Simple Ways You Can Be a Literacy Education Advocate

Take action during Literacy Education Advocacy Month, whether you have a few minutes, a few hours, or more. Each day this April, you can check the Literacy Education Advocacy Calendar for one advocacy activity. Get started now with the activities listed below.

Have only an hour or two?

1. Visit your state or federal legislator and tell them what they can do to improve your classroom and school. NCTE has some tips to help you.
   
   
2. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper that explains how the public can help improve education at your school.
   
   
3. Read the 2009 Legislative Platform and write a blog entry about how you connected with one specific aspect.
   
   
4. Search for new perspectives on advocacy by browsing YALSA's 28 Days of Advocacy. Find something there and adapt it to literacy education advocacy.
   
   
5. Share this blog entry with colleagues, and encourage them to take action too.

Want to involve students?

1. Review the responses in the Students Speak Up to President Obama, and then encourage students to send their own comments to the President (or another federal, state, or local official). Students can also use the form on the Speak Up site.
   
   
2. Inspire your own class (or school) survey with the details reported in the Speak Up 2007 National Findings, a survey of students, families, and teachers on educational issues. Students can use local survey results as support for their advocacy efforts.
   
   
3. Read YALSA's How to Get Teens Involved and find something you can adapt for literacy education advocacy at your school.
   
   
4. Engage students and families in support of school library literacy efforts with resources from the Kids! @ your library® Campaign Tool Kit.
   
5. Have students write letters to the editor about educational issues that affect them. ReadWriteThink has a lesson plan you can use to structure the activity.

Have more time you can commit?
Make plans to attend NCTE’s “Education Policy and English Language Arts Day” on April 23 on Capitol Hill. You can learn more about how educational policy decisions are shaped, talk to NCTE leaders about advocacy efforts, and learn how to schedule meetings with Congressional representatives and staff.