Literacy is at the center of talk about education. Literacy weaves its way into concerns about the quality of family life, the nature of a good childhood, and of elementary school basics. It ends up center stage in worries about high school drop-outs and workplace competencies. It cannot be left out of discussions about how students learn to do new intellectual work in any area of the curriculum. Nor can it be ignored in discussions about sociocultural identities, about the nature of language differences, about the possibilities of transforming how people read and take action in their worlds.

And, always, it figures into critical discussions about ways of teaching. Are there best practices for all children? Who judges? Do they sustain or work against assumptions about intelligence, communication, and art? Do they look to a time past, when print ruled, or are they part of the new technologies of the future? All of these issues are about “literacy,” and all operate with different definitions of what it means, who has it, who should teach it to whom, and how.

This Language & Literacy doctoral option aims to develop scholars, researchers, and teacher educators who will be thoughtful participants and educational leaders in exploring this most exciting of areas, literacy.

What we offer you as a doctoral student is the opportunity to work with accomplished researchers who are among the best in the country. Our scholars will mentor you in a range of methodological approaches to critical issues in the literacy field. In the following pages, you can read specifically about each of our faculty members’ research areas. Our professors have won awards in research, teaching, and teacher education. They are active researchers who have had grants ­ all of which employ and train literacy doctoral students ­ from the National Science Foundation, Interagency Education Research Initiative, Spencer Foundation, American Educational Research Association, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and more. We bring diverse expertise in ethnography, critical research, experimental, quasi-experimental, discourse analysis, and descriptive research to a broad range of educational problems. Our work is global as well as national, and urban as well as rural.

The Language & Literacy Doctoral Option represents a coherent program of study. It is designed to prepare future literacy researchers, teacher educators, educational leaders, policy makers, and those interested in private educational endeavors that require a Ph.D. with a focus on language and literacy issues. The Language & Literacy faculty hold primary or joint appointments the departments of Counseling, Educational Psychology, & Special Education (CEPSE)/Learning, Technology, and Culture (LTC) and Teacher Education (TE). The L&L Doctoral Option is designed to cross these two departments, incorporating students form both CEPSE/LTC and TE.

Option Highlights:

• Broad study in literacy theory, oral and written language development, sociocultural aspects of literacy learning, issues of teaching and learning literacy across the life-span, psychological aspects of reading and writing in sociocultural contexts

• Rigorous research training across methodological spectrum

• Apprenticeship learning on research teams exploring an array of educational issues

• Mentoring by top faculty into national and international
  academic communities

• Apprenticeships in teacher preparation at the nation’s No. 1 graduate teacher education institution.

Faculty Awards:

• Grawemeyer Award for Education

• Oscar Causey Award, National Reading Conference

• Dina Feitelson Award, International Reading Association

• Outstanding Teacher Educator, International Reading Association

• Ed Fry Book Award, National Reading Conference

• Promising Researcher, National Council of Teachers of English

• Outstanding Dissertation Award, International Reading Association

• Janet Emig Award, National Council of Teachers of English

• David H. Russell Award, National Council of Teachers of English

• A.B. Herr Research & Scholarship Award, College Reading Association