This document provides an overview of a curriculum and research course for literacy and language arts. It outlines that the course will focus on teaching literature and collaboration among teachers. It also discusses using an online course website for collaborative work and collecting student email addresses. Students are assigned to write a blog post answering what research means to them personally and to think of potential inquiry questions for major projects focusing on teaching literature.

1. Curriculum and
Research in Literacy
and Language Arts
Monday, July 8, 2013
Introduction to Course
What is Research?
Inquiry Question Formation

2. Introductions
• Name
• Teaching/student teaching experience
• One word you think of when you hear the word
“research”

3. Course Overview
• Teaching of literature focus
• Collaboration among teachers
• Class times / meetings last week
• Questions about the syllabus

4. Course website
• Using technology this summer to add to the collaborative
nature of what we are doing—intra- and inter-
• Collect preferred emails
• Anonymity and privacy
• How to add a post to the course blog

5. Writing Assignment
• In a post to the course blog:
• What is research?
• Answer via definition, anecdote, memory, exposition, your
choice.
• Forget the teacher- / teaching-focused nature of the course and
focus on your personal experience with research.

6. Inquiry Questions
• Inquiry questions will be:
• Practice-focused (“How do I . . . ?” or “What are the best
ways to . . . ?”)
• No asking “Why . . . ?”
• Focused on some aspect of teaching literature, but not just
reading—writing about literature, discussing
literature, pairing literature with expository texts, etc

7. Homework
• Readings as listed in syllabus—think about what is /
should be the connection between teaching and research.
• Think: Choose one or two inquiry questions you might
explore for your major projects during the course.