Statewide Meeting to Discuss Literacy Issues

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - One hundred Arkansans who work with literacy as teachers, tutors, administrators and policymakers will gather at the University of Arkansas on Friday, Sept. 15, to draft a “state of state literacy” document for Arkansas and to participate in workshops on literacy issues offered by experts from across the country and close to home.

Billed as a statewide “town hall meeting” on literacy, the event is sponsored by the Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas.

“The town hall meeting represents an opportunity for folks from all corners of Arkansas to consider our common concerns and to plan projects to meet the literacy needs of Arkansas’ citizens,” said David Jolliffe, a Fulbright College English professor who occupies the Brown Chair in English Literacy.

The morning session will give participants the opportunity to generate material that will eventually become part of a document that addresses four questions: What do we know about literacy in Arkansas already? What do we need to know? What are we doing about literacy in Arkansas already? What do we need to do?

Each member of the Brown Chair advisory committee will give a brief presentation, after which participants will write comments, discuss them in groups and then report their conclusions to the group as a whole.

In the afternoon, members of the advisory committee will conduct 90-minute workshops on such topics as fostering literacy in the workplace, working with struggling readers, enriching literacy learning through community arts organizations, providing literacy instruction to speakers of languages other than English and involving families in literacy education.

At the end of the day, three of Arkansas’ foremost experts on literacy - Bobbie Biggs, professor of vocational education at the University of Arkansas; Marie Bruno, executive director of the Arkansas Literacy Councils; and Debbie Coffman, literacy specialist for the Arkansas Department of Education - will offer summaries.

Members of the Brown Chair advisory committee include Jim Allen, executive director of the Ozark Literacy Council; Deborah Brandt, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison; Jo Davis, literacy specialist for the Delta Academic Initiative; Judy Fox, literacy trainer for the Hagerstown (Maryland) Schools; Eli Goldblatt, writing program director at Temple University; Fitz Hill, president of Arkansas Baptist College; Philip Less, ESL director for the Arkansas Department of Workforce Education; and Patti Williford, director of the Southwest Arkansas Migrant Education Cooperative.