English Language Arts Standards

from the Michigan Curriculum Framework

 

The English language arts encompass process and content— how people communicate as well as what they communicate. Process includes skills and strategies used in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and viewing. Content includes the ideas, themes, issues, problems, and conflicts found in classical and contemporary literature and other texts, such as technical manuals, periodicals, speeches, and videos. Ideas, experiences, and cultural perspectives we discover in texts help us shape our vision of the world. The insights we gain enable us to understand our cultural, linguistic, and literary heritages. The ultimate goal for all English language arts learners is personal, social, occupational, and civic literacy.

A literate individual:

 

English Language Arts

Vision Statement

OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

CONTENT STANDARDS

English language arts education in Michigan incorporates the teaching and learning of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing. Integration of the English language arts occurs in multiple ways. First, English language arts curriculum, instruction, and assessment reflect the integration of listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing. The English language arts are not perceived as individual content areas, but as one unified subject in which each of the five areas supports the others and enhances thinking and learning. Secondly, there is integration of the teaching and learning of content and process within the English language arts. The common human experiences and the ideas, conflicts, and themes embodied in literature and all oral, written, and visual texts provide a context for the teaching of the processes, skills, and strategies of listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing. Finally, literacy educators believe that the knowledge, skills, and strategies of the English language arts are integrated throughout the curriculum, enabling students to solve problems and think critically and creatively in all subject areas.

In grades K-12, a locally developed English language arts curriculum, embodying these state content standards, will ensure that all students are literate and can engage successfully in reading, discovering, creating, and analyzing spoken, written, electronic, and visual texts which reflect multiple perspectives and diverse communities and make connections within English language arts and between English language arts and other fields.

Standard 1, 2, 3 Meaning and Communication

All students will read and comprehend general and technical material.

All students will demonstrate the ability to write clear and grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and compositions.

All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read, and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts.

The essence of the English language arts is communication— exchanging and exploring information and insights. We are meaning-makers who strive to make sense of our world. We use the English language arts in every area of our lives, not just the classroom. They help us deal with other people in the world around us. Listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing are naturally integrated in our attempts to communicate. We continually improve our understanding by using our past experiences, the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and what we are hearing, reading, or viewing. Only when we understand or when we are understood are we communicating—only then are we using the English language arts.

 

Standard 4. Language

All students will use the English language effectively.

When we use the English language, we use it in many different ways and forms. The forms of language that we use depend upon the audience and the type of message we want to communicate. Our language is different when we use it in a formal setting, such as speaking to an assembly or writing to apply for a job, as opposed to talking with friends about a recent event or writing a personal diary. As we grow in our ability to use language, we learn what forms and types of language are best suited for different situations. Instruction, as well as experiencing language in many different settings, helps us learn to understand and use the forms and types of language which are best suited for our purposes.

 

Standard 5. Literature

All students will read and analyze a wide variety of classic and contemporary literature and other texts to seek information, ideas, enjoyment, and understanding of their individuality, our common heritage and common humanity, and the rich diversity of our society.

One of the important ways we learn to use language effectively is through our close reading of a wide range of well constructed texts used for a variety of purposes. The reading of both fiction and non-fiction high-quality literature allows us to experience and learn things that we might not experience in our daily lives; reading helps us to understand the actions, thoughts, and feelings of others who may or may not be like us. Exploring texts that our ancestors felt important, as well as texts that represent other cultures and other times, helps to increase our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Standard 6. Voice

All students will learn to communicate information accurately and effectively and demonstrate their expressive abilities by creating oral, written, and visual texts that enlighten and engage an audience.

 

Our ability to create oral, written, and visual texts that engage audiences is enhanced when we view ourselves as effective users of the English language arts. We develop our own voices by listening, reading, viewing, speaking, and writing about issues that are of great importance to us. Exploring how authors work provides us with opportunities to examine a variety of writing models from which we can learn the tools of language such as style, word choice, persuasiveness, and sentence structure.

 

Standard 7. Skills and Processes

All students will demonstrate, analyze, and reflect upon the skills and processes used to communicate through listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing.

 

Effective communication depends upon our ability to recognize, when attempts to construct and convey meaning, work well and when they have broken down. We must monitor, reflect, and adjust our communication processes for clarity, correctness, purpose, and audience. We need to learn multiple strategies for constructing and conveying meaning in written, spoken, and visual texts. Our literacy development depends upon on-going, personal, self-regulated assessment.

 

Standard 8. Genre and Craft of Language

All students will explore and use the characteristics of different types of texts, aesthetic elements, and mechanics—including text structure, figurative and descriptive language, spelling, punctuation, and grammar—to construct and convey meaning.

 

Reading a variety of texts helps us develop an understanding and appreciation of the writer’s craft. We learn that there are many different and effective ways to convey meaning.

Exploring how artists, writers, and speakers communicate successfully helps us employ effective techniques in our own efforts to communicate meaning based on our purpose, content, and audience. We increase our ability to use the mechanics of writing to achieve correctness and clarity when we reflect upon and create a variety of genre.

 

Standard 9. Depth of Understanding

All students will demonstrate understanding of the complexity of enduring issues and recurring problems by making connections and generating themes within and across texts.

 

We can explore complex human issues by learning to identify key concepts and themes in literature, by examining and reflecting upon diverse viewpoints, by summarizing arguments, and by presenting our own positions. We learn to use themes and topics from texts to make connections, see patterns, and demonstrate a deep and rich understanding of the enduring issues and recurring problems that characterize human experience.

 

Standard 10.  Ideas in Action

All students will apply knowledge, ideas, and issues drawn from texts to their lives and the lives of others.

 

Themes and issues explored in texts provide us with many ideas about the world, our communities, and our own place within them. Continued research and analysis of these themes enable us to enhance the skills needed to respond to the issues in our lives that concern and inspire us. It is critical that we use these skills to choose appropriate responses in areas that are important to us now in order to prepare for the future.

 

Standard 11. Inquiry and Research

All students will define and investigate important issues and problems using a variety of resources, including technology, to explore and create texts.

 

An important use of the English language arts is to understand concepts and to create new knowledge. As we continue to improve our ability to collect, analyze, and evaluate information, we will increase our ability to contribute to the businesses that employ us and the communities in which we choose to live. In order to best accomplish this, we need to be able to find information in a variety of forms and to organize it in a way that allows better understanding and new insights.

Many tried-and-true methods work well, such as library searches, interviews, card files, and outlines. Today, we have new technologies that can facilitate this process, such as electronic library catalogs, e-mail, and fax machines. Use of technology gives us more time to concentrate on the most important component of research, the thinking skills of inquiry, which we use when we formulate questions and hypotheses, analyze and synthesize information, and draw reasonable conclusions.

 

Standard 12. Critical Standards

All students will develop and apply personal, shared, and academic criteria for the employment, appreciation, and evaluation of their own and others’ oral, written, and visual texts.

Experiences in the English language arts help us to recognize and develop standards of quality for evaluating and appreciating literature and other oral, written, and visual texts. We develop indicators of quality by analyzing those that are recognized as time-honored standards. As we assimilate and modify these indicators, we generate our own personal standards which continue to evolve as we grow in our experience and gain knowledge in the English language arts.