This 16-credit certificate program is designed to provide Pre-K–12 teachers a pathway to continuing professional education specifically related to deepening their knowledge of children’s, adolescent, and young adult literature and its use as a fundamental component of classroom instruction. The program is designed to guide teachers’ development in the following types of expertise:
Knowledge of, and ability to evaluate, the quality of children’s and YA literature (new and classic).
Knowledge of multimedia/multimodal forms of literature.
Knowledge of, and ability to use, traditional and new (e.g., social media) resources to discover and stay up-to-date with the ever-growing corpus of children’s and YA literature.
Knowledge of, and ability to use, research-based strategies for guiding students’ comprehension and response to high-quality literature, with particular emphasis on using authentic, complex, and interesting texts to support students’ achievement of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
Knowledge of theory and research related to effective use of high-quality literature in and out of school.
Awareness of productive strategies and approaches for bringing issues of diversity into focus using children’s and YA literature.
Threaded throughout the course of study is a commitment to supporting the development of highly effective teaching by emphasizing theory-to-practice pedagogy and active and engaged learning experiences.
Program Requirements
(16 credits)
SED LS 627 Introduction to Critical Analysis of Children’s and Young Adult Literature
SED LS 628 Exploring Picture Books for All Readers
SED LS 629 Looking at Adolescent and Young Adult (YA) Literature through Multiple Lenses: Literature, Schooling, and Society
SED LS 670 Knowing and Using Multicultural Literature in Pre-K–12 Classrooms