Theresa Rogers

Negotiating a Research Protocol for Studying School-Based Gay and Lesbian Issues

The nature of public schooling, particularly at the early and middle childhood levels, makes designing critical qualitative studies around gay and lesbian issues in the school context problematic at best. This article provides a retrospective dialogue between an associate professor and her then Ph.D. candidate advisee that reflects on the tension created as they negotiated through the pitfalls and problems inherent in developing a workable proposal for a gay/lesbian school-based study. The authors use a point/counterpoint format that addresses such issues as study design, researcher ethics, and other relevant concerns for those interested in conducting school-based studies around gay/lesbian issues.

tRNAs: cellular barcodes for amino acids

The role of tRNA in translating the genetic code has received considerable attention over the last 50 years, and we now know in great detail how particular amino acids are specifically selected and brought to the ribosome in response to the corresponding mRNA codon. Over the same period, it has also become increasingly clear that the ribosome is not the only destination to which tRNAs deliver amino acids, with processes ranging from lipid modification to antibiotic biosynthesis all using aminoacyl‐tRNAs as substrates. Here we review examples of alternative functions for tRNA beyond translation, which together suggest that the role of tRNA is to deliver amino acids for a variety of processes that includes, but is not limited to, protein synthesis.

Students as Literary Critics: The Interpretive Experiences, Beliefs, and Processes of Ninth-Grade Students

The interpretive beliefs, processes, and instructional experiences of 8 ninth-grade students were studied as they participated in instructional subcommunities within their existing English classes. An observational analysis of the instructional communities was undertaken, and the students interpretive processes were analyzed as intertextual transactions, which include reasoning operations and inference sources. Overall results revealed that students reasoned about literary works at an interpretive level, and that their inferences were largely textual focussing on characters and events, reflecting the type of literary instruction they receive. After participating in an alternative response-centered instructional unit, students were more intertextual in terms of their preferences related to the interpretive process and more interpretive in their reasoning about literary works. The shift in the range of inference sources students drew on—the intertextuality of their transactions—varied by individual. Individual students were profiled to reveal the relationship of beliefs, experiences, and processes that form their critical interpretive stances toward literary works.

Functional association between three archaeal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) are responsible for attaching amino acids to their cognate tRNAs during protein synthesis. In eukaryotes aaRSs are commonly found in multi-enzyme complexes, although the role of these complexes is still not completely clear. Associations between aaRSs have also been reported in archaea, including a complex between prolyl-(ProRS) and leucyl-tRNA synthetases (LeuRS) in Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus that enhances tRNAPro aminoacylation. Yeast two-hybrid screens suggested that lysyl-tRNA synthetase (LysRS) also associates with LeuRS in M. thermautotrophicus. Co-purification experiments confirmed that LeuRS, LysRS, and ProRS associate in cell-free extracts. LeuRS bound LysRS and ProRS with a comparable KD of about 0.3–0.9 μm, further supporting the formation of a stable multi-synthetase complex. The steady-state kinetics of aminoacylation by LysRS indicated that LeuRS specifically reduced the Km for tRNALys over 3-fold, with no additional change seen upon the addition of ProRS. No significant changes in aminoacylation by LeuRS or ProRS were observed upon the addition of LysRS. These findings, together with earlier data, indicate the existence of a functional complex of three aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases in archaea in which LeuRS improves the catalytic efficiency of tRNA aminoacylation by both LysRS and ProRS.

Improving the Selection of Basal Reading Programs: A Report of the Textbook Adoption Guidelines Project

Commercially developed basal reading programs are used in most elementary school classrooms in this country. Yet, often neither the publishers developing these programs nor the members of state and local textbook adoption committees selecting programs are able to take advantage of the best and most up-to-date knowledge about the reading process and reading instruction. The development and piloting of A Guide to Selecting Basal Reading Programs is a major effort to make such knowledge available to publishers and members of adoption committees. The Guide presents current information about research and practice in reading and provides guidelines for evaluating basal reading programs. Case studies of 4 textbook adoption committees that piloted the Guide are presented. In general, these committees found the Guide contributed to a more informed selection process and committee members focused more attention on substantive issues associated with the quality of instruction and content and less attention on superficial aspects of programs and political considerations. In particular, 4 factors contributed to the successful use of the Guide: committee leadership, committee enthusiasm, adequate time to use the materials, and in-service support from a knowledgeable source. The role of this project in the larger endeavor to improve reading instruction in our elementary schools is addressed.

Literary theory and children's literature: Interpreting ourselves and our worlds

ship of their reading practices to those of their peers, their families, the larger world they inhabit? These questions about children and books have been more frequently asked in the past 30 years and have been examined through a variety of lenses, most notably from the many perspectives that can be loosely grouped under the rubric of literary response studies. The progression of research on childrens responses to literature can be traced from notions about the construction of the reader to descriptions of the intersection of reader and text worlds and, more recently, to a focus on the wider social and cultural context of reading childrens literature. In order to grasp the complexity of influences on how we have attempted to understand what young readers are doing, it is important to consider the rich and varied traditions from which these understand-

A Pseudo-tRNA Modulates Antibiotic Resistance in Bacillus cereus

Bacterial genomic islands are often flanked by tRNA genes, which act as sites for the integration of foreign DNA into the host chromosome. For example, Bacillus cereus ATCC14579 contains a pathogenicity island flanked by a predicted pseudo-tRNA, tRNAOther, which does not function in translation. Deletion of tRNAOther led to significant changes in cell wall morphology and antibiotic resistance and was accompanied by changes in the expression of numerous genes involved in oxidative stress responses, several of which contain significant complementarities to sequences surrounding tRNAOther. This suggested that tRNAOther might be expressed as part of a larger RNA, and RACE analysis subsequently confirmed the existence of several RNA species that significantly extend both the 3′ and 5′-ends of tRNAOther. tRNAOther expression levels were found to be responsive to changes in extracellular iron concentration, consistent with the presence of three putative ferric uptake regulator (Fur) binding sites in the 5′ leader region of one of these larger RNAs. Taken together with previous data, this study now suggests that tRNAOther may function by providing a tRNA-like structural element within a larger regulatory RNA. These findings illustrate that while integration of genomic islands often leaves tRNA genes intact and functional, in other instances inactivation may generate tRNA-like elements that are then recruited to other functions in the cell.

Living Dialogues in One Neighborhood: Moving toward Understanding across Discourses and Practices of Literacy and Schooling

Drawing on a critical discourse perspective, we examine the “living dialogues,” or the complex interplay between discourses, in one neighborhood to recontextualize the often polarized debates about literacy instruction within education. Focusing on three children, their families, teachers, and classrooms, we argue that the creation of more inclusive school literacy practices requires a consideration of how discourses function within and across homes, communities, and schools. Thus we focus less on the merits or limits of one instructional method than on how living dialogues reflect particular and situated beliefs about language and literacy practices. Within this theoretical frame, classrooms arise as contextualized spaces where the living dialogues of unique discourse communities intersect, and where the relational discourses that shape and reflect classroom practices have the potential to open up or close down instructional spaces for children. A critical discourse perspective re-situates debates around literacy instruction and allows us to engage in complex ways with the dilemmas and possibilities of school-based literacy practices. Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word. For if the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison, and destroy. - Ralph Ellison

The CCA anticodon specifies separate functions inside and outside translation in Bacillus cereus

Bacillus cereus 14579 encodes two tRNAs with the CCA anticodon, tRNATrp and tRNAOther. tRNATrp was separately aminoacylated by two enzymes, TrpRS1 and TrpRS2, which share only 34% similarity and display different catalytic capacities and specificities. TrpRS1 was 18-fold more proficient at aminoacylating tRNATrp with Trp, while TrpRS2 more efficiently utilizes the Trp analog 5-hydroxy Trp. tRNAOther was not aminoacylated by either TrpRS but instead by the combined activity of LysRS1 and LysRS2, which recognized sequence elements absent from tRNATrp. Polysomes were found to contain tRNATrp, consistent with its role in translation, but not tRNAOther suggesting a function outside protein synthesis. Regulation of the genes encoding TrpRS1 and TrpRS2 (trpS1 and trpS2) is dependent on riboswitch-mediated recognition of the CCA anticodon, and the role of tRNAOther in this process was investigated. Deletion of tRNAOther led to up to a 50 fold drop in trpS1 expression, which resulted in the loss of differential regulation of the trpS1 and trpS2 genes in stationary phase. These findings reveal that sequence-specific interactions with a tRNA anticodon can be confined to processes outside translation, suggesting a means by which such RNAs may evolve non-coding functions.

A Critical View of Urban Literacy: A Case Study of Successful High School English Teachers.

The characteristics of three successful urban-high-school literacy teachers were studied. The primary data were drawn from extended teacher interviews and journals and were triangulated by classroom observations; interviews with principals, parents, and students; and student demographics. Data were analyzed by means of a critical-interpretivist frame in which teachers participated in the creation and confirmation of descriptive “themes.” Findings supported previous research on the characteristics of successful teachers and extended them in several key ways: (1) Successful literacy teachers engage students in literacy practices that are both innovative and meaningful to the students; (2) the success of these teachers is tied to their level of commitment; and (3) level of commitment is related to perceived support from the educational system and voice in educational reform.