In a documentarian investigation of the major LGBTQ archives in the United States, Queer Literacies: Discourses and Discontents identifies the homophobic discourses that prevailed in the twentieth-century by those discursive forces that also sponsored the literacy acquisition of the nation. Mark McBeth tracks down the evidence of how these sponsors of literacy—families, teachers, librarians, doctors, scientists, and government agents—instituted heteronormative platforms upon which public discourses were constructed. After pinpointing and analyzing how this disparaging rhetoric emerged, McBeth examines how certain LGBTQ advocates took counter-literacy measures to upend and replace those discourses with more Queer-affirming articulations. Having lived contemporaneously while these events occurred, McBeth incorporate narratives of his own lived experience of how these discourses impacted his own reading, writing, and researching capabilities. In this auto-archival research investigation, McBeth argues that throughout the twentieth century, Queer literates revised dominant and oppressive discourses as a means of survival and world-making in their own words. Scholars of rhetoric, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, literary studies, and communication studies will find this book particularly useful.

Fashioning Lives combines analysis of archival documents, literature, and film with the experiences of contemporary Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) individuals to demonstrate the usefulness of literacy as a historical and sociological lens for examining black queer cultural production and consumption. In addition, Eric Darnell Pritchard provides a theoretical framework for future analysis of the intersections of race and queerness in literacy, composition, and rhetoric.

Winner of the 2018 Outstanding Book by the Michigan Council Teachers of English Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2018 Winner of the 2017 AERA Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) Exemplary Research Award This book draws upon a queer literacy framework to map out examples for teaching literacy across pre-K-12 schooling. To date, there are no comprehensive Pre-K-12 texts for literacy teacher educators and theorists to use to show successful models of how practicing classroom teachers affirm differential (a)gender bodied realities across curriculum and schooling practices. This book aims to highlight how these enactments can be made readily conscious to teachers as a reminder that gender normativity has established violent and unstable social and educational climates for the millennial generation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, (a)gender/(a)sexual, gender creative, and questioning youth.

Teaching Queer looks closely at student writing, transcripts of class discussions, and teaching practices in first-year writing courses to articulate queer theories of literacy and writing instruction, while also considering the embodied actuality of being a queer teacher. Rather than positioning queerness as connected only to queer texts or queer teachers/students (as much work on queer pedagogy has done since the 1990s), the book offers writing and teaching as already queer practices, and contends that the overlap between queer theory and composition presents new possibilities for teaching writing. Teaching Queer argues for and enacts "queer forms"—non-normative and category-resistant forms of writing—those that move between the critical and the creative, the theoretical and the practical, and the queer and the often invisible normative functions of classrooms.

Drawing on examples of teaching from elementary school classrooms, this timely book for practitioners explains why LGBTQ-inclusive literacy instruction is possible, relevant, and necessary in grades K–5. The authors show how expanding the English language arts curriculum to include representations of LGBTQ people and themes will benefit all students, allowing them to participate in a truly inclusive classroom. The text describes three different approaches that address the limitations, pressures, and possibilities that teachers in various contexts face around these topics. The authors make clear what LGBTQ-inclusive literacy teaching can look like in practice, including what teachers might say and how students might respond. “Reading the Rainbow is a terrific, nuanced, practical resource that many ELA teachers should come to value. Children in their classrooms, whatever their identities, will be the better for it.” —Mombian “Reading the Rainbow invites us to enact justice in our classrooms as we honor our students’ rights and work to foster equity.” —From the Foreword by Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University “The field has been hungry for this book! It will allow elementary teachers to make immediate and impactful change in their classrooms.” —Elizabeth Dutro, University of Colorado Boulder “This is a warm and vigorous invitation for teachers to create more equitable classrooms where the full humanity of students is honored.” —Mollie V. Blackburn, Ohio State University

Examines the grassroots activism of an Internet-mediated collegiate lesbian and gay organization in Turkey. Grassroots Literacies analyzes the complex issues surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender representations, technology, and grassroots activism in international contexts through the lens of Legato, a collegiate lesbian and gay association that engaged in activism in colleges and universities in Turkey from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. Using the Internet and digital media, Legato enabled students to connect with each other on campuses across the country and introduced them to new (i.e., lesbian and gay) identity categories and community activism. Serkan Görkemli presents historical, cultural, visual, and interview-based analyses of Legato members’ “coming out” experiences and uses of digital media. Members emerged as sexuality activists with the help of the Internet and engaged with negative representations of homosexuality through offline events such as film screenings, reading groups, and conferences in the challenging context of burgeoning civil society efforts in Turkey. Bridging transnational and literacy-based studies, the book ultimately traces the contours of a “transnational literacy” regarding sexuality.

The Handbook of Critical Literacies aims to answer the timely question: what are the social responsibilities of critical literacy academics, researchers, and teachers in today’s world? Critical literacies are classically understood as ways to interrogate texts and contexts to address injustices and they are an essential literacy practice. Organized into thematic and regional sections, this handbook provides substantive definitions of critical literacies across fields and geographies, surveys of critical literacy work in over 23 countries and regions, and overviews of research, practice, and conceptual connections to established and emerging theoretical frameworks. The chapters on global critical literacy practices include research on language acquisition, the teaching of literature and English language arts, Youth Participatory Action Research, environmental justice movements, and more. This pivotal handbook enables new and established researchers to position their studies within highly relevant directions in the field and engage, organize, disrupt, and build as we work for more sustainable social and material relations. A groundbreaking text, this handbook is a definitive resource and an essential companion for students, researchers, and scholars in the field.

Showcasing cutting-edge findings on adolescent literacy teaching and learning, this unique handbook is grounded in the realities of students' daily lives. It highlights research methods and instructional approaches that capitalize on adolescents' interests, knowledge, and new literacies. Attention is given to how race, gender, language, and other dimensions of identity--along with curriculum and teaching methods--shape youths' literacy development and engagement. The volume explores innovative ways that educators are using a variety of multimodal texts, from textbooks to graphic novels and digital productions. It reviews a range of pedagogical approaches; key topics include collaborative inquiry, argumentation, close reading, and composition.ÿ

At the forefront of current digital literacy studies in education, this handbook uniquely systematizes emerging interdisciplinary themes, new knowledge, and insightful theoretical contributions to the field. Written by well-known scholars from around the world, it closely attends to the digitalization of writing and literacies that is transforming daily life and education. The chapter topics—identified through academic conference networks, rigorous analysis, and database searches of trending themes—are organized thematically in five sections: Digital Futures Digital Diversity Digital Lives Digital Spaces Digital Ethics This is an essential guide to digital writing and literacies research, with transformational ideas for educational and professional practice. It will enable new and established researchers to position their studies within highly relevant directions in the field and to generate new themes of inquiry.

Despite its centrality to much of contemporary personal and public discourse, sexuality remains infrequently discussed in most composition courses, and in our discipline at large. Moreover, its complicated relationship to discourse, to the very languages we use to describe and define our worlds, is woefully understudied in our discipline. Discourse about sexuality, and the discourse of sexuality, surround us—circulating in the news media, on the Web, in conversations, and in the very languages we use to articulate our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It forms a core set of complex discourses through which we approach, make sense of, and construct a variety of meanings, politics, and identities. In Literacy, Sexuality, Pedagogy, Jonathan Alexander argues for the development of students' "sexual literacy." Such a literacy is not just concerned with developing fluency with sexuality as a "hot" topic, but with understanding the intimate interconnectedness of sexuality and literacy in Western culture. Using the work of scholars in queer theory, sexuality studies, and the New Literacy Studies, Alexander unpacks what he sees as a crucial--if often overlooked--dimension of literacy: the fundamental ways in which sexuality has become a key component of contemporary literate practice, of the stories we tell about ourselves, our communities, and our political investments. Alexander then demonstrates through a series of composition exercises and writing assignments how we might develop students' understanding of sexual literacy. Examining discourses of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage allows students (and instructors) a critical opportunity to see how the languages we use to describe ourselves and our communities are saturated with ideologies of sexuality. Understanding how sexuality is constructed and deployed as a way to "make meaning" in our culture gives us a critical tool both to understand some of the fundamental ways in which we know ourselves and to challenge some of the norms that govern our lives. In the process, we become more fluent with the stories that we tell about ourselves and discover how normative notions of sexuality enable (and constrain) narrations of identity, culture, and politics. Such develops not only our understanding of sexuality, but of literacy, as we explore how sexuality is a vital, if vexing, part of the story of who we are.