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The need for curriculum development
Many women had expressed an interest in following up this
research project with some work on woman-positive curriculum development. Diane
Eastman (Brandon Friendship Centre) and Wanita Koczka (Pine Grove Correctional
Centre) went through the documentation, highlighting the different ways in
which women had worked with curriculum over the last year.
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Point one. Write it the way you
would say it.
This point brings up the issue of
different language for different purposes. We discussed how we talk to each
other, the words we use when we talk to each other, and how we alter the speech
pattern when speaking to different people. For example, we do not talk to a
doctor in the same way that we talk to our friends. We use different words even
when we are talking about the same thing to each of them.
In the same way, we have more than
one writing style. We would make sure everything is absolutely correct on a
letter to a potential employer. However, we would not care if a few commas were
missing in a letter to a friend. In the first case, a business letter is being
written and an impression is being made. In the second case, you are writing a
letter to someone who knows you and is not going to be making decisions about
you based on missing commas.
The brochure is being used by AMAC
as an introduction of themselves to people who might wish to access their
services. It should be inviting and warm should give information, but not
overwhelm the reader. It should be personal." words that the women chose to
rewrite the brochure reflect this.
While dealing with this step we
covered vocabulary, dictionary skills establish word meaning), context, use of
the thesaurus (synonyms), and spelling. We also talked about why a
conversational tone and the use of the word "you" would make the brochure more
personal and inviting to a potential client.
Point two. Use short words and
sentences.
This item led us into discussions
about what constitutes a short word and a short sentence. The group decided
that a short word should contain more than two syllables. They agreed that
there were some three syllable words that would not present a problem to a
beginning reader, but words with one or two syllables should be used whenever
possible. This decision reached only after the group found out about syllables
and how they join together to make words.
Fogg's Readability Scale was
introduced to the group. We discussed what was and why it was useful. The women
decided that they did not want to become expert at using the scale because they
couldn't see where it would be useful to them. They did say that knowing how
the scale works helped them to understand why some material is harder to
read. |
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At Pine Grove, for example La Vera Schiele talked about the
importance of acknowledging how women want to begin with their own reality
rather than something standardized in a text book. The instructor cannot
understand the reality, however, unless she has managed to negotiate a
relations of trust with her students. Once that is in place, curriculum develop
becomes much more possible. Both she and the students then have the opportunity
to learn as they share their experiences.
Diane Eastman (Brandon Friendship Centre) had included
curriculum guide in an appendix) the policy paper she wrote out of her
experience in the research. She showed how women in her group identified their
interest - re-write a pamphlet for a service agency works with adults molested
as children - and how she worked with that interest to cover topics such as
vocabulary, spelling, syllables, sentence structure, sequencing, and
summarizing.
Several women used their journals to keep track of their
curriculum development. Anne Moore (Action Read), Karen Bergman-Illnik (Arctic
College), Paula Davies and Mary Ann Tierney (College of New Caledonia), and
Nancy Steel (Keyano College) developed an almost week-by-week description of
how they worked with women in their very different programs. As mentioned
earlier, however, those journals never became public documentation. When they
talked about their discoveries later that day, they recommended that all of
that learning be recovered so we can share our wide variety of woman-positive
approaches.
This is a page from the appendix to Diane
Eastman's policy paper. Here she outlines how she developed curriculum out of
women decision to rewrite a brochure for a service agency.
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