civic engagement

Mendy MehanCurriculum Development

Kentucky Department of Education

Susan Nelson Wood susan.wood@uky.eduAssociate Professor

Nancye McCrary nmccr@bellsouth.netAssistant Professor

Kate Larkenkate@MotesBooks.com2010 Kentucky Foundation for Women Sallie Bingham Award Recipient

Thanks to Ashley Dimkich!

Nancye McCrary

A free society depends on the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and social action of its citizens

(Hahn, 1998; Parker, 2006)

Documented decline in the civic ethic among our citizens

(Gimpel, Lay, &Schuknecht, 2003; National Commission on Civic Renewal, 1998)

Citizens in the United States learn about pluralist, participatory democracy through actual participation in civic organizations

(Parker, 2006)

Susan Wood

What it means to be literate has evolved (Wood, Steadman, and Simmons 2010)

The definition of literacy has expanded (Gee, 2003)

The definition of text broadened to include a vast array of non-print text

(Kress, 2003)

Limited literacy skills impact job advancement, consumer decision making, citizenship, and so on

(Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins, & Kolstad,1993)

In the time since KERA was enacted, many critical educational issues remain in Kentucky, including:

⇑ Increase in the perception that students are missing out on basic skills

⇓ Decrease in parental involvement at the local level

(Kannapel, 1997)

“Writing communication is not limited to writing on paper. It can be developed through digital text, multi-media presentations, speeches, voice recordings, on-line communications, and other mediums.

“Each school-based decision making council . . . shall adopt policies that determine the writing program for its school.”

1) Economy 2) Environment 3) Government 4) Communities 5) Education

*Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s Biennial Trends Report (2008)

1) Economy 2) Environment 3) Government 4) Communities / Civic Engagement5) Education / Critical Literacy

*Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s Biennial Trends Report (2008)

Acting for the Common Good and Engaging Early Adolescents in

Democratic Citizenship through Writing, New Media, and the Arts

Student sample, Perry County

CIVIC

ENGAGEMENT

Project Citizen teams identify and analyze issues and problems facing their communities and address one of the issues for their project. The issue or problem must be one that could be addressed through public policy, such as a law or regulation. The final product is a stand-up portfolio displaying each group’s work and an accompanying binder documenting its research. 

Project Citizen teams identify and analyze issues and problems facing their communities and address one of the issues for their project. The issue or problem must be one that could be addressed through public policy, such as a law or regulation. The final product is a stand-up portfolio displaying each group’s work and an accompanying binder documenting its research. 

Project Citizen teams identify and analyze issues and problems facing their communities and address one of the issues for their project. The issue or problem must be one that could be addressed through public policy, such as a law or regulation. The final product is a stand-up portfolio displaying each group’s work and an accompanying binder documenting its research. 

Public EducationDemocratic Citizenship

...our relationship with the learners demands that we be aware of the concrete conditions of their world, the conditions that shape them. To try to know the reality that our students live is a task that the educational practice imposes on us.

Without this, we have no access to the way they think, so only with great difficulty can we perceive what and how they know (Freire, 1998).

Art-First Young Women’s Art ProjectUrban Improv A Changed World

National Arts and Youth Demonstration Projects

ARTS &

HUMANITIES

The arts are symbol systems that permit us to give representation to our ideas, concepts, and feelings in a variety of forms that can be "read" by other people. The arts were invented to enable us to react to the world, to analyze it, and to record our impressions so that they can be shared.

Charles Fowler, 1991

WRITING

Students define community issues, determine the focus of their service, and direct the project’s content. It is their interest, their voices, and theirdecisions that drive the work.

interact with the larger community, develop compelling performances, communicate their findings.

Younger siblings, peers, elders, neighbors, and local officials are expected to increase their awareness, be motivated to action, and grow as civic leaders in their own right.

Identify unique and innovative ways to promote, empower and perpetuate

participation by citizens everywhere in the civic spectrum

∧Planning

Phase Stage Month

Phase One PlanningAugust –September

2010

Phase TwoCurriculum

DevelopmentOctober – December

2010

Phase ThreeTeacher Training and

ImplementationJanuary –May 2011

Phase FourAnalysis and

DisseminationJune – July 2011

Freire: Dialogue Reading the Word— Reading the World Eisner: Forms of Representation & Expression Aesthetic Motivation Moffett: Theories of Distancing and Abstraction

Civic Citizenship Social Studies Social Justice Arts Humanities Writing Engagement

Kentucky Department of Education

School districts

Project Citizen

Kentucky Educational Television

Arts organizations & facilities (museums, etc)

Students– 8th grade, undergraduate, graduate

YOU!

Redefining Learning:

Inquiry Learning Critical Thinking Dialogic Interaction Reflective Thinking Collaborative Learning Service Learning

People of all ages can feel

UNINFORMEDUNINITIATEDUNWELCOMEUNENTITLEDDISENFRANCHISEDPOWERLESSEXCLUDED

Workers, students, citizens, specialists, generalists, activists, artists … all must be ENGAGED in order to participate and contribute fully at all levels across the spectrum: from the smallest neighborhood to the global community.

Engagement grows from knowledge, practice,

confidence and inclusion.Engagement EMPOWERS.