Advanced Literacies for Academic Success

Anecdotal feedback from our March 20th Superintendent's Conference Day has been overwhelmingly positive. Our Curriculum Advisory Team put a lot of work into making preparations for the day's activities and it certainly paid off as the conversations that were held across the district were thoughtful and engaging. The thoughts below are from WG Literacy Coach Stephanie Finn, who graciously accepted my invitation to contribute a guest blog post for this week's Tech Tips Blog. Thanks, Steph!

Reading and writing,language-based competencies, have become prerequisites for participation in nearly every aspect of day-to-day, 21st- century life. On March 20th, 2019 the entire West Genesee district participated in professional development to expand our understanding of advanced literacies and the Next Generation Standards. We worked collaboratively to dive into the brief series that was written by Dr. Lesaux, Academic Dean at Harvard School of Education, to help us figure out how we can foster advanced literacies in today’s classrooms. Meeting today’s demands for what counts as ‘literate’ requires a new approach to instruction and a need to focus attention on strengthening our instructional core. This was a kick-off event to begin a multi-year plan of professional development, curriculum transformation and review to ensure that we have a guaranteed and viable curriculum that meets the needs of all of our learners at West Genesee. 

The video snippets below represent a small sampling of the thoughtful exchanges that took place across the district.

Advanced Literacy  & Math Instruction

Advanced Literacy & Instructional Time

District-Wide Recap