Literacy

Year 9 Literacy Mentors

Fortnightly Reading Sessions

When I think of our Literacy Mentor program for some of our Year 9 students at WHSC, I think about Miley Cyrus and her lyrics in We Can’t Stop.

We run things, things don't run we

Don't take nothing from nobody, yeah yeah

What’s going on with your grammar, Miley? Amiright?

There’s no particular reason why I connect these lyrics to the program. I guess I’m just listening to a bit of Miley as of late, and I just wanted to share this lyric to you all, because I think it’s quite amusing.  Although, I guess there is a loose connection. Year 9 students are arguably known to be the teenagers who feel misplaced in society and can become disengaged with adults, rules and responsibility.

This is where, we as adults, need to offer teenagers the opportunity to take control, make up the rules, and be responsible. We need to encourage Student Agency in the classroom and allow them to take the reins or wrecking ball (if you are Miley Cyrus inclined).

Our Literacy Mentor program identifies students with high growth in reading comprehension, as they are competent at the skills and strategies to help them understand text types. Mid-year, these year 9 students were trained to run Reciprocal Reading activities and now enter our Fortnightly Reading sessions we run with Year 7s: They run things; things don’t run they (see what I did there?)

Our Year 7 English classes are excited to have Year 9 Literacy Mentors enter their Reading Session in Term 4. The Year 9 students are assigned to a Year 7 Reading Session, and with a small group of students in the class, they read a short story and explore deeper analysis of the text via the Reciprocal Reading strategies.

Our Literacy Mentors have been a wonderful addition to the fortnightly Reading Sessions; the Year 7s have enjoyed their company and guidance in understanding the stories and making stronger connections to self, text and world.

The Year 9 Literacy Mentors are great leaders and I really think Miley Cyrus is sending us messages about our teenagers in general. Miley is reminding us that they:

Never mean to start a war,

They just want to let us in

And instead of using force

I guess we should let them in . . .

and be Literacy Mentors (pretty sure she wanted to end the song on that lyric.)

Claire Hanley

Literacy - Learning Specialist