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Westminster Graduate Faculty Publish Blogs on College-School Collaboration

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Posted on Friday, September 9, 2016

Two Westminster College faculty members published four blogs outlining their joint two-month inquiry between seventh-graders from Shenango Middle School and Westminster College secondary education majors.

Dr. Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, professor and coordinator of the reading specialist graduate program, and Dr. Karen Matis, adjunct faculty and seventh-grade teacher at Shenango Middle School, recently published the blogs at Worlds of Words: International Children’s Literature.

The integrated curricular exploration began with the study of the novel, The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson. Westminster secondary education students in Klassen Endrizzi’s education course visited Matis’ classroom for a Skype session with author, Hopkinson.

“The opportunity to blog with Klassen Endrizzi for the Worlds of Words website was quite rewarding,” said Matis. “Klassen Endrizzi's education students and my adolescents provided a unique mix of learning opportunities. Literature needs to ‘come alive’ for adolescent learners.  Activities and real world experiences and connections meant that literature set in the 1800s could easily be connected to global issues today.”

The blogs feature insights from three Westminster College secondary education majors, Katherine St. Pierre, Cory Hughes, and Ben Gaul.

For more information, contact Klassen Endrizzi at endrizck@westminster.edu or 724-946-7189.