English 216/Education 216: Introduction to Teaching English Language Arts

Greenville College, Fall 2006
MWF, 3:30 - 4:20 p.m., Hogue Hall 308

Dr. Donna J. Hart
225 Hogue Hall
Phone: Office: 664-6805; Home: 664-3863
Office Hours: All day on Thursday, or by appointment.
Email: donna.hart@greenville.edu

Required Texts:

Tchudi, Stephen, and Diana Mitchell. Exploring and teaching the English Language Arts. 4th Edition. New York: Longman, 1999. ISBN: 0-321-00215-6.

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2004. ISBN: 1-592-40087-6 .

Course Description:

This course explores three things:

• The relationships among the four language arts: Reading, writing, speaking, listening.
• What an English language arts curriculum might look like in a middle level or high school.
• What teaching in an English language arts classroom is likely to involve.

Although we will spend time in class exploring concepts and issues, you will also be in a middle school and a high school, 40 hours total, working as an aide. A major purpose for this course is that your interaction on campus and in a public school will allow you to build a foundation for converting the concepts you will encounter in the English Language Arts Education Program into the conceptual tools you must have if you are to be an effective classroom English language arts teacher.

Everything in this course--the above discussion, the instructional objectives, the instructional activities--is directly related to and a logical outcome of the following three statements.

Teacher Education Program Mission Statement:

Teacher candidates will create classroom environments that promote cooperation and responsibility, support self-worth, affirm the dignity of all students, and stimulate learning.

Teacher Education Program Theme:

Preparing teachers to serve in a culturally diverse world.

English Language Arts Education Program Statement of Purpose:

The English Language Arts Education Program purposes to help students reach their full potential as human beings and as teachers. The faculty aims at building spiritual and intellectual strength, academic excellence, and pedagogical expertise. We intend to graduate teachers who know how to learn and how to help others learn. We intend that our graduates integrate faith with the learning they foster in their classrooms and that they demonstrate their faith through their humane, compassionate concern for students, through their modeling of personal hope and redemptive servanthood, and through their rigorous teaching and intellectual pursuits. To these ends, we have established and continue to develop the English Language arts Teacher Education Program.

Course Objectives:

This course is designed to help each student to--

1. State the relationships between reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (ELAO 2, 5, 6, 7; TEO 1)
2. Locate and evaluate materials available to the English language arts teacher (trade books, commercial basals or anthologies, magazines, and Internet sources, for example). (ELAO 16, 17; TEO 1)
3. Build a classroom library appropriate to student needs. (ELAO 16; TEO 1, 2, 3, 10)
4. Create a physical environment appropriate for engaging students in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (ELAO 2, 5; TEO 1, 2, 3, 4, 10)
5. Describe accurately the diversity they are likely to encounter in English language arts classrooms (cultural, ethnic, linguistic, academic, physical, behavioral). (ELAO 1, 3, 4; TEO 2, 3, 7, 10)
6. State effective uses of technology resources for engaging students in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (ELAO 1, 2, 16; TEO 4, 5, 10)
7. State the influence of public school English language arts programs on students' learning. (ELAO 1, 2, 5; TEO2. 7. 8)
8. Describe effective means of engaging parents and involving them in their children's learning. (ELAO 19, 20; TEO 7, 8, 10)
9. Assume responsibility for achieving English Language Arts Education Program outcomes and state English Language Arts Standards. (ELAO 1 - 20; TEO 9, 10)
10. Consistently model hope (and a cosmopolitan mind set for colleagues, students, and parents). (ELAO 20; TEO 10, 11)

Evaluation of Achievement:

• Objectives 1, 2, and 4 - 10 are evaluated through a reflection journal encompassing various practicum experiences and observation assignments during the field experience.
• Objective 3 is evaluated through the actual building of a classroom library and through the explanation/defense of its proposed use.
• Objective 9 is evaluated through a documentation journal initiated by the student in this course and completed in subsequent program courses.
• Objectives 1 - 10 are evaluated indirectly through a cooperating teacher's evaluation of the student's performance as a teacher's aide.

Learning Experiences:

We spend the first several class periods on campus, perusing program outcomes and state standards, exploring relationships among the four language arts, and determining implications of outcomes and standards for individual student academic programs. You will then begin a field experience, in which you will complete participatory observation assignments and serve as a teacher's aide. During the field experience portion of the course, we will meet once or twice bi-weekly to discuss your observations.

Tentative Syllabus:

You and I will determine most of this together, as we talk through the various Learning Experiences, and you decide what order you want for them and what due date. What follows are the various components.

Week One: What is the Teaching of English language Arts all about?

W – Getting your schedule, going over the syllabus, etc.
F – The State of Illinois.
• Standards for Public Schools (Illinois Learning Standards).
• Standards by which to test your qualifications to teach.
o Illinois Professional Teaching Standards.
o Language Arts Standards.
o Technology Standards.
o English Language Arts Standards.

Week Two: Still Looking at Standards.

M – Greenville College Teacher Education Program (as exemplified, explained, described in the Conceptual Framework).
• The Mission Statement.
• Theme.
• Belief Statements.
• Knowledge Domains.
• Dispositions.
• Program Outcomes.
W – The English Language Arts Education Program.
• Mission Statement.
• Outcomes.
• Advisement sheet.
F – How will your qualifications be determined?
• Teacher Education Program overall (See Guide to Teacher Education).
• English Department – two portfolios (see assignment).
• State Certification Tests: Basic Skills, IPT, English Language Arts.

• Discussion: Which of the standards listed do you like? Dislike? Do you expect to meet them all? Where do you expect to encounter experiences that will allow you to achieve these standards? What is your role in achieving them? How will you know whether you have achieved them? The author talks about process, but his is the process of teaching and learning from what happens to you. Yours is the process of getting to where you can begin to teach. Describe that process as you envision it. You might want also to look at p. 18 of your text.

Weeks Three – Fifteen: You are out in the field, observing and working. We meet periodically. Here are the learning experiences you need to help me schedule for you.

Learning Experiences:

I. Introduction to Professional Organizations.

To become an English language arts teacher is to enter a demanding, exciting, sometimes apparently topsy-turvy world of trying to help students develop effective skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and then use those skills to live enhancing lives. Teachers grow in isolation, of course, in their abilities to accomplish their goals, but they can also develop significantly by participating in collegial events, from the in-service workshop to the national convention. Professional organizations are often responsible for these events and for providing a number of other benefits as well. This leads to the conclusion that English teachers need to be informed about the professional organizations in their field.

You are to select at least one of the following organizations and find out everything you and your colleagues ought to know about it. Prepare notes that will allow you to report comprehensively to your colleagues in this class. What publications do these organizations offer? What services do they tender? What collegial opportunities do they provide? What other benefits? In regard to the teachers’ unions, will belonging to such a union help you be a more effective English language arts teacher? If so, how? Are there any other benefits/disadvantages to belonging to a union? ***Complete this paper before you go out into the field.

A. Professional.

B. Unions.

II. Read the entire textbook (except the Prologue) and write a summary of each chapter. If you have forgotten the requirements for that type of writing, see http://www.greenville.edu/faculty/dosthart/howsumm.html . You will be evaluated according to the criteria for a good summary found at that site. ***All the rest of these Learning Experiences (II - VI) may be turned in at the end of the semester. They will substitute for a formal exam.

III. Complete 40 hours of a practicum in the public schools. See instructions at ENGED216TeachersAide . You will be evaluated according to the criteria found at ENGED216TeachersAideEvaluation.

IV. Collect a portfolio of teaching materials that you might need in your first job. See instructions at ENGED216TeachersMaterials . You will be evaluated according to the criteria found at ENGED216TeachersMaterialsEvaluation .

V. Creat a library of reading materials that you will use to engage your students. see instructions at ENGED216Library . You will be evaluated according to the criteria found at ENGED216LibraryEvaluation .

VI. Keep a journal of your entire observation and teacher aide experience. See instructions at ENGED216Journal . You will be evaluated according to the criteria found at ENGED216JournalEvaluation .