Covers curriculum and methods of language arts and reading for both elementary and secondary school as well as teaching English in basic college courses.
This is the fourth edition of James Moffett's seminal text, first published in 1968, which set forth the rationale and practices for the kind of individualized, interactive, integrative language learning environment that only today is coming into its own. It proposed whole language, collaborative learning, active learning, writing workshops, the process approach, student empowerment, portfolio assessment, and the substitution of children's literature for basal readers many years before these cornerstones of enlightened English language arts teaching became fashionable. The book is the centerpiece of life work devoted to curricular innovation and constitutes a truly original approach to the nature of discourse. It is cross-referenced to an equally original collection of anthologies that illustrate with both professional and student writing the reading, writing, talking, dramatizing repertories it stakes out--and to Moffett's other works that build on and extend this one. From the second edition on, the book has profited from the input of Betty Jane Wagner, a master teacher of teachers. Student-centered Language Art, K-12 is arguably the most comprehensive, practically detailed, and original textbook/resource book on English education. It covers theory and practice, elementary and secondary, drama, oral-language activities, and initial literacy as well as general reading and writing. Furthermore, verbal learning is placed in a social context and in the context of nonverbal media and arts that compete with and complement language. The authors have made this edition more compact by shifting some material to a new edition of Active Voice and by abridging matters that no longer need to bedealt with at length because the profession is catching up with the book. They have recast some matters to tie in with current vocabulary and understanding, and some practices have been updated to utilize current technology. In this fourth edition, the book is shorter in length but broader in perspective as it continues to break new ground to integrate language arts with other learning.
Contents: Objectives and the Learner, Linguistics and the Language Arts Curriculum, The Literature Curriculum, Speaking and the Pupil, Speaking Activities and the Pupil, Spelling and the Language Arts, Spelling in the Language Arts Curriculum, World Selection in the Spelling Curriculum, Vocabulary Development and the Pupil, Listening and the Pupil, Evaluation of Achievement in Language Arts, Reading and the Language Arts, Reading and Vocabulary Development, Reading and the Structure of the English Language, Designing the Reading Curriculum, Reading in the Content Areas, Making uses of Ideas Gleaned from Reading, Improving Teacher Questions in Reading Instruction, Testing and Evaluating Student Achievement in Reading, Handwriting and the Pupil, Writing in the Language Arts Curriculum, Writing Achievement in Education, Reading Poetry in the Language Arts, Poetry in the School, Grouping Pupils for Instruction.
This text is designed specifically to meet the needs of preservice teachers who have had little experience working in middle-grade classrooms. Three ideas are central: * teaching language arts at the middle level is a complex activity that demands expertise in the use of a variety of strategies, * reading and writing are key processes of language arts study, but so are speaking, listening, and viewing/visually representing, and * teaching the processes of effective communication is crucial, but middle school students must also begin to learn the content of the field--literature, language, and media. Teaching Language Arts in Middle Schools gives balanced attention to various teaching strategies, processes, and content, demonstrating how all of these connect to improve students' abilities to communicate. In this text: *Research and theory are summarized and applied to practice *A non-prescriptive approach is integrated with practical information *Debates in the field are acknowledged *Additional reading and research are emphasized *The author's voice and point of view are explicit
This insightful book shows teacher how reading and writing instruction has evolved — where we were, where we are, and where we can go in literacy learning. It looks at a wealth of literacy techniques that range from group reading, to whole language, to synthetic phonics, to reading and writing workshops.
In the words of Aldous Huxley, "Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting." Few people question the value of reading; in fact, most extol its virtues. As our culture becomes more complex, reading plays an increasingly greater role in satisfying personal needs and in promoting social awareness and growth. In the last 20 years, the teaching of this invaluable skill has focused so intensely on comprehension and prediction from context that it has lost sight of the significance of automaticity and fluency in the word-identification process. Reading is a synthesis of word recognition and comprehension; thus, this text is about these basic processes and their integration. A common plea from teachers today is that research and psychology be translated into teaching behavior. Therefore, the aim of this book is twofold: one, to identify, report, organize, and discuss those bits of data, research and theory that are most relevant to the teacher's understanding of the reading process; and two, to help educators to interpret and apply theory and research data to everyday classroom teaching, as well as to the problems encountered frequently in developmental and remedial teaching.
First published in 1982, this influential and classic text poses two questions: what is it that a child learns when he or she learns to write? What can we learn about children, society and ourselves, by looking at this process? The book is based on a close analysis of a series of written texts by primary school children and is written for student teachers with little or no knowledge of linguistics. In this new edition, Gunther Kress has made extensive revisions in the light of recent developments in linguistics and in education. The theoretical focus is now a social semiotic one, which allows a fundamental rethinking of issues such as 'preliteracy' and broad social and cultural questions around the making of texts.
Summarizing a half century of work on the problem of identifying units of analysis for complex human behaviour, this book introduces modes of practice as a unit of analysis for the science and design of human activities, and shows how to record them and create field guides at scales from individual to society. Revealing scientific analysis of human practices has been hampered by the lack of a unit of analysis, Dirlam describes how the difficulties of defining a unit are overcome by combining insights from mathematics and human development. Part II presents methods for developmental surveys and interviews that enable social scientists, designers, and education or training assessment professionals to gather data on modes of practice. Part III provides practical descriptions of how to organize interviews into developmental surveys that can be used by a community. Part IV inspires future advances in research and design. Concrete examples from science, design, and learning assessment are used throughout, and the appendix includes the results of 300 developmental interviews, organized into exploratory descriptions of modes of practice and commitment.