Literacy Lessons

1. Literacy Lessons for teachers supporting students in Dual Credit Programs

2. Genesis of the Project • Developed in response to the needs of Dual Credit teachers • Responds to the recommendations of college professors, report of the College Sector Committee for Adult Upgrading, Essential Skills for Success…in college Postsecondary and Apprenticeship Programming • Shaped by members of the Literacy Committee, SCWI, which included educators from secondary schools and colleges, and individuals with literacy expertise

3. Premises • Literacy is an equity issue • Literacy competence is predictive of long term success • Students’ academic competence in reading and writing (and math) is correlated to retention

4. Workshop Goals • Become comfortable with the resource • Develop understanding of its purposes, foundations, features and format • Highlight key learning and strategies

5. Workshop Overview • Key Messages • Using the Resource: • Recognizing Structure – Document Literacy • Making Community Connections – Orientation • Engaging in Authentic Tasks – What Literacy is For • Being Deliberate – Targeting Learning Needs • Engaging in Power Learning -- Being a College Student • Learning how to Learn – Being a Strategic Learner • Just-in-time Support -- Intervention • Exploring Forms of Writing – Writing Exemplars

6. Customizing Use • Which lessons, or activities, could you use as is? For what purposes? • Which lesson activities could be adapted to incorporate college/course texts and classes? • How might the resource be used in an online context? • How might you use this resource for just-in-time intervention? • With whom might you share this resource? Where else might it be useful?

7. Working Document • Binder • Sample lessons • Lesson template • CD • Power Learning New edition!

9. Key Messages Literacy Lessons • are not a curriculum or program • provide opportunities and support, not prescription

10. Key Messages • Based on the belief that students in Dual Credit programs have the potential to succeed • Students and teachers need to be connected to the college community and culture • The resource aims to support both students and teachers • The resource aligns with Think Literacy, Literacy GAINS, and other Ministry resources

11. Key Messages • Literacy learning involves the whole student • Literacy processes are interdependent • Lessons attend to metacognition and critical literacy • The 21st century demands technological literacies

12. Using the Resource Recognizing Structure

13. HRSDC Essential Skills • Document Use refers to tasks that involve a variety of information displays in which words, numbers, icons and other visual characteristics (e.g., line, colour, shape) are given meaning by their spatial arrangement. For example, graphs, lists, tables, blueprints, schematics, drawings, signs and labels are documents used in the world of work.

14. Document Use: Overview • Introduction • Start Smart: Orientation (Unit 1) • Writing Survival Skills (Unit 2) • Reading Survival Skills (Unit 3) • Speaking, Reading and Writing for Action (Unit 4) • Know your Audience (Unit 5)

15. Unit Features • At a glance • Knowledge and Skills Chart • Lessons • Student Response Pages • Self-Assessment Checklists • CD: Student Response Pages and blank Lesson Template in Word

26. Thinking Structures TIPS 3-part lesson template R.A.F.T.S. Think/Pair/Share P.O.W.E.R.

28. Using the Resource Being Deliberate

29. What’s this lesson about? • Highlight key points in the left-hand column. These should be validated by activities In the right-hand column. • Set Your Cites, 5.5

30. What’s this lesson about? • Comparing & contrasting • Making personal connections • Locating information • Using frameworks, e.g. I see, I think, Therefore • Using strategies, e.g., highlighting • Reading for meaning • Summarizing • Clarifying thinking , e.g., Think-Pair-Share • Asking questions

31. What’s this lesson about? • Learning how to learn • Taking personal responsibility for learning, e.g., by using strategies & accessing support services • Being a strategic learner • Managing the work • Developing habits of mind, e.g. curiosity, a critical stance, reflection • Using technologies

32. Using the Resource Making Community Connections

33. Making Community Connections • Students who persist in orientation activities persist longer in their studies (retention) • Evidence that students poorly integrated into the college community don’t persist in their studies • Underprepared students are less persistent • Students most in need of supports underutilize them • Students often don’t recognize that they are experiencing academic difficulty • Students need to make positive connections with peers and role models

34. Learning Needs 1.1 • Community connections • Supports and services • Information technologies • Students’ beliefs about learning • Volume and pace of work

35. Peruse Unit 1 • What orientation topics are addressed? • How might you use/adapt these lessons during Orientation? • What else is critical to orientation that could be added? • Who else might use these? • Where else might these be made available?

36. Using the Resource Engaging in Authentic Tasks

37. Barbara Comber If students only knew about literacy from these lessons, what would they think [literacy] was for?

38. Authentic • Aligns approach with goals • Is effective for learning • Resembles tasks and conditions beyond school

39. Take Action! 4.2 • Action • Sticky notes on panels • Use a R.A.F.T.S. (handout) to analyse a text • Take a critical literacy stance

40. Using the Resource Engaging in Power Learning

41. The Young Adult Learner • To see themselves as college students • To see themselves as effective communicators, readers and writers • To learn through relevant and challenging experiences • To learn to use technology • To engage in purposeful talk • To have structured opportunities to discuss college course content • To build supportive relationships

43. Power Learning • Organization: • Prepare (p. 59) • Organize (p. 66) • Work (p. 71) • Evaluate (p. 77) • Rethink (p. 78)

44. Power Learning Features • Opening scenario: real-life context (p. 58) • Journal Reflections (p. 62) • Try It! (p. 63)  Procrastination Quotient • Career Connections (p. 77) • Speaking of Success (p. 80) • Looking back (p. 91)

45. Using the Resource Learning how to Learn

46. Reading (3.1) • What aspects of this text will challenge students? • What can teachers do? • What strategies will help students engage with, make sense of, and use this text?

47. Volume and Complexity • A Just-in-time issue • Manage length: Chunk Text • Read with a purpose • Preview structure and content • Focus attention: highlight • Identify key ideas: (limited number of ) Sticky Notes • Hold thinking: Cornell Note-taking • Process content: Summarize

48. Tag It and Bag It (3.3) “Although an analysis of vulnerabilities requires looking at specific threats, making generalizations would seem to be difficult. There are various ways around this obstacle. The approach adopted here is to look at interest groups and vulnerabilities to see whether there are interests in maintaining the vulnerabilities. This allows generalizations since the key question is whether there is a feedback loop between the vulnerability and its cause.” Brian Martin,“Technological Vulnerability”

49. Being a strategic reader/learner Before: • Preview • Predict • Have a purpose • Understand the task • Use text structures • Use text forms, features, conventions • Adjust predictions • Develop and apply background knowledge • Locate information • Read for meaning • Make inferences • Read critically

50. Being a strategic reader/learner After: • Summarize • Reflect During: • Use sticky notes • Highlight • Chunk • Use I see, I think, therefore to draw conclusions • Use It says, I say to make inferences • R.A.F.T.S. to identify the author-text-audience dynamic • Use Think-Pair-Share to clarify thinking • Question the author to go deeper • Take a critical literacy stance