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College of Education

Cruz, Christian Jhace M.

Salcedo, Angela
Caparas, Carla
BSED 1A
Sir Mariano De Jesus
Professor
Social Literacy?
What is That?

An individual’s ability to successfully and deliberately mediate their world as family

members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners.
In simpler terms, Social Literacy, or something referred to as social intelligence, is the
ability to build relationships, and maintain those relationships in any social environment
In order to be successful, Social Literacy involves knowing how to express one’s own
emotions in a proper manner, and therefore, is often linked to Emotional Literacy

Emotional Literacy

is the ability to recognize, understand and appropriately express our emotions.

Why is social literacy important?

Social Literacy is important because students must learn the necessary skills to
communicate and widen their social circles.
Communication is crucial no matter where you go. Whether it is being used at home to
interact with family members or at school to discuss with peers, being socially literate
allows students to successfully expand their social circles, and maintain those
relationship.
Social literacy skills
 Maintaining eye contact
 Understanding angry feelings
 Handling confrontation
 Collaborating ideas
 Discussion
 Ability to meet new people
 As technology begins to play a larger part of our daily interaction, the importance
of Social Literacy increases immensely.

 Teaching students to become socially literate, and how to express themselves

correctly can help to prevent bullying over the internet.
 It can also aid students in handling their friendships and miscommunications
better (on or off the internet).
 Communicating through technology also becomes more frequent as students
grow and enter adulthood.

Being Socially Literate as an Adult with

Technology
Social networking, online courses, job interviews. A majority of interaction between
adolescents is done through technology. If students are nit taught at a young age how
to be socially literate, they may find themselves at a disadvantage in the future. Almost
every career today requires communication through technology.

As teachers, we have been entrusted with the education of our students, but the term
“education” has taken on a new meaning. Today, education means the whole child, not
just the academics.

Bill Daggett, author of “Five Trends That Are Transforming Education,” writes, “We
know that there is more to life than the core subjects of math, science, English language
arts, and social studies. Personal and interpersonal skills—such as responsibility, self-
management, integrity, honesty, collaboration, and leadership—are critical for success
in college, career, and life. Strong schools build these skills into their curricula and
create educational cultures and relationships that value more than just academics.”

As Mr. Daggett suggests, it is imperative for all teachers to embed the soft skills into
their daily lesson planning. Creating lesson plans where the skills are rooted in
prereading, during reading and after reading strategies is no longer just a good idea.
Rather, helping students navigate confidently in the world has become essential.

Implementing “leadership” in a typical literacy lesson may seem like a daunting task, but
by scaffolding the concept and using cross-curricular literacy strategies, students, who
usually tend to compartmentalize their learning, will be able to transfer the concept of
leadership and the reading strategies to other disciplines.

Begin with the end in mind: What is it that you want students to learn about leadership?
What is it about leadership that is so vital, so critical, that you are going to create,
develop, and implement an entire lesson plan around this single notion? We want our
young people to lead by example and inspire others to have the courage to defend their
convictions. So let’s end the lesson asking students to write a reflection based on one of
these ideas: Explain what it means to lead by example and ask students to offer an
illustration in their own life, or ask students to explain what it means to inspire others
and to highlight a situation where they have offered hope, or ask students to show how
one can illustrate the courage to defend their convictions in their school or in their
neighborhood. Make leadership the goal, but use reading strategies to make it happen.

Scaffolding this conceptual lesson into prereading, during reading, and after reading
strategies helps students stay focused and engaged. Leadership brings all sorts of
discussion and personal reflections to the table; let’s get students motivated about the
idea!

Prereading strategies
Begin with Janet Allen’s Wordstorming to Anticipate Content reading strategy. Allen’s
alphabet grid validates what students already know about leadership. Using an
interactive whiteboard, ask students to give you one word that defines a leader. As they
offer their examples, write the words under the correct letter. By activating their prior
knowledge of leadership, you will soon realize what your students think about
leadership and what they understand leadership to be. In this way, you can determine
where you need to start—either with a basic definition of leadership using rather
pedestrian examples or more abstract analysis and synthesis.

During reading strategies

Now that you have an idea as to your students’ understanding regarding leadership, you
can develop your next step. How about giving your students a reading choice? As
examples, they could read a brief article about Will Allen of Growing Power and his
desire to bring healthy food to those less fortunate, or they might read about Fr. Greg
Boyle’s work with gangs on Homeboy Industries, or students might read about Diane
Latiker and her work with homeless youth on Kids Off the Block. When you give
students the opportunity to choose their reading (digital or print), engagement and
motivation will follow. As students read, ask them to annotate, thereby initiating
questions and comments from their reading.

After reading strategies

Once the reading is complete, encourage students to share what they have read.
Embolden students to use their questions from their annotation as starting points for
discussion. Now go back to the beginning. Give students class time to demonstrate their
thoughts in a reflective paper—showcasing what they’ve learned about leadership and
asking them for evidence based on the articles they’ve read. In that way, students have
had the opportunity to relate this conceptual topic to their own lives and, more
important, they have used research-based best practice strategies to learn about a
theoretical subject.

So what is it about leadership that is so vital, so critical, that you are have created,
developed, and implemented an entire lesson plan around this one concept? Students
began with their own thoughts on leadership, thereby validating what they already knew
and giving them a chance to listen and learn from their classmates. Next, they chose to
read about other leaders by interacting with the text, asking questions and making
personal connections. Finally, with time and support, students were able to take all of
the information gathered and craft their own ideas and philosophies about leadership.

References:

Social Literacy." N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2013. <https://sites.google.

com/site/ezzonewliteraciesproject2013/full-project-description/do-some-exploring/social-
literacy>.

Van Petten, Vanessa. "Can We Teach Social Literacy?." Radical Parenting. N.p., n.d.
Web. 11 Mar. 2013. <http://www.radicalparenting.com/ 2010/11/04/can-we-teach-social-
literacy/>.
"What is Emotional Literacy." The Million Signature Emotional Literacy Campaign. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.<http://www.feel.org/ emotional_literacy.php>.