Opening Doors with Literacy: Johnna’s Journey

One of the things I most believe in is that literacy opens doors to opportunities and fulfillment in life in ways that few other skills can. It’s true that good reading, writing and speaking are marketable skills highly desired by employers. Beyond this, however, they are paths to a more meaningful life that opens doors into a world so much wider than is possible to experience without them. At a time when so many are apt to believe social media falsities without the ability or skill to think critically, literacy is also an immeasurable asset for citizens of democracies. It was this conviction that drove me to pursue a Master’s Degree in Education with a focus in Literacy from Furman University, where I graduated in 2024.

I am currently in my eighteenth year of teaching, the last five of which have been as a Social Studies teacher at Riverside Middle School, where I teach eighth graders. Earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to teach Language Arts to elementary students while working at a private school. I became passionate about engaging students in meaningful reading and writing and helping them find books that they loved. I wasn’t a trained Language Arts teacher, but I worked hard to learn what I could on my own about best practices in reading and writing instruction. Over time, my classroom became based on a workshop model with a heavy dose of read alouds and mini-lessons in reading and writing. Still, I felt that I owed it to my students to do better, particularly to my students who had more significant struggles. What did best practices say about helping them develop when they were significantly behind their peers?

I decided it was time to learn more, and that is when I enrolled in the Master’s in Literacy program at Furman. I had taken classes at Furman previously toward an initial teaching certificate. I was already aware that the professors who would guide and mentor me were leaders in their fields and also that they would provide me with a great deal of personal attention. What I experienced in the M.A. program matched and perhaps even exceeded my expectations. Just as teaching literacy skills to students opens doors for them, our professors, discussions, assignments and practicum experiences opened new doors for us as educators. I discovered that there is so much more to literacy than I had imagined. One of the most valuable experiences was a practicum where we had to collect baseline reading and writing data about a student, evaluate the data, create a tutoring plan to help the student improve, provide tutoring for several weeks, and then reevaluate the student’s skills. We literally put everything in place that we had learned throughout the program and had a hands-on experience at implementing the targeted interventions we had created. For me, it was a great opportunity to learn that I could now – with my improved knowledge and skills – assist a struggling reader.

In my current role as a middle school social studies teacher, I use the skills and knowledge I gained through Furman’s Literacy program everyday. Whether it’s selecting a text, scaffolding a text so that it is accessible to all students, or providing a clear purpose for reading and writing, I am so much better able to help my students develop key literacy skills. Furman’s Literacy program opened doors for me, and in turn, I can open many more for my students.

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Johnna Malici is a Humanities Exploratory Teacher at Riverside Middle School in Greenville County.