TE 847 Advanced Methods of Language Arts

FALL 1997

 Course Overview

"Language Arts" is what the language arts are - speaking, listening, reading, and writing . . . Just as an organic gardener grows different plants mixed together so they feed and protect each other, the language teacher needs to interweave all the language arts so that each will stimulate, follow up and develop each other. Creative dramatics is one of the best ways to deepen and check reading comprehension. Creative writing teaches literature. Discussing and improvising teach how to take things and how to put things - the real basics of reading and writing (Moffett & Wagner, 1992).

 

In this course we will consider how it is, as Moffett and Wagner suggest, that a language teacher can "interweave all the language arts so that each will stimulate, follow up and develop each other." We will explore ways to integrate instructional experiences in speaking, listening, reading and writing, as well as ways to highlight specific experiences in each of the four areas. We will explore ways to draw on current research and knowledge in the field of language arts, as well as the experience of practicing teachers, in order to create meaningful and engaging learning experiences for students as they develop as speakers, listeners, readers, and writers - as users of language.

The course will include a variety of in-class formats to provoke thinking, analysis and discussion of the issues we will encounter in the readings and course activities. The in-class activities will include small and large group discussion, small and large group simulated language arts activities, lecture, and student presentations. Students will be expected to have read and thought critically about the assigned readings as preparation for leadership and participation in both the small and whole-class discussions. Additionally it will be critical for students to attend to the assignments in a timely manner because the assignments have been designed both to illustrate the concepts and ideas being read and discussed, and to raise questions about the ideas therein.

Required Texts:

Routman, R. (1995). Invitations: Changing as teachers and Learners K-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

NCTE & IRA (1996). Standards for the English Language Arts. Unites States: International Reading Association & National Council of Teachers of English.

In addition to these texts, a small selection of required readings will be available at Paper Image in the College Plaza on Hagadorn.

Course Assignments

Response to Course Readings

During this course, you will need to select four sets of readings for which you will prepare a written response. Each response should include a brief summary of the major points or "big ideas" introduced in the selection, and why the author thinks these ideas are important ones for us to consider. Additionally, each response should include a critique of these ideas. In this critique you might choose to draw connections or contrasts between and among readings. You might look for themes common across the course readings and activities as well as points of conflict or controversy. Your critique should address what these readings help you think about related to the English language arts, what questions they raise for you, and what they leave out that is problematic. Be sure to make specific, thoughtful references to the course readings to support any claim that you make. These responses will also provide an opportunity for individual written interaction with the course instructor.

Each written response should be 3-4 typed, double spaced pages. These responses will be due on the following dates: September 18, October 16, November 13, and December 4. Each response will be evaluated on a five point scale, with five points reserved for those responses that most carefully and thoughtfully address the criteria listed above. These responses will contribute 20 points to your final grade.

Storytelling

As we consider speaking and listening most specifically, you will tell a story to a small group of your peers, and discuss the challenges and potential that are involved in teachers and students telling stories in classrooms. An important part of our learning from and about this activity will be our self-conscious attention to the preparation process as well as the actual event of telling the story as we explore the teaching potential of storytelling.

We will spend a good deal of time reading about storytelling, specifically in the Singer piece, and more generally about the place of oral language in a language arts curriculum - its connections to the reading, writing and listening - in the Moffett and Wagner chapters. As the instructor, I will begin by telling you a story and giving you an opportunity to ask me about my preparation process. Then, each of you will have an opportunity to tell your story and get feedback from the group on the story and on the telling. On Thursday, October 2, you will have an opportunity to tell a story to a small group of your colleagues. We’ll count on each person having about 20 minutes to tell the story and talk with the group about it.

After the actual storytelling, you will also spend time writing about this experience to both capture the process and examine what we can learn from this. In this writing, I will ask you to address the following questions:

1. How did you select and prepare to tell this story? (Describe the process)

 2. What was easy, hard, surprising about this process?

 3. What happened in the actual telling of the story? (What did it feel like; did you elaborate or condense the story - and how did you do this; what role did the audience play in the telling)

 4. What "big" or important ideas do you take away from this experience of preparing and telling the story (as you’ve just written about in response to the first three questions), and want to make use of in your work with your students’ and storytelling?

 5. What might this story and your telling of it specifically afford you an opportunity to teach your students?

 6. What do you see as the educative potential for using storytelling with your students?

 

In this in-class written reflection, I will look for evidence of the following:

• attention to each of the specific questions posed above
• connections between this experience and your own learning as a user of language and as a teacher
• connections between this experience and your work with students

This written reflection on the storytelling experience will contribute 15 points to your final grade.

Crib Sheets

As we consider how to encourage children's "talk about text" we will be talking about how we as teachers need to spend time thinking and talking about those same texts. We need to make opportunities for ourselves (and our students) to "play around" with the books to see what's there. Often we find ourselves approaching books by saying, "What questions can I ask my kids about this book?" or "What activities can we do with this book?" And yes - these are important questions and ones we do need to spend time and energy thinking about. However, I think that if we spend time with the book before we jump to these instrumental tasks, we will make some exciting discoveries we might never have imagined. I think it's these discoveries that have the potential to help us engage our students with texts in exciting, authentic ways - to potentially ask better questions and make better choices about the kinds of activities, or to borrow from Frank Smith, better "enterprises."

As a way to record your own ideas as resources for your teaching, you will prepare a "crib sheet" for a text of your choice in which you consider what's worth taking about in this text and how you might help students explore these ideas - and discover new ones. The following are some specifics to consider as you create your crib sheet:

• You will probably want to do your crib sheet for a book/chapter/short story that you plan on using with your students.
• Your crib sheet should include concrete examples from your text that illustrate how you have spent time "mucking around in it." That means that there is evidence that you have done the following:

• paid attention to interesting details in pictures and words
• looked for patterns
• noticed repetitions and variations
• moved backwards and forwards in rereading, rechecking ideas (looking and wondering across the text)
• wondered what details, patterns, repetitions and variations mean
• asked interpretive questions

• I will compile the final typed crib sheets and distribute these to the whole class as a teaching resource.

We will spend class time some class time creating a crib sheet together, looking at examples of crib sheets, and sharing the ones you create independently. The crib sheet is due on Thursday, November 6, and will contribute 15 points to your final grade.

Analyzing Your Language Arts Program and Planning for the Future

Each of you either has a language arts program in place in your classroom, or has ideas about what that program would look like if you had the opportunity to teach language arts. Throughout this course, you will have the chance to think carefully about that program as you consider what seems strong about it, what seems weak, what needs to be expanded, what needs to be eliminated, what needs to be added, and what needs to stay exactly as it is. You will use our course readings, discussions, and activities to help you analyze your current program, and to plan for some changes in the future.

Thinking, Talking, Reading, and Capturing Ideas in Writing

1. At the beginning of the course, you will spend time describing your current language arts program, or what you imagine that program would be like, in which you address the following questions:

• How do I define the "language arts"?
• How are the language arts reflected in the physical composition of my classroom? (How is space used? What could a visitor point to as an example of language arts instruction in my classroom?)
• How are the language arts reflected in the daily schedule of my classroom?
• What am I as the teacher doing during language arts instruction?
• What are my students doing during language arts instruction?
• What counts as progress/learning for my students?
• How do I assess/evaluate my students' progress in language arts?

You will need to bring notes or a narrative of your description to talk from during our class session on Thursday, September 11. You will be meeting in small groups to talk about what you are currently doing and to hear what your colleagues are doing as well.

2. As you work on your description, you will probably find yourself beginning to raise questions about what you are doing as you consider what you like about your program as well as what seems troublesome to you. As you encounter different readings in the course, you will be thinking about them in relation to your program and asking yourself how these issues and ideas apply to your teaching and the learning of your students. In short, you will be analyzing your program to think about its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, you will need to consider the following questions:

• What are my underlying beliefs and assumptions about the teaching and learning of language arts?
• What are my goals for language arts instruction in my classroom? (What do I want my students to know, learn, be able to do as a result of my language arts instruction?)
• What am I currently doing that I think is consistent with these goals and beliefs and is educative for my students? Why? (What are the strengths of my program?)
• What am I currently doing that I think is inconsistent with goals and beliefs? Why? (What are the weaknesses of my program?)
• Are there things missing from my program that I think need to be added? Why?

Our class readings, discussions, and activities are intended to provide theoretical perspectives, pivotal issues and practical ideas to consider as you engage in this analysis. You will need to bring notes or a narrative of your analysis to talk from during our class session on Thursday, October 30. You will again be meeting in small groups to share your analysis with your colleagues and to have them think with you about that analysis.

3. All of this writing and talking will lead you to the next logical question: "So now what do I do?" The minute you start thinking about what to do next, you begin to draft your plan for making changes. But as we will read repeatedly in Routman, teachers cannot change everything at once -- it's just not reasonable. As you look over the general changes you want to make in your language arts program, you will need to focus on one or two areas that seem most pressing to change. These are the areas that will be the focus of your final paper and presentation. You will need to bring a draft of your plan to share with a small group of colleagues during our class session on Thursday, November 20.

Writing About Your Plan

After considering lots of "big ideas," important issues, puzzling dilemmas, interesting methods, and exciting possibilities, it will be time for you to pull your thinking together - and your final paper and presentation are opportunities for you to do just that as you think concretely about ways to improve your teaching. It is an opportunity for you to articulate what you have learned and how you will use that learning in your own teaching. Your paper should include the following:

• a brief and concise description of your particular teaching context
• a description of the changes you are, why you want to make these changes, and why and how these changes seem reasonable
• a clear description of the ways in which you will go about implementing your planned changes and why this plan seems reasonable

As you address these different areas, I will be looking for evidence of your thinking and learning in the ways in which you present and discuss the following:

• a clear rationale for these changes that you are proposing (which will include why you are unhappy with your current practices)
• a thoughtful grounding of this rationale in the texts that we've been reading and talking about, the activities we have been doing, and the conversations we have been having
• a clear connection between these changes and your underlying beliefs and assumptions about learning and instruction in the English language arts
• a clear connection between the changes you are proposing and the learning of your students
• a discussion of how the changes you are proposing represent and take advantage of the interconnectedness of the English language arts to support your students as users of language

I will expect that all papers will be in final draft form which means that they have been checked for grammar, spelling etc. This final, 6-8 page paper will be due on Thursday, December 11, and will contribute 30 points to your final grade.

Presenting Your Language Arts Plan

In addition to preparing your final paper, you will present your current thinking (as of December 11!!) about your language arts program to the class during our final class meeting. This event will not only allow you to share your good ideas with your colleagues, but it will also be an opportunity for you to learn from the ideas and plans of your colleagues as well. The following are some guidelines to consider as you prepare for this presentation:

• Your presentation should include an oral summary and a visual representation (i.e. poster) that summarizes your current thinking about your language arts plan by briefly addressing these questions: What change(s) are you planning on making in your program next year? Why? How do you plan on making these changes?
• As we get closer to the end of the semester, we will think together about how to organize the presentations given the time that we have. Regardless of the organization we decide upon, you can plan on spending part of your time speaking about your proposed changes, and in the remaining time, you will be answering questions and getting feedback from your colleagues.
• You will also need to prepare a one page handout summarizing your project and giving your name and address so that interested persons can contact you for further information.
• Please bring enough copies of your hand-out so that each person can take a copy with them. These summaries should serve as wonderful resources for everyone as well as provide an avenue for further communication.

Your oral presentation, which includes your visual representation of your proposed changes and your explanatory handout, will contribute 10 points to your final grade.

Preparation and Participation

An important aspect of any classroom learning community is the active engagement of students and teachers around worthwhile content. Your contributions to class discussions and activities are essential to your learning as well as to the health and learning of our own classroom community. It is your responsibility to be prepared to be an active participant in class sessions by having completed the assigned readings and related written assignments prior to class. Additionally you will be expected to be an active class participant by raising relevant questions, making contributions that promote discussion, being sensitive to eliciting the ideas of others in the class, and actively engaging in small group work.

In groups of 2 you will take responsibility for leading one class discussion on the readings that highlight one aspect of the English language arts. Each pair will have about 75 minutes to stimulate and lead a conversation about these readings that involves all class members. An important aspect of this conversation should be the close and critical reading of the text in which participants are asked to refer to specific passages from a text as they raise questions or offer interpretations. Response to the readings should concern what they have to say about the teaching and learning of the English language arts, what issues or concepts they raise that may be similar or different from what other people in the field have said or have learned from experience, what questions the readings bring to mind, or what "wonderful ideas" (to borrow from Eleanor Duckworth) they provoke.

To prepare yourself for this conversation it will be important that you are well-versed in the content of the readings and are able to articulate your own interpretations and questions about the texts. You will need to spend some time planning for the discussions. For example, you will want to think about how to get the group started -- possibly by offering some introductory summary, although there are a variety of other ways as well. In the time you are allotted, you may have the group engage in some writing, some small group task, or other activities as a way to stimulate response to the readings. However, be sure that there is ample time for whole-class discussion. I will be available for consultation at break and after class if you have questions as you prepare for leading your discussions.

Dates for Leading Class Discussion:

9/25

10/23

10/30

11/6

11/13

11/20

12/4

Your active participation in the ways described above will contribute 10 points to your grade.

Course Schedule

What is an Integrated Language Arts Program?: Beginning to Imagine the Possible

August 28

• Introductions

• Course Overview

September 4

• Standards for the English Language Arts, Chps. 1, 2, & 3

September 11

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Chps. 2, & 3; Cazden, "Whole Language as a Learning Environment," & "Whole Language Plus: Active Learners and Active Teachers" (Distributed in class)

• Bring to class description of your LA program to share in small groups

Speaking and Listening in an Integrated Language Arts Program

September 18

• Readings: Singer, "Telling Tales for Teaching"; Moffett, Ch. 4, "Talking and Listening"; Cazden, "Sharing Time" & "Peer Interactions: Cognitive Processes" (All readings in course packet)

• First written response to readings due

September 25

• Readings: Moffett & Wagner, Ch. 5, "Informal Classroom Drama" and Ch. 8, "Performing Texts"; "Learning at the Improv" (All readings in course packet)

October 2

• Storytelling!!!

• Writing about storytelling

Creating Spaces for All of Our Students in an Integrated Language Arts Program

October 9

• Guest Instructor: Cathy Reischl

• Readings to be distributed in class

October 16

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Ch. 14; Englert, et al., "Redefining Instructional Practices" (Reading in course packet)

• Second written response to readings due

Reading in an Integrated Language Arts Program

October 23

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Chps. 5 & 6; Gavelek & Raphael, "Changing Talk About Text: New Roles for Teachers and Students" (Reading in course packet)

• "Messing around" with the Wild Things

October 30

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Chps. 4 & 7; Evans, "Creating Spaces for equity? The Role of Positioning in Peer-Led Literature Discussions" (Reading in course packet)

• Bring to class analysis of your LA program to share in small groups

November 6

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Ch. 13; Revisit "Standards for the English Language Arts; MELAF; "Portfolio Assessment," and "Assessing Language Growth" (Readings in course packet)

• Crib Sheets due and in-class sharing of them

Writing in an Integrated Language Arts Program

November 13

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Ch. 8; Reinking, "Me and My Hypertext:) A Multiple Digression Analysis of Technology and Literacy (sic); Calkins, "Picture Books and the Magic of ‘Once Upon a Time’" (Readings in course packet)

• Third written response to readings due

November 20

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Chps. 9 & 10; "The ‘J’ (Reading in course packet)

• Bring draft of plan to share in small groups

November 27

• Thanksgiving - No Class

Revisiting Our Question: What is an integrated Language Arts Program?

December 4

• Readings: Routman, Invitations, Ch. 12; Fredericks et al., Ch. 14, "Teaching Thematically: Integration Language arts Across the Curriculum" (Reading in course packet)

• Fourth written response to readings due

December 11

• Poster Presentations!!!!!!!

• Final paper due