Empowered Learners, Engaged Classrooms: Student-Centered Literacy Design for Grades 6–12 ELA, Social Studies & Humanities

November 2025– May 2026

Instructor: Erin Tinti, Ed.D

Who Should Attend? Secondary ELA, social studies and/or humanities teachers, Instructional Coaches, Secondary Literacy Coordinators, teacher leaders, anyone interested!

AT A GLANCE

This course is designed for secondary teachers (grades 6–12) in English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Humanities classrooms.

These disciplines are often the primary spaces where students engage in literacy learning, making their teachers essential literacy leaders within the school. As such, you play a vital role in helping students learn to read critically, think globally, distinguish fact from misinformation, communicate effectively in writing and speech, collaborate with peers, and develop other foundational skills for academic and civic life.

Balancing these high-stakes goals with the challenge of creating student-centered, student-led learning environments can feel overwhelming. This course is designed to support you in that work.

Together, we will explore research-based instructional practices and classroom design strategies that prioritize student voice, engagement, and agency while intentionally building critical reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. By the end of the course, you will leave with practical approaches and tools to foster literacy-rich, student-driven classrooms that prepare learners to thrive both inside and beyond school.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

✅ Identify the role of ELA, Social Studies, and Humanities teachers as literacy leaders within secondary schools.

✅ Analyze research-based strategies that promote critical reading, writing, speaking, and listening in content-area classrooms.

✅ Design classroom practices and structures that prioritize student-centered and student-led learning.

✅ Apply strategies for fostering critical thinking, collaboration, and media literacy in classroom instruction.

✅ Develop a personal action plan for implementing literacy-rich, student-driven practices in their own classrooms.

DATES: November 6, 2025, January 29th, 2026, February 12th, 2026, March 19th, 2026, May 21st, 2026

Times: 9:00-3:30

Location: CVEDC Classroom

Cost: $1,350 no graduate credit  $1,750 includes graduate credit

Erin Tinti is the Executive Director at CVEDC. Prior to working at CVEDC, Erin taught high school ELA for over 14 years and more recently working with classroom teachers on curriculum and teaching practices as a curriculum coordinator. She also teaches an ELA methods course for pre service teachers at UVM. Her excitement for supporting teachers as they further their professional and personal self-efficacy views and designing professional learning for student-centered learning is what led her to design this course.