










































Georgia Journal of Literacy 
2025, Vol. 47(2), pp. 1–3 
https://doi.org/10.56887/galiteracy.203 
ISSN: 2833-7611 

Editorial Article  

 
 

 

CONTACT Dr. Robert A. Griffin, Associate Professor, Department of Early Childhood through Secondary Education 
and Reading, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA; email rgriffin@westga.edu (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3128-
7687). Dr. Bethany L. Scullin, Associate Professor, Department of Early Childhood through Secondary Education and 
Reading, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA; email bscullin@westga.edu. 
 

Making Thinking Visible: Explicit, Transferable 
Literacy Practices Across the Curriculum 
 
Robert A. Griffin 
University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 

Bethany L. Scullin 
University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 

 
ABSTRACT 

This editorial article introduces the Fall 2025 issue of the Georgia Journal of Literacy, 
which is themed "Making Thinking Visible: Explicit, Transferable Literacy Practices 
Across the Curriculum." With AI writing on the rise, new standards, and continued 
emphasis on science-based reading instruction, teachers are being called on to both 
teach structured literacy skills and the thinking that drives them. The four articles in 
this issue show how systematic, explicit, evidence-based instruction, along with 
modeling metacognition and culturally responsive teaching, can help students make 
learning visible and transferable across content areas. From reimagining grammar 
instruction for digital-age learners, to coupling structured literacy with metacognition, 
to bridging math and storytelling, and using mentor texts to cultivate writing craft, 
each article highlights how modeling cognitive processes transforms students into 
strategic, reflective thinkers. The articles here collectively call for literacy instruction 
that connects creativity, clarity, and structure with equity and thinking with doing. 

KEYWORDS 

literacy 
instruction; 
metacognition; 
explicit teaching; 
grammar; 
structured 
literacy; 
interdisciplinary 
learning; 
culturally 
responsive 
pedagogy; writing 
instruction 

 
n traditional face-to-face and virtual classrooms, students are surrounded by language, yet they 
are often disconnected from how language works on a practical level. Between texting 
shorthand, AI-generative writing, and new ELA standards, the act of thinking about thinking 

(metacognition) has never been more important. This Fall 2025 issue of the Georgia Journal of 
Literacy comes at a vital time. Themed “Making Thinking Visible: Explicit, Transferable Literacy 
Practices Across the Curriculum,” the authors published in this issue demonstrate how explicit 
instruction, purposeful modeling, and asset-based instruction can help learners read and write but 
also understand and appreciate the metacognition behind those language acts. 
 
Why “Making Thinking Visible” Matters Now 
For decades, literacy education has oscillated between explicit content-focused instruction and 
constructive, student-centered learning, between correctness and creative freedom. Twenty-five 
years into the 21st century now, students find themselves needing to master content and build 
critical thinking skills. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, new state standards (such as Georgia’s 
new ELA standards), and renewed attention on scientifically validated reading instruction have 
placed a growing spotlight on metacognition, the ability to understand and monitor one’s own 
thinking and learning (Grote-Garcia et al., 2025; Kalantzis & Cope, 2025). When teachers model 
how to think and how to think about thinking, students gain agency across subjects (Ghimire & 

I 

mailto:rgriffin@westga.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3128-7687
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3128-7687
mailto:bscullin@westga.edu


2 Georgia Journal of Literacy 47(2)  
 

Mokhtari, 2025). They begin to see language, including the syntax or grammar of language, as 
meaning-making, comprehension as strategic thinking, and mathematics as storytelling. Each of 
the four articles in this issue highlights the shift toward visibility, toward instruction that makes 
the invisible processes of literacy explicit, transferable, and equitable. 
 
Grammar as Understanding, Not Correction 
In “‘Not Just for the Boomers’: The Importance of Grammatical Understandings in 21st Century 
P–20 Classrooms,” Dr. Vicki Luther and Dr. Matt Sroka revisit a topic many educators are hesitant 
to tackle: grammar instruction. They trace how grammar fell out of favor after the 1963 National 
Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) report and argue for its return through student-centered, 
explicit, structured literacy teaching. Their literature review positions grammar within the 
generative AI and digital communication setting, showing that while it can autocorrect, technology 
cannot teach intentionality or metacognitive awareness. Luther and Sroka call on educators to 
balance descriptive and prescriptive grammar instruction to honor both “correctness” or precision 
and linguistic diversity and to prepare preservice teachers to do the same. Their findings emphasize 
that meaningful grammar instruction depends on connection, clarity, and cognitive control, not on 
surface-level error marking. 
 
Thinking Aloud as Equity 
Dr. Sarah Sharpe’s practitioner article, “Teaching Thinking for Reading: Merging Executive 
Function, Structured Literacy, and Asset-Based Practices,” extends this visibility into 
comprehension instruction. Based on the science of learning and reading, Sharpe maintains 
decoding is the starting point, but comprehension is the goal, and it depends on deliberate thinking. 
Her Culturally Responsive Think-Aloud Instructional Model (CRTAIM) demonstrates how 
teachers can make invisible cognitive processes, such as inferring, predicting, and monitoring, 
visible through explicit modeling and culturally responsive teaching. By bringing students’ 
linguistic and cultural assets into structured literacy instruction, Sharpe shows how to transform 
comprehension instruction from a skill set into an act of empowerment and equity building. 
 
Storytelling as Mathematical Reasoning 
Two Teaching Tips pieces constitute the final section of this issue, the first of which is whimsical 
in title but highly practical in function. Few pairings seem as delightful (or unlikely) as dragons, 
tacos, and numeracy. Yet in “Beyond Fire and Tacos: Using Dragons Love Tacos to Ignite 
Mathematical Thinking through Interdisciplinary Read-Alouds,” Dr. Luminita Hartle shows how 
teachers can utilize children’s literature as a springboard for understanding mathematics. Hartle’s 
work with teacher candidates using tactile manipulatives along with engaging picturebooks and a 
little humor can make math concrete, visible, and culturally relevant. Her interdisciplinary strategy 
merges narrative and problem-solving and invites learners to explore math concepts such as 
addition, graphing, and pattern recognition through shared experiences. Math, Hartle reminds us, 
lives in conversation, not isolation, with cultural stories and joy. 
 
Writing as Imitation and Insight 
Finally, in “Mentor Texts as a Bridge to Independent Writing: Supporting Young Writers Through 
Sentence Imitation and Craft Study in the Elementary Classroom,” Dr. Jolene Reed and Dr. 
Melinda Miller bring us back to the sentence itself. Using the sentence-composing approach of 



Griffin & Scullin 3 
 

Don and Jenny Killgallon, they illustrate how imitation, long dismissed as rote, can instead serve 
as a scaffold for authentic writing. Through gradual release with explicit modeling, students 
internalize writing skills, such as narrative leads and parallelism. Reed and Miller posit that when 
young writers study the sentences of master writers, they can begin to think and write like them. 
Imitation becomes an act of insight that leads to the development of writing skills and proficiency. 
 
Looking Ahead: From Mechanics to Metacognition 
Across these four articles, a theme emerges: visible thinking leads to transferable learning. 
Whether through grammar, comprehension, math, or writing, each author reinforces the 
importance of explicit instruction accompanied by deliberate modeling of the cognitive, linguistic, 
and creative work that learning requires. With information overload and increased automation, the 
practices and strategies showcased in this issue remind us that human teaching still matters. Our 
role as literacy teachers and advocates is not merely to deliver “correct” content but to model 
curiosity and the joy of learning. As you read this issue, consider how “making thinking visible” 
appears in your own work. How could you model the metacognitive habits you want your students 
to develop by revising in real time or life experience or pausing to wonder during a read-aloud? 
Principally, literacy is the connective tissue and foundation for all learning and subject areas, not 
just language arts. 
 
The editors and reviewers of the Georgia Journal of Literacy invite you to continue this 
conversation by submitting research or practitioner pieces or even teaching tips for the next year’s 
Spring 2026 issue. We encourage researchers, teacher educators, literacy advocates, and even PK–
12 teachers and school leaders across Georgia and beyond to submit manuscripts that question and 
expand how we teach students to read critically and write purposely. After all, when we make 
thinking visible, we make learning and literacy growth possible and lasting for all learners. 

 
References 
Ghimire, N., & Mokhtari, K. (2025). Evaluating the predictive power of metacognitive reading 

strategies across diverse educational contexts. Large-scale Assessments in Education, 
13(4), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-025-00240-3 

Grote-Garcia, S., Ortlieb, E., & Cardona, S. L. (2025). What’s hot in literacy: Misguided trends in 
a divided field. Literacy Research and Instruction, 64(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/
19388071.2024.2409130 

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2025). Literacy in the time of artificial intelligence. Reading Research 
Quarterly, 60(1), e591. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.591 

 
 
Published: December 12, 2025 

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-025-00240-3
https://doi.org/10.1080/19388071.2024.2409130
https://doi.org/10.1080/19388071.2024.2409130
https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.591

	Why “Making Thinking Visible” Matters Now
	Grammar as Understanding, Not Correction
	Thinking Aloud as Equity
	Storytelling as Mathematical Reasoning
	Writing as Imitation and Insight
	Looking Ahead: From Mechanics to Metacognition
	References

