Character Based Literacy Program

1. Character Based Literacy Program Presented by Bob Michels School Program Manager/CBL Trainer Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053-0633 408.551.7049

2. The Character Based Literacy (CBL) Program is both a : • Character Education Project • Character Literacy Project The object is to: • Promote school practices that positively influence the processes by which school pupils become good people, good citizens.

3. This can be accomplished by: • Making use of effective and efficient methods to influence the values, thought processes and coping skills of students such that habits and choices result in pro-social rather than anti-social behavior.

4. This development of character • is a method rather than a subject • accomplished through definite and specific parts of the school curriculum. • Utilizes English/Language Arts curriculum since literacy is fundamental to all success in school and in life for all students.

5. English/Language Arts is a • natural place to pursue questions of: • Value and character in literature • Language expression • Writing and creative processes • Can continue into any content area-- • history-social science and science curriculum

6. CBL is a project that intends to serve students who: • Have had marginal success in school • Are at serious risk for school failure and antisocial behavior

7. What are the outcomes of schooling? • Knowledge: what I know • Skills: what I am able to do • Character: the kind of person I become

8. What do we mean by character? • Sum of my virtues and vices • Who I am today as a result of all that I have become and overcome in my life as well as who I will be in the future as a result of what I do today

9. How is moral life properly influenced in a public school? • Formed by two universal moral values forming the core of a public, teachable morality (Thomas Likona): • Respect -- worth of someone or something • Responsibility -- active side of morality

10. What is Character Education as we use the term? • Everything we do in school that influences the kind of person that I (or anyone else) becomes • Not a subject, or an activity, it is the curriculum done with people in mind • It is based on:

12. What prompted the Character Based Literacy Program? • First conceptualized 10-15 years ago by Steve Johnson, Santa Clara University, for students in the juvenile justice system. • Changed as a result of the new California Reading/Language Arts Standards with accountability through evidence.

13. Organized in five value themed units Integrity Requires Wholeness Quarter 5 Summer Change Requires Effort Quarter 2 Responsibility Requires Action Quarter 1 Courage Requires Moderation Quarter 4 Justice Requires Restraint Quarter 3

14. The theme units move students away from: • Anti-social thoughts, values and behaviors and into pro-social thoughts, values and behaviors

15. Accomplished by: • Engaging students in literature that is acceptable for grade level credit • Engages their imaginations • Connects them to characters they care about • Provides opportunities to discuss the value context of the literature

16. Daily writing in integrated language arts lessons • Accomplished with the use of the six language arts • Reading • Writing • Listening • Speaking • Viewing • Visually representing

17. Lessons are rooted in a particular text where students: • Prepare to read • Read • Respond to and react to • Explore more deeply and then • Extend to their lives and the world

18. Phases of the lessons consist of • Short activities based on a collection of nearly a hundred literacy strategies which have been validated by research in the teaching of English language arts and found usable by teachers of our special populations

19. In addition, there are: • Daily lessons that pay attention to particular values in the readings • Teach rational ways of thinking about problems and conflicts in the story • Teach skills for coping with situations such as those faced by characters in the day’s readings

20. The program is coordinated and coherent • Classrooms using program are reading literature from a limited list • Those in the program are teaching the same unit, same book and doing the same lessons in a given week • Students lose little if any ground when they move from one CBL site to another

21. Teacher support is provided through • Initial training in program methods • Regular updated session at sites called CBL Next • Consultations with CBL staff • Wealth of program materials including daily lesson plans in English/language arts and social studies available on the program web site

22. Web site access: • www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/cblp

23. Major funding for the development of the CBL Program • Walter S. Johnson Foundation • Markkula Family Foundation • Southern California expansion provided by the Daniels Fund and the Von Der Ahe Foundation • Funding for CBL New Solutions provided by Verity Corportion, Adeptec Corporation, Affymetrix Corporation, Symantec Corporation, Thane Kreiner and Cheryl Breetmor

24. For further information on the Character Based Literacy Program: Contact: Bob Michels School Program Manager Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053-0633 408.554.7874 Rmichels@scu.edu