The first Academic Literacy Summit took place Feb. 6, 2008, at the Activities and Recreation Center at UC Davis. Nearly 200 local educators representing K-12 schools and districts, local community colleges, and local universities attended.

The day began with a keynote address titled “Closing Achievement and Opportunity Gaps in California: 12 Steps for Reform” given by Russlyn Ali, Vice President of "The Education Trust".

Participants then attended the first round of Breakout Sessions before lunch and the second round after. These sessions, taught by both researchers and K-12 practitioners, covered topics such as “Teaching the Language of Mathematics: Issues and Challenges” and “I Read the Words. Isn’t That Enough?”

Following the second round of breakouts, Mary Schleppegrell, University of Michigan, spoke on the topic of “Supporting Academic Literacy Development Across the Curriculum.”

The day concluded with the final keynote address given by Shirley Brice Heath, Brown University and Stanford University, titled “Academic Literacy: The Challenges from Oral Language” in which she shared findings from her latest research examining students’ discourse patterns related to their work in a Community Supported Agriculture Program.

Throughout the day, participants were able to dialogue with one another to share understanding and questions related to the topic of academic literacy. As one participant stated, “The big picture of academic literacy rang throughout the day.”

Additionally, participants completed an extensive questionnaire so that we could develop an understanding of local educators’ understanding of academic literacy and how those understandings were developed throughout the day. Since the Summit, the questionnaire data have been analyzed and some emerging themes have been found.

Captions for Above Photos:
Photo 1: Mary Sandy, Director of the Cooperative Research and Extension Services for Schools (CRESS) at UC Davis, welcomes participants to the Academic Literacy Summit. While doing so, she invited participants to raise their hands to show their affiliation with education. Most of the audience identified themselves as teachers.
Photo 2: Audience members listen attentively while Russlyn Ali delivers the first keynote address of the day, titled “Closing Achievement and Opportunity Gaps in California: 12 Steps for Reform.” In this presentation, Ali called for K-16 educators to keep instruction both relevant and rigorous and to ensure that course content provides appropriate and meaningful challenges for students.
Photo 3: Elementary teachers Laureen Ginn, Alicia Herrera, and Carol Stewart take a break to complete their “Reflections on Academic Literacy” questionnaires. All participants of the Academic Literacy Summit were asked to complete a questionnaire so that data could be gathered about how educators conceptualize academic literacy and apply these conceptualizations to their classroom. For more information about this research, see questionnaire analysis.