Literacy Now

Every adult working in a school goes to work each day because he or she wants to help students—help them learn and support them as they grow into lifelong learners and engaged citizens.

But in today’s world, we know this means more than reviewing the everyday curriculum. Students are facing unique challenges within and outside of the classroom, and educators are finding themselves not only teaching but also advocating for students. For October’s #ILAChat, our panel will share their experiences as young literacy leaders and how they advocate for students around the world.

This month’s #ILAChat on Thursday, October 13, at 8:00 p.m. ET, will feature a panel of 2016’s 30 Under 30 honorees.

Although most educators know the need to put diverse books in the hands of students, the reality is that often they are surrounded only by characters and plots that do not reflect their ethnicity or culture. As these students learn to read, it’s possible for them not to know what’s missing. That happened to Deborah Ahenkorah Osei-Agyekum as she grew up in Ghana.

As a student at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, she cofounded a student-led organization, Project Educate in Africa (PEIA), to provide books to African children. As she was organizing a book shipment, it hit her: “I saw a book with a black girl on the cover,” she said in Literacy Today. “I realized that out of the thousands of books we had shipped, this was the first I saw that represented the people the books were going to. It dawned on me that apart [from how] many children in Africa lacked access to books, there was another problem, possibly the root problem, which is: There are not enough diverse children’s books being produced in Africa, and they are not easily accessible to all children.”

From there she founded the Golden Baobab Prize with her mentor, Rama Shagaya. They hoped to inspire the creation of African stories written by Africans for children. A publishing and multimedia company, African Bureau Stories, and the nonprofit Golden Baobab grew from the prize, and now they are producing these stories, not just encouraging them.

“It’s absolutely critical that there is balance and representation,” Ahenkorah Osei-Agyekum said when she won the 2015 Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice Prize given by Grinnell College in Iowa. “It’s not OK that children in some parts of the world wake up, pick up books, and see themselves and their cultures and their language, their slang, and their food represented in it and children in another part of the world...pick up books and only see other people.”

Bronx, NY–based teacher Alex Corbitt makes lessons come to life in his classroom, bringing outside issues into school to help his students become literate on many levels.

“My job as an educator is to empower students to become compassionate, critically engaged citizens,” Corbitt said in an interview for Literacy Today. “Being ‘literate’ is more than having the ability to read and write. Literate citizens are well informed, wary of media bias, and committed to improving their communities. I bring the ‘real world’ into my classroom so that students can engage in literacy practices that define their daily lives and future careers.”

Fellow New York educator John Maldonado uses technology to level the playing ground for his special education students, including those with autism.

“The concrete, predictable cause-and-effect nature of technology is something that my students easily understand and feel comfortable with,” Maldonado said. “Technology allows my students to move past whatever communicative difficulties they may have and express themselves in whatever way is the most effective for them.”

By engaging nearly the entire Google for Education suite, Maldonado gives his students tools with which they are familiar and empowered.

Kellyn Sirach, a teacher in a rural Illinois school, saw that her students faced several obstacles on the road to literacy. There was no public library and only a tiny school library, and middle school students were already reading far below their grade level. As a response, she formed a sixth- through eighth-grade book club called The Booth Bookies, established a student newspaper dedicated to promoting literacy awareness throughout the community, and created the Million Word Club competition to see which grade could read 1 million words first.

She also engaged the community by establishing a Little Free Library and continues her efforts to give her students the power of literacy.

Join our panel to learn how these individuals make an impact in their student’s lives through advocacy and, in turn, how you can bring advocacy to your practice. Be sure to follow #ILAChat and @ILAToday on Oct. 13 at 8:00 p.m. ET to join the conversation.

The Texas Association for Literacy Education (TALE) is a state-level chartered ILA council that was recently recognized with ILA’s 2015–2016 Advocacy Award. To qualify for this award, state and provincial councils must have a fully functioning legislative committee and a particular issue that the council addressed through targeted legislative advocacy activities.
We believe taking an active role in educational advocacy is essential for the effective influencing of public educational policy.

TALE began its journey in July 2014 with the creation of a fully functioning Advocacy Development Committee that consisted of a director and four active committee members. The mission was to educate about, advocate for, and support the importance of lifelong literacy learning in and through education by building alliances and creating a network among literacy educators and other educational stakeholders.

Identifying the issues at hand

During the 2014–2015 membership year, TALE’s Advocacy Development Committee identified two specific issues to address.

First, TALE sought to create awareness and promote action among its membership with several public education topics that were addressed during the 84th Texas Legislative Session, such as the expansion and improvement of pre-K programs and alternatives to high-stakes testing.

The second issue was the commencement of the Texas State Board of Education’s (SBOE) review and revision process for the mandatory state standards—the English Language Arts and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (ELAR TEKS)—which delineate the required knowledge and skills for students in kindergarten through grade 12.

TALE became an active participant in a statewide literacy coalition consisting of literacy organizations that work collaboratively with other stakeholders. Included were Coalition of Reading and English Supervisors of Texas, National Writing Project of Texas, Texas Association for Bilingual Education, Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading, and Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. We also worked with the Texas Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and Texas Association of School Administrators.

Each group worked with other literacy stakeholders—community members, parents, and publishers of state-approved education materials—to advocate ELAR TEKS revisions and provide feedback.

Educating our members

TALE used a variety of outlets, both print based and electronic. We published articles in quarterly newsletters, the Texas Journal of Literacy Education peer-reviewed journal, and the proceedings from TALE’s annual conference. We also kept members informed by sending e-mails and posting relevant information on an established advocacy website.

With the ELAR TEKS review and revision process, TALE collaborated with the literacy coalition to develop and distribute advocacy resource packets among all SBOE members. These packets included a joint letter, suggested framework for the ELAR TEKS, and talking points for testimony given at an SBOE committee meeting.

The framework identified high-priority learning standards that emphasized depth over breadth, a clear description of content and depth of knowledge, and skills necessary for student success on state standardized assessments and for fostering college and career readiness. TALE also held coalition workshops for framework creation and sent representatives to attend and observe SBOE committee meetings, which resulted in revisions made to the framework.

For example, the new framework embodied the interconnectedness of the English language arts and integrated the following strands within each grade level: foundational language skills, comprehension, response, collaboration, multiple genres, author's purpose and craft, composition and presentation, and inquiry and research.

Organizing our efforts

TALE demonstrated an organizational plan that promoted a commitment to building advocacy skills within its membership by establishing an advisory board for the Advocacy Development Committee, which included TALE’s executive officers and board members.

During monthly board meetings, the director of the Advocacy Development Committee reported on the committee’s activities. Communicating information among members is critical, so TALE established procedures to streamline dissemination of information among its members, such as e-mailing legislative action alerts and communications encouraging members to contact their elected officials regarding specific legislative issues.

TALE’s organizational plan also included creating a service network of 30 literacy experts throughout Texas as part of TALE’s involvement with the literacy coalition. This network’s purpose was to elicit feedback from K–12 teachers, administrators, and central office staff members regarding the proposed revisions to the ELAR TEKS. Organized by grade bands, the network examined proposed revisions within their assigned band and provided feedback addressing what they liked and what needed to be changed.

Feedback obtained was compiled and shared with the statewide literacy coalition.

Final thoughts

As TALE grows, we remain dedicated to our ongoing, strategic advocacy efforts. Our success comes from two main aspects: (1) identifying issues that require significant advocacy efforts and employing strategies that educate, organize, and activate, and (2) incorporating a strong collaborative spirit into advocacy work.

Advocacy efforts must be tailored to state and provincial councils’ unique needs and diverse challenges in order to effectively influence public educational policy.

Advocacy work truly takes a village, and we have built many collaborative relationships within our literacy community. Creating and maintaining relationships among council members and others is essential to advancing these efforts.

Laurie A. Sharp, an ILA member since 2002, is the Dr. John G. O’Brien Distinguished Chair in Education at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, TX. Along with serving as president-elect of TALE during the 2016–2017 membership year, she is the director of the Advocacy Development Committee. Roberta D. Raymond is an assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Houston–Clear Lake in Houston, TX. She is the past-president of TALE during the 2016–2017 membership year.

The spring of 2015 was a momentous one for Arizona State University (ASU). It was when we saw the first class of students graduate from Arizona State University Preparatory Academy-Phoenix (ASU Prep), an urban public K–12 school chartered by ASU.

Teachers, administrators, and students alike worked diligently throughout the inaugural class’s four years of high school to prepare them for success in college; however, questions remained as to how the largely first-generation group of college students would fare.

Josephine Marsh, associate professor, professor-in-residence at ASU Prep, and advisor to ASU’s Beta Beta chapter of Alpha Upsilon Alpha (AUA), ILA’s honor society, raised this concern and voiced a solution—pairing up these students with AUA mentors.

It was an ambitious idea, but we wrapped up our first year of the mentorship program this spring—and we learned a lot in the process.

We started with research

All members of our AUA chapter are in either literacy or educational policy doctoral programs, and many previously taught or worked with students in out-of-school settings. AUA members quickly agreed to develop the mentoring program and began planning this exciting service project and research opportunity.

We first surveyed the ASU Prep seniors to determine their interest. We wanted to know if they would participate, their preferences for mentoring (in-person, over text or e-mail, small group or one on one, etc.), and their concerns about starting college.

Results showed 87% of the 98 seniors were concerned about keeping up with their college coursework, 91% were concerned with time management in college, and 89% worried about taking on debt and managing their money. Of those surveyed, 90% expressed an interest in participating in the program.

After reviewing results, three AUA members conducted a focus group interview with seven seniors attending either in-state universities or community colleges to uncover more specific concerns and develop a plan for supporting students during their freshman year.

We followed up, and made adjustments, throughout the year

As the ASU Prep graduates started their first year at community colleges and universities, we began by having informal gatherings for alumni to socialize and sign up to participate in our program. We reached out to students through e-mail and through their high school teachers, offering to be points of contact and sounding boards as they started college.

AUA members met with ASU’s Office of Student Services and Financial Aid to learn about the programs available for undergraduates and the financial aid process for freshmen. Students interested in mentoring were matched with an AUA member who kept in contact and served as the student’s mentor for the academic year.

In the fall, our mentee numbers were small (7) compared with the larger graduating class (98). Wanting to know how the larger group was faring, we created a midterm survey aimed at discovering how many credits students were enrolled in, if they had dropped or withdrawn any classes and why, how they perceived their academic performance so far, what college resources and supports they accessed, and if they felt a sense of belonging at their schools.

We administered the survey through e-mail and an ASU Prep alumni Facebook group. The 19 responses indicated only 4 students had dropped or withdrawn from a class, and while 7 were confident in the academic performance, a majority reported feeling overwhelmed with their coursework. Most students had reached out to some type of on-campus service like tutoring or advising, and 10 out of 19 students reported feeling a sense of belonging.

Using the results of the survey, I, as AUA president and lead mentor, created monthly topics the AUA members could discuss with their mentees such as studying and homework tips, staying healthy in college, planning for final exams and projects, and meeting with advisors for class registration.

We had a head start on next year

In the spring, AUA members were concerned by the number of students not participating in the program and thought that by forming relationships then with the current ASU Prep seniors, the class of 2016, students would be more likely to participate.

ASU Prep offers a senior Capstone class, a course designed for students to meet with the same group and teacher throughout all four years of high school with a focus on preparing for college. For two months, AUA worked with the Capstone teachers and visited the seniors every two weeks to participate in meetings. We shared our own college experiences, answered any questions students had such as living in a dorm or choosing a major, and conducted exercises on identifying goals and the support systems needed to meet them. We recorded our experiences and reflections in a shared Google Doc.

For the last visit, we invited ASU Prep alumni, many of whom participated in mentoring throughout the year, to share their first year of college experience with the seniors.

AUA members interviewed 13 of the senior Capstone students at the conclusion of the visits, and students responded positively. One student who planned to attend ASU said hearing the mentors’ college experiences made him more comfortable with starting college and living in a dorm.
Another student explained how having the AUA mentors visit opened her eyes to school beyond the undergraduate degree, saying how the visits made her want to “pursue my education, go to graduate school, and get as much knowledge as I possibly can.”

Our plan for the 2016–2017 year is to continue mentoring the students who previously participated and actively recruit the now-sophomores and current freshmen to participate in mentoring. We also plan to focus part of our research on the literacy practices the alumni find most useful for success in college.

We hope our efforts to form meaningful, long-lasting relationships will result in even more mentor/mentee pairings and a successful college experience for many students, for years to come.

Maria Hernandez Goff, an ILA member since 2013, is a PhD student in Learning, Literacies, and Technology at Arizona State University. She is the president of the Beta Beta chapter of AUA.

Last year, Anne Bond received what may have been the most daunting assignment of her college career. Bond and her classmates in Loyola University Chicago’s reading teacher program were each tasked with crafting a curriculum for books selected by Illinois Reads, an initiative of the Illinois Reading Council that promotes literacy by highlighting the work of local authors. But this was more than just a classroom exercise—the students were told their work would be made available to teachers statewide for use in their classrooms.

Bond, a student in Loyola’s School of Education, admits to being a bit nervous about creating something that would have such a broad reach. But she also recognized it as an excellent opportunity to hone her skills as a teacher. She selected The Detective’s Assistant by Chicago author Kate Hannigan, which is aimed at the same elementary grade levels that Bond hopes to one day teach, and she began developing a curriculum to include thematic discussions, digital whiteboard activities, and a vocabulary review. Her goal was to create engaging activities for students and an easily accessible guide for teachers. Bond and her classmates helped each other make their lesson plans as classroom-ready as possible. “We all thought about what we would want to pick up if we were teaching,” she says.

The assignment stemmed from a collaboration between Loyola and Illinois Reads, selecting annually a group of books aimed at age levels from pre-K through adult. Loyola professor Jane Hunt developed the project as a way for students to gain experience in designing curriculum materials while supporting literacy education in Illinois. Over two years, 17 Loyola students have completed teacher guides that are currently available for download on the Illinois Reads website.

“It has been a really great way for our undergraduates to become involved in a statewide project,” says Hunt. “There are so many teachers who are hired who never write any kind of curriculum that is even shared at a school or district level. And our teacher candidates are working on materials that teachers anywhere can have access to.”

For Bond, the project had another unexpected benefit. She decided to send a message to Hannigan through the author’s website and was pleasantly surprised to receive a prompt reply. The two struck up a conversation, and Hannigan provided insight that allowed Bond to expand her work on the book’s themes. She also added information to her guide on how teachers can connect with Hannigan for school visits or Skype chats with their classes. When Bond shared her work with the author, Hannigan was so impressed that she asked permission to post a copy of the guide on her website, too.

“I think the partnership between all of these people who really care about reading and who care about kids getting a quality reading education is so beneficial,” Bond says. “It has created so many great guides for teachers to use and great relationships with authors and teachers all around the state. So many children have benefitted.”

Tammy Potts, chairperson of Illinois Reads, agrees that the collaboration has been a big success. When she’s shown the guides created by Loyola students to teachers, Potts sums up their response in one word: “Wow!” She says that’s a testament to the talent and creativity of the students, which in turn has furthered the mission of Illinois Reads.

“It’s a win–win,” Potts says. “Students get to learn and practice in the Loyola environment, and the teachers in Illinois get to reap the benefits.” 

This article appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of Loyola magazine, the official publication of Loyola University Chicago, and is reprinted with permission.

Awards

Elizabeth Reichardt, a reading specialist and instructional coach at Ponaganset High School in Rhode Island, was named the 2016 Teacher of the Year for the Foster-Glocester Regional School District. Reichardt, who has worked in the district for four years, was surprised with the award at a faculty meeting in June, where staff praised her work, particularly her efforts with the school’s RTI team.

Anita Shaw was named Reading Teacher of the Year by the Granite State Reading Council in New Hampshire. Shaw has worked at Bow Memorial School since 1995 as a reading and writing specialist and an ELA, social studies, and math teacher. She has also volunteered for New Hampshire Literacy Day for the past nine years.

Career News

Eugene M. Gagliano was named the next Wyoming Poet Laureate. Gagliano, a retired elementary school teacher from Buffalo, WY, has written a number of award-winning children’s books and poetry about Wyoming and life in the West. As Poet Laureate, he will read at state and legislative events, as well as work with the Wyoming Arts Council to instill a love of poetry in students.

Rebecca Pitkin was named the new executive director of the North Dakota Education Standards and Practices Board, providing a unique opportunity to work with both K–12 and higher education professionals. Pitkin had served for the past four years as principal of Jefferson Elementary School in Dickinson, and before that was an associate professor of education at Dickinson State University.

Have news to share with your ILA colleagues? Send an announcement about an award received, book published, or other career news to literacytoday@reading.org and it could appear in the next issue of Literacy Today as well as on our blog, Literacy Daily. The submission should be 200 words or less and should be accompanied by a JPG or PNG photo.