August 2007

A Conversation on Literacy

EDC author contributes to new book

Imagine being invited to a dinner party where you would be able to visit with people you most admire, participating in talk that was excited, passionate, and persuasive about a topic you most enjoy. At the conclusion of the party, you’d leave filled with new ideas that you’d know in some way would direct what you’d do next. That’s a dinner party you don’t want to miss!

Three of the country’s leading literacy editors sent this invitation to their most esteemed education colleagues, including EDC’s Cynthia Mata Aguilar. From the resulting conversation, the editors have produced a thought-provoking book that explores advances in research on adolescent learning, today’s literacy education challenges, English language learners, struggling readers, technology in the classroom, and more. Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice, published by Heinemann Books, features the insights of twenty-eight top education thinkers and practitioners.

The book’s chapters, edited by renowned educators Kylene Beers, Bob Probst, and Linda Rief, build on each other to create a unified story of adolescent literacy. The book offers a variety of assessment rubrics for teachers, administrators, and staff developers as well as a study guide for small-group discussions.

Aguilar co-wrote her chapter, “English Language Learners in the Classroom,” with Danling Fu, associate professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida, and Carol Jago, a teacher at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California.

Aguilar, along with EDC's Cathy Morocco and Andrea Kotula, is now at work on a book on literacy to be published in 2008 by Josey-Bass.

Learn more about Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice on the Heinemann Web site

Read EDC’s Spotlight on Staff feature about Cynthia Mata Aguilar

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