Improving the Literacy Skills of Struggling Writers

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-140
Author(s):  
Dawn S. Herring
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Written Communication ◽  
Struggling Writers ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Content Area Teachers ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Good Writing

A focus on teaching effective written communication skills is a necessity in our nation's schools. Students must develop good writing skills not only to ensure academic success but also to later thrive in the workplace and in society. For struggling writers, difficulties with written communication that emerged during elementary school will persist into middle school, high school, and beyond if effective interventions are not employed. Implementing a response to intervention (RTI) literacy model that promotes the integration of writing across the curriculum can help schools make huge strides in improving the motivations, skills, and outcomes of struggling writers. This chapter presents specific elements of effective writing instruction as well as instructional strategies that can be employed within an RTI framework to assist struggling writers schoolwide. The focus is on informing not only English/language arts teachers but also content area teachers on research-based classroom writing supports and practical tips for implementation.

The Role of Writing in RTI at the Secondary Level

2015 ◽  
pp. 102-128
Author(s):  
Dawn S. Herring
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
English Language ◽  
Written Communication ◽  
Struggling Writers ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Content Area Teachers ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Good Writing

A focus on teaching effective written communication skills is a necessity in our nation's schools. Students need to develop good writing skills not only to ensure academic success but also to later thrive in the workplace and in society as a whole. For struggling writers, difficulties with written communication that emerged during elementary school will persist into middle school, high school, and beyond if effective interventions are not employed. Implementing a Response to Intervention (RTI) literacy model that promotes the integration of writing across the curriculum can help schools make huge strides in improving the motivations, skills, and outcomes of struggling writers. This chapter presents specific elements of effective writing instruction as well as instructional strategies that can be employed within an RTI framework to assist struggling writers school wide. The focus is on informing not only English/language arts teachers but also content area teachers on research-based classroom writing supports.

scholarly journals State educational agencies in an uncertain environment: Understanding state provided networks of English Language Arts curricular resources

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Serena J. Salloum ◽  
Emily M. Hodge ◽  
Susanna L. Benko
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Quadratic Assignment ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Organizational Ties ◽  
State Educational

Rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, and backlash around these policies created widespread uncertainty among state educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs may have not had a clear direction about how to support standards implementation in a new context, and therefore, may have looked to their professional networks, their geographic neighbors or other highly regarded SEAs, or other sources for information and resources to guide their decisions about where to send teachers for information about standards. Drawing on institutional theory (Meyer Rowan, 1977) and isomorphism specifically (DiMaggio Powell, 1983), we posit that coercive forces (primarily due to RTTT application and CCSS status) as compared to mimetic and normative forces influenced the organizations to which SEAs turn for curriculum materials. Using Multiple Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure and a data set of over 2,000 state-provided resources for secondary English Language Arts teachers from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., we indeed found that coercive forces had a relationship with shared organizational ties, demonstrating that RTTT application and CCSS adoption influenced resource provision.

It’s All about Personal Connections

2012 ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Luke Rodesiler ◽  
Lauren Tripp
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
English Language ◽  
Networked Learning ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Personal Connections ◽  
Arts Teachers

Given the potential of informal online learning via social networks for supporting the career-long professional growth of in-service teachers, research must be conducted to better understand the ways in which today’s future teachers are being prepared for and experiencing such practice. This chapter presents the authors’ efforts to move in that direction, a qualitative study describing six pre-service secondary English language arts teachers’ perceptions of self-directed networked learning during a teaching internship. Findings suggest that participants perceived networked learning as a viable and valuable approach to supplementing professional growth despite also perceiving challenges in the form of context, identity, and time.

Designing for Purpose-Driven Technology Use Among Preservice English Teachers

2020 ◽  
pp. 519-546
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Higgs
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Literacy Learning ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Digital Tool ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Arts Teachers

This chapter reports on a case study of a 12-week technology course for preservice English language arts teachers in which the teacher educator attempted to shift away from tool-centric approaches by foregrounding purpose-driven tool use and project-based learning experiences. Findings from analyses of classroom, interview, and survey data suggested that specific design choices helped to promote purpose-driven technology use for literacy learning. These included the instructor's articulation and modeling of a “pedagogy first” stance that centered pedagogical reasons for digital tool use and affordances of digital tools, and the organization of a project-based learning environment that engaged preservice teachers in hands-on exploration of digitally mediated ELA learning through continual cycles of making, sharing, and reflecting on digital artifacts.

scholarly journals Perceiving the Materiality of Language in Teaching English Language Arts

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. p61
Author(s):  
E.A. Gamini Fonseka, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Life World ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Verbal Language ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Materiality Of Language

As language is the medium of an art or a configuration of arts focused on communication, it is indispensable to realize the materiality of language with its potential to interpret the numerous phenomena in the environment. Our individual microcosms filled with messages on various complex situations received through our sensory channels exist in terms of strings of verbal language that help to re-create them for communication in whatever fashion we want. We experience language in meaningful utterances that function in singles or clusters to represent the life world in numerous registers. Our expressions inspired by our experiences of the life world are communicated through words orchestrated in grammatically patterned sentences. Like in other forms of art, in English language arts, teachers and learners can behave with confidence, when they realize the substance they deal with as oral sounds that gradually evolve into syllables, morphemes, signs, symbols, metaphors, and images, which creatively represent the life world. Against this background, I intend to demonstrate here the relevance of perceiving the materiality of language under the framework of a multifaceted unity of several disciplines, namely, phonology, morphology, semiotics, rhetoric, and stylistics that altogether contribute to a holistic approach to language. A concrete perception of language achieved in this manner helps to recover the learning process not only from inhibition and anxiety but also from fossilization and ephemerality.

The Promise of Anonymity: An Investigation of the Practices of ELA Teachers Facilitating Discourse about LGBTq Topics

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (12) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Sarah Schneider Kavanagh
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Instructional Practice ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Secondary English ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Secondary English Language Arts ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
Lgbtq Students

Background/Context As states and districts have begun adopting texts inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, debates about how LGBTQ issues should be represented in the curricular canon have emerged. While existing research investigates curricular questions that are arising as a result of LGBTQ curricular inclusion, scholarship has been slow to address the instructional questions presented by the introduction of inclusive curricula. Purpose This study explored how seven secondary English Language Arts teachers facilitated student engagement with LGBTQ-related topics. Analysis of data on teachers’ instructional practice and related decision-making sought to (a) determine what instructional dilemmas arose for teachers as they taught LGBTQ-inclusive content and (b) analyze the instructional decisions that teachers made to address these dilemmas. Participants Participants in this study were seven secondary English Language Arts teachers who (a) held strong reputations in their professional communities for supporting LGBTQ students and (b) had strong intentions to support LGBTQ students through LGBTQ curricular inclusion, reducing student prejudice, and advocating for and with LGBTQ students. Research Design This comparative case study was embedded in a larger qualitative study that investigated the instructional practice of LGBTQ-supportive teachers. This article reports on findings from an analysis of all data from this project that pertained to how teachers engaged students when teaching LGBTQ content. Data was collected over a six-month period and includes 22 teacher interviews, 28 observations of classroom instruction, 70 teacher log entries, and 25 teacher questionnaires. Findings/Results Analysis showed that participants felt a tension between a desire to make LGBTQ identity visible and a desire to offer LGBTQ students privacy. Participants employed two different approaches to navigating the visibility–privacy tension. Some created parallel engagement strategies for students, some public and some private, while others simultaneously allowed for privacy and visibility through the use of anonymity. Conclusions/Recommendations As conceptions of diversity expand to include sexual diversity, this study has implications for teacher preparation and professional development aimed at supporting teachers to attend to the unique needs of LGBTQ students within instructional practice.

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