Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice

📖 To read Mollie V. Blackburn’s Invited Address given at the 2024 Literacy Research Association Conference, visit: doi.org/10.1177/2381...

🤝Created in partnership with @edunowlab.bsky.social

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A group of people smiling and stacking their hands together in front of a large rainbow Pride flag. The image sets a tone of connection and collective care. Overlaid text introduces Mollie V. Blackburn’s ideas about fostering talk across differences. A dotted yellow path leads toward a “next” arrow. Several hands raise a small rainbow Pride flag against a soft sky background. The image visually supports the idea of inviting, affirming, and bolstering talk across differences. Decorative dotted arrows point toward the text explaining what this kind of talk is.

An illustrated background filled with diverse faces. The image functions as a visual metaphor for ideological diversity. Overlaid text defines “listening” and “wavering” in the context of fostering talk. A small dotted arrow marks the transition to the section. The same illustrated crowd of diverse faces used as a backdrop. The image continues the metaphor of ideological plurality while the overlaid text explains “pushing” as another conversational stance. A dotted loop guides attention toward the navigation arrow.

A child draped in a large Pride flag stands outdoors. The image underscores the stakes of students’ identities and the importance of careful, consequential conversations. Yellow dotted accents move across the slide to connect visually with the text. The back of a person wrapped in a rainbow flag facing an outdoor gathering. The image supports the message about approaching difficult conversations gradually and thoughtfully. A dotted arrow signals movement through the carousel.

Two hands holding each other, one wearing a rainbow wristband. The image reinforces the theme of care and thoughtful engagement. Overlaid text lists what educators should provide to students before engaging in these conversations. A gradient background featuring a large QR code that links to Mollie V. Blackburn’s full article. The slide also includes LRTMP’s social media icons and the Education Now Lab logo. This slide functions as the call-to-action for readers to learn more.

🗣️How can meaningful learning happen when we foster talk across differences?

💬 In this carousel for teachers and teacher educators, Dr. Mollie V. Blackburn shares the why and how of creating classroom spaces that invite, affirm, and support careful, nuanced dialogue. 1/2

This work argues for creating spaces where students can engage in challenging conversations alongside shared identities, allowing room to waver, question, & push one another toward deeper understanding.

📖 Read Mollie V. Blackburn’s Plenary Address at: doi.org/10.1177/2381...

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🔍: Through ethnography & teacher research the work explores how 2 students in an LGBTQ+-themed literature class at a queer-friendly Midwest high school use language to understand contrasting views of nationhood in relationship to the US, while leaving space for movement & change. (2/3)

Digital graphic with a yellow pastel background and rounded corners announcing Mollie V. Blackburn’s Invited Address given at the 2024 Literacy Research Association Conference - “Wavering and Pushing: Languaging Nationality in a High School LGBTQ+-Themed Literature Course” in Literacy Research: Theory, Method & Practice, Volume 74. The layout highlights the title and author with clean typography, includes the Education Now Lab logo, and a QR code inviting readers to explore the issue.

📢Mollie V. Blackburn’s Plenary Address given at the 2024 Literacy Research Association Conference - “Wavering and Pushing: Languaging Nationality in a High School LGBTQ+-Themed Literature Course” is now live at journals.sagepub.com/toc/LRX/curr...

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5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers - Bonus Tip: Time flies!

5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers - Tip #5: Use LRA as a resource!

5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers - Tip #4: List ideas to implement in your own article!

5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers - Tip #3: Audit a favorite LR:TMP article!

5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers - Tip #2: Record and transcribe your presentation!

5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers - Tip #1: Use presentation limits as generative constraints!

✈️ Heading to the Literacy Research Association annual conference? 💡 Here are LR:TMP co-editor, @anna-phd.bsky.social 5 Ideas for Turning LRA Presentations into LR:TMP Papers! 💻

Submission to LR:TMP are open to LRA presenters and are due February 6, 2026 at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lrtmp

📖To read the 2024 LRA Student Outstanding Research Award Paper visit: doi.org/10.1177/2381...

Findings show that even when teachers faced little direct pushback, the political climate still weighed on them. Many described how anxiety & fear of potential complaints shaped their pedagogical decisions - as efforts to avoid conflict became one way the legislation was enacted in schools.

This narrative inquiry examines the experiences of Georgia secondary ELA teachers striving to use critical, culturally affirming pedagogies amid new legislation banning “divisive concepts” and easing the filing of curriculum complaints.

Digital graphic with a blue pastel background and rounded corners announcing the 2024 Student Outstanding Research Award Paper “Where Is the Line? Narratives of Justice and Equity-Oriented Pedagogies in a Conflicted Sociopolitical Climate” in Literacy Research: Theory, Method & Practice, Volume 74. The layout highlights the title and author with clean typography, includes the Education Now Lab logo, and a QR code inviting readers to explore the issue.

📢 Publication Alert!

The 2024 Student Outstanding Research Award Paper “Where Is the Line? Narratives of Justice and Equity-Oriented Pedagogies in a Conflicted Sociopolitical Climate” by Jennifer Ervin is now live at journals.sagepub.com/toc/LRX/curr...

Bright, inviting graphic with a teal grid background announcing a Call for Reviewers for Literacy Research: Theory, Method & Practice, Volume 75. A bold orange banner centers the call, with the review window listed below and a large QR code providing direct access to details. The bottom text notes that doctoral students are also welcome to volunteer.

📢 Calling All Literacy Scholars!

@lrtmp.bsky.social, a journal of the Literacy Research Association, is seeking reviewers for Vol. 75 (2026)!

👉 Reviewers evaluate no more than 2 (two) manuscripts between February 11 and March 13, 2026.

Learn more & sign up here: about.illinoisstate.edu/lrtmp/

📖To read this article please, visit: doi.org/10.1177/2381...

A translanguaging classroom example reveals what becomes possible when teachers validate students’ full linguistic, semiotic, and multimodal practices. By positioning spontaneous translanguaging as pedagogical, the piece reframes language diversity as an asset and a pathway to educational justice.

This article explores how rigid language rules—“puntos y rayas”—function as barriers for language-minoritized students. Using autobiographical reflection & classroom cases, authors show how standardized language expectations can marginalize students & obscure their rich communicative repertoires.

Digital graphic with a red pastel background and rounded corners announcing he 2024 Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award Address Paper “Beyond Puntos y Rayas: Translanguaging Pedagogy for Language Minoritized Students” in Literacy Research: Theory, Method & Practice, Volume 74. The layout highlights the title and author with clean typography, includes the Education Now Lab logo, and a QR code inviting readers to explore the issue.

📢 Publication Alert!

The 2024 Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award Address Paper titled “Beyond Puntos y Rayas: Translanguaging Pedagogy for Language Minoritized Students” by Ofelia García Otheguy and Loukia K. Sarroub is now live at journals.sagepub.com/toc/LRX/curr...

Engaging with community members, youth, families, & colleagues across disciplinary divides, each project builds capacity to provoke “good trouble, necessary trouble” (Lewis, 2014). To read the Integrative Research Review please, visit: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Five scholars—Drs. Kate Kedley, Aria Razfar, Regina Ciphrah, & Zhihui Fang with Brittany Adams, whose diverse research foci, designs, & methodologies collectively provide a primer in circumventing dominant paradigms of literacy research with empowering, sustainable literacy development and practice.

🔍 Brief Synopsis: At the 74th Annual Conference of the Literacy Research Association, the Integrative Research Review Panel responded to the Association's call for literacy research that critically examines the consequences of oppressive versus liberating literacy policies and practices.

Digital graphic with a yellow pastel background and rounded corners announcing The Integrative Research Review article “Good Trouble, Necessary Narratives: The 2024 LRA Integrative Research Review Panel” in Literacy Research: Theory, Method & Practice, Volume 74. The layout highlights the title and author with clean typography, includes the Education Now Lab logo, and a QR code inviting readers to explore the issue.

📢 Publication alert!

🗒️The Integrative Research Review titled “Good Trouble, Necessary Narratives: The 2024 LRA Integrative Research Review Panel” is now live!

Focusing on the challenges and delimits of being bounded, Tatum offers conceptual guidance for exalting the literacy development of black male students in the United States.

To read Tatum’s address, visit: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

🔍 Synopsis: This article is an expanded version of the presidential address delivered at the 74th @lrtmp.bsky.social conference. Part biography and autoethnography, Tatum discusses the need to ‘trouble five dark spaces’ that affect the literacy development of black male children & teenagers.

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Digital graphic with a soft teal background and rounded corners announcing Alfred W. Tatum’s article “Troubling the Dark: Un(bounded) Black Male Literacy Development” in Literacy Research: Theory, Method & Practice, Volume 74. The layout highlights the title and author with clean typography, includes the Education Now Lab logo, and a QR code inviting readers to explore the issue.

📢 Publication alert!

🗒️Dr. Alfred Tatum’s Presidential Address “Troubling the Dark: Un(bounded) Black Male Literacy Development” is now live!

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✨ Begin your reading with Conference Chair Fenice B. Boyd’s Conference Summary, reflecting on the 74th Annual Conference and the spirit that animates this volume: doi.org/10.1177/2381...

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💬 These articles invite us to imagine new possibilities for engaging, appraising, and critiquing literacy practices shaped by power—calling us to make trouble for justice, inclusion, and humanity in literacy education.

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