Empowering readers at St. James' Junior High School, Port aux Basques

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to explain and analyze critically a project that began four years ago that initially had as its objective the betterment of a very small group of educable mentally handicapped and learning disabled students. -- The intent was to eliminate self-contained classrooms for these students and place them in a resource room environment with more integration with other students in order to maximize their learning potential. -- As the project unfolded, not only were structural changes made, but a curriculum was devised and implemented for these students. These changes paved the way for the two special needs teachers to become remedial teachers for a number of slow learners and a resource for the whole school. -- The project has been a learning experience for all involved. The procedures followed, processes involved, strategies and materials used, may be beneficial to teachers in other schools in the province. Were this researcher to replicate this kind of reportage, he would include samples of pupils' writing out of respect for the continuing concern for the whole language (methodology) currently in vogue in this province. -- Describing a "process" has its difficulties, however in its faithfulness to an interpretive whole that constructs reality in a way that neither raw data nor abstractions can provide, this description becomes a model. This model, although it is fashioned from multiple viewpoints, enabled the emergence of a curriculum from the totality of a collective experience. The disadvantage of a description is that it places considerable demands upon a reader.