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 * This wiki is a workspace for participants in the 2009 Conference on English Education Strand 4 (Closing the Achievement Gap) facilitated by Tonya Perry** **tperry@uab.edu** **and Gina DeBlase** **ginadeblase@wayne.edu** **. The pages in the wiki support the work of three subgroups, each focused on questions related to the following topics: teaching all children, implications of merging English and Literacy Education, and high stakes testing.

Tonya and Gina provided a synopsis of our plans:** Action Plans for Strand #4 Preparing Teachers to Close the Achievement Gap

1. As the fields of literacy education and English education merge into one, how are we preparing English teachers to foster development of adolescent literacy? Impacting the profession one project at a time, Group 1 decided to consult one another as resources to influence local practice at the individual level for teacher educators. The group decided to use the characteristics of professional communities in the NCTE Principles of Adolescent Literacy Reform: A Policy Research Brief (2006) to launch conversations about the action plan and to reflect the feasibility of the action plan after it had been articulated. 1) Creating dialogue about teaching vocabulary instruction 2) Visiting classrooms across states and regions to explore teaching practices 3) Sharing salient ideas about accreditation that will be useful in multiple institutions 4) Keeping notes for a possible 2010 NCTE proposal about the small communities of practice that started in the small work group at the conference.

2. How are we facing the challenge of meeting the needs of a student population who are increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse? Changed to the following: How do we teach teachers to teach all children? Action! Through an interactive web resource, we are committed to continue the conversation. The content on the interactive web resource site will give examples of classroom experiences (including secondary pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and educators involved in teacher education) that we feel engage the CEE belief statements, which address teaching for social justice, positively impacting the education gap and creating models for quality teaching. Video and video responding, which will include student and teacher voices, will be a major component of this website, which is meant to be helpful to educators, community groups and students alike. We will also create a wiki workspace for our group to brainstorm and update progress on our project in the upcoming months. We plan on proposing our information and ideas to create an affiliate website to CEE by the November conference in Philadelphia.

3. To what degree should standardized testing be addressed in English methods and curriculum courses? 1) Compile a list of readings on the topic. 2) Consider who the participants will be in our focus groups. 3) Continue creating, editing, and revising questions for participants in focus groups. 4) Engage in an ongoing discussion concerning philosophies on standardized tests – What do we believe about good English teacher education? 5) Set up a meeting at NCTE in November.


 * You may email the entire group by using the listserv** [[mailto:cee-achievementgap@lists.ncte.orgAlyson sent us the files she provided related to definitions of literacy and literacies as well as their references.|**cee-achievementgap@lists.ncte.org**Alyson sent us the files she provided related to definitions of literacy and literacies [|Quotations handout.doc] as well as their references [|Citations.doc].

Find information about this conference and other CEE materials at the [|CEE website] Read information about our [|conference in Elmhurst in June 2009]..