Fostering adolescents' literacy engagements: “Kid's business” and critical inquiry

Abstract This study explores the impact of an inquiry project conducted with sixth‐grade language arts students. The project, Write for Your Life, invited students to conduct their own investigations of social issues that affected their lives. In this report, I look specifically at three aspects of the project—how the students defined their inquiry, how they pursued their inquiry, and how they compared this experience to previous experiences in language arts—in relation to the literature on engagement, critical literacy, and the design of language arts curriculum for adolescents.