Volume 26  Issue 2   [2026]

The education environment increasingly emphasizes the need for teachers to ground their practice in the evidence base, which requires the ability to locate and critically evaluate online information. Within the context of a preservice teacher education literacy course, this study examined the online popular sources students chose to cite in an assignment after completing a lesson focused on finding information through both library resources and general online searches. The WHY Method, a framework for characterizing source authority, along with literacy educator classifications of reputation and alignment with the evidence base, were used to analyze students’ online popular source selections. Some preservice teachers had challenges discerning whether the source was scholarly or popular based on how the online content was presented. Preservice teachers primarily cited static webpages and often failed to fully integrate ideas from the online popular sources into their papers. The WHY Method provided a practical way to characterize source authority and reputation, but the literacy educator classifications were necessary to evaluate the source’s alignment with the evidence base. The analysis of these online popular sources indicates that preservice teachers must be explicitly taught how to evaluate and use sources of information they find online.

This special issue of CITE Journal considers “the complexities of digital texts and how to teach them” (Jones et al. 2025). In line with this theme, this article takes a closer look at animation, focusing on the ways that visual elements can serve as tools for close reading and creative composition. It shares findings from a qualitative study of 13 undergraduate students who were enrolled in a Visual Narratives course. Data sources included 39 course artifacts (i.e., animation analysis papers, original animation projects, and project reflections), and materials were analyzed using grounded theory and open coding. Data analysis revealed that participants employed visual elements in ways that supported narrative/literary study (e.g., regarding characterization, setting, mood, plot, and symbol). Documenting a clear overlap between animation study and traditional English content, the author recommends that visual elements and animation be included in English teacher education as part of a larger effort to address digital, visual, and multimodal forms of communication.

The study described in this paper examined how tensions within a digital field site opened a third space for learning in an English education methods course, disrupting traditional hierarchies in two interconnected ways. First, it challenged the conventional teacher-student dynamic in secondary English language arts classrooms by centering collaborative, inquiry-driven learning in digital contexts with youth writers. Second, it disrupted the hierarchical relationship between instructors and a master’s student preservice educator (MSPE) by enabling more horizontal, participatory learning within the course itself. Through a transliteracies framework and practitioner inquiry, the authors explored the reflections of the MSPE as she facilitated an online inquiry group for teen writers. In this role, she coconstructed inquiry alongside her students, leveraging digital platforms to enact relational, multimodal, and writer-centered approaches to literacy. Findings suggest that a digital field site, when approached through an inquiry stance, can foster more equitable learning relationships across digital settings, with youth-led participation creating opportunities for preservice educators to reimagine literacy, authorship, and pedagogy across diverse and rapidly changing digital contexts.