The lessons that children teach us: Integrating children's literature and the new literacies of the Internet

Abstract

Donald J. Leu, Jr. Jill Castek Laurie A. Henry Julie Coiro Melissa McMullan Every teacher recognizes that children have spe cial ways of looking at the world that are honest, often funny, and yet express central truths about life. Many children's authors have crafted memorable characters and an entire genre around this particular in sight, from Beverly Cleary's Ramona to Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones. Children teach us important lessons about life and about literacy, if we only listen closely enough. Recently, we were reminded of this important ob servation by Nick, a second-grade student appearing in the CTELL project video cases (Schrader et al., in press; Teale, Leu, Labbo, & Kinzer, 2002; see http://ctell.uconn.edu for additional information about this project to improve teacher education in the United States using online video cases of research-based, be ginning reading instruction). Here is what reading means to Nick: