Language Arts 4-8
Course Outline

In literacy, eight grades 4-8 teachers from each of the three participating districts will study and implement ways to enhance students’ literacy development across the curriculum. Teachers will examine effective instructional practice for addressing five areas specified in the New Jersey core Curriculum Content Standards: speaking (CCS 3.1), listening (3.2), reading (3.4), writing (3.3) and visual literacy (3.5).

First, teachers will explore ways to foster students’ oral language development. Teachers will learn, implement and evaluate activities such as storytelling strategies, oral reading performances that focus on reading with fluency and expression (e.g. choral readings, Reader's Theatre performances), whole-class and small-group formats for critical discussions of texts students read and write (e.g. Discussion Webs, Fishbowl Panel discussions), and oral presentations of both teacher-selected topics using information synthesized from multiple sources, including printed text, multimedia, and interview data.

Second, teachers will consider ways of improving students' ability and motivation for critical listening. they will learn ways to incorporate fiction and nonfiction read-alouds across the curriculum and to identify strategies to improve strategic and critical listening abilities when dealing with fiction and nonfiction texts (e.g. Directed Listening-Thinking Activities).

Third, teachers will study ways to foster students' development as writers. They will learn to guide students through the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing). In addition, teachers will be encouraged to explore with students the social processes associated with writing, including collaborative writing projects, writing conferences and formats for sharing written products. Spelling instruction will be addressed through a developmental model of word knowledge that includes conceptual learning about spelling patterns and word derivations. Also, teachers will evaluate the purpose and use of portfolios as a tool for monitoring student progress in writing, and as a tool to reflect on their own development as writers.

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Fourth, teachers will develop ways of helping students become strategic and critical readers across a wide range of texts, both printed text and multimedia, across all content areas. Specifically, they will examine ways to share with student strategies good readers use to make sense of text (e.g., monitoring comprehension, making intertextual connection, identifying text structures), within a three-phase instructional format that includes teacher modeling, guided practice , and independent practice. In addition, teachers will explore the practice of developmentally-based word study, which focuses on phonemic awareness as developmentally appropriate, phonics, spelling, and vocabulary instruction, to assist students who have not yet developed good word identification strategies.

Fifth, teachers will study ways to develop students' visual literacy by incorporating multimedia tools (computers, video, magazines, newspapers) across the curriculum as a way for students to learn information and to demonstrate their learning in the form of finished products and presentations.

In Year One, the literacy program will consist of two in-service dimensions: (a) a series of one-day and after-school workshops for participating teachers, and (b) a series of in-school support days for participating teachers in each district. The workshop series will consist of two, one-day sessions at Rutgers University during the academic year, six after-school sessions (each district will host two sessions) for all participating teachers, and two after-school sessions per district. In addition, all participating teachers will be involved in two full-day summer workshops. The literacy project staff will facilitate all sessions. On in-school supports days, the literacy project staff will visit classrooms of participating teachers to provide observational feedback and modeling for curricular and instructional topics explored during the workshops. There will be 10 in-school support days per district.

Teachers will be expected to read and discuss both professional literature by the literacy staff and self-selected professional readings relevant to language arts instruction, to choose and implement activities that are appropriate to their individual classrooms, and to evaluate and share the outcomes of their practice with other participating teachers. As a way of thinking about their practice and their developing knowledge of effective literacy instruction, each teacher will keep a daily journal in which they will record reflections about their language arts teaching during the project. Also, the literacy staff will interview all teachers twice (fall, spring) during the academic year about the nature of their language arts teaching.

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