Language & Literacy

Students

Internships and Professional Opportunities

Language and Practicum Courses

Many students find that field-based experience is invaluable in translating their course work into usable knowledge within the classroom. The Language and Literacy program offers two practicum courses, H801: Literacy Assessment and Intervention Practicum (4 credits), where students tutor within a local public school twice a week, and H830: Developing Reading Ability in Adults and Older Adolescents (4 credits), where participants tutor an adult literacy student twice a week under the supervision of instructors.

Field Experience Program (FEP)

Though many of our prospective applicants have had classroom experience and plan to return to the classroom after graduation, we recognize that others may wish to develop skills in other related-professional settings. Students interested in field experience outside of the classroom are encouraged to take part in the Field Experience Program (FEP). FEP's allow students to design their own course work and explore interests within and/or outside their program concentrations. Each intern chooses a site and a field supervisor, and is matched with an FEP Teaching Fellow (TF) and a HGSE Faculty Supervisor. FEP internships provide students a chance to develop professional skills, shape research questions, explore careers, and establish new professional contacts, while earning course credit. For more information on the FEP program, visit the Field Experience Program website. Follow up questions can be directed to the FEP program coordinator, Julie Bourquin. She can be reached by e-mail at fep@gse.harvard.eduor by telephone at (617) 496-4816.

Field Experience Program: A Student's View

This semester I have been interning at Walden Media, a film company that produces family films mainly based on popular children's literature. One of which is the upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Most of the company's film production is based out of Los Angeles, while the educational and professional development resources for the films are created in Boston.

Interning at Walden has been a great experience for me because of my love for children's literature and movies. My intern supervisor is a former third grade teacher who received his master's degree in Reading Education and his doctoral degree in Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning Environments, both from Harvard's Graduate School of Education. He has been a great source for advice on many things, including navigating Harvard. My background as an elementary school teacher has been extremely useful in my internship duties. Some of my duties have included: researching relevant websites and books for educators and students to use with Walden's films, researching and writing up information to include in the student activities, writing up procedures for the activities, and determining the national educational standards the activities meet. I know many Language and Literacy students plan on returning to the classroom, but for those who are uncertain of their next career move, the Field Experience Program is a great opportunity to explore career options. --Kathryn, Ed.M. '06

A Sampling of FEP Postings

Though FEP placements change from year to year, these past FEP postings illustrate the substantive work interns do at their sites. Reflected by participating organizations, and their expectations of interns, adding a FEP to your course of study can offer a rich academic experience, while enabling you to gain access to professional areas of interest. Further if you can't find quite the right fit within the FEP partner organizations, you are encouraged to tailor your own internship to fulfill specific academic and professional goals.

Boston Learning Center
Working with the Executive Director to launch a research study to measure the impact of The Biff Paradigm Project. Collecting, analyzing data at schools; participate in writing the final research report.

Boston Partners in Education
Assist Area Managers in communicating with schools about programming, managing program sites and volunteers, site visits, production of training and tutoring materials, and outreach to schools and volunteers.

Boston Plan for Excellence
Develop a National Center for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation action plan for the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR).

Boston Public Schools, Curriculum and Instruction
Tracking and coordination of coaches' reflections and progress reports based on their Collaborative Coaching and Learning (CCL) school-based cycles; a large component of the work will involve database management and project development.

Boston Theatre Works
Developing Curricular Materials for our upcoming production of Othello, background research for upcoming productions, school outreach, participating in developing long term programming.

Center for Child and Adolescent Development (CCAD)
Developing a resource guide for parents of children with (a particular syndrome or condition); assisting on a research project looking into the causes and treatment of autism, childhood schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other research (with publication potential) on a variety of topics relevant to our work.

Harvard Family Research Project
Help identify and review children's storybooks for ages 4-8 with family involvement content, as well as identify and help develop new supporting resources and training tools for using the storybooks with parents, teachers, and program personnel, with a focus on materials for Latino populations. Several of these products will be developed for web publication.

Strategies for Children/Early Education for All Campaign
Research issues that relate to early childhood education and care, early childhood workforce development and full-day kindergarten.

Research Opportunities

If you want to be involved in research while at HGSE, Larsen 3rd floor is both home to the Language and Literacy program as well as a hub for language and literacy research at the Ed School. On any given day, doctoral and master's students are analyzing data, picking up assessment instruments to go into schools, or transcribing tapes for various faculty research. Though there are formal postings that are advertised each year depending on need, students should also think about idenitfying faculty with similar research interests and meeting with them to discuss possible openings. For current job postings and research opportunities pertaining to work in language and literacy visit the Jeanne Chall Reading Lab website.