English 403: Lesson 4

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4: Goals and Standards

Overview

Tree This lesson focuses on state, school, and district standards for writing. When you finish it you should be familiar with writing goals and standards for writing at various grade levels and/or graduation that are in place in the state and within your building. This is a short lesson. I suggest you work ahead to Lesson 5 at the same time you’re doing this one, especially since Lesson 5 has lots of reading (and more interviewing and observing, of course. :)

Activities To Do:
See detail instructions in the Activities list below.
	1.	Read the national, state, and district standards
	2.	Read the State of Idaho communication standards
	3.	Read school district standards
	4.	Interview several English teachers in your school
	5.	Blackboard:
	6.	Blackboard:

Activities

1. Read NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts on writing. You can download and print this document www.ncte.org/standards/standards.shtml

2. Read the State of Idaho communication standards for grades 8 and 9-12, accessible through http://www.idahoachieves.com Click on "Standards/Language Arts" in the red menu.

3. Locate and read any school district standards for secondary language arts/writing.

4. Interview English teachers (at least three) at several grade levels about the focus of their writing instruction at the various grade levels:

What are their objectives for writing? What concepts in writing or about writing do they teach?
What types of writing do they emphasize at various grade levels and why?
How do they take into account the Idaho standards for language arts in their writing curriculum? (Are they aware of the standards?)
Does the school have a writing curriculum or sequence? Grade-level objectives for writing? Does the district have a set of writing standards?

All of these questions, and the rest of the questions for the semester are available in one PDF file.

5. Discussion: What kind of standards or goals are in place in your school? Do the teachers’ practices and goals seem to reflect district, state, and/or national standards? Are teachers aware of the state and national standards? Do local standards, if they exist, reflect the state and/or national standards? Post your response in discussion labeled "Lesson 4" in Blackboard by mid week.

6. Reflection paper: What is your assessment of the standards at the various levels? If you were in charge of the world, what would you change about them? What would you change about the standards/goals for writing in your schools? Turn this one-page paper into the Assignment Dropbox in Blackboard under "Lesson 4 Reflection" by the end of the week. The document should be a Word97 or higher format, 12 point legible text.