Shelby A. Wolf

Schools in Transition: Reform Efforts and School Capacity in Washington State

This article features case studies of two elementary schools, identified as exemplary by Washington educators, as they worked to enact Washington’s Essential Academic Learning Requirements and help students achieve proficiency on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. We describe school- and classroom-level practices and analyze the schools’ progress toward successful enactment of Washington’s reform vision by considering six dimensions of school capacity: principal leadership; professional community; program coherence; technical resources; knowledge, skills, and dispositions of individual teachers; and learning opportunities for teachers. Supporting the claim that large-scale reform takes time, we argue that for a young reform effort “exemplary” is best understood in terms of capacity rather than outcome.

Interpreting Literature With Children

Contents: Prologue: Engagement Beyond the Edges of the Earth. Part I: Salutations! Learning About Literature. Critical Perspectives. Literary Elements in Prose & Poetry. Part II: Ways of Taking From Literature. Talking About Literature. Culture & Class in Childrens Literature. Gender in Childrens Literature. Part III: Ways of Doing Literature. Interpreting Literature Through Writing. Interpreting Literature Through the Visual Arts. Interpreting Literature Through Drama. Epilogue: How Like the Mind.

“Only Connect!”: Cross-Cultural Connections in the Reading Lives of Preservice Teachers and Children

In this research, we present case studies of three Anglo American preservice teachers - Clara, Luke, & Varla - as they worked with children of color and/or poverty - Sam, Reggie, and Lucinda - over the course of a semester. In a university class entitled the Literacy/Social Studies Block, we asked the preservice teachers to look within to explore their own literary backgrounds in a reading-autobiography assignment. And we encouraged them to look about as they read and discussed literature with diverse children in the Child as Teacher Project. Here we argue that the combination of autobiographical accounts with reflective field experiences helps preservice teachers reconsider their life stories in reading in order to build bridges of literacy to and with children.