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Community Literacy in Elementary Classrooms: Creating Culturally Inclusive Literacy-Learning Environments - Softcover

Jacqueline Witter-Easley

 
9798881807382: Community Literacy in Elementary Classrooms: Creating Culturally Inclusive Literacy-Learning Environments

Synopsis

This book builds on the concepts of culturally relevant and responsive teaching by uplifting the role of a school’s community in creating meaningful and empowering literacy learning opportunities for elementary students. Practicing teachers and graduate students will gain new insights into the application of culturally responsive pedagogy by focusing on their students’ families and communities. Through reflective writing exercises and a variety of practical applications, readers will learn about the importance of creating literacy lessons that center their students’ families, cultures, and local communities.

This book is comprehensive in its approach because it provides information on creating community literacy through the following ways: cultivating culturally inclusive children’s literature and community artifacts in classroom libraries, teaching skills in meaningful contexts, integrating the community’s arts across the curriculum, engaging students in civic and social justice learning opportunities, connecting with families and community leaders, providing ideas for inspiring teachers to become engaged in their school’s communities, and connecting the book’s concepts with literacy lesson plans.

As teachers become increasingly required to focus solely on skill development, this book offers important information on how to create meaningful reading lessons that go beyond skill development and immerse students in cultural knowledge and civic engagement. Teachers will be empowered to reimagine their reading curriculum so that they can teach content and skills while honoring and elevating their students’ cultural wealth and community experiences in ways that move students’ thinking into realms of critical and analytical action.

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About the Author

Jacqueline Witter-Easley has been teaching in a variety of settings for over 35 years. For 12 years, she’s worked directly with elementary and middle-school students in several roles: as a classroom teacher, a reading specialist, a children’s librarian, and currently, as the director and program creator of the Carthage College Community Literacy Center, located in Kenosha, WI. Additionally, Dr. Witter-Easley has been a college professor for over 25 years, teaching literacy instruction courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She’s currently a Professor of Education at Carthage College, where she’s been teaching for these past 20 years and has held the following administrative positions: department chair, division dean, and co-director of faculty development. Her research interests revolve around literacy: early elementary literacy instruction, culturally responsive literacy instruction, visual literacy of picture books, and multicultural children’s literature. This is Dr. Witter-Easley’s second book with Rowman & Littlefield/Bloomsbury.

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