The most exciting literacy scholarship being written today

For me, the most exciting literacy scholarship being written today is by a Rutgers professor named Chantal Francois.  Her work documents an amazing urban school that has devoted itself to creating a humane culture of reading, a culture in which reading is valued, in which books are everywhere, in which teachers know students' individual interests, in which the Principal leads by example, and in which students' reading skills increase dramatically.

Francois's most recent article, "Reading in the Crawl Space," has just come out in the Teachers College Record.  It is a vision of where we should be going, a vision of a school that offers everyone what Scout and Jem got at their reading father's knee, a vision of a school that would lead us all, not only to the Common Core's "college and career readiness," but to happier, healthier, more moral lives. Everyone who cares about education should read Francois's work.