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Forming Literacies
The “Write for Your Life” Project was designed to strengthen students’ skills in both traditional and electronic writing literacies. Its purpose is also that of training future teachers to apply an augmented repertoire of differentiated strategies in teaching these unique forms of written communication. Teachers in all subjects should teach writing; no matter what their content specialization is, they are all teachers of the English language.
Combining theory and research from Education, History, Elementary and Secondary Education, Information Technology, and the field of English, this program will be piloted by the Principal Investigator and the Co-Principal investigator in two courses (potentially EED 477B, EED 577, SED 554, or SED 525) with a total of 50-60 students. The two professors will highlight key writing skills and subject specific content strategies that teacher candidates may use in order to integrate alternative writing literacies. We will focus on several genres and sub-genres including expository texts such as persuasive essays, biographical and autobiographical writing, narrative writing and poetry. “Write for Your Life” will involve a series of experiential online learning modules that require students to draw upon social networks, blogs, and texting to master the focus genre of the month. All students in both classes will be required to sign-up for the “Write for Your Life” social networking site. This will allow them opportunities to communicate with their peers across departments and provide a more in-depth view of writing assignments, including the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT). The “Write for Your Life” component of the course will be worth 10-15% of students’ final grades.
Anticipated Outcomes:
1) Increased skills in writing;
2) A demonstrated ability to connect academic content and technology;
3) Augmented strategies for integrating writing across the curriculum;
4) Greater exposure to writing process and writing workshop and
5) Stronger connection to potential real-life applications of writing.
Project Lead:
Shartriya Collier, Ph.D.