Literacy+Strategies

=Use this space to list literacy strategies that your school has implemented.=
 * CCMS -** The CCMS MS Literacy Team is working closely with our administration implementing the professional development plan for the 08-09 school year. Curriculum mapping and common assessment is our focus this year under the leadership of Dr. Craig Drennon. The literacy team is undertaking the task of moving our teachers from compliance to commitment in this new endeavor. As the team represents our grade levels, they are approached by their fellow teachers much more readily than administrators are. Each content area on each grade level is now meeting once a week developing their curriculum map and common assessments. In addition, there is an expectation that teachers will have a non-fiction writing component each week documented in their lesson plans; and, the school has a Constructive Response Writing once a month with a prompt and rubric provided by the literacy coach. The literacy team collects the CRW results from their specific grade level and collates the results that are then posted on our data wall. The literacy team has become an integral part of our school community. They are a sounding board for administrators and a 'counseling resource' for our teachers.

.As a school and in conjunction with the Continuous Improvement Team, we have determined to work more on the Chris Tovani model //Do I really Have to Teach Reading// ? for the next two years. By the end of Feb. most departments will have developed a pacing guide to help implement an assessment for the entire school. Planned sharing sessions and check-ins take the place of staff development. The media coordinator collaborates with the cirriculum teachers in finding websites and valuable periodical information. The Big Six Committee will perform a skit for the faculty to introduce the research concept that crosses all cirriculums and departments and allows for a more unified approach to solving problems as well as research. SSR continues to be a foundation for our reading program. Last year we successfully included all teachers in some alloted time to read and conference with students. The feedback is always positive from math, science, and vocational teachers as well as English and Social Studies. Thousands of books have been placed in check-out boxes explicity for SSR. Sudents have an imput as to the type of genres and titles being purchased and shared. Classroom teachers are encourage to work with their own libraries and identify the genre of each book, label it , and try to display it cover dide out in their own classrooms. Another added convience to SSR is the use of taped books for students that lack the skills for reading difficult popular books but have an interest in reading those books. This levels the reading field and all readers can share and conference with a book. Planned meetings with the principal will help execute the future activities planned by our lieracy team in an all out effort to include all phases of teaching.
 * OMS** - Although we are a little confused with the number of new strategies and methods introduced this year and which ones to begin to introduce to the faculty, we have implemented various points of the Gretchen Courtney model. In all fairness, some teachers find opposition in making a summary and allowing students to skip some reading areas. We feel like more workshops to teach the summarizing technique would be beneficial to those reluctant to use her model

In addition, our media coordinator complemented our efforts by highlighting accessible, nonfiction text to content area teams. At each presentation, books were attractively displayed, and refreshments were served. This allowed us to see where our needs were and promoted dialogue and collaboration to fill in instructional gaps. Throughout this process, the literacy team was pleased with the positive response from teams, who were willing to implement and share. Furthermore, individuals sought out literacy team members for model teaching and coaching.
 * CCMS** - Our literacy team became a natural extension of this year's Professional Development Plan, which is focused on Teacher Directed Reading. On October 1 our day-long event was facilitated by Paula Miller from Public Education and Business Coalition. She presented on reading non-fiction text. Our four one-hour follow-up sessions were facilitated by our literacy team and were scheduled during regular team meetings. On October 30th, Laura Mayer, our literacy coach, presented "Setting the Instructional Purpose for Reading Text" based on Chris Tovani's //Do I Really Have To Teach Reading.// Literacy team members were introduced and shared implementation ideas from the Summer Literacy Institute and other workshops. A work session followed which allowed faculty to integrate strategies into new lesson plans. On December 4th the Literacy Team presented "How to Get Meaning Out of Nonfiction Text," which covered Previewing, Predicting, Summarizing, and Connecting. Teachers were challenged to implement these strategies into a lesson plan and bring back to share at our next in-service. January 8th's focus was on "Authentic Assessments: How Do They Show What Students Know?" Teachers were directed to incorporate formative as well as summative, formal as well as informal assessment and be prepared to share their success at the final session. On January 29th our literacy team wrapped up this year's professional development with a faculty "Show and Share."


 * NBMS** is planning inservice with their staff to begin 1-30-08.

We are also currently working on a Student Writing Anthologies project to collect, publish and distribute students' creative and academic writing samples to encourage Literacy awareness. Next year, we are planning to model-teach select Literacy strategies from the Tovani and Courtney workshops, then observe other teachers employ these strategies in their real-world classroom context in order to provide relevant feedback. We were impressed with Valley Springs' notebook idea and are going to discuss our own version for use at our school as a faculty resource and team assessment strategy. Overall, we are intending to continue and enrich our presence as "experts" and "resources" of the Literacy model for our fellow faculty.
 * CAEMS** is going to immediately encourage Tovani's highlighter strategies with students in preparation for EOG's.

We have been working at grade levels to ensure that each teacher has the opportunity to grow with the Balanced Literacy Model in Buncombe County Schools. After introducing the County’s Model during our November faculty meeting each team member has “adopted” a grade level with which they introduce and share information during grade level planning sessions. Each team member will be bringing their grade level to a common point prior to February 11th at which time all grades will discuss how we use assessments and how we can improve the use of assessments. This session will be followed by a session on read-alouds or picture books and how to incorporate them into the classroom.
 * VSMS-** The Balanced Literacy Team has met with our principal to discuss our role in the school, what we need to cover, how we want to cover the material, and when we want to be finished for the year.