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MichiganGenreProject

Michigan Genre Project

Introduction:

The Michigan Department of Education developed the English Language Arts Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCE, 2004) to help teachers and schools assess the literacy levels of their students. The K-8 expectations, for the first time, specifically identified genres to be taught, learned and assessed by the end of each grade. The Genre Project was developed as a Companion Document to the GLCE as a reference for teachers to use as they differentiate texts and instruction for students. It provides tools to help educators understand and teach Michigan’s reading and writing genres K-8. Kent Intermediate School District, Grand Rapids, Michigan, has taken this project one step further, by providing flip books that put the Companion Document in a handy and usable format, as well as giving educators a list of suggested texts and resources.

Best Practices in Michigan:

Recognizing the benefits of connecting reading and writing, the GLCE suggest comprehension and composing follow a recursive (moving backwards and forwards among the parts) pattern. This allows students to increasingly develop more sophisticated interpretations, analyses, insights and inferences for understanding and conveying meaning. Once students have learned to read, the curriculum expands to help students learn to use their minds well. Our educational goals, among others, should be to guide the processing of text at deep levels, to help students detect shades of meaning, and to come to credible judgments and conclusions. We want students to use their knowledge in new situations, to relate their thinking to other situations, and to connect textual messages with their own background knowledge.

The grade level sequence of genres in Michigan’s GLCE provides opportunities for developing deep understanding of narrative and informational works. These “cornerstone” understandings will help prepare students for the high school experience, postsecondary education, "Information age" careers, and their civic futures.

Table of Contents:

Access to the Documents:

Complete K-8 Genre Project
From the Michigan Department of Education

Complete K-8 Genre Booklist
From Kent Intermediate School District