Exploring Teaching: English Language Arts

A collection of information and resources gathered after reading Exploring Teaching English Language Arts by Stephen Tchudi and Diana Mitchell

Exploring and Teaching
the English Language Arts

In the introduction of the book, Tchudi and Mitchell start by saying "Every person is born a learner" (36). They work on highlighting the importance of teaching ELA, and how it is bound to all learning intrinsically. They also state that "Every person is born a teacher" (39), since every person spends time coaching, instructing, and responding to others as they themselves learn. As they put it, "We learn and we teach about the world through language" (39).

Language, Experience, and the Teaching of English

Tchudi and Mitchell assert that learning ELA happens in three main stages: perception, reflection, and application (40). Basically, people learn English best through experiencing and using it, hearing ans seeing what others say, and mimicking the way they speak. These experiences are very much affected by a person's experiences in their own lives. That experience, thus that language, translates into how people view "the real world," resulting in a different idea in every person.

The Question of Standards

While a lot of what Tchudi and Mitchell discuss may sound like it falls outside the range of Standards, or most certainly Standards-Based Grading, they address early on that when used correctly, and when the teacher has room to interpret the standards and decide how to best fit them to their students, standards are extremely beneficial. As they put it, "the standards stress growth and expansion of language for personal, social, and academic/vocational purposes" (57). They also mention how the use of standards expand the range of literature students read, the ways and forms students write, and allow them to become increasingly competent with different medias, including electronic media.

The Experiential Model

Since people often "acquire" language, more than they "learn" it, Tchudi and Mitchell categorize it as a "learn-by-doing" skill, and discuss how we must reflect that in our teaching (49). Since a lot of language is learned from imitating or learning from the things and people that surround us, we must expose them to ideas and language that they are missing, in order to help their understanding of the English language grow. A lot of this is fostered by creativity and invention; trying new language forms and styles leads to a greater understanding of the language as a whole. Of course some things, like spelling, or more intricate grammatical details, do require some formal instruction for students to fully understand, but many of these things could be included in a 'mini-lesson.'

Observing Growth and Development

The end of this chapter continues to discuss teaching ELA, and specifically addresses that assessment and data collection should be an ongoing process throughout a class (59). While that may sound daunting, an "assessment," is anything that shows evidence of a student's knowledge or learning. For ELA teachers, things like tests are obviously required, but other forms of assessment like portfolios, diaries, and journals are a great way to monitor a student's writing over the span of a course. 

Chapter Resources:

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Rather than ELA being condensed down to two of the three "R's," Steve and Paul Morris, authors of "The New Literacy" came up with the Thirty-Nine "R's" of ELA!
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Different types of everyday assessments