The King's Connection Magazine Volume 23 Number 1//Summer 2012 | Page 10

Faculty news Education project nurtures children’s literacy E ver wonder about the kind of projects education students do to get prepared to stand at the front of a class? Bernice Stieva, associate professor of education, wants King’s education students to be creative, innovative and passionate teachers, so she developed an innovative literacy project to explore what it means to be cutting-edge educators. This past fall, the students in Stieva’s class, “Teaching with Children’s Literature,” had a unique opportunity to apply their knowledge of teaching and children’s literature by working in collaborative groups to design a week-long community literacy event. Each group of students worked with a literacy partnership group from one of the five regions within the Grande Yellowhead Public School Division in Alberta, including Jasper, Hinton, Lobstick, Grande Cache and Edson. Students attended the fall literacy Through this project students were challenged to examine different kinds of literacy and explore how literacy impacts all aspects of life. Students used a variety of books including fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, picture books, poetry and cookbooks in their literacy events. Ms. Bernice Stieva 10 ///The King’s Connection /// Summer 2012 * partnership meeting to hear the concerns and goals of that community. Their challenge was to integrate into their projects information about children’s literature, and the literacy needs or challenges of the community and region they were representing, into the project. The goal was to put together a literacy event that would be presented to the community literacy partnership committees. Each literacy committee was made up of a diverse group of community members which included, among others, teachers, principals, community members and mental health experts. Grande Yellowhead Public School Division showed immense interest by dedicating a consultant, Jackie Kneteman, to the project. She was an especially valuable resource, regularly communicating with students and Stieva via email, attending all video conference meetings, and ensuring the necessary resources were available for each presentation.