JoLLE April Newsletter
Spring Issue is HERE!
We are so proud to announce the spring issue is PUBLISHED!
Please click here to read the Spring 2017 issue of JoLLE, which is centered around the conference theme of "Out of the Box and Into the Margins". Thank you to all the authors, artists, reviewers, and board members who worked so hard to make this issue possible.
Scholars Speak Out--Edgar Escutia Chagoya & Ruth Harman
Remember that literacy is language; without extended language interaction, the young find engaging with literacy filled with difficulties (Shirley Brice Heath, Lecture at UGA, April 1, 2017) In this essay we focus on several interconnected issues related to youth, community literacy and the arts. The quote from Dr. Heath above, captured at her lecture on April 1 at the University of Georgia, highlights the key ingredients in engaging youth in literacy. Dr. Heath continued on to discuss how embodiment (use of the whole or parts of the body in working around and with visual, verbal and action texts) plays a large role in the cognitive and language development of children. The hand, even, is a haptic resource to support cognitive development that cannot be replaced by digital (i.e. finger) use of computers and screen viewing. So what is the purpose of our short paper? Who are we? Why are we invested in this topic?
We are two people highly invested in education, one of us, a Mexican-American freshman and poet at a high school and one of us, an Irish associate professor engaged in youth participatory action research (YPAR) at the University of Georgia. We have known each other for over three years in the context of our collaborative work in after school art youth programs. Over these years we have spent many hours discussing, embodying and visualizing how schools and communities could better serve the interests and needs of youth, especially in high poverty cities and communities such as Athens, where we both live. Indeed, we wrote a book chapter together two summers ago, discussing how performance and storytelling supported Edgar and his classmates in middle school to become highly engaged and proficient in sharing their life experiences and art work with a large audience in our city (Harman, Johnson, & Chagoya, 2015).
Take Two
In Ian Altman’s Spring 2013 article, Undocumented Students and Classroom Advocacy: Be Not Afraid, the author shows a real look at what it is like having undocumented students in his high school classroom, and what it means to advocate for and with them in that context. The author’s voice is clear as he tells his readers what is at stake in standing up for undocumented students in their classrooms, and he also connects such work to the context of the Common Core state standards. In this month’s Take 2, Ian looks back at that article and addresses the relevancy of advocacy during the Trump presidency, but also the implications for furthering that student advocacy on subjects such as sexuality and gender identity. He gives practical advice in this Take 2 on how to prepare safe spaces for students to have difficult conversations about such topics as immigration and gender, and he does so in a way that shows the importance of the subject as it was in 2013, and how it is even more important today.
Click here to read the original article.
Congrats to JoLLE on TWO SOAR (Student Organization Achievement and Recognition) Awards
JoLLE is proud to have been awarded TWO SOAR awards for 2017:
Most Innovative Program: Full Range of JoLLE Activities
Awarded to the student organization that positively advanced the UGA community through sponsoring a groundbreaking project or program. Applicants should be able to describe their program/event’s creativity and innovation.
Outstanding Campus Event (Small): JoLLE Winter Conference Opening Event
Given to the student organization that sponsored an event or program with attendance of 120 people or fewer. This organization showed exemplary skill in the development, promotion, and execution of the event.