{"id":10402,"date":"2018-03-16T13:34:15","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T17:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?p=10402"},"modified":"2022-03-22T13:39:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T17:39:27","slug":"literacy-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"K Student\u2019s Project Spreads the News About Literacy Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin McCarty \u201920 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title \u201cnewspaper editor\u201d will do. You also could call him a teacher. Or, as Teresa Denton, associate director of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement<\/a>, describes him, \u201creally dedicated.\u201d McCarty is quick to say he\u2019s not seeking any credit for himself. Instead, he says, his goal is to combat a persistent problem at some Kalamazoo public schools: lagging student achievement in literacy skills.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin
Kevin McCarty \u201920 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title \u201cnewspaper editor\u201d will do as he seeks to help Woodward Elementary students develop literacy skills.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back home, as a high school student in suburban Detroit, McCarty, a chemistry<\/a> and Spanish<\/a> major at K, worked with a program call Kids Standard that sought to improve student literacy skills by helping elementary school children publish a school magazine. After he got to K, he wanted to carry on the work, but the distance was too great to make it practical. So this school year he applied to become, and was accepted as, a civic engagement scholar<\/a> through the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), and received a grant from the CCE’s Linda Primavera Fund<\/a>, created by Primavera ’77, a longtime advocate of civic engagement.<\/p>\n

He is working at Woodward School for Technology and Research in the Stuart neighborhood, just a few blocks from the College. Woodward is a Michigan Priority School, which means its elementary-aged students\u2019 achievement and growth is in the bottom 5 percent for the state. Their reading and writing scores on standardized tests, on average, lag far below grade levels.<\/p>\n

Empowered by CCE to launch his own literacy skills program to address that issue, and working with Communities in Schools<\/a>, a Kalamazoo nonprofit that seeks to bolster student achievement, McCarty mapped out a strategy.<\/p>\n

First, he served as an editor at The Index to get the skills he needed to design a newspaper. Then he spent his winter break drawing up a lesson plan. It called for forming an after-school club where students, mainly fourth- and fifth-graders, would receive several weeks of training in conceiving and composing stories, then write them for a publication to be called The Woodward Weekly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back and talked to teachers in my hometown and with Maggie Razdar,\u201d who runs Kids Standard, \u201cand we highlighted areas I should touch on and where I should put the most emphasis,\u201d he says. \u201cI outlined very general areas I needed to talk about, like what is an introduction, what is the body of the story, what is a complete sentence, the parts of speech, when to use commas, because I realized that as I was doing it, how actually complex it is. It made me go back and think of the questions I would have asked as a student and break it down into pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

He used his proposal to secure a $500 grant for printing the paper. Then, twice a week in the winter term, he led the students through creative exercises that targeted literacy skills including having them cut out printed words from local publications and rearrange them to tell their own stories. The capstone was choosing subjects for the Woodward Weekly and researching and writing the stories for the first edition, which debuted this month.<\/p>\n

McCarty says he exercised a light touch in the editorial process, letting students pursue their own ideas and express them as they preferred. The results include an \u201cOpinion\u201d page with three stories on the subject of slime and two recipes for making it. Fourth-grader Krysty\u2019anna Craft writes about how she became interested in slime by watching YouTube videos (a common theme in the Weekly), while Kieara Virgil, another fourth-grader and apparently a budding chemist, explains that it is \u201ca unique play material composed of a cross-linked polymer \u2026 made by combining polyvinyl alcohol solutions with borate ions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t plan out what they do.\u201d McCarty says. \u201cI want to make the idea of writing and self-expression something that\u2019s completely up to them and their choice. It was anything from poetry to fiction and nonfiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stories completed and photos gathered, he then faced the hardest part: assembling the newspaper, something he had never done on his own before. It was a lot of extra work, but he says he knew the result \u2014 a professional-looking, eight-page newsletter divided into departments and complete with bylines for each writer \u2014 was worth it when he saw how excited the students were.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what they were expecting but they were really impressed with the way it turned out,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen they saw it looked like a real newspaper, they said, \u2018I\u2019m famous now!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

More important, he says, they gained an understanding of their own literacy skills and experienced writing as a way to communicate ideas they care about, not as a daunting chore. Tasked with collecting metrics for the program, he could point to measurable success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey saw writing as a joyful thing rather than an assignment,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd they walk away with a better understanding of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the editor, \u201cIt was pretty fulfilling,\u201d he says. Other schools in Kalamazoo are now interested in launching similar programs, he says, and he has left copies of the Weekly around K so fellow students can see what\u2019s possible through CCE.<\/p>\n

Community engagement scholars conduct a weekly reflection session on their goals and experiences, and McCarty says many of those discussions this winter focused on educational inequality. Given the size and seeming intractability of that problem, running the club and publishing the Weekly \u201cwasn\u2019t a big thing to do,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s something we can <\/em>do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Applications are open through April 20 for the next round of Civic Engagement Scholarships. The paid positions give students the opportunity to engage in projects like McCarty\u2019s while also providing student leadership for the CCE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin McCarty \u201920 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title \u201cnewspaper editor\u201d will do. You also could call him a teacher. Or, as Teresa Denton, associate director of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, describes him, \u201creally dedicated.\u201d McCarty is quick to say he\u2019s not seeking any credit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":10436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231],"tags":[50,117,68],"post_formats":[],"class_list":["post-10402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students","tag-chemistry","tag-civic-engagement","tag-spanish"],"yoast_head":"\r\nLiteracy Skills Spread the News on Reading, Writing - News and Events<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kevin McCarty launched a literacy skills program to bolster student achievement in reading and writing at Woodward School in Kalamazoo.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Literacy Skills Spread the News on Reading, Writing - News and Events\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kevin McCarty launched a literacy skills program to bolster student achievement in reading and writing at Woodward School in Kalamazoo.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News and Events\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KalamazooCollege\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-16T17:34:15+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-22T17:39:27+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"639\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@kcollege\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@kcollege\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\",\"name\":\"Literacy Skills Spread the News on Reading, Writing - News and Events\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-16T17:34:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-22T17:39:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"description\":\"Kevin McCarty launched a literacy skills program to bolster student achievement in reading and writing at Woodward School in Kalamazoo.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":639,\"caption\":\"Kevin McCarty Helps a Class Develop Literacy Skills\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"K Student\u2019s Project Spreads the News About Literacy Skills\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/\",\"name\":\"News and Events\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"\"}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Literacy Skills Spread the News on Reading, Writing - News and Events","description":"Kevin McCarty launched a literacy skills program to bolster student achievement in reading and writing at Woodward School in Kalamazoo.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Literacy Skills Spread the News on Reading, Writing - News and Events","og_description":"Kevin McCarty launched a literacy skills program to bolster student achievement in reading and writing at Woodward School in Kalamazoo.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/","og_site_name":"News and Events","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KalamazooCollege","article_published_time":"2018-03-16T17:34:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-03-22T17:39:27+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":639,"url":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@kcollege","twitter_site":"@kcollege","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/","url":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/","name":"Literacy Skills Spread the News on Reading, Writing - News and Events","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg","datePublished":"2018-03-16T17:34:15+00:00","dateModified":"2022-03-22T17:39:27+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"description":"Kevin McCarty launched a literacy skills program to bolster student achievement in reading and writing at Woodward School in Kalamazoo.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg","width":1024,"height":639,"caption":"Kevin McCarty Helps a Class Develop Literacy Skills"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"K Student\u2019s Project Spreads the News About Literacy Skills"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/","name":"News and Events","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":""}]}},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/author\/"},"guten_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills-150x94.jpg",150,94,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills-300x187.jpg",300,187,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills-600x374.jpg",600,374,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"ab-block-post-grid-landscape":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"ab-block-post-grid-square":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"pl-blogpost-landscape":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"pl-blogpost-square":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"guten_post_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"guten_post_layout_portrait_large":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"guten_post_layout_square_large":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",1024,639,false],"guten_post_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"guten_post_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"guten_post_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false],"campus-posts-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",300,187,false],"gform-image-choice-sm":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",300,187,false],"gform-image-choice-md":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",400,250,false],"gform-image-choice-lg":["https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills.jpg",600,374,false]},"category_info":"<a aria-label=\"archive of category Students\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/category\/students\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Students<\/a>","tags_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/chemistry\/\" rel=\"tag\">chemistry<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/civic-engagement\/\" rel=\"tag\">civic engagement<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/spanish\/\" rel=\"tag\">Spanish<\/a>","social_share_info":"<a data-share=\"facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\" class=\"pl-facebook-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-facebook-f\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\" class=\"pl-twiiter-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-twitter\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"linkedin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/literacy-skills\/\" class=\"pl-linkedin-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-linkedin-in\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a>","wordExcerpt_info":"<p>Kevin McCarty \u201920 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title \u201cnewspaper editor\u201d will do. You also could call him a teacher. Or, as Teresa Denton, associate director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.kzoo.edu\/servicelearning\/\">Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement<\/a>, describes him, \u201creally dedicated.\u201d McCarty is quick to say he\u2019s not seeking any credit for himself. Instead, he says, his goal is to combat a persistent problem at some Kalamazoo public schools: lagging student achievement in literacy skills.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10436\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10436\" style=\"width: 584px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-10436 size-large\" src=\"\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/03\/Kevin-McCarty-Literacy-Skills-600x374.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin McCarty Helps a Class Develop Literacy Skills\" width=\"584\" height=\"364\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10436\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin McCarty \u201920 has ambitions of being a doctor. For now, though, the title \u201cnewspaper editor\u201d will do as he seeks to help Woodward Elementary students develop literacy skills.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Back home, as a high school student in suburban Detroit, McCarty, a <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.kzoo.edu\/chem\/\">chemistry<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.kzoo.edu\/spanish\/\">Spanish<\/a> major at K, worked with a program call Kids Standard that sought to improve student literacy skills by helping elementary school children publish a school magazine. After he got to K, he wanted to carry on the work, but the distance was too great to make it practical. So this school year he applied to become, and was accepted as, a <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.kzoo.edu\/servicelearning\/ces\/\">civic engagement scholar<\/a> through the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), and received a grant from the CCE’s <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.kzoo.edu\/servicelearning\/grants\/\">Linda Primavera Fund<\/a>, created by Primavera ’77, a longtime advocate of civic engagement.<\/p>\n<p>He is working at Woodward School for Technology and Research in the Stuart neighborhood, just a few blocks from the College. Woodward is a Michigan Priority School, which means its elementary-aged students\u2019 achievement and growth is in the bottom 5 percent for the state. Their reading and writing scores on standardized tests, on average, lag far below grade levels.<\/p>\n<p>Empowered by CCE to launch his own literacy skills program to address that issue, and working with <a href=\"http:\/\/ciskalamazoo.org\/\">Communities in Schools<\/a>, a Kalamazoo nonprofit that seeks to bolster student achievement, McCarty mapped out a strategy.<\/p>\n<p>First, he served as an editor at The Index to get the skills he needed to design a newspaper. Then he spent his winter break drawing up a lesson plan. It called for forming an after-school club where students, mainly fourth- and fifth-graders, would receive several weeks of training in conceiving and composing stories, then write them for a publication to be called The Woodward Weekly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went back and talked to teachers in my hometown and with Maggie Razdar,\u201d who runs Kids Standard, \u201cand we highlighted areas I should touch on and where I should put the most emphasis,\u201d he says. \u201cI outlined very general areas I needed to talk about, like what is an introduction, what is the body of the story, what is a complete sentence, the parts of speech, when to use commas, because I realized that as I was doing it, how actually complex it is. It made me go back and think of the questions I would have asked as a student and break it down into pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He used his proposal to secure a $500 grant for printing the paper. Then, twice a week in the winter term, he led the students through creative exercises that targeted literacy skills including having them cut out printed words from local publications and rearrange them to tell their own stories. The capstone was choosing subjects for the Woodward Weekly and researching and writing the stories for the first edition, which debuted this month.<\/p>\n<p>McCarty says he exercised a light touch in the editorial process, letting students pursue their own ideas and express them as they preferred. The results include an \u201cOpinion\u201d page with three stories on the subject of slime and two recipes for making it. Fourth-grader Krysty\u2019anna Craft writes about how she became interested in slime by watching YouTube videos (a common theme in the Weekly), while Kieara Virgil, another fourth-grader and apparently a budding chemist, explains that it is \u201ca unique play material composed of a cross-linked polymer \u2026 made by combining polyvinyl alcohol solutions with borate ions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t plan out what they do.\u201d McCarty says. \u201cI want to make the idea of writing and self-expression something that\u2019s completely up to them and their choice. It was anything from poetry to fiction and nonfiction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stories completed and photos gathered, he then faced the hardest part: assembling the newspaper, something he had never done on his own before. It was a lot of extra work, but he says he knew the result \u2014 a professional-looking, eight-page newsletter divided into departments and complete with bylines for each writer \u2014 was worth it when he saw how excited the students were.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know what they were expecting but they were really impressed with the way it turned out,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen they saw it looked like a real newspaper, they said, \u2018I\u2019m famous now!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p>More important, he says, they gained an understanding of their own literacy skills and experienced writing as a way to communicate ideas they care about, not as a daunting chore. Tasked with collecting metrics for the program, he could point to measurable success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey saw writing as a joyful thing rather than an assignment,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd they walk away with a better understanding of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for the editor, \u201cIt was pretty fulfilling,\u201d he says. Other schools in Kalamazoo are now interested in launching similar programs, he says, and he has left copies of the Weekly around K so fellow students can see what\u2019s possible through CCE.<\/p>\n<p>Community engagement scholars conduct a weekly reflection session on their goals and experiences, and McCarty says many of those discussions this winter focused on educational inequality. Given the size and seeming intractability of that problem, running the club and publishing the Weekly \u201cwasn\u2019t a big thing to do,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s something we <em>can <\/em>do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Applications are open through April 20 for the next round of Civic Engagement Scholarships. The paid positions give students the opportunity to engage in projects like McCarty\u2019s while also providing student leadership for the CCE.<\/p>\n","comment_info":"No Comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10402"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12416,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10402\/revisions\/12416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10402"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_formats?post=10402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}