ABSTRACT
The chapter “Critical Experiences with Assets-Based Literacy Intervention: A Social Design Experiment” by Keith Newvine, Heather Waymouth, and Kathleen A. Hinchman, explored how preservice literacy specialists mediated student-teacher interactions during a critical project-based intervention in one middle school. Drawing on Yosso’s (2005) notion of community cultural wealth in a first iteration of a social design experiment (Gutiérrez & Jurow, 2016), qualitative analysis of class artifacts illustrated how preservice literacy specialists were able to implement the intervention and address literacy goals, but with variation in how much they or students directed students’ inquiry as well as in assets students invoked. That preservice literacy specialists were able to implement the intervention suggested that orchestrating dialogic, collaborative literacy interventions grounded in students’ cultural wealth is a viable alternative to deficit-oriented approaches. However, more research is needed to determine how to best mediate such interventions in school settings so that all students reach their literacy aspirations.
