Assignments

Assignments -->

• Response papers
• Practice exercises
• Applications

Example practice exercises

Module #1

Module 1: The Need for Family Literacy

Write a focused response paper of 2-3 pages, based on the readings for the module, designed to convince your congress representative of the importance of family literacy to the nation, your state, region or city.

Module 2: Planning Issues

Write a focused response paper of 2-3 pages, based on the readings for the module, designed to convince a school board/local business consortium of the need for certain elements in a family literacy program.

Each of these practice exercises should be about one page in length. For examples similar to these practice exercises, see the texts of Modules 3-8

Module 3: Proposal Writing

Write notes outlining a proposal narrative for a family literacy program in Wide County (described below). Include notes on the need for the program, the funders and partners to be involved in the program, the facilities needed for the program, when and how often families should be involved, outline of curriculum, and recruitment strategies.

Wide County

The population of Wide County is scattered in small towns and farms over a large area. This economically-depressed county has a low level of educational achievement, both among adults and children. Most adults did not complete high school and a large majority of the school-age children are below national aver-ages in tested ability.

Several school district supervisors in the county have expressed concerns about the low levels of literacy. They are frustrated by their inability to make much progress when there is little support in the children's homes for education and so many of the children live in isolated areas. At present, a mobile library completes a circuit of the county every month, visiting all the towns and some of the larger farms. However, the number of families using this service is only about 10% of the potential audience.

You work for one of the school districts and your supervisor asks you to plan a family literacy program that will involve as many families as possible across the county.

 

Module 4: Curriculum Materials for Parents

Outline the design of curriculum materials for teaching the adult education life skills topic "Shopping on a budget" described below. These materials should be for two hours of class activity. Describe the materials and outline how you would use them. (It may help to imagine that you are providing these materials for another teacher to use.)

Shopping on a Budget

Parents in your program are having difficulty providing for their children on the money

they receive in welfare and food stamps. Few of them compare prices when they shop

or consider unit prices of grocery items. None of them prepares a budget to allocate percentages of their income to different expenditures.

 

Module 5: Curriculum Materials for Children

Outline the design of curriculum materials for teaching the children's literacy topic "Recognizing letters" described below. These materials should be for a total of one hour of class activity. Describe the materials and outline how you would use them. (It may help to imagine that you are providing these materials for another teacher to use.)

Recognizing Letters

Young children often have difficulty recognizing and distinguishing the letters of the alphabet. Develop some materials for a group of 10-15 children to practice recognizing and using the letters of the alphabet.

Module 6: Published Materials

Review a children's book and describe an activity for children that relates to the book. In your review, summarize the story, indicate an appropriate age-range, and evaluate the suitability and interest of the book. For the activity, describe what the children (and possibly parents) would do and explain how the activity ties in with the story, characters or other aspects of the book.

[The choice of book is up to you, because any specified book may not be available.]

Module 7: Lesson Plans

Plan the outline of 5 hours of activities for the family literacy topic 'Whiting our history" described below. Set out an overview of your plan, including objectives, materials and activities connected with your teaching. (You do not need to produce the materials-just describe what they would be.)

Writing our History

In a family literacy program in a small town, those attending range in age from 8 to 80. They enjoy reading and writing together, but now want to take on a larger project. Someone suggests that there is a lot of history inside the heads of the program participants, and so they decide to investigate their family and community histories.

 

Module 8: Evaluation

Develop a set of 3 rating scales to assess the activity "Family behavior during role play" given below. You should list about 10 criteria that are likely to be important factors in the success of the activity, and then select from them 3 topics for the rating scales. Each 1-5 rating scale should have anchoring descriptors for ratings of 1, 3 and 5.

Family behavior during role play

As part of a family literacy program, parents spend 20-30 minutes each day playing with their young children (with building blocks, in the kitchen area, etc). Some of them can enter into the spirit of imaginative play better than others and some seem to lead more interesting "lives" during play. You want to find out just what is working well and whether parents are improving in the skill of playing with their child and the children are benefiting from the experience.

Choose two of the electives for which you have completed practice exercises and received feedback. For each of these electives, develop a detailed application, following the guidelines below. It is preferable that your application be based in a real family literacy situation, but, if one is not available to you, develop your own fictional family literacy setting.

In either case, describe the family literacy program in sufficient detail to set the applications you develop in a clear context. Such details might include (depending on the module concerned) the nature of the families, the ages of the children, the education needs of the parents, and the type of program being provided.

Note: Your assignments are very likely to include new ideas and information of use to other educators. We plan to make available on the Internet a selection of the assignments from this course. Therefore, please provide contact details with your assignments in case other educators wish to ask for further information.


Module 3 – Proposal Writing
Write a proposal narrative of 4-5 pages for a family literacy program, including the need for the program, its goals, the funders and partners to be involved in the program, the facilities needed for the program, when and how often families should be involved, personnel required, outline of curriculum, recruitment strategies, and methods of evaluation.

(Use a real family literacy situation or base your proposal on your own fictional family literacy setting.)

Module 4 – Curriculum Materials for Parents
Design curriculum materials for three hours of class or individual instruction to teach a parenting skill, a life skill, or some basic skill which can be associated with parenting and children. Produce the materials and outline how you would use them. (It may help to imagine that you are providing these materials for another teacher to use.) Include enough background description about the learners and what they have already been taught to set the context for these instructional materials.

OR

Produce a parent education packet including instructions, activities and ideas for parents to use with their children at home. Include such activities as reading, discussion, writing, hands-on learning, and art/music/movement. (15-20 pages)

Module 5 – Curriculum Materials for Children
Design curriculum materials for three hours of activities for children in a family literacy program. Produce the materials and describe how you would use them. (It may help to imagine that you are providing these materials for another teacher to use.) Include enough background description about the children and what they have already been taught to set the context for these materials.

Module 6 – Published Materials
Review about 10 books for children in a particular age group (e.g., 3-5, 4-6, 7-9), including an annotated list of items, their price, brief plot summaries , and your judgments on their suitability, interest, actual reading level, and instructional value (where relevant). Also describe an activity to accompany each book (e.g., reading, writing, discussion, art) and explain how the activity ties in with the story, characters or other aspects of the book. (4-5 pages).

OR

Review the publicly-available materials on a family literacy topic, making recommendations for the use of other teachers. These could include commercially-produced textbooks, curriculum materials entered into the ERIC database system, and materials available on the Internet. Include an annotated list of items and your judgements on their relevance, intended use, coverage of material, instructional method, reading level, and price. (4-5 pages)

Module 7 – Lesson plans
Plan 20 hours of instruction for a family literacy program, integrating parent and child activities. Describe the target population, and then set out a 4-5 page overview of your plan, including objectives, materials and activities connected with your teaching. (You do not need to produce the materials-just describe be what they would be.)

Module 8 – Evaluation
Develop two evaluation measures for a particular family literacy situation:

• a set of 5 parenting rating scales
• a set of 5 parent interview questions
  

Describe the families and the course being assessed. Explain why these evaluation measures are important for the skills taught in the course. Also describe what other evaluation measures you will use (custom -designed tests, standardized tests, questionnaires, etc), and explain why they are important for this program.

(Use a real family literacy situation or base your evaluation on your own fictional family literacy setting.)

Note Regarding Application Projects

It is highly desirable that your application be based in a real family literacy situation, but, if one is not available to you, please contact us to make alternative arrangements.