* Provides both an accessible theoretical framework for introducing "figured worlds" into the ELA classroom, drawing on social science and languaging theory * Addresses practice and implementation with a range of activities on important topics, such as family, community, sports, virtual worlds * Covers Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) for preservice teachers and their students

* Provides both an accessible theoretical framework for introducing "figured worlds" into the ELA classroom, drawing on social science and languaging theory * Addresses practice and implementation with a range of activities on important topics, such as family, community, sports, virtual worlds * Covers Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) for preservice teachers and their students

Stories of Sports: Critical Literacy in Media Production, Consumption, and Dissemination discusses how media demonstrates privilege, policing, stereotypes, confirmation bias, and objectification in a world where the role of athletics in Western society speaks to privilege and power. Contributors use a critical media lens to analyze texts, including newspapers, magazines, film, television, social media, and sportscasts to demonstrate to readers the ways in which sports stories reinforce or disrupt patterns of power and the ways that power is enacted. This book questions the role of the sports-industrial complex in our society and argues that, while healthy competition and physical health can come from bodily exertion, corruption can contaminate these benefits with the wielding of influence and the acquisition of cultural and financial capital. Contributors examine how the ways that resources are allocated, the coverage of certain sports and athletes, and how viewers view competitive arenas speak to power and privilege in ways that can affect both athletes and athletic stakeholders, highlighting the importance of critically examining sports media. Scholars of media studies and sports will find this book particularly useful.

This volume reviews the background of mandated teacher performance assessment with an emphasis on policy, privatization, and professionalization. The authors discuss the potential impact of mandated teacher performance assessments on teacher education in the content areas of mathematics, English, and social studies. The perspectives and empirical research examined in this conceptual analysis illustrate the various ways in which the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) promises to restructure teacher education in the United States. The authors consider both the affordances and the constraints that teacher performance assessments offer for teacher preparation programs, and conclude by discussing the implications of the intersections among policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessments of teachers, as well as the relationship between performance assessments and teacher education. The impact of the edTPA on the development of signature pedagogies in teacher education is also discussed.

Stories of Sports: Critical Literacy in Media Production, Consumption, and Dissemination discusses how media demonstrates privilege, policing, stereotypes, confirmation bias, and objectification in a world where the role of athletics in Western society speaks to privilege and power. Contributors use a critical media lens to analyze texts, including newspapers, magazines, film, television, social media, and sportscasts to demonstrate to readers the ways in which sports stories reinforce or disrupt patterns of power and the ways that power is enacted. This book questions the role of the sports-industrial complex in our society and argues that, while healthy competition and physical health can come from bodily exertion, corruption can contaminate these benefits with the wielding of influence and the acquisition of cultural and financial capital. Contributors examine how the ways that resources are allocated, the coverage of certain sports and athletes, and how viewers view competitive arenas speak to power and privilege in ways that can affect both athletes and athletic stakeholders, highlighting the importance of critically examining sports media. Scholars of media studies and sports will find this book particularly useful.