Integrating Literacy and Peer-Reading in a Social Justice Program

• In Event: Roundtable Session 108
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum Embodied in Community: Activism, Service, Relationship

Abstract

This case study presents a peer reading program with high need elementary students that was developed by a high school service group. It explores the integration of literacy in community service, and the potential of literacy as a means of connection around the written word and in the promotion of positive outcomes for all participants. Researchers took the role of participant-observer, accessing youth perceptions through ethnographic observations, interpretive interviews, and a targeted focus group. The elementary and adolescent participants describe making connections with each other and the text, and how this experience may affect future service and literacy activity. This case provides a descriptive account of promising educational practices, and the subsequent effect on the lived experience of emerging readers.

Authors

• Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth, Western Michigan University

• Jeffrey N. Jones, Western Michigan University