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EDLA 261: Foundations of Literacy |
Course Overview & Syllabus
In this course, teacher candidates will develop a basic understanding of the relationship(s) between literacy, language, and identity. This understanding will support candidates to construct a culturally responsive approach to literacy instruction by drawing on students’ cultural funds of knowledge, family and community literacies, and digital literacies. Teacher candidates will develop an integrated understanding of literacy that accounts for the reciprocal nature of language and literacy constructs and processes (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visually representing). Teacher candidates will be able to identify and describe foundational components of reading development, how they are related, and how they develop. Teacher candidates will examine elements of literacy artifacts and learning environments as they support key principles of culturally responsive literacy instruction.
Course Highlights
Building a Foundation for Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction
As the first course in the five-part literacy series, we approach the topic of literacy through a sociocultural lens by drawing on the work of Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. This text provides the perfect entry point to establishing shared purpose and language as the foundation to our work as literacy educators. To this end, students also participate in a two-part implicit bias training series to further reflect upon and personalize the concepts explore by Hammond in her text.
During Winter 2021, I was able to co-present the findings from our implicit bias trainings (along with other corresponding efforts to deepen inquiry into culturally responsive literacy instruction). Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive in expressing how these trainings and conversations have helped students to both see themselves and beyond themselves as they lay the groundwork for constructing teaching identities. We recognize this is only a first step--but a very important starting point to continue building upon throughout upcoming experiences.
Constructing Literacy Concept Maps
This newly designed key assignment helped students to visualize the multifaceted ways in which literacy constructs, process, and skills overlap and reinforce one another. To do so, the twofold project purpose asked students to (1) engage as digital designers by learning to create concept maps (2) in order to represent their conceptualization of literacy. The final products provided dynamic resources we have continued to reference in future coursework as we build upon these important foundations.
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Collaborative Inquiry Projects
The final course project introduces students to the design of collaborative inquiry projects that integrate meaningful exploration of literacies with social emotional learning and digital literacies. Linking foundational frameworks for understanding social emotional learning (CASEL) and teaching with technologies (Triple E Framework) allows us to create more shared language we will continue to examine throughout future programming.
