RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

Name: Marguerite Foshee

School & District: WMHS in WWCSD
Grade(s) & Subject Area(s): High School 9-12 grades
Project 4
Part I: Project Plan
A. Rationale
As a high school that houses a large impoverished population, 80% free & reduced
lunch, there is a need to create a literacy rich environment. PLCs have instituted mandatory
SSR and our English Strategies courses are at full capacity. While the parents of our district
want their students to become strong readers and writers, often they do not have the means or
income to procure texts to build home libraries. At WMHS we must develop an atmosphere that
saturates every corner, hallway, and stairwell with information about books.
B. Goals & Outcomes: Organizing & Managing a Literacy Program
IRA Standards: 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3
Course objectives: 4 and 5
Using building support & materials, community support, and grants, create an
environment where students discuss literature, develop an interest in reading for pleasure, and
interact with texts frequently.
Teachers & students will have rich discussions about literature and how we choose
texts.
Staff will work collaboratively to develop and facilitate a literacy rich environment.
Teachers, administration, ancillary staff, and support staff will collaborate in an effort to
support the literacy initiative.
Staff will use a range of texts to engage and create interest for student reading.
Staff will develop innovative techniques to create student interest in reading.
Staff will engage students in providing access to read in multiple modals.
C. Roles & Responsibilities
Design and implement a creative approach to engaging students in reading by
surrounding students in literature information throughout the building. The interactive hallway is
a starting point for this project; it is projected to involve a school-wide blog for book discussions
and reviews. Encourage staff to participate in a variety of engaging ways. After researching
grants for low income schools write and apply for grants to increase the availability of texts for
personal reading and SSR. Teachers are currently limited to what they can personally afford to
buy for their classrooms.
Discussions with the current Media specialist involved the lack of new, high interest books
available to students. Budget restraints were mentioned as the biggest issue. As a concerned
teacher, I was able to sit down with the principal and discuss this issue. Many tribal issues were
addressed quickly, but the core of the issue is the budget. WMHS spends $800 in periodicals
yearly with a little over $100 available to fund the rest of the library. It seems that it is up to the
media specialist to allocate resources. However, the principal was able to guide me to the
School Improvement Plan, SIP, as a source of information to use when writing grants.
As the reading specialist, finding and filling out grants for books is part of my role. It is not
especially easy to find these opportunities, but the high incidence of poverty in our area allows
for a few opportunities that affluent districts would not. It is a time consuming task, but offers
the opportunity for teachers and students.

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects
D. Timeline
This project began the week of October 10th and will continue throughout the semester.
The students are engaged with interactive displays. It will be important to email the staff and
meet in small groups to communicate intentions and ideas while gathering feedback. It will also
be beneficial to create a flyer with weekly activities to distribute in teachers mailboxes. It is my
hope that portions of the project with be delegated to others as they buy-into the project. It will
be voluntary.
This project is on- going.
Part II: Project Implementation & Artifacts
A. Implementation
This idea was in planning stages for over a month. Creating the wall slowly, over a
couple of weeks, creates interest and stirs conversations. There is a lot of prep and research
involved. Weekly updates, such as Bestsellers lists, are posted in a timely manner. New
interactive posters are added frequently to keep the students interest. Also, the literacy
specialist has to be diligent and make daily checks for profanity and social media issues.
Security and teachers have been supportive and stop to have conversations with students who
are interacting with the wall on a daily basis. This project is ongoing.
B. Artifacts
The interactive hallway How do we choose what we read? has been a very positive
develop in WMHS. It includes a variety of pieces, as exhibited in artifacts, such as: student
recommendations, teacher recommendations, banned books, Bestsellers, what are you reading,
genres, favorite authors, where do we read, a book wish list, who do we read with, favorite
holiday reading, reviews, books to movies, free digital books, where to get books cheap, local
libraries information, etc.
The interactive hallway was an idea to create interest and begin student discussions
about texts.

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

Grant Writing- in search of books!

Where do we find books for classroom libraries with little funding?

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

Teachers get involved!

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects

RDG 6940 Framework for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting On Practicum Projects
Part III: Professional Reflection on Project
A. Reflection on Project Impact
This hallway is located in the path going to lunch. Students stop frequently in-between
classes and on their way to lunch to talk, write, and simply view the variety of information and
pieces. Teachers in that wing have stopped for discussion with students and colleagues
regarding student answers and various pieces.
Currently, I am having a discussion with administration regarding the appropriateness of
student answers like, 50 Shades of Grey. While I value the authenticity of the answer, I am
concerned about appropriateness. However, WMHS library carries titles such as Game of
Thrones which has similar content.
Additionally, security and I have discussed the appearance of Instagram and Twitter tags on
the posters. Security is so supportive of the project that they offered to look at video to
determine who was involved and assign consequences to the students. However, after taking a
step back and reflecting, I approached administration regarding the issue and asked if we could
simply add a space for students to write this information. Social Media is simply another outlet
for student expression and may be valuable in literacy development. Some consideration has
us pondering the use Twitter to have reading conversations. However, monitoring these
discussions will be time-consuming.
B. Reflection on Professional Growth as Reading Specialist
This project received a plethora of positive feedback! Students, teachers, support & ancillary
staff have all participated and supported this project! The feedback was mostly verbal and
included many conversations with peers in the hall during passing time. Ancillary staff was
effective at making sure the project was not defaced in any way!
While having professional discussions, It was eye-opening to see how some of the budget
works and how vey little our school has in resources. As a school with 80% free and reduced
lunches, I had believed that we would be better funded in regards to reading resources.
Obviously, districts with high incidences of poverty need more support. That is common
knowledge, but the lack of funding was quite the eye-opener for myself and colleagues.
Grant writing is a difficult process and takes a number of pieces of data to complete. It
involved multiple professional discussions and data from our School Improvement Plan. This
process of looking for precious resources created opportunities for rich discussions and a
greater understanding of the process. Discussions with several peers and administration
provided me with guidance regarding the process and where to obtain information.
As a professional, this was the best use of both my knowledge as a reading specialist and
collaborative teacher; while also satisfying my personal need for creativity.