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ELY 603: Literacy In The Middle & Secondary Schools

3 credits

This course aims to help middle and secondary teachers facilitate classrooms where reading and writing are effective tools for learning, where collaboration and communication are valued and enhanced in the learning process, and where young people are encouraged to develop critical perspectives and strong voices. Attainment of literacy is central to knowledge construction in all middle and secondary school curricula. Students will examine issues of literacy in different subject areas and the varied demands on readers and writers as the range of literate activities changes according to context. This course is designed to enable in-service teachers and literacy specialists to improve the literacy of students in the middle and secondary schools.

Learning Goals

B. Course Goals• To reflect upon, to energize, and to rethink current models of literacy instruction, and to consider the notion of teaching adolescents rather than teaching a curriculum.• To explore and understand the needs and interests of youth today.• To learn how to teach in ways that will motivate students to learn, ways that are linked and relevant to their lives.• To develop a powerful, literature-based curriculum and appreciate the ways authors can assist students in learning to read, write and think critically.• To learn how to make our own reading and writing processes transparent in order to teach them to our students – the concept of “the teacher as senior reader”.• To develop “teaching eyes” to perceive and understand how reading informs writing, and how our experiences enable us to understand the process and develop curriculum for classroom instruction.• To explore the different forms and functions of students’ responses to literature. • To study and select developmentally appropriate and multicultural literature in a variety of genres.•

Sections Offered: Fall 2026

Sections Offered: Summer 2026, Summer alternative