THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
February 1997

Introduction: Learning in the English Language Arts

The English language arts as a core discipline is multi-dimensional. It is at once the study of literature, the learning of literacy and writing, the study of film and other new symbol systems, as well as the cultivation of language use and the capacity to reason. The following images tell the stories of six students learning these language arts.

Nancy begs her older brother to help her read the book she has just discovered in Kindergarten. She chimes in confidently each time he begins the repetitive question,
"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?"

Nancy's story highlights the importance of experiences in the home that develop and support early literacy. By reading with Nancy, her brother reinforces her enthusiasm for stories and helps her relate meaning to print as she learns about the relationship of sound and symbol in reading.

While studying about the importance of seafaring in New England history, Michael's fifth grade class visits the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem and examines its collection
of navigational instruments. Fascinated with the idea of how people learned to sail
across vast oceans, Michael avidly reads the books on clipper ships and whaling boats
and pores over the maps that his teacher has made available in the classroom. After
exhausting these resources, Michael takes his teacher's suggestion and goes to his
public library, where he is delighted to find dozens of books on the history of sailing.

Michael's teacher has taught him and his classmates how to use books and resources to learn more about the ideas and events that interest them. By maintaining a classroom library and showing students how to use community resources such as museums and libraries, this teacher validates her students' curiosity about the world they live in and their desire for information.

Fourteen-year-old Sam, who struggles as a reader and writer, dutifully completes
an assignment by noting in a journal the highlights of his family vacation
through the Southwest. On the day he explores the ancient cliff dwellings of Mesa
Verde, Sam enthusiastically covers the pages of his journal with bold petroglyphs.


Sam's enthusiasm for the petroglyphs may stem from his natural inclination to compose and express meaning through images, an interest that will be further developed in his visual arts classes. His English teacher recognizes the work Sam has done in his journal as evidence of Sam's visual spatial strength and uses the journal as way to develop reading and writing skills. He asks Sam to investigate the meaning of the petroglyphs. After completing the research, Sam is eager to prepare a written report and a chart describing the petroglyphs and to explain his findings to the class.

Rita, a recent immigrant, has used her limited English to write a description of her
native country. She has illustrated it with sketches of the countryside around her
former home. She sits proudly in the "Author's Chair" of her writing group, reading
her description aloud and showing her sketches. The teacher and her classmates
praise her for all the information she can tell them in English, and they ask her
questions about the details in her sketches.

This classroom activity demonstrates how teachers may provide opportunities for students with limited English to participate fully in class activities. Rita is encouraged to share her knowledge of her native country with her peers and to express herself in her new language in an academic context.

As Peter, a tenth grader, reads selections from Martin Luther King. Jr.'s speeches
and writing in the anthology, A Testament of Hope, he is struck by King's powerful
command of the English language. He is also fascinated by the many references to
authors and philosophers from the past, the Bible, and events in American history.
Inspired by King's "I Have a Dream" speech, he rereads the Declaration of Independence
and the Gettysburg Address, and writes an essay about King's role in carrying the
ideals of these documents into the twentieth century.

Peter's response to his literature assignment is a reminder that by reading works from our common literary and cultural heritage, students begin to grasp how ideas and words from the past can shape the world of the present and future.

After missing several opportunities for job promotion because of low reading
skills, Katie enrolls in an evening adult literacy class. She is determined to
share the world that literacy is opening for her first grade child. Together, they
read stories about the native New England wildflowers and animals her daughter
is studying in school.

Katie's experience suggests the power of language to transform human lives and to promote family literacy. Many adult learners return to school motivated by a strong desire to participate more fully in their children's education. Katie has lived with the reality of the limited opportunities that result from low literacy. She has realized the importance of being perceived as an effective reader, writer, and speaker in her workplace and in her family.

The Core Concept of the English Language Arts Framework

There is pleasure in learning that one can use language to shape one's destiny and sense of the world. There is personal satisfaction in learning that through language one can acquire knowledge as well as the power to inform or influence others. Finally, there is the special joy in being able to appreciate and create stories, poems, speeches, essays, and satires that delight, inspire, inform, amuse, and challenge.

Facility with language enables students to go beyond the limits of their immediate experience. But to develop facility with language, students must learn to reason as they try to understand, compose, and communicate meaning. Actual learning emerges from reflection upon reading, lectures, or discussions. Learning experiences in the English language arts must strengthen the powerful and uniquely human connection between thought and language. This belief permeates this curriculum framework and is embodied in its Core Concept.

Core Concept
The goal of an English language arts curriculum is to teach
learners how to reason and use language purposefully
as they comprehend, construct, and convey meaning.

An Emphasis on Thought and Language

Thought and language are our essential tools for learning and communicating. We use language and logic when we listen, make observations, and remember experiences. We use language and logic when we think critically and creatively and when we convey our ideas and feelings to others. All discourse is dependent on thought and language working together.

By acknowledging the importance of thought and language in lifelong learning, this Core Concept affirms the goals established in the Massachusetts Common Core of Learning: "All students should read and listen critically for information, understanding, and enjoyment. They should write and speak clearly, factually, persuasively, and creatively in standard English." The use of this curriculum framework in the development of local English language arts curricula can ensure that all students learn how to reason and use language for understanding, composing, and communicating meaning.

Clearly, no one instructional approach can meet all the needs of each learner. This curriculum framework invites educators to explore the strengths of multiple approaches to instruction; it does not intend to promote one approach over others. Teachers should judge when it is best to use direct instruction, inductive learning, Socratic dialogue, or formal lecture. Teachers should also judge when it is appropriate for students to work individually, in small groups, or as a whole class. These decisions should be based on the teacher's careful assessment of students' knowledge, interests, and skills.

Early literacy is essential in learning to reason and use language for understanding, composing, and communicating meaning. This curriculum framework sets the goal that every child entering Kindergarten or first grade in Massachusetts will be able to read and write at grade level in the English language by the end of third grade. The Core Concept, Guiding Principles, and Learning Standards of this framework emphasize the importance of increasingly challenging learning experiences that help students develop English language arts skills, learn how to reason about spoken and written discourse, and form aesthetic judgments. As part of these learning experiences, students must develop reflective intelligence.

Reflective Intelligence

Teaching students to reflect upon and gain conscious control over their observations, thoughts, and language is as essential as teaching them how to analyze the thoughts and language of others. They must also be able to develop an awareness of their own moods and perceptions. Students must acquire reflective intelligence and use this intelligence when communicating or evaluating discourse in any domain or field of communication. If reflective intelligence is essential to learning, it must be developed through the curriculum. For classroom teachers, the question is this: Is it better to teach thinking primarily with disciplinary content, or to teach thinking as a generic set of competencies that are independent of any one discipline and that cut across disciplines? The answer is clear: We must do both. Learning experiences that teach thinking both within a discipline and as a generic set of strategies used across disciplines will develop the flexibility students need for thinking about what they have learned, understood, and hope to communicate.

Thinking must be taught across the curriculum and in the four subdisciplines, or strands, comprising the English language arts curriculum in this document. It must be taught within these four strands to help students understand the nature of communication and aims of discourse: literary, informational, persuasive, and expressive. Students need to learn to grasp rhetorical concepts. They need to be able to recognize the elements of rhetoric--speaker, audience, message, and form--and to identify these elements in the various uses of language. Figure A displays the aims of discourse, elements of rhetoric, and modes of presentation.

Figure A
Rhetorical Concepts
Aims of Discourse
Expressive € Literary € Informational € Persuasive

Elements of Rhetoric
Speaker € Audience € Message (Meaning) € Form (Genre)

Modes of Presentation
Narration € Description € Exposition € Argumentation

In addition to teaching students to see the "deep structure" of the language arts, it is reasonable to teach thinking as a set of strategies in order to build flexible "reflective" thinkers who can move freely among the content areas. This is the underlying premise of David Perkins' work on reflective intelligence. Thus, the strands in this curriculum framework emphasize strategies such as those in Figure B that allow students to be self-conscious in their efforts to use different forms of spoken and written discourse for various purposes and audiences. Students who can draw upon these diverse strategies for focusing, planning, assessing, and modifying language will be able to advance the broad aims of different types of discourse.

Figure B
Strategies for Developing Reflective Intelligence

 

Teaching Practices That Develop Reflective Intelligence

Students learn to think purposefully in classrooms in which teachers model strategies for solving problems while reading and researching. They encourage students to develop their own techniques for figuring out unknown words and remembering facts and information. They suggest ways that students can focus, plan, assess, and modify their responses to assignments or problems posed in class.

 

A curriculum focused on developing reflective intelligence also addresses matters of logic, inference, and truth. Moral questions drawn from literature; imaginary situations in which students are asked to argue a point of view; classroom discussions that draw out the underlying argument of an advertising campaign, poem, or editorial--- all can be invitations to teach students directly about the elements of persuasion, propositional reasoning, the distinction between form and content, and the features of ethical, logical, and effective arguments.

Students further learn to be reflective when they are asked to identify the elements, analyze the purposes, and discuss the similarities and differences of various types of discourse. As they demonstrate their understanding through graphic displays, simulations, and writing assignments focused by distinct rhetorical purposes, audience expectations, and forms, they learn to reflect upon and evaluate their own responses.

To cultivate critical and aesthetic sensibilities, teachers consistently ask students to justify--in discussions, simulations, critical essays, and presentations--whether or not something is right or wrong, logical or illogical, effective or ineffective. They ask students to discuss different interpretations of a work of fiction or nonfiction by adopting different critical lenses. Through these processes teachers teach students to be aware--in a deep and lasting sense--of how language and thought intertwine to build bridges of communication while enriching their lives.

Guiding Principle 1: An effective English language arts curriculum develops thinking and language together through interactive learning.

Effective language use both requires and extends thinking. As learners listen to a speech, view a
documentary, respond to a literary work, or convey their ideas in an essay, they engage in thinking processes. The learning standards in this framework specify the intellectual processes that students must draw on as they learn through and about language. Students develop their ability to remember, understand, analyze, evaluate, and apply the ideas they encounter in the English language arts and in all the other disciplines when they undertake increasingly challenging assignments that require them to write or talk about what they are learning.

Guiding Principle 2: An effective English language arts curriculum develops children's oral language and early literacy through appropriately challenging learning.

Schools must provide a strong and well-balanced instructional program for developing reading and writing skill in the primary grades, with materials appropriate for their students. The roots of successful beginning reading and writing lie in oral language development. Most children begin school able to use their oral language effectively for many purposes. Teachers further develop students' oral language and strengthen their powers of observation and memory to help them acquire the concepts and skills essential for learning to read and write. Early literacy programs provide students with a variety of oral language activities, high quality reading materials, systematic phonics instruction, and opportunities to work with others who are reading and writing. Reading to preschool and primary grade children plays an especially critical role in developing the foundation for literacy.

Guiding Principle 3: An effective English language arts curriculum draws on literature from many genres, time periods, and cultures, featuring works that reflect our common literary heritage.

Literature is the heart of the English language arts and the touchstone for all language arts activities. As Louise Rosenblatt remarks in Literature as Exploration, "Whatever the form--poem, novel, drama, biography, essay--literature makes comprehensible the myriad ways in which human beings meet the infinite possibilities that life offers."

All students deserve knowledge of works reflecting a literary heritage that goes back thousands of years. In each district, teachers must work together to develop PreK-12 literature programs that are coherently articulated from grade to grade. In addition to including works from the literary heritage of the English-speaking world, the schools will want to give all students a broad exposure to literary works about the many different kinds of communities that make up contemporary America and about countries and cultures throughout the world. To guide teachers and parents, this framework provides suggested lists of authors, illustrators, and works in Appendices A and B. Appendix A presents a suggested list of authors or works reflecting our common literary and cultural heritage, while Appendix B presents suggested lists of contemporary authors from the United States, as well as past and present authors from other countries and cultures.

In order to instill a love of reading, English language arts teachers need to encourage independent reading in and outside of class. School librarians also play a key role in finding books to match students' interests, and in suggesting further resources in public libraries. By reading and discussing books and articles with their children, and by visiting libraries with them, parents and other family members can make reading an important part of home life.

Guiding Principle 4: An effective English language arts curriculum emphasizes writing as an essential way to develop, clarify, and communicate ideas in persuasive, expository, literary, and expressive discourse.

The beginning writing of children records their imagination and exploration. As students attempt to write clearly and coherently about increasingly complex ideas, their writing serves to propel intellectual growth. Through writing, students develop their ability to think, to communicate ideas, and to create worlds unseen.

Guiding Principle 5: An effective English language arts curriculum provides for literacy in all forms of media.

Computers, television, film, videos, and radio are widespread modes of communication in the modern world. All students need to learn how to be effective users of these various media for obtaining information and for communicating to others for a variety of purposes. Each of these media has its advantages and challenges, and students must learn to apply the critical techniques learned in the study of literature to the evaluation of film, video, television, and multimedia.

Guiding Principle 6. An effective English language arts curriculum embeds skills instruction in meaningful learning.

In many cases, explicit skills instruction is most effective when it responds to specific problems individual students reveal in their own work. For example, a teacher may wish to explain particular writing conventions to the whole class, monitor each student's progress, and then provide direct individualized instruction when needed. In other cases, explicit skills instruction is most effective when it precedes what students need to learn. A teacher should, for instance, provide systematic phonics lessons in particular decoding skills to students who do not have these skills before they try to use them in their subsequent reading. Systematic phonics lessons are especially important for those students who lack "phonemic awareness," or the ability to pay attention to the component sounds of language.

Guiding Principle 7: An effective English language arts curriculum teaches the strategies necessary for acquiring academic knowledge, achieving common academic standards, and attaining independence in learning.

Students need to develop a repertoire of learning strategies which they consciously practice and apply in increasingly diverse and demanding contexts. Skills become strategies for learning when they are internalized. For example, a reading skill has become a strategy when a student uses decoding for recognizing known words he has not previously seen in print, or looks up the meaning of an unfamiliar word in a dictionary. A writing skill has become a strategy when a student monitors her own writing by spontaneously asking herself "Does this organization work?" or "Are my punctuation and spelling correct?" At the point that students are able to articulate their own learning strategies, evaluate their effectiveness, and use those that work best for them, they have become independent learners.

Guiding Principle 8: An effective English language arts curriculum builds on the language, experiences, and interests that students bring to school.

Teachers recognize the importance of finding strategies that enable them to respond to the challenges of linguistic and cultural differences in their classrooms. They recognize that sometimes students have learned ways of talking, thinking, and interacting that are effective at home and in the neighborhood but which may not have the same meaning or usefulness in school. Teachers try to draw on these different ways of talking and thinking as potential bridges to speaking and writing in standard English.

Guiding Principle 9: An effective English language arts curriculum develops each student's distinctive writing or speaking voice.

A student's writing and speaking voice is an expression of self. Students' voices tell us who they are, how they think, and the unique perspectives they bring to their learning. These voices develop when teachers provide opportunities for students to interact with one another, to explore each others' ideas, and to communicate their own ideas to others. When students discuss ideas and read one another's writing, they learn to distinguish between formal and informal communication. They also learn about their classmates as unique individuals who can contribute their distinctive ideas, aspirations, and talents to the class, the school, the community, and the nation.

Guiding Principle 10. While encouraging respect for differences in home backgrounds, an effective English language arts curriculum nurtures students' sense of their common ground as present or future American citizens in order to prepare them for responsible participation in our schools and civic life.

Teachers are teaching an increasingly diverse group of students in their classrooms each year. Students may come from any country or continent in the world. Taking advantage of this diversity, teachers carefully choose literature and guide discussions about the extraordinary variety of peoples around the world and their different beliefs, stories, and traditions. At the same time, they help each generation of students rediscover common ground as they prepare to become self governing citizens of the United States of America. An English language arts curriculum can serve as a unifying force in schools and society.

Early Literacy: Success in Reading by Grade Three

The Massachusetts Board of Education is committed to ensuring that all students become effective readers by the end of the third grade. Children's success at reading becomes the measure that schools, families, and children themselves use in determining whether or not they are adjusting to school and learning how to learn. The goal of well-conceived beginning reading programs is to have students reading beginning materials by the middle of first grade, reading at grade level by the end of third grade, and making continual grade-level progress thereafter.

The Carnegie Task Force on Learning in the Primary Grades recently published the results of its extensive study of preschool and primary programs across the country. The Report notes that

Good readers, research shows, attend in a rapid, automatic way to almost
all of the letters in the words they read; they also have a practiced sense of
the likely associations of sounds in a language and of patterns within words
and syllables.

The findings illustrate several important points about the teaching of reading.

1. Research and practice have demonstrated that effective instruction outweighs
perceived "abilities" in children. In particular, the ability to pay attention to the
component sounds of language, or "phonemic awareness," is not highly correlated
with general intelligence; it can be taught.

2. Monitoring a student's progress closely is important.

3. Adapting instruction to individual needs is critical in ensuring that all students
learn to read.

4. Teacher training and staff development must focus closely on balanced
approaches to meet the needs of all students.


Phonics and Whole Language

The history of education is marked by vigorous debates about curriculum and pedagogy. In the case of beginning reading instruction, today's debate focuses on the differences between a "whole language" approach and a "phonics," or skills-based, approach. This is in many ways a debate that has gone on for one hundred years.

Proponents of a whole language approach claim that reading develops naturally, much as speech does. They do not deny the alphabetic principle of our writing system. But they do believe that understanding the relationships between sounds and letters is only one of the many ways students can learn new words encountered in their reading. They also believe that understanding sound letter relationships is not necessarily the most important way to learn new words, and that it does not need to be formally taught. Whole language advocates believe that instruction should focus on immersing students in meaningful reading materials.

Those who support systematic phonics instruction want children to read meaningful material, but note that students cannot read a whole story unless they can decode most of the words in it. Phonics instruction is based on the alphabetic principle, and emphasizes teaching children the relationship between sounds and letters. When a student knows the letter-sound connections, he can "sound out" and read the vocabulary encountered in a text. As most linguists and reading researchers have pointed out, learning to read is not like learning to speak; most children in cultures with writing systems have had to be taught to read. Moreover, learning to read is not a natural developmental phenomenon, since many cultures over the centuries never evolved writing systems on their own. To ensure steady progress in reading, all primary grade teachers should provide both explicit, systematic phonics instruction and a variety of high quality reading materials that motivate students to read fluently and with understanding.

Characteristics of Effective Early Literacy Programs

In the first edition of Learning to Read: The Great Debate, published in 1967, Jeanne Chall made the distinction between a "meaning" emphasis and a "code" emphasis in beginning reading instruction, pointing out that comparative studies from the early 1900s on show that students who have had systematic phonics instruction achieve higher scores in word identification and reading comprehension than students in programs with a "meaning" emphasis. In Beginning to Read, Marilyn Jaeger Adams has summarized and synthesized the past decade's research on reading instruction, confirming Chall's earlier conclusions. The heart of a sound beginning reading program is an appropriate balance between explicit, systematic instruction in the relationships between sounds and letters and a focus on the meaning of written language through the use of high quality reading materials and authentic language activities. While skills alone cannot develop good readers, few readers can become proficient without these fundamental skills.

Students are successful at learning to read when they know the elements that make up the words in their texts. They recognize letters and patterns of letters and they know the sounds associated with these symbols. This is called phonics knowledge or phonics skills. In Kindergarten, students should begin to develop an awareness of the different individual sounds in words, such as beginning or ending sounds (a phenomenon that reading researchers now refer to as phonemic awareness, and which used to be called beginning phonics). This can be accomplished with word games and other activities that develop students' explicit attention to the discrete sounds in words. The teaching of phonics skills should continue until students are able to read independently.

Oral language development is also vital to literacy development. Throughout the preschool, Kindergarten, and primary grades, teachers should read aloud to students and engage them in meaningful discussions. Students can learn to predict meaning in picture books read to them by looking at the illustrations, and discussing how the images complement the text. When older students visit the classroom, or when students learn to read independently, they should be invited to spend some time reading aloud to the class.

The formal reading program should begin in first grade. Students should be taught the relationships between sounds and letters and then given opportunities to practice decoding skills independently and in collaborative groups. Groupings should be flexible and allow for regrouping based on careful assessment of progress. As students acquire decoding skills, they become confident in their ability to identify unfamiliar words in increasingly more complex texts and materials.

Some students come to school already reading and can make appropriate progress in classrooms that place a strong emphasis on meaningful reading and writing activities. Other students may have reading disabilities and need long-term, structured programs. Nevertheless, the vast majority of children do not have reading disabilities or come to school already reading. These students benefit from a reasonable balance between explicit skills instruction and authentic reading activities to assure steady growth in the development of their ability to read accurately, fluently, and with understanding.

 

The Writing Connection

Young children need to learn how to form the letters that comprise their writing system, as well as how to express their thoughts in the written word. Italian educator Maria Montessori emphasized exercises in which children learn the correlation of sounds with shapes by feeling textured letter shapes, forming letters repeatedly with a pencil, and using moveable alphabets as they sound out words. In describing her teaching methods, Thomas C. Crain wrote, "Writing paves the way to reading. Through writing children form a muscular and visual memory of the letters and words and therefore can recognize them."

Students should spend time writing about ideas in a variety of forms--letters, stories, and short informational essays. Writing reinforces the fact that language has meaning. It gives students an opportunity to develop a personal voice and style upon which they can reflect.

Adapting to Individual Needs

Students come to school from diverse experiences with sound and symbol. Sometimes the sounds and orthography of the home language or dialect may be different from those of standard English. With explicit instruction, students can learn standard English as they continue to develop as effective readers. This is particularly valuable for young children as they learn a second language.

Students whose first language is not English need many opportunities to speak and read English. Teachers should encourage them to practice speaking and writing in English and should praise them regularly for the progress they make. Students can learn to speak a second language when they are given consistent and continual practice in using the language in authentic language activities and in all their school work.

Everyone agrees that learning to read is the essential mission of the primary grades. Therefore, administrators need to ensure that schools are organized to teach reading. Several pilot programs cited in the Carnegie report emphasize the importance of organizing class size, daily schedules, and assignment of staff so that smaller groups of students can practice their reading together with teachers and peer tutors.

If students continue to have difficulties with reading after grades one or two, they should have opportunities for intensive reading assistance. Reading help may be necessary for some students throughout their school years. It should be seen as a safety net to ensure that all students are able to achieve literacy and high standards in all curriculum areas.

The Goal of Early Literacy

This English Language Arts Curriculum Framework sets the goal that every child who enters Kindergarten or first grade in Massachusetts will become an effective reader and writer of the English language by the end of third grade.

Figures C, D, E, and F are designed to clarify literacy expectations for students in the primary grades. Teachers, parents, family members, and friends must take responsibility together for helping young children progress toward achieving literacy. As children become competent readers, they learn to love reading and books. The reading and writing skills and strategies presented in Figure C are the essential elements in teaching early literacy. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, nor does this figure suggest the order in which these activities should take place, for writing, reading, and literary interpretation are often part of the same lesson. As the standards and examples in this framework demonstrate, students continue to refine their ability to read and write throughout their academic careers.

What level of reading should be expected of students at the end of the third grade? Figure D shows three sample passages from reading texts designed for the end of grade three, and Figure E presents passages from the beginning of fourth grade readers. These sample passages of literary, informational, and practical texts have been selected to indicate the range of vocabulary and different kinds of formats third and fourth grade students are expected to read and comprehend.

Finally, the teaching anecdote in Figure E demonstrates one way in which an adult--teacher, parent, grandparent, or friend--might combine phonics instruction with the reading of a story and the exploration of different kinds of literature.

 

Figure C: Key Reading and Writing Skills and Strategies Introduced and Developed from Preschool to Grade 3

Figure D: Sample Passages Students Should Be Able to Read at the End of Grade 3

The lowest part of the Titanic is divided into sixteen watertight compartments. If one compartment starts to flood, the captain can just pull a switch. A thick steel door will shut. The water will be trapped. It cannot flood the rest of the ship. Two or three or even four compartments can be full of water. Still the Titanic will float.
The Titanic had another nickname--"The Rich Man's Special." Some of the richest people in the world are sailing on the Titanic. Their tickets cost more money than a sailor earns in a lifetime.

One afternoon Henry arrived at Mr. Capper's garage in plenty of time to fold his papers. He counted a stack of forty-three Journals and as long as he was early, he took time to glance through the paper. He looked at the headlines and read the comic section. Then the picture of a smiling lady caught his eye. It was the lady who gave people advice when they wrote to her.

During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington and his soldiers faced a bitter winter camping at Valley Forge. It was very cold and there was little food--sometimes only oats and milk. But they always lit a fire and cooked what there was. Valley Forge Oatmeal was simple to make. Today, by adding some special ingredients, it can be a delicious treat, too.
To make 4 servings, you need:
1 1/2 cups of rolled oats raisins a pot
3 cups of water 2 cups of milk spoons
1/2 teaspoon of salt cinnamon 4 cereal bowls
4 pats of butter a stove (and someone
honey to help you with it)

How to do it:
1. Add half a teaspoon of salt to the three cups of water in the pot and bring to a boil.
2. Stir in the rolled oats, gradually, so the water comes to a boil.
3. Reduce heat.
4. Add a handful of raisins.
5. Let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir now and then.
6. Pour the mixture into four cereal bowls and top each with a pat of butter.
7. Mix in a teaspoon of honey in each bowl.
8. Add a little milk to each bowl.
9. Sprinkle with cinnamon on top and enjoy! It's also a good way to keep warm!

Figure E: Sample Passages Students Should Be Able To Read at the Beginning of Grade 4

Nothing Paul Bunyan ever did was small. He had an ox named Babe, who used to help him with his work. Babe was just about the most phenomenal ox in Michigan. His color was blue, and he stood ninety hands high. If you happened to hang on to the tip of one horn, it's doubtful if you could have seen the tip of the other, even on a clear day. One day when Paul and Babe were out plowing, the ox was stung by a Michigan deer fly about the size of a bushel basket. Babe took off across the country dragging the plow behind him, right across Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, with the deer fly bringing up the rear. After a while Babe reared south and didn't stop till he got to the Rio Grande. The plow that Babe was hitched to dug a furrow two miles wide and two hundred miles long. You can check it in your own geography book. They call it the Grand Canyon nowadays.

A wonderful thing happened this new school year. Gigi, Consuela, Paquito, and I were all going into the fourth grade, and we were put in the same class. It had never happened before. Once I was in the same class with Consuela, and last year Gigi and Paquito were together. But this--it was too good to be true! Of course knowing Gigi and I were in the same class made me happiest.
Our teacher, Miss Lovett, was friendly and laughed easily. In early October she told us that our class was going to put on a play for Thanksgiving. The play we were going to perform was based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, called "The Courtship of Miles Standish." It was about the Pilgrims and how they lived when they first landed in America.


Many mammals of the Ice Age grew heavy coats of hair, The hair protected them from the cold. The woolly mammoth was one of these. It lived in what is now Europe, and in China, Siberia, and Alaska.
The Columbian mammoth lived in a warmer climate, too. It traveled from Asia to Europe, and to parts of America.
Sometime it is called the Jeffersonian mammoth. It was named after Thomas Jefferson, who was president when one was discovered in the United States. President Jefferson was interested in the past, He encouraged scientists to find out more about it.

Figure F: Early Literacy In An Elementary Classroom

The following snapshot of a combination first/second grade class illustrates how a teacher fosters early literacy. In these lessons, the teacher, Mr. Griff, demonstrates how he incorporates phonemic awareness into the reading of literature with his class. As he reads, he gives students the opportunity to think carefully about ideas and vocabulary and, at the same time, reinforces their decoding skills.

The class gathers around Mr. Griff in the group time corner. Both teacher and students have copies of William Steig's Amos and Boris, the story of an unlikely friendship between Amos, a mouse, and Boris, a whale. The story begins as Amos falls overboard in the middle of the ocean, and Boris comes to his rescue. They develop a strong friendship; and many years later when Boris is beached by a hurricane, the tiny mouse finds a way to rescue the great whale.

As Mr. Griff begins to read, the students share books and follow along:

Amos, a mouse, lived by the ocean. He loved the ocean.
He loved the smell of the sea air. He loved to hear the surf
soundsÐthe bursting breakers, the backwashes with
rolling pebbles....

Earlier in the day, Mr. Griff and the children have brainstormed several of their daily word lists, printed the words on big newsprint pads, and placed the lists on easels in the group time corner. One of the lists contains "beginning B" words, such as boy, beach, bread, and butter. Mr. Griff knows that, as his students listen and read along, they will bring different memories and experiences to their understanding of the story; he also wants them to make connections to letter sounds and vocabulary. First he reads the whole story to them. Then he rereads the opening lines and says, "I love the way the author uses words that help me hear the sounds in this story. What are some words that help you hear the sound of the surf?"

"Bursting breakers!" one child answers, " and backwashes with rolling pebbles!"
"Which ones are 'B' words?" Mr. Griff asks.
"Bursting breakers and backwashes," another child replies. "We can add them to our brainstorm list."
"Boris should go on our list too," says a third child. "With a capital 'B' because it's a name."
"Pebbles should too," says another child.

Mr. Griff pauses and says, "Let's listen carefully and look at that word again. Where is the 'B' sound in pebbles?" The child reconsiders and says that it is in the middle.
"What sound does pebbles start with?"
When she identifies "P" as the first letter, Mr. Griff says, "Right! Can you think of other words that begin with 'P'?".
She comes up with "pad," "puppy," and "printed."
"Perfect!" says Mr. Griff, starting to write the new list on another piece of paper. After the students have added the new words to both their lists, he resumes reading.

"What sort of fish are you?" the whale asked. "You must be
one of a kind!"
"I'm not a fish," said Amos. "I'm a mouse, which is a mammal,
the highest form of life. I live on land."
"Holy clam and cuttlefish!" said the whale. "I'm a mammal
myself, though I live in the sea. Call me Boris."

Mr. Griff is aware that this "mammal conversation" provides an opportunity to expand his students' vocabulary, and he asks them what they know about mammals. Students offer information and observations from their reading and experience:

"They have warm, red blood! I think they have hair."
"They give birth to their babies, not hatch eggs."
"Amos and Boris look so different, but since they're both mammals they're the same in some way too. Maybe that helps them be friends."

The class finishes reading the story together, and on the following day Mr. Griff introduces "The Lion and the Mouse," an Aesop fable about a lion who spares the life of a mouse who in turn saves the lion's life. By introducing another story in which friendship is the key idea, Mr. Griff builds upon students' knowledge of Amos and Boris to help them think about how similar ideas are used by two different authors. He asks students to talk about how the two stories are the same and how are they different, and then write about the connections between the two stories, as well as connections to other stories they have read.

In the course of this two-day unit, Mr. Griff has skillfully interwoven lessons about letters and their sounds, the meanings of words, the beauty of language, and the ideas that stories can convey. He has started his students on the pathway of discovering a lifetime of wonder, enjoyment, and knowledge in the books they read.

 

The Content Strands and Learning Standards
in the English Language Arts Curriculum Framework

This document groups the Learning Standards in the English language arts in four content areas, or strands. Literature, Language, and Composition strands reflect subdisciplines under the broad umbrella of the English language arts with long, rich histories of their own. (For a brief overview of the goals and content of English language arts curricula in this country, see Appendix D.) The fourth strand is entitled Media. This strand may be the least well-charted because the electronic communications are evolving and changing so rapidly. The effects of the electronic media on the development of language and thinking processes are still being debated and researched. Educators are well aware that technologies now in use and those to be developed in the future will have important effects on all modes of communication.

The Massachusetts Learning Standards have been designed with three purposes in mind:

• to acknowledge the importance of both disciplinary content and the skills, strategies, and

other learning processes students need in order to learn;

• to help teachers create classroom curriculum and authentic assessments;
  
• to serve as the basis for a statewide assessment of student learning at grades 4, 8, and 10.
  

Students may require support or adaptations to achieve these standards. Please note that all Learning Standards are expected to be mastered. Nevertheless, while most will be assessed in a statewide assessment, some standards are best assessed at the local level. Those standards to be assessed locally are designated by an asterisk (*).

Several of the Learning Standards provide additional examples appropriate for adult students in Adult Basic Education (ABE) or English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes.

English Language Arts Learning Standards
Standards marked * are best assessed at the local level

 

Learning Standards

Learning Standards identify what students should know and be able to do across all grade levels in each strand. Each Learning Standard is elaborated into four grade-span standards that specify what students should know and be able to do at the end of PreK-4, 5-8, 9-10, and 11-12. The grade-span standards are complemented by examples of classroom activities that promote this standard. The grade-span standards and their examples reflect the increasingly complex nature of growth in the English Language Arts. They illustrate how learners at every level continue to build upon and expand their knowledge by using similar language skills with increasing sophistication, refinement, and independence. The following examples show the differences in learning at three of these levels for the concept of point of view.

Teaching the Concept of Point of View at Three Educational Levels

PreK-4

In Mr. Jackson's third-grade class, students read together "The Terrible Leak," a Japanese folk tale, retold by Yoshiko Uchida, illustrating third-person narration, and A Grain of Wheat, an autobiography, by Clyde Robert Bulla, illustrating first-person narration. Mr. Jackson introduces and explains the idea of point of view in literature. In small groups, students discuss the differences within the two stories because of the differences in point of view of the narrator. The children compose their own stories--one reflecting third-person narration; the other, a first-person point of view. They then share their stories in small groups to evaluate their work.

Grades 5-8

Ms. Lopez tries to broaden her eighth graders' reading horizons and help them grow in their understanding of how literature works. They read "The Tryst," by Ivan Turgenev, as an
example of memoir, or observer narration. They then contrast observer narration with anonymous narration in biography by reading "Enemies," by Anton Chekhov, and "A Father-to-Be," by Saul Bellow. After this unit on point of view, students compose their own examples of observer narration and contrast it to an example of biography that they compose about a relative or neighbor.

Grades 9-12

An eleventh-grade English class is reading Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, which explores the lives of eight Chinese-American women through the alternating perspectives of four mothers who emigrated from China and their four daughters who were raised in the United States. The reader response journals kept by individual students reveal some frustration with the novel's constantly shifting point of view. Reader response groups provide students an opportunity to discuss whether or not the shifting point of view within the same literary work is confusing, and whether or not this device adds depth to the novel. After reading and discussing the novel, the class watches the film version. Now students have an opportunity to analyze and evaluate how the film maker has responded to the shifting point of view in the novel.
Language Strand

The Learning Standards in the Language Strand set the expectation that students will demonstrate understanding of the dynamics, nature, structure, and history of the English language.

The Importance of Oral Language
"We listen to the equivalent of a book a day; talk the equivalent of a book a week, read the equivalent of a book a month, and write the equivalent of a book a year." Walter Loban, an advocate for teaching oral language, used this comparison to remind an audience of teachers and graduate students of the dominant role that oral language plays in everyday experiences. Loban followed this statement by pleading, "Please in the name of all that is good in language and thinking, please let the children talk. Let them talk a great deal."

Children need to learn how to listen as well. The development of speaking and listening skills must continue from preschool throughout a student's academic career. Loban's passionate plea for attention to oral language development in the classroom stems from his understanding that oral language provides the foundation for thinking in and about language. A significant link exists between well-developed oral language and strong reading and writing skills. Moreover, oral language further enhances thinking through its use in informal writing. When adequate attention is given to instruction in both informal and formal speaking, students learn why the rhetorical elements of purpose and audience so strongly influence such important matters as word choice, usage, tone, and style in oral discourse.

Language and Vocabulary Development
Children's oral language develops naturally from exposure to the language of their parents and immediate community of relatives, neighbors, and friends. It is further enriched when they listen to the language of literature and engage in activities such as memorizing poems. An effective program in language development builds on the language children bring to school. It does so in a way that shows respect for students' home languages, whether they are non-standard English dialects or other languages, but does not lower expectations for them. All children need to learn the language of education. Lisa Delpit, an educator who has worked extensively with young children, including those who speak a non-standard dialect, argues that all children must be explicitly taught the language of formal education, including its structure, discourse patterns, rules of interaction, and the spoken as well as written rules of standard English.

As educational researchers have long noted, "Vocabulary development is concept development. Vocabulary growth and language growth go hand in hand." Just as word knowledge is the single most important factor in students' listening and reading comprehension, an effective speaking and writing vocabulary is indispensable in developing skill in composition. A planned program in vocabulary development is thus an important component of instruction in the English language arts. In such a program, all students learn to use a dictionary regularly as a resource for all their reading.

An effective program in language development also encourages students whose first language is not English to use English consistently in the English language arts class and in other subjects in order to develop proficiency in English in greater depth. As experience and research demonstrate, students learn a second language best when the opportunities for authentic communication are regularly provided in all their classes. The more that students try to speak in English, rather than translate from their home language, the more they will be able to think directly in English. (For teaching suggestions for students of limited English proficiency [LEP], see Appendix E.)

History of the English Language
Because many students come to school speaking a non-standard dialect, all students need to understand the sources of these differences and the nature of a living language. Thus, this strand also emphasizes teaching students the way the English language has developed across time and place in both its oral and written forms. The English language has the largest vocabulary of all the world's languages, and it is still growing because that is the nature of a living language. This vocabulary reflects the influence of every language community with which English-speaking people have been and are in contact. Although there are many variations in its oral forms, students need to recognize that its written form has been relatively stable for centuries and is used throughout the world in almost identical ways except for minor variation in some spellings.

 

Language Strand

*Learning Standard 1: Students will use agreed-upon rules for informal and formal discussions in small and large groups. These rules include active listening, staying on topic or creating an appropriate transition to a new topic, building on the ideas of previous speakers, showing consideration of others' contributions to the discussion, avoiding sarcasm and personal remarks, taking turns, and gaining the floor in appropriate ways.

*This Learning Standard is best assessed at the local level.

Language Strand

*Learning Standard 2: Students will pose questions, listen to the ideas of others, and contribute their own information or ideas in group discussions and interviews in order to acquire new knowledge.

*This Learning Standard is best assessed at the local level.

Language Strand

*Learning Standard 3: Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.

*This Learning Standard is best assessed at the local level.

Language Strand

Learning Standard 4: Students will acquire and use correctly an advanced reading vocabulary of English words, identifying meanings through an understanding of word relationships.

 

Language Strand

Learning Standard 5: Students will identify, describe, and apply knowledge of the structure of the English language and standard English conventions for sentence structure, usage, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

 

Language Strand

Learning Standard 6: Students will describe and analyze how oral dialects differ from each other in English, how they differ from written standard English, and what role standard American English plays in informal and formal communication.

Language Strand
Learning Standard 7: Students will describe and analyze how the English language has developed and been influenced by other languages.

Literature Strand

The Learning Standards in the Literature Strand set the expectation that students will learn to respond thoughtfully to all forms of spoken and written literature.

The Importance of Literature

Literature is the heart of the English language arts and the touchstone for all language learning. It represents the unique human gift of composing and communicating ideas through language. With its emphasis on active and thoughtful response to a variety of genres, this strand echoes many of the priorities expressed in the Common Core of Learning: "All students should read a rich variety of...fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction from different time periods and cultures, relating them to human aspirations and life experiences."

This strand encompasses literature in written and oral form--books and other print media, storytelling, speeches, and performances. (Film, video, and multimedia are considered in the Media Strand.) An effective English language arts program teaches students to respond to a rich variety of literature with increasing sophistication and to communicate their interpretations of what they have read, heard, and seen through various means of expression.

Selecting Literature
In selecting literature for the classroom, teachers should consider the following:

For fiction, poetry, and drama, important aspects include:

• Themes that provoke thinking and provide insight into universal human emotions

and dilemmas

• Authenticity in depiction of human emotions and experiences of diverse cultures
  
• Excellence in use of language (e.g., rich and challenging vocabulary, style, skillful use

of literary devices)

• Exploration of the complexity and ambiguity of the human condition

For nonfiction, important aspects include:

• Accurate and complete information
  
• Coherent arguments and points of view
  
• Excellence in the use of language
  

Literature should reflect the diversity of interests and abilities within each classroom. Relying solely on textbooks is limiting to both teachers and students. Many types of literature and instructional materials can be used to enable individual students to meet high standards. Accordingly, texts and students must be matched.

Consider the following anecdote about author John Steinbeck.

"Some people there are who, being grown, forget the horrible task of learning
to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he
must do it as a child....I remember that words--written or printed--were devils,
and books, because they gave me pain, were my enemies." John Steinbeck, the
writer of these words...was finally lured into a lifetime passion for language and literature...by an abridged version of Thomas Malory's cycle of Arthurian legends.
It was given to him by an aunt, who may have suspected that some magic in the
book might awaken the reader's imagination. Near the end of his own life, Steinbeck returned to childhood literary roots to recreate the story world that had shaped his own life's work.The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights is his last gift to a worldwide community of readers.

Steinbeck's experience emphasizes the goal of helping learners to connect with literature even if it means connecting first with an "abridged" version. Getting the right book into the hands of the right reader at the right time is the essence of being a matchmaker.

Literature should reflect the diversity of our nation and world. It should include high quality fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction from many cultures. It is important to remember that no single author or piece of literature can represent an entire culture; no one situation represents all situations of a given culture. For example, a focus on only traditional Native American tales might reinforce students' notions that Native Americans are a people of the past without a presence today.

Approaches to Literary Criticism

Literary analysis usually begins with a set of assumptions about the most purposeful way to "open" a text or with a theory about how to interpret literature. There are, of course, many different theories about interpretation of literature, drawing on aesthetic, historical, psychological, philosophical, or linguistic perspectives. Each perspective offers a critical lens through which to view a work of literature. For example, an aesthetic approach might concentrate upon the words and form of a particular work, seeing it as evidence of art for its own sake (New Criticism); or it may focus upon the reader's emotional reaction to the work (Reader Response). On the other hand, an historical approach might look at literature in terms of the type of society that produced it (e.g., Marxist Criticism). A psychological or psychoanalytic approach would emphasize interior characterization and internal action and, perhaps, include a study of the biography of the author (e.g., Freudian Criticism). A philosophical perspective would teach students to consider the ethical, moral, or religious significance of a work of literature.

In a comprehensive literature curriculum, students learn that there are many approaches to the interpretation of literature and that no one approach is "privileged." Throughout their academic experience, they have the opportunity to test out different theories of literary criticism and learn that a text and its influence can be viewed from more than one perspective.

Organizing A Literature Curriculum

School and district literature programs should be organized so that there is a broad and coherent selection of materials articulated for each grade. Literature units and courses may be organized by author, genre, literary period, or theme, or by historical periods. Each approach can be related to study in history, philosophy, and history or criticism of the visual and performing arts.

 

• Students who are studying the work of a particular author learn how a writer develops his or her style, voice, and ideas over time. By reading or listening to interviews with the author, students can be "introduced" to the author in his or her social and political context. By reading critiques of the author's work, students learn how critics develop their opinions and how the author influenced the times in which she wrote. For example, by reading some of his early and later works, students can learn a great deal about the evolution of George Orwell's thinking, as well as about the political and moral issues of his time.

   

• Students also study a particular genre to acquire knowledge of a particular literary form. For example, by studying a unit on the short story, featuring writers from countries around the world, students learn how short stories are written in a variety of cultural settings and how some may emanate from the oral traditions of a people.

€ A unit on historical pe