Kentucky Adult Educators Literacy Institute
"A WebQuest Adventure in Literacy"

Western Kentucky University

 

 


Exploring Literacy Development

 

Quote:  A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.   Vygotsky

Welcome to the first task!  Task 1 asks you to discover your own literacy history and to use those discoveries to connect with your learners' literacy histories.  To accomplish those tasks, we ask that you write your own Literacy Autobiography.

Writing a Literacy Autobiography challenges you to connect with your early literacy experiences, your experiences with learning with and through text in school, and to try and put into words your present literacy habits based on those early experiences.  In other words, how does your personal literacy "history" affect you as a literacy teacher?  So much of what we bring to the table with adult learners is our own model of literacy.  This task will provide you with a concrete example of your own writing, a prompt for literacy conversations with adult learners, and a baseline from which you can set your own personal literacy goals. 

There is a quote from one of my favorite books that I like ... it goes something like, "If you don't know where you have been, how will you know where you are going?"  That quote comes to mind which I think about how we as educators have to retrace our literacy heritage in order to meet our students where they are and go forward with them.  Every experience you have had with reading and writing influences your attitude toward those skills, colors your attitudes, and in part, determines how effective you will be in helping your students become the best readers and writers (listeners, speakers, viewers, and users of technology) that they can be. 

So, let's go back in time a bit and see if we can connect to the child that was "us" when we first dabbled with reading and writing.  This trip might involve talking to relatives, past teachers, friends, etc., who remember you and your experiences at that time in your life.  You may have favorite books that you cherish (tell us about them) ... writings from your childhood (let us see them) ... photos of you on the lap of a favorite grandparent or aunt/uncle as you read a book together (we want to see those too) ... all these "artifacts" are pieces of YOUR literacy puzzle. 
This is your own personal journey.  It will be as meaningful as you make it.  Click HERE to begin your journey into your own literacy history. 

WHAT DO I TURN IN FOR TASK 1? 

  1. Create a dynamic and interactive Literacy Autobiography.  Bring the Literacy Autobiography with you to the training session in July.  Please submit your Literacy Autobiography electronically if it is in the format of a webpage, Word document, PowerPoint presentation or some other electronically generated format. 

  2. We will photograph scrapbooks, presentation boards and other types of presentations that are "hard copy." 


 
Peer Visits Research    

 

Western Kentucky University

By Dr. Pam Petty - pam@pampetty.com
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