Online lecture Week 2: The Literacy Project

In this online lecture, you’ll find

1. an eight-minute video outlining the purpose and parameters of the Literacy Project
2. FAQs
3. A ten-minute video in which I present my own Literacy Project, as an example of the type of thing you can do.

 1. THE LITERACY PROJECT: A SHORT VIDEO

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2. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LITERACY PROJECT

Q: Will I get marks for my Literacy  Project?

A: You cannot pass ELPC G2 or LAD without presenting a Literacy Project, and you will get a tick for this Project no matter how long your presentation or its quality. It would be possible, in other words, to get the tick by standing up, saying ‘I did my Literacy Project on myself and I found it interesting’, and then sitting down again. You wouldn’t get much out of doing this, of course, and the point of the Literacy Project is to help you develop skills that you’ll use as a teacher.
You can, however, use your Literacy Project as the subject matter for your Assignment 3 (see next question), in which case you would get marks for the work you do.

 Q: Can I use an event from my Literacy Project as the basis of my Assessment 3?

A: Yes, as long as you’re working with a secondary student working on texts relevant to your discipline.

 Q: How long does my presentation have to be?

A: A maximum of 10 minutes long, but shorter is fine.

Q: When do I present my project?

A: You present your project to your tutor, either in the Week 5,  7 or 9 tutorial, or at on any Monday afternoon in your tutor’s office (you can invite others to attend if you like), or by arrangement at another time.

Q: Can we work in pairs or in small groups on this?

A: Yes, there are lots of benefits of doing this. However, if you’re doing the Action Research project, you would want to plan your roles carefully. (A tutorial session with three teachers and one student would be daunting. A session where one was the teacher and the other recorded it – even filmed it – would have many benefits.

Q: What kinds of permissions do I need to get?

A: If you’re wanting to work through a school, you should get the permission of the relevant teacher (who will advise you about whether further permissions need to be sought). Parents and the students themselves need to give permission.

Q: What other protocols need to be followed?

A: No real names are to be used, nor any identifying details about schools, teachers etc. If you are writing about your sessions in a public forum (blogs, Ning), you should not write about the sessions in ways that could be open to misinterpretation or being taken out of context. It might be prudent, as well, not to use your own name.

Q: In the Action Research option, what do we mean by ‘read a text’?

A: Each discipline has different kinds of texts that need to be read. A text in English might be a poem. In a Movement class it might be a dance. In Art, a painting. In Industrial Arts, a blueprint. In Maths, a graph. In Science, an experiment. And so on.

Q: If I do the action research project, how long do the sessions have to be?

A: There is no stipulated length. This will depend very much on what you’re planning to do, the age of the student, etc.

Q: Does it have to be three sessions or cycles with the Action Research Project? For the student I’m working with, it would work better if I rolled Sessions 1 and 2 together.

A: You can be flexible, as long as you keep your eye on what we’re trying to achieve.

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3. STEVE’S LITERACY PROJECT

 

I’m an English teacher and so my ‘challenging text’ was a passage from a play. If your KLA is Maths, or LOTE, or PDHPE, or Geography, etc, then of course the challenging texts your students will work with will be  graphs, or charts, or maps, or blueprints, etc.