Commissioner

Amy Wilson, Executive Director of Mid-State Literacy Council

Recommended Course(s)

English 15, 30, 202A, 202B

Assignment

The work of this non-profit organization changes each year, given the needs of the community and the grants supporting Mid-State’s work. Three assignment options are currently available:

  1. Construct a series of blog posts to be included on Mid-State’s “Literacy in Action” blog that contextualizes the work within and the sociocultural environment surrounding the work of Mid-State. Blog posts usually consist of around 500 words and must include at least one visual element. The style of these blog posts may range from reflective to informative to argumentative, but all topics must first be approved by Mid-State.
  2. Research and construct program curriculum for a computer literacy program for adult learners to meet the needs of those primary caregivers raising their grandchildren in the wake of the opioid crisis.
  3. Begin quantitative and qualitative research to determine the literacy needs of the surrounding community.

Composition courses that discuss literacy as important to the social integration of individuals into communities and that further emphasize the skills needed to engage in civic discourse and deliberation would be especially equipped to pursue this commissioned assignment.

Background

Created in 1971, the Mid-State Literacy Council is a non-profit organization that brings literacy—broadly defined as the knowledge and competence needed to converse and write in a certain language or discourse community—to adults in the Centre and Clearfield counties. Programs benefit a wide range of individuals in the surrounding communities, from those who grew up locally but developed only rudimentary reading skills to those who have immigrated to the U.S. and for whom English is a Second Language.

The statistics surrounding the work of the Mid-State Literacy Council are staggering: 72% of children are at risk for developing low reading skills because their parents are illiterate; 11% of Centre Country’s population is functionally illiterate; in Clearfield County, the percentage of those who are functionally illiterate rises to 14%. Yet, because Mid-State relies so heavily on volunteers, distributing information about who they are, what they do, and whom they reach is often a difficult task.