The Department of Curriculum and Instruction’s English Education Initial Licensure Program is partnering with Laura Jeffrey Academy (LJA), a year round, girl-focused middle school emphasizing interdisciplinary learning, problem solving, critical thinking, and community involvement. This fall, students in the English Education Post-Baccalaureate Program are meeting weekly with teachers and students at the school to teach an interdisciplinary English/Social Studies class. Literacy Education doctoral students Erin Stutelberg and Tracey Pyscher, along with Professor Cynthia Lewis, met with partnership administrators and teachers over the summer to develop curricular goals and activities to meet the needs of the LJA teachers and students as well as the pre-service teachers.
As part of the partnership, teacher candidates just completed a week of teaching LJA students during the school’s intersession with the goal of creating engaging learning experiences focused on reading, writing, and language arts. Course topics, which were developed in candidate’s Literature Methods class, included “Twitterature” focused on twitter as literature, “Tearing it up,” which asked students to consider why society values some texts over others. and “Painting Poetry,” which gave students opportunities to make art inspired by poems, write poems inspired by artwork, and create their own connected paintings and poems for a class gallery. All English education instructors visited the school to observe and provide feedback to teacher candidates.
Throughout the semester, teacher candidates experience the culture of teaching and learning at the school site through apprenticeship, practice and reflection, with many opportunities to interact with students outside of class time and field seminars held on site.
To learn more about our English Education Initial Licensure Program, please visit the program webpage.