School-Wide Literacy and Service-Learning Through the Millennium Development Goals

This paper explores the ways one school continues to enhance both literacy and service-learning through the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Over the course of their middle-school years, young adolescents at Canterbury School visit a range of sites in the community. They also explore service-learning at home and around the world by linking service-learning explicitly to academic tasks. An experiential learning unit in seventh grade allows students to understand global issues and challenges from participants’ perspectives. They then bring these perspectives to bear in service-learning and in writing assignments in the eighth-grade year.