Language Arts Education

Paper Summary:

This paper owes to different formal and individual explorations of language arts approaches and methods including work towards a language arts portfolio, an exercise helping to recognize the vast range of materials available to Canadian teachers, at large, in relation to their adopted philosophies of teaching. The writer maintains that a guiding study that has promoted much thought on the overall goals of language arts instruction has been Think Literacy Success, a Government of Ontario report on approaches to promoting literacy at the Grades 7 to 12 levels which emphasizes gaps in abilities and opportunities, student groups especially at risk, and the overall role of language arts in seeing that students are prepared to communicate well in society. The writer notes that it seems important to think through the environment in which one will teach with central Canada offering unique challenges of diversity less pronounced in regions beyond the main cities. In the same spirit, The writer discusses that teachers serving isolated impoverished or otherwise limited communities of less heterogeneity need to find approaches to an overall ideal of instilling interest and skill.

Outline:
Introduction
Portfolio Tasks
Reflection on Professional Development
Mechanics of Portfolio and Teaching Development
Bottom Up Model of Reading
Professional Development Goals
Future Activities
Concluding Remarks

From the Paper:

"Various course and seminar offerings now exist that are geared to language arts teachers. In addition, there is an ever-growing literature of research on the subjects of literacy, factors impeding literacy and language development, curriculum design and teaching pedagogy. However, one needs to aim to for practical experience which should be diverse. For example, attending classes for second language learners in a Board of Education setting is different from tutoring adult learners in basic literacy having been involved in the criminal justice system. When watching very experienced language arts teachers at work one sees the results of perhaps many years given to students of different kinds, in perhaps several school systems, and more than one country. Teachers can appreciate to varying degrees what colleagues educated elsewhere can impart, especially those having served abroad and perhaps in educational systems requiring English-medium instruction for students of diverse first languages. Education does seem a profession in which the teacher is forever meeting individuals from whom learning is possible. The same can be said of students, and what is suddenly discovered in some in terms of a hidden ability, another language spoken, or the ability to illustrate written work."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Chard, S.C. (1998). The Project Approach - Making a Curriculum Come Alive. New York: Scholastic.
• Dillon, D.R. (1989). Showing Them That I Want Them to Learn and That I Care about Who They Are - a micro-ethnography of the social organization of a secondary low-track English classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 26, 227-259.
• Goodson, F.T. (1994). Reading and Writing across Cultures - Textual Form and Social Action in the High School. Journal of Reading, 38, 6-12.
• Government of Ontario. (2003). Think Literacy Success - The Report of the Expert Panel on Students at Risk in Ontario. Toronto. October.
• Katz, L.G. and S.C. Chard. (2000). Engaging Children's Minds - the Project Approach. 2nd edition. Stanford: Ablex Publishing.

More papers on Language Arts Education:

• Analytical Essay # 130672 : "Language Arts Education for Grades 7-12"
• Dissertation or Thesis # 92385 : "Technology and Language Arts"
• Persuasive Essay # 5910 : "The Effects of Art Education in Public Schools"

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