Literacy and Holistic Development

William G. Huitt Valdosta State University

Zhang Ruiming Guangzhou University

Brilliant Star Framework

Brilliant Star Framework

• Core elements– Spirituality– Moral Character– Personal Style

Brilliant Star Framework

• Intrapersonal domains– Physical/psychomotor– Awareness/perceiving– Cognition/thinking – Affect/emotion – Conation/volition

Brilliant Star Framework

• Interpersonal domains– Family– Friends– Career– Finances– Sociocultural

Traditional Classroom Instruction

• Focuses mainly on cognitive domain– Reading/language arts– Mathematics– Social studies– Science

Traditional Classroom Instruction

• Academic and intellectual competencies account for only about 1/3 of variance when attempting to explain adult success

Brilliant Star Integrative Reading Project

• Use reading/language arts activities

• Develop social capital

Lesson Summary Development

• Book selection– http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/brilstar/

integrative/reading/index.html

• Lesson summaries developed

• Connected to other academic areas

• Uniqueness is simultaneously addressing academic and holistic objectives

Classroom Usage

• Materials easy to use

• Increased use of children’s literature

Developing Social Capital

• Audio or video recording while reading book

• Used in classroom during reading time

• Middle school service learning activity

Future Activities

• Develop school-wide project leadership team

• Select additional books and write more lesson summaries

• Record students reading their own books

• More systematic implementation

Summary and Conclusions

• Restrictions on classroom activities

• Linking reading/language arts to other content areas well established

• Extending to more holistic objectives