The Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education

The Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education

Now that the LTI is officially relocated to Notre Dame, we thought we'd give you an overview of the work of Notre Dame's Center for Literacy Education

Jodene and Ernest Morrell

 

“Once you learn to read,” wrote Frederick Douglass, “you will be forever free.”  No single gift in a child’s education is more precious or empowering than the gift of reading. Academic literacy rates are positively correlated to life expectancy, educational outcomes, and earning potential. Low literacy rates are also negatively correlated to incarceration, dropout, and unemployment.  Too predictably, academic literacy achievement in schools is stratified along lines of class, race, and geography in America. Those who have less seem to receive less with respect to their literacy education. And as a whole, students attending schools in the United States seem to be struggling with literacy achievement compared to peers internationally (PISA, 2017).

English educators have a tremendous role to play in re-envisioning the future of literacy education in America. They train future teachers, they work with practicing teachers, they conduct research in English classrooms, and they observe and document powerful literacy practices that occur in non-school settings.  English educators are often also called upon to advocate for sound policies and pedagogical practices at the local, state, and federal levels. Put simply, the work of English Education matters greatly, and it includes, but is not limited to, the ability to prepare the next generation of workers where the demands for workplace literacy are greater than they’ve ever been. English is a discipline that helps to prepare engaged citizens who use language and literacy to speak the truth to power; English educators also help future generations to appreciate the beauty of written words, be they found in essays, poems, plays, novels, websites, or blogs (Morrell and Scherff, 2015).

While English educators are essential to informing policies and pedagogical practices that will dictate the future of literacy instruction in America, they are often fragmented in their approach to the problem. English professors, teacher educators, literacy researchers, principals, and classroom teachers often work in silos and are rarely in conversation with one another about how to work collaboratively to tackle the major issues of the day. And students’ voices are seldom accounted for in the discussion of the present and future of the field.

Led by Director Ernest Morrell and Associate Director Jodene Morrell, the Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education seeks to integrate diverse voices from English studies, literacy teacher education, policy studies, urban education, multicultural education, critical cultural studies, digital media literacies, new literacy studies, and adolescent literacy to converse with university-based English faculty, English educators and K-12 leaders and classroom teachers to foster dialogue focused upon what is known about powerful literacy teaching and learning and what we will need to know in order to meet the challenges and opportunities of literacy education in the 21st century.

The Center for Literacy Education will leverage the English and Literacy Education faculty of Notre Dame’s Institute for Education Initiatives and ACE, members of the University’s English Department, as well as manifold external partners to transform literacy scholarship and practice in today’s urban and multicultural Catholic Schools worldwide.

The model through which the work of the Center advances literacy scholarship and practice is grounded in three areas Morrell and his colleagues have come to identify as “super-levers” to sustainable transformation in this area.

1)    Formation:  This work includes forming pre-service teachers and undergraduates with an interest in English and literacy teaching in Catholic schools, preparing English Educators at the Ph.D. level who will train the next generation of English teachers for Catholic Schools, working with practicing teachers in Catholic Schools through professional development, digital engagement, and summer institutes, as well as developing literacy leaders who will work in school systems, libraries, classrooms, and community centers.

2)    Outreach:  This work includes partnering with schools, parishes, and other organizations domestically and internationally to create summer camps and community literacy centers aimed at increasing critical literacies for children, adolescents, and adults as well as ensuring that our most vulnerable populations have access to digital technologies and a literacy education that will equip them to participate powerfully in the digital age.  Special emphasis will also be given to ACE’s Read to Learn project in Haiti.

3)    Research:  The Center is committed to a robust and impactful interdisciplinary research agenda that seeks to create new knowledge to advance literacy scholarship and generate ideas and practices to improve student learning.  Scholarship of the highest quality will focus on multiple areas including (but not limited to) the following: (1) connections between Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and contemporary literacy classrooms, (2) connections between literacy instruction, critical pedagogy and Catholic Social teaching, (3) the impact of state and federal policy on literacy practice and literacy achievement in urban schools.

Finally, the Center will be involved in the dissemination of information to educators, policymakers, and the general public through a variety of publications, the development of curricular materials for K-12 classrooms, the preparation of literacy policy briefs, the publication of scholarly articles and books, participation in state and national professional organizations, the development of a digital platform to engage the nation’s English teachers in Catholic and public schools, and regular lectures, conferences, and dialogues with teachers and school leaders. 

For more information on the Center please contact

Dr. Ernest Morrell: emorrel1@nd.edu

Dr. Jodene Morrell:jmorrell@nd.edu