The Department is working with career and technical instructors to help them incorporate teaching of literacy skills to their students in a way that is aligned to the new, more rigorous and appropriate Common Core State Standards.
Patsy Dunton, the Maine DOE English Language Arts specialist, and Debra Andrews, the Department’s career and technical education standards and assessment specialist, met with 13 career and technical educators and administrators (representing four CTE centers/regions) recently at Hancock County Technical Center to better align CCSS literacy standards to industry-related technical standards.
This day-long workshop was a follow-up to the 2012 Maine DOE Summer Literacy Institute. Dunton demonstrated CCSS alignment possibilities using written text from welding instructional materials and from an automotive technology manual. The group discussed possible formats through which CTE instructors might be introduced to Common Core and literacy strategies for integrated instruction of CTE programs and literacy.
The Department is planning a professional development workshop for all CTE instructors and administrators designed to increase instructional strategies in literacy skills development–all underscoring the broader meaning of “literacy” in our new Literacy for ME initiative.