Many educators suggest that novice teachers lack the preparation necessary to be successful in today's urban classrooms, particularly when the experiences of those novices are vastly different from their students. However, it can also be suggested that culturally responsive practices have the potential to counteract the “cultural disequilibrium” that many novices encounter. In this narrative case study, the author traces one novice teacher's journey within a diverse, urban classroom. Data from this study suggest that a novice teacher's support systems, administrator, professional development, and the capacity to take risks contribute to his or her effectiveness in the classroom. Implications for teacher educators include providing instructional and experiential modeling of culturally responsive practices, informing preservice teachers of current educational policies and strategies for becoming student advocates, and becoming engaged within schools to support the implementation of induction programs that authentically prepare novices to turn cultural “disequilibrium” into cultural responsivity.

This study investigated the effectiveness of instruction in story mapping as a means to promote first-grade students' comprehension of central story elements in children's literature. Participants were 74 children in four first-grade classrooms, which were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (a) a Story Mapping 1 (SM1) group, in which students were taught to construct story maps for unadapted, unabridged children's stories they had read; (b) a Story Mapping 2 (SM2) group, which involved the same instruction as SM1 but included using story maps to compose stories; (c) a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA) comparison strategy group, in which students read the same stories according to a predict-verify procedure; or (d) a directed reading activity (DRA) instructed control group, in which students engaged in a noninteractive, guided reading of stories. Quantitative analyses were conducted on five whole-sample dependent measures: an important idea test on a parsed story, a wh-question test of central story elements, a summary selection task, an important story element recognition test, and a delayed wh-question test. Results revealed that (a) some form of active comprehension instruction (SM1, SM2, or DRTA) was superior to the controlgroup DRA on most measures, (b) story mapping (SMI and SM2) students consistently outperformed DRA controls, (c) story mapping was superior to DRTA on some measures but not on others, and (d) SM1 and SM2 groups did not differ on any measure. Qualitative data from student interviews generally supported these findings. It was concluded that instruction in story mapping is an effective instructional strategy for promoting first-grade students' ability to identify central narrative elements in authentic children's literature. 407

The present study analyzed 64 articles pertaining to whole-language instruction in elementary classrooms in order to compile a definition for this term.

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The purpose of this study is to reflect on the evolution of a partnership between a university and urban charter high school serving a predominately African American population. Because of the author's embeddedness both as the researcher and participant member, this research assumes the paradigm of autoethnography. Reflections on key components of this evolution provide implications for teacher education, particularly in regard to a call for engagement between urban charter schools and educator preparation programs, and a challenge to higher education to analyze existing perceptions of public charter schools within a wider institutional mission to prepare educators for all children.