Janine Certo, a principal investigator in the Literacy Achievement Research Center and assistant professor of language and literacy at Michigan State University, has been awarded a prestigious Spencer Foundation grant to study urban preadolescents' poetry knowledge and development. The one-year study, titled Genre Knowledge and Development: Urban Preadolescents Writing and Performing Contemporary, Hip Hop & Slam Poetry, will focus on forty 4th and 5th graders in an urban elementary school as they learn the elements and craft of composing and performing poetry from local and national poets. The study is part of a larger line of research that Certo is conducting that examines the acquisition and development of genre knowledge in preadolescent youth.
