Teaching Language Arts

Description

This book brings the vision of a student-centered classroom to life through clear illustrations of guiding principles, balanced with examples of real teachers in real classrooms with real children, many of whom are English learners.

Engaging, readable, student-friendly, and practical, this text is built on a strong theoretical and research base, and illustrated and clarified with real-life examples of children and teachers from today’s diverse classrooms. Written to reflect cutting-edge theory, new research, the latest policies, the new Common Core State Standards, and best practices in the rapidly changing world of language arts instruction, Carole Cox’s new Seventh Edition continues to guide students as they learn the many skills required to become an effective teacher today.

The book’s unique Snapshotfeature takes readers into the real world of the classroom as they read about actual students and see samples of their work, and hear from the teachers as they describe their philosophies and methods. Well-regarded for its authoritative, comprehensive coverage of the contemporary language arts classroom, the book provides a balance of student-centered and teacher-directed instruction that includes many examples from today’s classrooms. This new edition remains grounded in current theories of constructivism and social interaction combined with a reader-response perspective toward teaching with children’s literature, as well as current research in language and literacy instruction.

Students see how to:

• Use an array of Assessment Toolboxes to observe, assess, plan, and differentiate instruction to ensure that students’ needs are met within the context of a standards-based curriculum.
• Put specific suggestions for teaching language arts into practice readily in the classroom with the help of lesson plans, each with the new Common Core State Standards; a step-by-step approach to teaching; graphic organizers; assessment tools; ideas for integrated teaching across the content areas; and children’s books and media resources.
• Meet the needs of diverse learners by sheltering and differentiating instruction for English learners, students with disabilities and other special needs, nonmainstream speakers of English, and struggling readers and writers throughout the text and in two special boxes called Engaging English Learners and Differentiating Instruction, which appear throughout.
• Link grade-level expected outcomes for students to the specific ideas for language arts instruction in the book’s presentation of the new Common Core State Standards.
• Model learning and teaching in a Web 2.0 world with the help of a new boxed feature in every chapter, Media and Technology.
• Use a variety of ideas for language and literacy experiences, lesson plans, and children’s literature provided in a useful Appendix: A Month-by-Month Guide to Integrated Teaching with Literature.

Along with the book’s unique Snapshots of real life in the classroom this edition also includes:

• Examples of Integrated Teaching with Literature demonstrating thematic, literature-based learning across the curriculum linked to the Common Core State Standards.
• Expanded Lesson Plans and more integrated teaching ideas and lesson plans in an appendix.
• Common Core State Standards and Great Books for Children in marginal notes throughout.
• A Month-by-Month Guide to Integrated Teaching with Literature in the appendix.

Included in each chapter to help readers get the most out of their original reading of the material, as well as their later review, are:

• Chapter opening questions
• Reflections
• Chapter ending answers
• Looking Further features
• Suggested Children’s Books
• References

Carole Cox, Ph.D., teaches at California State University, Long Beach, where she was named the Outstanding Professor in 2001. She received her B.A. from UCLA with a double major in French and Political Science, and an elementary teaching credential. She has taught elementary school in Los Angeles, California, and Madison, Wisconsin, and received her Ph.D. in Education at the University of Minnesota. At Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and California State University, Long Beach, Carole has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in language arts, reading, and children’s literature, and published articles, book chapters, and other books with Pearson including Engaging English Learners: Exploring Literature, Developing Literacy, and Differentiating Instruction (Cox & Boyd-Batstone, 2009). Professor Cox’s research has focused on children’s stance toward film and literature from a reader-response perspective, specifically Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional model of the reading process.

Teaching Language Arts is built on a strong theoretical and research base, and illustrated and clarified with real-life examples of children and teachers from today’s diverse classrooms. Written to reflect cutting-edge theory, new research, the latest policies, the new Common Core State Standards, and best practices in the rapidly changing world of language arts instruction, the book uses a number of practical aids to bring the concepts alive, among them the unique, highly popular Snapshots of real teachers and students, which demonstrate the many skills required to become an effective teacher in today’s challenging and diverse classrooms.

Substantially updated and reorganized to reflect current issues and development in teaching language arts, this new Seventh Edition gives readers:

• Integrated Teaching with Literature features that provides a framework for planning standards-based teaching linked to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
• Engaging English Learners boxes with specific ideas for teaching English learners.
• Media and Technology boxes that help connect chapter content to current technology standards and practices.
• Two new Assessment Toolboxes.
• A new Chapter 12, Reading and Writing Literary Texts.
• A new Chapter 13, Reading and Writing Informational Texts.

“Dr. Cox is to be commended for writing such a practical, useful, informative and interesting textbook.” – Nancy L. Gibney, University of Detroit Mercy

“Theoretically sound, current research, and very understandable– the students like this text and call it a ‘keeper.'” – Deborah Hamm, California State University, Long Beach

This book brings the vision of a student-centered classroom to life through clear illustrations of guiding principles, balanced with examples of real teachers in real classrooms with real children, many of whom are English learners. Engaging, readable, and practical, Teaching Language Arts is built on a strong theoretical and research base, and illustrated and clarified with real-life examples of children and teachers from today’s diverse classrooms. Written to reflect cutting-edge theory, new research, the latest policies, the new Common Core State Standards, and best practices in the rapidly changing world of language arts instruction, the book uses a number of practical aids to bring the concepts alive, among them the unique, highly popular “Snapshots” of real teachers and students, which demonstrate the many skills required to become an effective teacher in today’s challenging and diverse classrooms.

Special Features

Preface

1. Language Arts: Learning and Teaching
2. Language Arts: Assessing and Differentiating Instruction
3. Integrated Teaching with Literature
4. Language Development and Emergent Literacy
5. Engaging English Learners
6. Reading
7. Writing
8. Speaking and Listening
9. Viewing and Visually Representing
10. Spelling
11. Grammar, Punctuation, and Handwriting
12. Reading and Writing Literary Texts
13. Reading and  Writing Informational Texts

References

Subject Index

Appendix: A Month-by-Month Guide to Integrated Teaching with Literature

Substantially updated and reorganized to reflect current issues and developments in teaching language arts, this new edition gives students:

• A framework for planning standards-based teaching linked to the Common Core State Standards for the English Language Arts as well as integrated across content areas through the new special feature Integrated Teaching with Literature.
• Specific ideas for teaching English learners and providing teachers with much-needed assistance in teaching English as a second language and sheltering content instruction through the new boxed feature, Engaging English Learners.
• Ways to connect chapter content to current technology standards, teaching structures, online tools and resources, and best practices for integrating media and technology into language arts instruction through the new boxed feature, Media and Technology, that appears in each chapter.
• Two new Assessment Toolboxes: 1) a web-based Online Literature Discussion Rubric to use with Online Literature Discussion Boards, and 2) a Differentiated Rubric for Language Conventions for English Learners: Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Levels of English Proficiency.
• A focus on two types of texts, literary and informational, in the two new chapters, “Reading and Writing Literary Texts” (Ch. 12) and “Reading and Writing Informational Texts” (Ch. 13).
• Chapter-by-chapter changes are included in the Preface to the book.