International Literacy Day

8^th September

Celebrate International Literacy Day by participating in iEARN Online "Write On" Project. Have your students develop the art of writing by expressing themselves in writing short essays or stories and polish their skills by engaging them in reading and responding to real audiences.

 

Why is International Literacy Day celebrated?

International Literacy Day was established in 1965 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and is celebrated around the world each year on September 8. In 1990, the United Nations General Assembly gave a boost to world literacy by proclaiming International Literacy Year. This special Year signified the ongoing commitment of the world community to recognize and support literacy as a key to personal development and to the socio-economic progress of nations.

Literacy is a cause for celebration since there are now close to four billion literate people in the world. However, literacy for all children, youth and adults - is still an unaccomplished goal and an ever moving target. A combination of ambitious goals, insufficient and parallel efforts, inadequate resources and strategies, and continued underestimation of the magnitude and complexity of the task accounts for this unmet goal. Lessons learnt over recent decades show that meeting the goal of universal literacy calls not only for more effective efforts but also for renewed political will and for doing things differently at all levels - locally, nationally and internationally.

 

 

Participation Guide

This project is aimed at introducing students a range of writing forms that includes, story writing, expository writing, persuasive writing, descriptive, informative writing and poetry. The idea of prompts or starters is used to help students begin with the writing using a relevant graphic organizer from a selection available in the resource section of this project.

Participation is very simple, just follow the steps below:

Step-1

Register your class under the discussion heading providing all the required material.

Have students review the power point presentation on the Domains of Writing.

Encourage the students to read and respond to at least 1-2 existing writing pieces.

Step-2

Now encourage the student to choose one of the prompts relevant to the ‘Celebration of Literacy Day’ to write on, or teachers or any students can post one prompt themselves.

Step-3

To facilitate the writing process, one of the graphic organizers can be chosen from the resources section.

Students can select one of the prompts from the above list to write on.

Now set to produce the first draft of the writing, refer to the power point presentation, the writing process.

Proof read, check and finalize the writing and post in the relevant discussion heading.

Once the final draft is completed, post it under the relevant discussion heading in the iEARN Write on forum.

Please remember to write your full name, school, class, city and country.

Write on Forum address: Write on forum can be accessed in iEARN Collaboration Centre, under the project categories ‘Language Arts’. It can also be accessed directly at: http://foro.iearn.org/.1e679a43/

iEARN username and and password is required to access this forum. If you are not registered as an iEARN member this is time you should do so at http://www.iearnpk.org/register.htm

Direct all querries about this project and to iearnpak@iearnpk.org

 

Writing Guidelines for students

Make sure that you understand the assignment before you plan and write your paragraph. Then follow the steps listed below.

Prewriting ………………choosing the topic

• Select a specific topic that meets the requirements of the assignment. (Your teacher may give you a general subject area to choose a topic from.)

Gathering Details

• Collect ideas and details about your topic.
• Write a topic sentence that states what your paragraph is going to be about.
• List ideas and details that support the topic sentence. Decide on the best way to arrange these details.

Writing…................writing the first draft

• Start you paragraph with the topic sentence. (Indent first line)
• Follow with sentences that support your topic. Use your list of details as a guide.
• End with a sentence that reminds readers about your topic.

Revising ……………improving your writing

• Add information if you need to say more about your topic.
• Rewrite any sentences that sound confusing or awkward.

Editing………………….checking for style and correctness

• Check the revised version of your writing for style as well as capitalization, punctuation, and spelling errors. Also have some one else check for errors.
• Than write a neat final copy of your paragraph to share.

Happy Trails……………………

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