The 2012 conference featured award-winning poet, memoirist, and novelist Jimmy Santiago Baca, author and educator ReLeah Cossett Lent, and one of the leading authorities on educational equity andsocial justice, Sonia Nieto, as we explore three essential components to ensuring that all students have access to literacy learning that embraces their culture, interests, and lived experiences: the code, the concepts, and the conversations.

The code of written language and the ability to identify words quickly and accurately is a core reading skill. Having access to a coherent phonics program of work and assessment underlies all deep comprehension.

 

Concept-building lessons, along with a coherent core of challenging, interesting, and integrated curricula units, provide common ground for effective communication in a diverse society and access to the vocabulary necessary for rigorous learning.

 

Conversations about literacy learning are critical in building socially constructed understanding among students, in school and beyond.  Student access to discussions fed by lived experiences results in deep comprehension and reinforces connections to their culture that further support learning.
 
 

 

  

• Opportunities to observe actual lessons in Springfield classrooms that use the Cornerstone Literacy approach
• A presentation on “Language and its Transformative Power” by keynote speaker Jimmy Santiago Baca
• A workshop by Mr. Baca and ReLeah Cossett Lent on engaging young writers
• An article study with Sonia Nieto using her piece “From Surviving to Thriving”
• A video lesson study around the implementation of the Cornerstone Literacy Conversation Module
• Breakout sessions that address the issue of access for all to rigorous literacy instruction
• A one-day “guest track” (Feb. 14) introducing newcomers to Cornerstone Literacy