Engaging Students through Authentic and Effective Literacy Instruction

A growing body of research demonstrates how current high-stakes reading and writing tests can cause teachers to focus heavily on preparing students for success on these assessments, often to the detriment of culturally relevant, authentic, and engaging curricula. However, effective literacy education and authentic literacy education can be achieved simultaneously. In this collaboration, one university researcher (the author) and a classroom teacher worked together to implement and reflect on lessons designed by the author to motivate students through highly authentic literacy tasks while simultaneously developing reading and writing skills. A sample lesson is offered as an illustrative example.—