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Conversations About Jail: Inclusive Settings for Critical Literacy

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Abstract

This article explores how a preschool writing community in an inclusive classroom provided the space for children to enact a critical literacy stance when they reconceptualized jail from being a place where “bad” people are taken to a place that people are sometimes placed because they perform acts of social justice. This case study highlights how conversations that are authentic and meaningful to children can be utilized by other children with different perspectives to scaffold each other’s learning. Structuring classroom environments to be inclusive allows students to bring their strengths to an activity while supporting new learning for others in their community.

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Notes

  1. All names are pseudonyms.

  2. The children’s words were transcribed verbatim and are presented here as such. Transcription conventions are at the end of this article.

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Correspondence to Erin McCloskey.

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McCloskey, E. Conversations About Jail: Inclusive Settings for Critical Literacy. Early Childhood Educ J 40, 369–377 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-012-0528-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-012-0528-7

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