br>Research shows that civic knowledge and skills are inadequately addressed in K-12 education. With the heavy focus of "college and career” readiness, we are in danger of leaving out learning experiences vital to producing engaged, informed, and reflective citizens. Teachers can reclaim "space” in the standards-based curriculum for civics education by using literature to have students indirectly engage with important issues. This workshop will help K-12 teachers think about how to use narrative texts as sources of critical inquiry - the process of gathering and evaluating information, ideas, and assumptions from multiple perspectives to produce well-reasoned analysis and understanding, and leading to new ideas, applications and questions. We will use the words of former president Barack Obama to guide our own inquiry: "When I think about how I understand my role as citizen-setting aside being president-and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of 'citizen,' the most important stuff I've learned I think I've learned from novels.”

This training is co-sponsored by Rockland Reading Council, St. Thomas Aquinas College and Rockland Teachers' Center. Dr. Francesca Ciololi is a Assistant Professor in the School of Education, STAC.