Secondary English Language Arts Methods I

Catalog description

This course is the first of a three-part English Language Arts teaching methods series. ED 260 will introduce residents to content area standards, assessment, and teaching in English Language Arts. During this course, residents will analyze historical considerations of ELA instruction, tracing the trajectory of English instruction from the New Criticism through Reader Response theory to current-day K-12 Common Core curriculum and instruction. Residents will internalize and evaluate the Common Core State Standards in ELA and key shifts for the standards and will consider what instructional support they may provide for different student subgroups to meet standards. Residents will also consider historical and current methods for assessing students’ reading, writing, and speaking skills in the discipline. They will examine secondary reading and writing assessments (e.g. diagnostic reading inventories, AP writing exam prompts, portfolio and performance assessments, and student self-assessment) and explain key features of useful, valid, reliable, and rigorous assessment in English language arts. They will learn how to craft standards-linked success criteria such as scoring rubrics for assessments. They will also learn how to use technology and school systems to access important assessment information about their students useful for planning instruction. Finally, residents will reflect on the broader goals and purposes of teaching English to students. They will read complementary and opposing arguments about the nature of English teaching, and evaluate scholarly perspectives on English teaching. They will ultimately determine their own approach to being a secondary English teacher and will write a letter to their students synthesizing this approach.