21ST+CENTURY+LITERACY

=Curriculum for 21st Century Literacy=

American students must reach the Heights of Opportunity and Performance in literacy. 21st Century Literacy means that students are able to navigate through the complex and beautiful ideas of our literary heritage. Likewise, students are able to articulate ideas that contribute to this heritage in original spoken and written forms.

Ceasefire Declared
Numerous wars have been fought for a century by advocates for phonetics-based approaches to language literacy and "whole language" proponents. This warfare is costly and unnecessary since it is obvious to all that both approaches are important components of a balanced literacy program. We call for an immediate ceasefire in this battle. This armistice must take place in university departments, offices of policy-makers, boards of education, and classrooms. Proponents of both approaches must work together to provide teachers and parents with effective tools.

Heights of Literature
"Learning to Read" must be balanced with "Reading to Learn." Once students gain adequate skills in literacy they must be moved quickly to draw from the enormous treasure of literature. America is fortunate to have a great legacy of children's literature. Children need access to this literature through better libraries, school-library partnerships, classroom libraries, and well-organized bookclubs. A divide must be crossed between recreational reading and high quality choices. Programs such as the Junior Great Books offer systematic approaches to open skills to great literature.

Such skills lead to great works of classical literature. It is said that students who read great classical authors such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, and Hugo actually enter into personal dialogues with some of the greatest minds in human history. Such contacts enrich both imagination and outlook, broadening the creativity and humanity of students.

Heights of Contemporary Voice
In order help find a voice that is appropriate for the global citizenship, classroom time should rely heavily on reading top notch newspapers and magazines of all political persuasion. Students should also read contemporary literature of emerging writers as well as blogs that reflect a wide variety of opinion.

Building a Consensus towards a National Curriculum
Americans deeply value local control of schools and teachers prize autonomy in classrooms. American students would benefit, however, if these varying voices begin to coalesce around a national curriculum. In order to recognize our tradition of local control, this curriculum should be "thin" rather than "thick," allowing time and space for creativity, flights of passion, and local concerns. The creativity of American educators, parents, and students can thereby be directed to "how to teach" rather than "when to teach." The frameworks should aim for the qualities needed for strong participation in American democracy.

Past efforts to construct the national curriculum have failed because they relied on the voices of "experts" and discounted practitioners and parents to symbolic roles as consumers. National standards in each of the curriculum areas became so detailed that they were unteachable. Textbooks produced by major publishers were designed to match competing guidelines became impractical and became far too heavy for children's backpacks.

Web 2.0 technology can be utilized to build a national curriculum from the ground up with the resounding power of the democratic process. Mathematicians should have a voice on what are essential English frameworks whereas English teachers should have input as to what is necessary for students to learn in math. The emerging curriculum should incorporate the voices of educators, academicians, parents, students, and community members.
 * Wiki technology can allow the input of many voices to build a consensus of what topics should be taught in respective grades;
 * With this national structure in place, a national web database can be created with the participation of thousands of educators to detail numerous ways to introduce and teach topics;
 * Hyperlink technology can be utilized to link topics to websites that have relevant content;
 * Google hits and consumer reviews can be used to temper content and guide users to the best sources;
 * Textbook publishers could provide subscriptions to services that guide subscribers to the best sources.

Technology in the Hands of Every Student
21st Century Literacy must incorporate technology education. Children growing up today going through our education system are digital natives, they have lived their whole lives with the world wide web, interactive media, handheld devices and cell phones. We must harness this cultural transformation into the information age.
 * Personal Computers: Every student will be familiar with the use of personal commuters and how to use standard programs such as word processing, databases, and spreadsheets.
 * Digital Media: Students will learn how to utilize digital cameras, camcorders and sound recorders as a part of their learning process. Students will learn both basic and advanced editing software, so that by the twelfth grade, students will be exposed and familiar with to the creation of digital media.
 * Web Literacy: Students will be literate in the consumption and creation of information of the Web. Students will learn how to communicate with Wikis, Blogs, Message Boards, Email, Podcasting, and other collaborative technologies.