Literacy week is a school-wide event to “raise awareness of reading and to inspire students and families to make reading a part of their daily routine.”
This year, the Literary Week events at CCHS include a dress-up week, photo opportunities in the media center, and purchasing a miniature library for the courtyard for students to peruse.
The dress-up days include some nuanced ideas that not only promote literacy but also promote some of the ideas that CCHS attempts to uphold. A key example of this was the “Wear a positive shirt” day on Thursday.
Not only is positivity shared during the daily quote over the morning announcements, but this message continued to be integrated into Thursday’s dress-up day.
“The goal of Literacy Week is to promote literacy awareness,” English and AP Language and Composition teacher Briana Bullard said.
In English classes with assigned reading, many overlook the necessity of reading. Literacy Week is determined to promote the idea that reading is a beneficial tool that will set up students for success in their future lives.
“There are plenty of benefits to reading in school,” English, AICE Global Perspectives, and AICE General Paper teacher Wendy Schauben said. “Students can identify and use more vocabulary, it gives a reason to keep their eyes off of their phones, it boosts imagination and can contribute to stress relief.”
But not only that, there are proven medicinal and mental health benefits that have a direct correlation to reading for pleasure.
“Reading for pleasure is associated with numerous benefits — from improvements in reading achievement and comprehension, writing, vocabulary, and general knowledge to improved empathy, understanding of self and others, and wellbeing,” The National Library of New Zealand found in their study.
Literacy can also be of benefit in future academic endeavors.
“Being literate is very important, it is a metaphorical passport that can take you wherever you need to go,” Literacy coach Lorraine Knott-Lawrence said. “To be a successful student you need to be good in all subjects as it is a transferable skill that can be applied to multiple subjects.”
Literacy Week was an “all hands on deck” project though. Since this issue was school-wide, the promotion of literacy needed as much help and promotion as it could get. So the CCHS Literacy and English Departments partnered with the National English Honor Society and Book Club to spread their message.
“We [Book Club] are determined to help promote the ideas of literacy in our school,” Book Club President Shyelle Ben-Simon said. “We are putting our efforts together as a club by creating posters and posting content on Instagram.”
