The Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group is a group of adult education instructors, K-12 teachers, university faculty and students from a wide range of institutions and organizations across the metro-St. Louis region. The group is committed to exploring and acting on the relationship between literacy and social justice in classrooms, schools, and communities. We meet twice a month to discuss educational readings, view films and participate in workshops that explore how theory and practice work in our classrooms toward democratic aims. Please visit the list of "Upcoming Meetings." Dr. Rebecca Rogers, University of Missouri St. Louis, and Mary Ann Kramer, Literacy Coordinator for St. Louis Public Schools Adult Education and Literacy initiated this group in the fall of 2001. Our group's actions have been featured in both Language Arts and Rethinking Schools journals.

As teachers we are immersed in our students' learning on a daily basis and have questions and issues that arise in the context of our classrooms, schools, and communities we work in. The group serves as a place where teachers pose questions and think of multiple possibilities for strategic action in their classrooms. This includes collecting resources (e.g. children and adult literature, lesson plans, websites, interactional strategies) that teachers implement in their classrooms. Each teacher in the group is conducting an action research project in their classroom on the relationship between literacy and social justice. Teachers collect data on their interventions (e.g. examples of student work, transcripts of classroom interaction, a videotaped lesson) and, with the group's assistance, analyze the data looking for patterns and themes that can aid in furthering strengthening the teaching/learning in the classroom.

As a group we conceptualize our work as literacy advocates operating at the societal, institutional, and classroom levels. To date, many members of the group have conducted action research projects in their classroom that have changed the power structures in classrooms and between schools and communities. Our group has participated in the IRA's African American Read-In and raised money for classroom libraries. During the summer of 2004, we created a summer institute for teachers, administrators, and education and literacy advocates to learn about linguistics and literacy as well as how to organize as a teacher research group for social change. In the summer of 2005, we had a book writing retreat to plan for an edited book, authored by LSJTRG members. Our book will be published early in January 2009 with Routledge. It is called "Designing Socially Just Learning Communities: Critical Literacy Across the Lifespan."

LSJTRG participants experience a sense of connectedness with other teachers from different schools and members of the St. Louis and broader community. We work towards strengthening the impact of our collective efforts towards changes in literacy education. The unique combination of teachers across the lifespan in this group allows us to conceptualize and act toward more socially just communities across the lifespan.

We meet twice a month at the Adult Learning Center in St. Louis. Our meetings include informal networking time, time to share classroom successes and bring problems to the group, and focused discussions based on readings or current happenings in local and national education policy and practice. Please check the link upcoming meetings and join us for the next meeting of LSJTRG!