs could be used as a pedagogical tool for teaching learners to be critical readers. The focus of the study was teaching English second language learners to use language as an instrument for creative and critical thinking. Method: In this 'study within a study', the learners' role has been elevated to that of researchers. As 'researchers', the learners collected community signs from around their township and conducted interviews with community members. They analysed the signs and interview transcripts using Fairclough's method of critical discourse analysis. The social semantic theory was used to anchor this study. Results: The first attempt at being critical readers was the categorisation of data. Three categories that formed broad themes were observed. The learners' responses gave insight into their own 'processes' of reception and processes of production of the signs. The results suggest learners developing an ability to read signs as instantiations of township discourses. Conclusion: Teaching critical literacy awareness can be achieved when teachers use texts drawn from familiar contexts. The study contributes to knowledge on how unconventional texts can be used in the classroom to develop criticality among learners.

The present study proposes the integration of mobile fiction Apps (MFAs) in reading instruction to help EFL college students understand the form and content of literary works. It will give examples of fiction Apps that can be downloaded from the Google Play and iPhone App Stores, give the advantages of using MFAs, literary appreciation skills that can be developed with MFAs and instructional stages with MFAs. MFAs can be used as extension activities or as a supplement to in-class reading instruction in ESL/EFL. They are free, easy, and quick to download, update and delete, can be used anywhere, anytime and as many times as the students need. Instruction with smart mobile phones begins with downloading an MFA such as Harry Potter, Oliver Twist, Sherlock Holmes, Wuthering Heights, a novel by Agatha Christi or a collection of stories. Both simplified and original versions can be used depending on the student's proficiency level, story/novel length and difficulty level. A story/novel video, app or e-book can be used online or offline. Some MFAs provide notes and tests. The instructor can ask pre-questions that require the students to identify the plot, setting, characters, main theme, point of view, symbolism, style, and tone of the narrative, and infer the meanings of figurative language and imagery in the story. Questions and students' answers, summaries, comments on each other's' responses can be posted in an online discussion forum, blog or social media page. The students can discuss the elements of a literary work under the instructor's supervision. The integration of fiction Apps showed improved reading comprehension, literary appreciation and text analysis skills among participating students and increased their engagement in reading and literary analysis.

Reading and writing underpinning all university study and beyond it are two essential skills that have significant influences on students' growth in critical thinking. Students who aim to use English for academic purposes in higher education contexts need to develop their understanding of what it means to read and write critically in English with the support of critical thinking skills. While studies exist in understanding the nature and practice of critical thinking in academic writing or reading separately, studies that investigate the critical reading and writing (CRW) process from the perspectives of readers and writers are limited. The goal of this study was to explore how critical reading and writing practices Turkish ELT pre-service teachers experienced in the CRW course have contributed to their CRW skills from their own perspective. The data was obtained from the participants' reflections collected before and after the instruction enriched with criticality. Thematic analysis revealed that our participants have had a clear sense of criticality in the way of their reading and writing practices. The findings have implications for providing a pedagogical framework to foster CRW skills in higher education instructional settings.

This article reports the results of a qualitative study of the effectiveness of a critical reading instructional intervention based on teacher/student conferencing (TSC) and differentiated instruction (DI) in improving the participants' understanding and evaluation of published educational research. TSC and DI entailed using a subset of teaching strategies including pre-teaching, self-selection of critiqued articles, cooperative learning, embedded instruction, extended instruction, reflection to scaffold students' challenges, providing constructive feedback, enabling students to describe their feelings, assessing own learning, and setting goals and plans for further development. A cohort of 11 (n = 11) novice graduate students took part in a 15-week course during which they critiqued several published journal articles and reflected on their experience. Results of a thematic analysis of the participants' reflection logs revealed that their initial feelings of apprehension and anxiety transformed into growth in their self-efficacy as consumers and designers of educational research. Likewise, the participants benefitted from the instructional intervention under study in becoming more proficient readers and in developing supportive relationships. The study implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research that would explicate what specific teaching strategies categorized under TSC and DI were most effective in achieving the study outcomes are discussed.

Reading is prominent aspects in written communications which are commonly used as formal communication, especially for students at a higher level of education. They are required to be able to understand more textbooks and informational texts either in English. Unfortunately, reading in English is still considered as big problem for them because they have lack of vocabulary to comprehend the ideas of the texts and lack of practice given by the teacher. As a result, it is believed that teaching strategy needed to help students in teaching reading. This study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of text feature walks strategy in helping students in higher education to improve their critical reading comprehension through the expository texts. It also explored the feedback from students related to the implementation of Text Feature Walks in the virtual classroom. There were 40 students of English Education Study Program in a private university becoming the sample in this study and they were equally divided into experimental and control groups. To measure their improvement in reading comprehension, all students were given pre- and post-reading tests in the form of multiple choice. The data obtained were analyzed by using paired sample and independent sample t-tests. The results of paired sample t-test showed that there was a significant improvement in reading (Md=33.13, p=0.000) in experimental group. In addition, the result of independent sample t-test indicated that there were significant difference in reading (Md=39.70, p=0.000) of both groups.

The purpose of this research was to examine the critical reading self-efficacy (CRSE) perceptions of prospective teachers and their awareness of information pollution on the internet. A relational survey model was utilized in the research. The study sample, whose universe was prospective teachers studying at Kilis 7 Aralik University, consisted of 296 teacher candidates and was determined using the simple random sampling method. The data were collected through the "Critical Reading Self-Efficacy Perception Scale" and the "Information Pollution on the Internet Scale." The data analysis was done by calculating the arithmetic mean and standard deviation values, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation analysis. The results showed that prospective teachers' self-efficacy perceptions for critical reading are high. The variables of gender and the number of books read in the previous year were not determinative in the perception of critical reading self-efficacy. It was also found that the variables of the department, year of study, and participation in online activities affect perceptions of prospective teachers' self-efficacy. In addition, their awareness of information pollution on the internet is above the medium level. It was determined that the variables of gender, department, year of study, number of books read in the previous year, and online activities did not have a decisive effect on awareness of information pollution on the internet. The correlation analysis showed that the sum of the scales was not related to each other, but there was a positive relationship in the sub-dimensions. Suggestions for future research and practitioners were provided.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a curriculum based on self-regulated strategy instruction in college developmental writing courses. Prior research that had found large effects on the writing quality for essays without sources was extended to include strategies for critical reading and note-taking, writing summary response papers, and integrating source information into argumentative essays. This randomized control trial included 23 instructors from two community colleges and 187 students. Outcome measures included quality of argumentative writing with sources, a summary scored for inclusion of main ideas and overall quality, a motivation questionnaire, a writing test from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Accuplacer Reading, and observations and interviews. Using hierarchical linear modeling, positive effects were found on all primary outcomes: quality of argumentative writing with sources (p < 0.01; ES = +0.53), and on the quality (p < 0.05; ES = +0.30) and inclusion of main ideas (p < 0.05; ES = +0.31) on the summary. No detectable effects were found on secondary outcomes: the NAEP test, reading, or motivation.

The democratisation and commodification of education has witnessed an increase in postgraduate education as it is one of the main sources contributing to the advancement of knowledge, technology, and innovation. However, despite the significant rise in numbers, the returns at both the global and national levels have been low due to high attrition and low completion rates among the students. One among the numerous factors cited has been the postgraduate students' limited competencies in language and research skills. In terms of language, postgraduate students are expected to possess good working knowledge of the English language and be able to read academic literature and write their thesis with acceptable standard of English. Therefore, the main aim of this paper was to assess postgraduate students' perceived and actual performance in critical reading skills. This study involved a total of 50 postgraduate students from a private university in Malaysia. Data for this study were collected using a questionnaire and a reading test based on the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) Reading Examination Paper. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the two performances. Students held a higher perception of their ability when compared to their actual performance in critical reading skills. These results indicate that there is a need for innovative approaches to develop postgraduate students' critical reading skills so that they can successfully complete their studies within the given duration and graduate on time.

A culture of thinking (CoT) is defined as "a place where a group's collective as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as the regular, day-today experience of all group members" (Ritchhart et al., 2011, p. 219). This study aimed to determine the effects of a CoT implementation on Lao English as a foreign language (EFL) pre-service teachers' reading comprehension development and to investigate their perceptions towards the CoT-based reading instruction. To achieve the objectives, two intact classes of year three EFL pre-service teachers were randomly assigned to implementation and control conditions and measured with pre-, post- and delayed post-reading tests. Focus group interviews were also conducted to obtain in-depth insights into their perceptions of the CoT-based learning. The findings revealed that the implementation class outperformed the control class in terms of reading comprehension development and had a strong effect size ("Cohen's d" = 1.0183). In the focus group interviews, pre-service teachers generally expressed positive views towards the CoT-based reading instruction.

The spread of COVID-19 worldwide has been associated with hate and racism speech on social media which sometimes encourages violence and bullying in the different communities. Some officials, public figures and even common people, including students, have been expressing hate, racism, negative, hostile, and intolerant attitudes towards certain groups of people based on their color, origin, race, religion or social/political stance. This study surveys students and instructors' views of COVID-19 five months after the outbreak of the pandemic, and whether they consider it a punishment from God to certain countries or not. Based on the findings, it proposes the creation of an anti-hate Twitter page to teach students tolerance rather than negative sentiment associated with COVID-19.

The aim of this article is to argue for the relevance of critical visual literacy (CVL) in relation to intercultural learning in ELT and present a redesign task that has been implemented with secondary school EFL learners in Norway. CVL is an approach to reading images which acknowledges that all texts are constructed, rather than neutral, and that they work to position the reader to accept a particular view of the world. Redesign tasks encourage learners to engage critically with these positions and create alternative texts that better reflect their personal worldviews. Through presenting examples of learner redesigns of a multimodal advertisement created in a different cultural context, we discuss how the task facilitated critical reading, exploration of multiple perspectives and engagement with sociopolitical issues. Such critical reading skills are crucial for navigating the increasingly more complex visual and intercultural landscapes the learners encounter in their everyday lives.

Critical exploration of socio-political issues has been a topic strongly carried out in English classrooms in the last decades. This article is the result of a research study that shows what the use of political cartoons reveals about the promotion of critical reading in an EFL classroom at a private university in Colombia. The study was developed with fourteen students under a qualitative case study method. Workshops, teacher journals and focus-group interviews were used to collect data. The emerging categories show the positive results of using political cartoons and the change that the students had in their thoughts and actions in both the academic and social context. In the results, the students portray how they have perceived the ELT classroom, the importance of being a critical reader of texts and contexts, and how the different activities helped them construct their own critical awareness concerning social and political issues.

The high-school-to-college transition can be difficult as students are adapting to a multitude of academic and social changes simultaneously. The University of Wyoming has created a first-semester program targeted at development of student skills for at-risk students using paired first-year seminar classes. Using student survey data from both pre- and post-course series, students were asked how important they thought academic and non-academic skills were as well as how much preparation time they were spending outside of class. Results from this work show large changes in the importance of skills and time spent studying during the transition from high school to college. This highlights the need to focus specifically on teaching skills to help students through the transition and suggests that not all skills are equal and data shows that students take longer than one semester to match their expected and actual amounts of time they spend outside of class studying.

While embedding Academic Language and Literacies (ALL) instruction in discipline-specific courses is known to be effective, it is difficult to enact across the siloed university. Moreover, the move to online/ remote delivery during COVID-19 has necessitated greater focus on the development of online supports. This article reports on an effort to embed digital ALL support in a mandatory social research methods course, which we argue is particularly suited to academic literacies instruction. A series of digital videos were created to complement a literature review assignment, and were evaluated using video analytics, end-of-course student surveys, and individual interviews with tutors. Quantitative analysis of viewing patterns demonstrated that the majority of students accessed the videos multiple times, while qualitative data suggest that students generally had positive responses to the videos. However, thematic analysis of interviews with tutors showed that while they considered the content helpful, they also had reservations about the length and use of the videos. These findings clearly demonstrate the extent of the unmet need to integrate these types of approaches into undergraduate courses. We also argue that if universities wish to maintain currency in a shifting, globalised world, they must do more to foster the types of collaborative partnerships that facilitate effective ALL instruction in undergraduate coursework. These findings carry particular relevance for teaching and learning literacies in the wake of COVID-19, because digital video has become even more integral to higher education.

The present study reports on the challenges of implementing an approach to critical thinking and critical reading in English language teaching (ELT) in Chile. Participants in this research are in-service teachers of English enrolled in a Master's course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Chile. In order to develop and construct a thorough understanding of the participants' past and present academic literacy experiences, they were invited for one-to-one meetings (semi-structured interviews) where, rather than reminiscing about past literacy experiences, they were encouraged to engage in narratives about their experiences with and challenges of developing a socially critical awareness of literacy at university, and in their current teaching practices. Analysis of the participants' accounts revealed, first and foremost, the pervasive presence of literacy practices that reflect and favor a strong culture of compliance over critical reflection, and, secondly, great concerns about the lack of systematic preparation in English teacher education (ETE) programs to develop and implement a more critical stance toward critical thinking and critical reading. The paper concludes by interrogating and challenging current university practices that, based on the participants' views, seem to replicate a culture that reproduces both social and cultural inequalities.

This study aims to reveal the self-efficacy perception levels of pre-service Turkish language teachers towards critical reading and to determine whether these levels vary by various variables. This study draws on a general survey model, which is one of the descriptive research methods. The study group of this research consists of a total of 210 freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior level pre-service Turkish language teachers studying at the Department of Turkish Language Education in the faculty of education at a state university. To collect data, "The Critical Reading Self-Efficacy Perception Scale" developed by Karabay (2013) is used. The findings of this study indicate that the self-efficacy perception levels of the pre-service Turkish language teachers towards critical reading are moderate. Furthermore, the pre-service Turkish language teachers' self-efficacy perception levels towards critical reading do not significantly vary between the groups in the total score and in the sub-dimensions by variables of gender and academic achievement. Yet, there is a significant difference between the groups in the total score and in the sub-dimensions by variables of grade level and reading frequency. Based on these findings, this study also offers some insights and suggestions for researchers and teaching staff.

Across various forms of media, Muslims are often portrayed as a homogenous group prone to violence, yet scholars have increasingly called upon schools and teachers to transcend stereotypes and prepare students to understand Muslims in more thoughtful and nuanced ways. This qualitative case study recounts how students and a teacher in a high school multicultural studies class investigated problematic media materials about Islam sent by an organization called the Christian Seniors Association. Drawing upon Mihailidis's (2014) 5A's of Media Literacy heuristic, I analyzed field notes from classroom observations, interviews, and student produced artifacts. Findings revealed how a teacher's use of questioning techniques and encouragement of close readings of texts supported students to critically analyze media materials. Yet, opportunities for students to address issues of power and take up activist-oriented roles in responding to media were limited. Implications are offered for research and practice.

This paper discusses the insightful and illuminating findings of teaching critical reading within the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy. More specifically, this paper examines the impact of a critical-reading course on students' reading skills and beliefs about discourse production and interpretation. The course was conducted according to the principles of transformative participatory action research and, thus, a corpus of 50 essays, written by a convenience sample of 25 post-graduate students in the pre-test and post-test phases, was analyzed to examine the effect of the course on students' reading-habits and their representations of different discourses. Pretest findings showed that most students used to think that discourses are innocent and ideology-free and that reading a text consists in understanding its general idea, extracting its writer's viewpoint, making sense of its vocabulary, and paraphrasing it. As far as text's function is concerned, most students used to believe that a text's basic function is delivering information. In addition, most of them were unaware of the fact that a text has ideological and socio-political functions. Post-test findings revealed that students' discourse awareness and reading habits have become more critical and developed at two levels: the worldview level and the meta-language level. The t-test statistics suggest that there is a significant difference of p?0.001 between students' reading scores before and after the intervention. Therefore, the null hypothesis which says that there is no significant difference between studying critical reading from a critical pedagogy perspective and studying it from a functional or conventional perspective is false.

This study attempts to depict the secondary school eighth grade students' epistemological beliefs and their critical reading in terms of several variables and to examine the relationship between them. Descriptive and relational survey models were used within the scope of the study. The population of the study consisted of the secondary school eighth grade students studying in Istanbul. The participants were selected by convenience sampling method. The study deployed personal information form, scientific epistemological belief and critical reading scales. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and correlation analysis were used during data analysis. The study results concluded that the eighth grade students' epistemological beliefs and their critical reading levels were at a moderate level. While no significant difference was identified across the students' epistemological beliefs in terms of their gender, academic achievement, socio-economic level and book reading, a significant difference was noted across their critical reading levels in terms of gender, academic achievement and book reading, but that was not the case for their socio-economic level. The results of the research have useful implications for teachers. While teachers develop students' epistemological beliefs in the teaching environment, they will also develop their critical reading skills.

Embedding discipline-specific literacy instruction within social studies content can assist a variety of students, including those with reading difficulties, to build higher-level reading abilities, increase knowledge acquisition, and improve their overall content learning. Moreover, many state learning standards already address the need for discipline-specific literacy instruction in content areas such as social studies. So, what are some instructional practices that can feasibly be embedded in the content, that enhance (and do not detract from) the content, and that have demonstrated the ability to improve students' content understanding? Based on the research on adolescent academic literacy, five instructional practices are outlined in this article. Social studies teachers can embed these practices into their existing instruction to further engage students in the subject matter and provide support for discipline-specific reading. Middle and high school social studies teachers who have embedded these instructional practices in their units consistently see increased student content knowledge as compared with typical instructional practices, including for students with disabilities.

Purpose: The research aims to investigate the effect of critical reading skill teaching on students' academic success in social studies course. Method: Experimental model was used in the research. The "pre-test post-test control group pattern" of this model was preferred. In the experimental process, the effect of teaching based on critical reading skill in the social studies course on students' academic success was investigated. The experimental process was carried out between April and May 2018 in a secondary school (6th grade students) in the central district of Mus. Experiment and control groups of the research were randomly assigned. In the study, an academic success test was applied to the experiment and control groups as pre-test and post-test. The data were analysed by covariance analysis. Findings: In the research, there was a significant difference between the post-test score averages of the experiment and control groups favouring the experiment group. This finding reveals that teaching critical reading skill is effective in increasing students' academic success. Implications for Research and Practice: In the research, it was found that when the social studies course was conducted according to critical reading skills, it increased students' academic success. Therefore, the teaching of critical reading skill should be given importance in the social studies course. Social studies teachers should receive in-service training on critical reading. Critical reading should be used effectively in courses. Researches should be done on the effect of critical reading skill on other skills.

This study aims at determining the relationship between preservice teachers' reading habits and critical reading skills as well as assessing whether preservice teachers' reading habits and critical reading skills vary with their gender, age, education year in the college, department, and the number of books read per year. A correlation survey model was used according to the objectives of our study. The sample consists of 255 preservice teachers studying at Turkish Language Teacher Education, Primary School Teacher Education, Social Studies Teacher Education, and Psychological Counseling and Guidance programs. "Attitude Scale on Reading Habit" (Gömleksiz (2004) and "Critical Reading Self-Efficacy Perception Scale" Karadeniz (2014) were used as data collection tools. The obtained data analyzed using IBM SPSS software version 22.0. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis H-test as, nonparametric tests, and correlation and regression tests were conducted to analyze data. Significant differences were found between variables and scores of reading habits and critical reading skills. Furthermore, a positive correlation was determined between preservice teachers' reading habits and critical reading skills. The regression analysis revealed that reading habit is a significant predictor of critical reading skills. The authors believe that the findings from the present study make important contributions to the current literature.

The present study explored the impact of online Digital Storytelling (DTS) on developing critical reading skills, critical thinking and self-regulated learning skills of prospective teachers of Arabic. To reach such ends, a standardized pre-posttest in critical reading skills, critical thinking skills scale and self-rating scale of self-regulated learning questionnaire were used. The quasi-experimental research design has been used in the current research. The results of two independent sample t-test revealed that the critical reading skills, critical thinking skills, and self-regulated skills improved significantly in comparison to the control group. It is, therefore, recommended that blended learning should be thought of as a good match for students from communities with poor digital literacy and technology infrastructure. In addition, online learning should be used with care to cope with community needs to fill a real gap in-field practice in language learning to improve multiliteracy skills.

21st century people inevitably need to critically take the content offered to them by the media they are in contact with. This situation requires individuals to have some competencies in terms of both media literacy and critical reading. In this study, the relationship between media literacy competencies and critical reading self-efficacy perceptions of teacher candidates of Turkish language was examined. New Media Literacy Scale for University Students and Critical Reading Self-Efficacy Scale were used as data collection tools. 445 participants studying at 14 different state universities in Turkey, participated voluntarily in the study. Statistical software program was used to analyze the data. Findings derived from the research illustrated that there was a positive significant relationship between the media literacy competencies of Turkish teacher candidates and their critical reading self-efficacy perceptions. No significant relationship between the media literacy competencies and critical reading self-efficacy perceptions of Turkish teacher candidates was observed in terms of gender. The media literacy competencies and critical reading self-efficacy perceptions of Turkish teacher candidates differ in favour of the participants studying in the upper category compared to the participants studying at middle and lower category universities.

Many studies have pointed out a proportionate relation between metacognition and reading strategies. This study advances such an understanding by arguing that this relation is comprised of several sub-relations. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory and Reading Strategies Inventory were conducted among 92 English as Foreign Language students at a Vietnamese university. This study highlights 3 major findings. First, metacognition processes do not merely mean "cognition about cognition". Second, while previous studies tended to portray metacognition as a whole, it is argued in this study that it is constituted by two main clusters (knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition) which can be further specified into eight sub-components. Third, there seem to be some sub-linearities that underpin students' metacognition and that influence their uses of reading strategies. These findings are hoped to shed light on preserving spaces and autonomy in curriculum/syllabus development for students to exercise their own metacognition.

This study considers whether and in what ways graphic novel adaptations of traditional Jewish Hebrew texts can encourage adolescent Modern Orthodox girls to adopt autonomous critical responses when encountering narratives that present women in unequal roles vis a vis men. According to scholars, Jewish literacy should teach students to read traditional Hebrew texts reverently while forming autonomous interpretations and opinions. Instead, Jewish educators teach normative readings posed by approved rabbinic authorities. This is particularly the case when teaching issues relating to gender among Modern Orthodox Jews, a conservative Jewish denomination, strives to synthesize tradition with the values of modern, secular society. I therefore explore through think-alouds and semi-structured interviews to explore graphic novel adaptations of Jewish texts' potential to give adolescents opportunities to voice autonomous, critical interpretations. Findings show that adolescents, through graphic novel adaptations of traditional Jewish texts are able to engage in critical readings of the source material. Participants admitted that while they inherently imagined scenes to unfold in a certain way, they never spent time deeply considering the assumptions such imagined details led them to make. Thus, reading graphic novel adaptations did not lead participants to uniformly challenge their understood rabbinic metanarratives, but instead generally made them question their own personal imaged narratives.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of critical reading (CR) practices in science courses on academic achievement, science performance level, and problem-solving skills. The experimental method and factorial design were used. The study was conducted with 102 seventh-grade students from a public school in Turkey during the 2014-2015 academic year. Experimental and control groups were formed. CR practices were followed in the experimental group and teaching practices appropriate to the curriculum were used in the control group. Data were collected with the "Multiple-Choice Academic Achievement Test" to determine the students' academic level in the "Human and Environment Unit: The Science Performance Level Test" to determine their science performance level and the "Logical Thinking Group Test" to determine the level of their problem-solving skills. The variables of academic achievement and science performance levels were labeled "Academic Performance." Independent samples two-way ANOVA was applied to analyze the data using SPSS 18.0 software. The results revealed that the students in the experimental group, who were taught science using CR practices, were significantly more successful than the students in the control group, whose teaching was appropriate to the current curriculum in terms of academic achievement, science performance level, and problem-solving skills. It is of critical importance to use such innovative practices, which combine various disciplines, to allow students to excel at reading, which is a basic skill, at all educational levels in order to raise contemporary and social individuals.

The study briefly analyzes the ELT situation in India which is replete with challenges emerging from the lack of engagement with the phenomenon of digitality that further shapes the existing nature of learning and the needs of the learner. After locating the position of English Language in the new education policy of India, the paper discusses the General English (GE) courses offered at undergraduate level at the city of Bangalore in India, thereby shedding light on the existing gaps between policy and practice. It is based on this conjecture that the paper suggests the possibility of introducing rhetorical practices in GE courses at undergraduate levels in various institutions in urban India. In order to substantiate this suggestion, the results of a survey conducted with the learners (N=359) of a GE course based on rhetorics at a Southern Indian university is provided. Empirical data along with a brief reflection on the learners' voices are used in the study to examine the efficacy of the structure, administration and evaluation practices of this new course. The study thus opens up possibilities of initiating a discourse around the mode in which English language education and teaching is envisioned, formulated and implemented in undergraduate programs across urban India.

This study revolves around primary and secondary school visual arts teachers' cultural and critical readings on their VR museum experience through object and representation. As part of the in-service training and research project, the study was carried out in the provinces of Çanakkale, Erzincan, Kayseri, Diyarbakir, Giresun, Mersin, Denizli, which were selected from seven regions of Turkey within a seven-month period. 508 primary and secondary school visual arts teachers participated in the study. The study is a case study and teachers' readings related to the object and representation in the virtual museum and their VR museum experiences formed the units of analysis in the study. The data of the study was collected through worksheets, pre-evaluation forms, participant diaries and focus group interviews with voluntary teachers and content analysis method was employed to analyse the data. In the study, teachers were motivated to incorporate social and personal contexts into their readings of the object-space-representation. The results denoted that the activity enhanced teachers' learning experiences in terms of personal and professional contexts. Although teachers highlighted that VR museum experiences could not offer much more rich experiences than the actual museum visits, they believed that it could be effective for visual arts classes and be blended with various learning activities given that the virtual museum experience offers the possibility of exploring a museum without a barrier of distance and incite enthusiasm and learning interest through digital technologies (e.g., sound, motion, immersive experience).

A key instructional goal of English language arts instruction is teaching students to read and interpret complex literary texts. This report reviews the literature on the development and pedagogy of literary analysis skills. It analyzes literary analysis skills as a "key practice," a bundle of disciplinary skills and strategies that form a key target for instruction. This practice focuses on applying a variety of strategies for building textual interpretations, including strategies for deepening comprehension, inferring the author's purpose, considering multiple perspectives, connecting text to context, generalizing and applying themes, and participating in cultural conversations about texts. It also identifies a sequence of activities that define literary interpretation as a social practice and identifies key goals and subgoals for those activities. If literary analysis is viewed as a key practice, it requires participants to habitually engage in the following practices: (a) read and reread texts to find cues that suggest new possibilities for interpretation, (b) participate in interpretive discussions of literary texts, (c) use writing both as a tool to support interpretive work and as a means to communicate interpretive arguments, and (d) maintain an openness to new interpretations and a willingness to revisit previous interpretive conclusions in the light of new evidence. The evidence indicates that this is a late-developing practice, typically acquired during high school and never fully mastered by a large proportion of the population, though it can be encouraged and fostered in the upper elementary and middle school years with effective instruction.

In this paper, I apply the Multiple Documents Text-Based Relevance Assessment and Content Extraction (MD-TRACE) model, to describe the types of cognitive processes that students engage to critically reason about social issues, as they are portrayed through mass media. In addition to examining such processes, I further consider the extent to which these are reflective of "social justice reasoning," or students' critical reasoning about social issues in ways that recognize and analyze inequities in society. Three studies are introduced to provide empirical examples of how cognitive processes, identified in the MD-TRACE, may function within the context of students' reasoning about mass media. The processes examined include selection (Study 1), processing (Study 2), and integration (Study 3). Study 1 examines the types of perspectives that students propose seeking out in association with various social issues and the extent to which these perspectives may belong to marginalized groups (i.e., selection). Study 2 examines students' critical reasoning about or abilities to critique two deliberately constructed texts during processing. Study 3 investigates students' specific abilities to identify and critique narrative frames, or common reporting tropes, introduced across texts (i.e., integration). Together, these three studies serve as exemplars of students' engagement in reasoning about mass media and social justice reasoning. They suggest that social justice reasoning involves, in part, students' engagement in perspective taking, their application of prior knowledge to contextualize information in texts, and their recognition of common narrative frames across texts and the values that these uphold. Additional social justice reasoning strategies are suggested and directions for future research proposed.

Reading is critical to success in college. Faculty members often decry students who come to class without reading, and unprepared for the lessons of the day. Yet, relatively little empirical research assesses how to best stimulate collegiate reading and what types of reading assessments provide the best student learning outcomes. This paper assesses two common ways of assessing reading compliance and learning--reading quizzes and Course Preparation Assignments (CPAs)--using a randomized trial in a large introductory political science course. The data show that students are more compliant with completing the reading quizzes vs. the CPAs, and that students prefer completing the reading quizzes to the CPAs. Data from the 2020 Assessing Critical Reading Techniques study demonstrate little substantive difference between the two groups on the measured learning outcomes through either the exams or the papers. These findings provide empirical support that traditional methods of reading checks or assessments can provide value to the student learning process. Implications for instructors across different course formats are discussed.

This research asks whether a competency-based curriculum designed to integrate information literacy, critical reading, and writing improves students' ability to critically read sources and then use source content for their own purposes. We hypothesized that critical reading-infused library instruction, course instruction, and curriculum support via peer consultation (intervention group) would positively impact students' critical reading facility and ability to synthesize sources into meaningful writing as opposed to students who do not receive this instruction (control group). Our research indicates a strong correlation between students' navigating a critical reading curriculum for a research project with self-selected texts and positive research-based writing outcomes for these courses. Students in the intervention group were more likely to be able to integrate source material effectively into their self-selected research-based projects than students in the control group.

Effectively learning to evaluate sources, especially when conducting online research, is an essential skill for middle-grade students. This article argues that supporting students in learning to evaluate sources must involve using critical consciousness skills to do so, or the evaluation is incomplete. In the article, the authors expand the critical online reasoning and evaluation (CORE) framework to support students in learning to read in a critically conscious way. Critical consciousness is a key means for students to use in learning and solidifying critical literacy skills, and this focus is essential if we are to support students in learning to "read the word and the world."

The technology company OpenAI released a generative artificial intelligence program that can create detailed written responses, write essays, poetry, code, and much more, in response to short written prompts. It had been years in the making and had been exposed to over 40 gigabytes of text, webpages, images, and other content. ChatGPT is a large language model that would generate human-like responses to prompts, that it was created by OpenAI and was based on the GPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) architecture, which uses deep learning techniques to generate natural language text that is similar to text written by humans. Michael M. Yell, who has had a four-decade career in the secondary classroom and now as a teacher of adults in university and workshop settings, analyzes ChatGPT by posing questions to it and evaluates how it can be used in social studies classrooms.

This randomized controlled trial with first- and second-grade students is the first experimental study addressing long-running disagreements about whether primary grade students should develop transcription and oral language abilities before learning to compose. It is also the first study at these grade levels to teach close reading (using science text aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards) to plan and write a timed informative essay. Theoretically and evidence-based multi-component writing instruction was developed, termed "Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) Plus." SRSD Plus integrates evidence-based practices for transcription (handwriting and spelling) and oral language skills (vocabulary and sentence structure) with SRSD instruction for close reading to learn and then write informative essays. A total of 93 children in Grade 1 (n = 46, 50% female) and Grade 2 (n = 47, 51% female) in a high poverty school participated in the study (50% boys; mean age = 6.68; SD = 0.48). Students were randomly assigned to either teacher-led SRSD Plus or business-as-usual (writers workshop) condition within class in each grade. SRSD Plus was implemented with small groups for 45 min, three times a week, for 10 weeks. Outcomes examined included: instructional fidelity, spelling, handwriting fluency, vocabulary, sentence proficiency, discourse knowledge, planning, writing quality, structural elements in informative essays, number of words written, use of transition words, expository text comprehension, and use of source text. Results showed moderate to large effect sizes in writing outcomes, oral language skills (vocabulary and sentence proficiency), spelling, and discourse knowledge. Differential effects due to grade, gender, and race are examined, and directions for future research are discussed.

The improvement in critical reading skills (CRSs) plays a central part in college students' academic achievement, in the realization of which online collaborative learning (OCL) could perform a prominent role. This mixed-methods case study sets out to examine the influence of OCL on college students' CRSs due to the lack of research into it in the literature. To explore the impact of OCL on college students' CRSs, sophomore pre-service English teachers' (N = 42) CRSs were tested in the pre-treatment test before the start of an eight-week treatment, during which the participants critically evaluated the arguments in the pre-selected papers in groups of four, and in the post-treatment test subsequent to the intervention, constituting the quantitative data of the study. The qualitative data was collected from two qualitative surveys and a semi-structured interview. The findings obtained from the analysis of the quantitative data revealed that a statistically significant difference existed between the pre- and post-treatment test results, originating from the higher scores the participants got on the post-treatment test. The findings on the qualitative data demonstrated that the participants held positive views about the treatment and believed their CRSs developed considerably by virtue of immersing in OCL.

In this study, we explore discussions of literature in a high school English Language Arts (ELA) classroom, examining how students read rhetorically. Reading rhetorically considers the ethical effects of narrative content as it is mediated through character dialogue and action, narrator discourse, and the author's organization: a narrative as a story told to someone for some rhetorical purpose. Drawing from rhetorical narratology, we analyzed data collected in a 12th-Grade ELA classroom during student-driven Socratic seminars to ask: how did students address the ethics of various narrative situations as they talked about literature? We found that youth engaged in interpretive discussions that grappled with the complexities of ethical positioning in narrative. We argue that ELA classrooms are key spaces to help students examine how narratives act on readers, how readers act on narratives, and the ethical dimensions of such interpretive work.

This narrative inquiry explores the author's attempt to teach Henry James's novella "The Turn of the Screw" in a high school English class, making the celebration of confusion -- in the tradition of John Dewey -- the cornerstone of the experience. The students' interpretive discourse is analysed, prompting reflection on promising approaches, opportunities, and challenges connected with teaching difficult literary texts in high school and introductory college courses.