Curriculum
Content Area: Language Arts

Language Arts Course Sequence | Language Arts K-8 Scope and Sequence | Lanuage Arts High School Scope and Sequence

Language Arts Goals
Teachers of language arts will. . .

• Help students become active, critical readers of a variety of genres (i.e., newspapers, magazines, fiction, non-fiction, etc.) 
• Empower students through their use of oral communication skills (i.e., conflict resolution, public speaking, and working collaboratively)
• Empower students through their use of written communication skills in creative and formal writing
• Help students to become attentive, critical listeners

What Parents Can Do to Help
What parents do at home is critical in helping to develop their children's effective reading and writing practices.

• Provide a print-rich home with newspapers, magazines, books, etc. that are available for children to read.
• Model reading and writing.  Children will imitate what they see you do and will interpret what you do as being important in daily life.
• Make bedtime reading a daily ritual.
• Focus first on what the child wrote when papers are written for school.  Take an interest in the paper's meaning with the grade or red marks of secondary importance.
• Encourage children to write at home for real purposes (i.e. lists, letters, invitations, ritualized notes, etc.)
• Give children holiday or birthday gifts related to reading and writing (i.e. desk lamp, diary/journal, books, publishing software, dictionary, etc.)
• Impress upon children the importance of reading and writing in your job.

Best Instructional Practices to Which We Are Committed

Reading

• Teacher reads aloud to students daily
• Student selection of reading materials
• Use of wide range of literature as opposed to reliance on basal textbook
• Teach reading as a process: prior knowledge, prediction, constructing meaning, application
• Social, collaborative activities with discussion and interaction
• Grouping by interest or book choices
• Teach skills in context of whole and meaningful literature
• Use of reading in content areas Measure success by attitudes, comprehension, and habits
• Evaluation focuses on holistic higher order thinking processes
• Write before and after reading
• Silent reading is followed by discussion

Writing

• Use of writing process
• Grammar/mechanics taught in context
• Write for real audiences and publish work for class and wider communities
• Provide setting for shared learning through collaborative groups and peer critiquing
• Focus on polished work, a few errors, growth, and self-evaluation
• Writing across the curriculum
• Teacher models writing as fellow author and demonstration of process
• Students choose own topics and goals
• Teacher conferences with individual students

Team Members