Mendy MehanCurriculum Development
Kentucky Department of Education
Susan Nelson Wood [email protected] Professor
Nancye McCrary [email protected] Professor
Kate [email protected] Kentucky Foundation for Women Sallie Bingham Award Recipient
Thanks to Ashley Dimkich!
Nancye McCrary
A free society depends on the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and social action of its citizens
(Hahn, 1998; Parker, 2006)
Documented decline in the civic ethic among our citizens
(Gimpel, Lay, &Schuknecht, 2003; National Commission on Civic Renewal, 1998)
Citizens in the United States learn about pluralist, participatory democracy through actual participation in civic organizations
(Parker, 2006)
Susan Wood
What it means to be literate has evolved (Wood, Steadman, and Simmons 2010)
The definition of literacy has expanded (Gee, 2003)
The definition of text broadened to include a vast array of non-print text
(Kress, 2003)
Limited literacy skills impact job advancement, consumer decision making, citizenship, and so on
(Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins, & Kolstad,1993)
In the time since KERA was enacted, many critical educational issues remain in Kentucky, including:
⇑ Increase in the perception that students are missing out on basic skills
⇓ Decrease in parental involvement at the local level
(Kannapel, 1997)
“Writing communication is not limited to writing on paper. It can be developed through digital text, multi-media presentations, speeches, voice recordings, on-line communications, and other mediums.
“Each school-based decision making council . . . shall adopt policies that determine the writing program for its school.”
1) Economy 2) Environment 3) Government 4) Communities 5) Education
*Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s Biennial Trends Report (2008)
1) Economy 2) Environment 3) Government 4) Communities / Civic Engagement5) Education / Critical Literacy
*Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s Biennial Trends Report (2008)
Acting for the Common Good and Engaging Early Adolescents in
Democratic Citizenship through Writing, New Media, and the Arts
Student sample, Perry County
CIVIC
ENGAGEMENT
Project Citizen teams identify and analyze issues and problems facing their communities and address one of the issues for their project. The issue or problem must be one that could be addressed through public policy, such as a law or regulation. The final product is a stand-up portfolio displaying each group’s work and an accompanying binder documenting its research.
Project Citizen teams identify and analyze issues and problems facing their communities and address one of the issues for their project. The issue or problem must be one that could be addressed through public policy, such as a law or regulation. The final product is a stand-up portfolio displaying each group’s work and an accompanying binder documenting its research.
Project Citizen teams identify and analyze issues and problems facing their communities and address one of the issues for their project. The issue or problem must be one that could be addressed through public policy, such as a law or regulation. The final product is a stand-up portfolio displaying each group’s work and an accompanying binder documenting its research.
Public EducationDemocratic Citizenship
...our relationship with the learners demands that we be aware of the concrete conditions of their world, the conditions that shape them. To try to know the reality that our students live is a task that the educational practice imposes on us.
Without this, we have no access to the way they think, so only with great difficulty can we perceive what and how they know (Freire, 1998).
Art-First Young Women’s Art ProjectUrban Improv A Changed World
National Arts and Youth Demonstration Projects
ARTS &
HUMANITIES
The arts are symbol systems that permit us to give representation to our ideas, concepts, and feelings in a variety of forms that can be "read" by other people. The arts were invented to enable us to react to the world, to analyze it, and to record our impressions so that they can be shared.
Charles Fowler, 1991
WRITING
Students define community issues, determine the focus of their service, and direct the project’s content. It is their interest, their voices, and theirdecisions that drive the work.
interact with the larger community, develop compelling performances, communicate their findings.
Younger siblings, peers, elders, neighbors, and local officials are expected to increase their awareness, be motivated to action, and grow as civic leaders in their own right.
Identify unique and innovative ways to promote, empower and perpetuate
participation by citizens everywhere in the civic spectrum
∧Planning
Phase Stage Month
Phase One PlanningAugust –September
2010
Phase TwoCurriculum
DevelopmentOctober – December
2010
Phase ThreeTeacher Training and
ImplementationJanuary –May 2011
Phase FourAnalysis and
DisseminationJune – July 2011
Freire: Dialogue Reading the Word— Reading the World Eisner: Forms of Representation & Expression Aesthetic Motivation Moffett: Theories of Distancing and Abstraction
Civic Citizenship Social Studies Social Justice Arts Humanities Writing Engagement
Kentucky Department of Education
School districts
Project Citizen
Kentucky Educational Television
Arts organizations & facilities (museums, etc)
Students– 8th grade, undergraduate, graduate
YOU!
Redefining Learning:
Inquiry Learning Critical Thinking Dialogic Interaction Reflective Thinking Collaborative Learning Service Learning
People of all ages can feel
UNINFORMEDUNINITIATEDUNWELCOMEUNENTITLEDDISENFRANCHISEDPOWERLESSEXCLUDED
Workers, students, citizens, specialists, generalists, activists, artists … all must be ENGAGED in order to participate and contribute fully at all levels across the spectrum: from the smallest neighborhood to the global community.
Engagement grows from knowledge, practice,
confidence and inclusion.Engagement EMPOWERS.
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