Building Academic Language

Catalog description

With the adoption of college and career standards, all students need support developing their understanding and use of language within an academic context. As students progress through school, subject matter becomes more complex and students must use language in more sophisticated ways to argue, to evaluate evidence, to analyze complex texts, to develop their own complex texts, and to engage academic discussions. This course is designed to equip K-12 teachers with the knowledge, skills, and strategies required to help their students grasp language principles and develop the academic language skills they need to reach their highest levels of academic achievement across all grade bands and content areas. Building Academic Language introduces teachers to the features and functions of academic language, strategies and activities for supporting the use of academic language, techniques for modeling academic language, and ideas for lesson planning and assessment that support academic language development.