Jon M. Wargo
Contact
Location
3117 B
610 E. University Ave.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259
Dr. Jon Michael Wargo is a literacy researcher and learning scientist. His research reconceptualizes the role of media and technology as it comes to intersect with children's and youths' critical literacy learning. Leveraging young peoples' ingenuity as signs and sights for learning, his teaching and scholarship focus on understanding and sustaining the heterogeneity of human sensemaking in the contexts of community inquiry, participatory design, and social change. His current work takes up these commitments through examining learning across a range of learning environments (e.g., a STEM + dramatic arts youth conservatory, K-12 classrooms, place-based community engagement studios) and with a host of stakeholders (e.g., youth, families, teaching artists, museum educators, neighborhood associations).
An award-winning researcher and nationally recognized scholar, Wargo won early career achievement awards from the Literacy Research Association and the National Council for Teachers of English. In 2020, he was named an NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow and most recently received the 2025 AERA Division K Exemplary Research in Teaching and Teacher Education Award. His work has appeared in several top-tier peer-reviewed journals, including Research in the Teaching of English, Learning, Media and Technology, Mind, Culture, and Activity, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, English Education, New Media and Society, Reading Research Quarterly, and the Journal of Literacy Research. He has received distinguished article awards from the National Council for Teachers of English, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the American Educational Research Association's Queer Studies Special Interest Group. The National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation, the National Council of Teachers of English, the European Union Funding for Research & Innovation, and the Canadian New Frontiers in Research Fund have supported Wargo's research.
A former public schools teacher and early childhood educator, Wargo earned a Ph.D. in curriculum, instruction, and teacher education from Michigan State University and a B.A. in English and Gender Studies from Indiana University - Bloomington. Before joining the Marsal Family School of Education, Wargo was an assistant professor at Boston College and Wayne State University.
Selected Publications
Smith, K.P. & Wargo, J.M. (2025). Reading Research Quarterly. 60(1), 1-21.
Giunco, K., & Smith, K.P., & Wargo, J.M. (2024). Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice. 73(1), 105-125.
Wargo, J.M. (2024). Early Childhood Education Journal.
"Code-Switching Queer Controversy: Pre-K-8 Educators’ Perceptions of LGBT-Inclusive Policy Framing."
Wargo, J.M. & Katz, A. (2024). Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 32(44).
Wargo, J.M., & Giunco, K. (2023). The Reading Teacher.
""So, You’re Not Homophobic, Just Racist and Hate Gay Muslims?” Reading Difference with LGBTQ-Themed Young Adult Literature."
Wargo, J.M., & Smith, K. (2023). English Education, 55(3), 155-180.
Wargo, J.M., Morales, M., & Corbitt, A. (2022). Curriculum Inquiry, 52(5), 544-570.
Wargo, J.M. & Morales, M., Blake, A., Corbitt, A., & Madres, J. (2022). Mind, Culture, and Activity, 29(3), 269-287.
"Gendered Genius Hour: Tracing Young Children’s Uptake of Expert across the Nexus of Personal Digital Inquiry."
Wargo, J.M. (2022). Research in the Teaching of English, 56(3), 275-300.
Wargo, J.M. (2022). Journal of Social Studies Research, 46(1), 19-33.
"Speculating the Queer (In)Human: A Critical, Reparative Reading of Contemporary LGBTQ+ Picturebooks."
Wargo, J.M. & Coleman, J. (2021). Journal of Children’s Literature, 47(1), 84-96.
Wargo, J.M. (2021). Theory and Research in Social Education, 49(3), 360-389.
""Seeing" Difference Differently: Inquiry-Based Learning as a Site/Sight of Intersectional Justice in English Language Arts."
Wargo, J.M. (2021). Language Arts, 98(3), 135-148.
Wargo, J.M., Brownell, C., & Oliveira, G. (2021). Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 52(3), 315-334.
Wargo, J.M. (2020). International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33(5), 508-523.
"Sounding the Garden, Voicing a Problem: Mobilizing Critical Literacy through Personal Digital Inquiry with Young Children."
Wargo, J.M. (2019). Language Arts, 96(5), 275-285.
Wargo, J.M. & Clayton, K. (2018). Learning, Media & Technology, 43(4), 469-484.
Wargo, J.M. (2018). Journal of Literacy Research, 50(4), 502-523.
Wargo, J.M. (2018). Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 62(1), 13-23.
Wargo, J.M. (2017). Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 17(3), 392-408.
""Every Selfie Tells a Story…" LGBTQ youth lifestreams and new media narratives as connective identity texts."
Wargo, J.M. (2015). New Media and Society, 19(4), 560-578.
