Recent English Language Arts standards emphasize teaching students to use text evidence to support their claims and opinions; yet, students often struggle to do so effectively in their writing. To help students develop this skill, clearer understanding of what effective evidence use entails and targeted feedback to guide students' writing…

Teachers play a crucial role in helping students develop the skills needed for success in school, career, and life. These skills--which are a focus in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)--include higher-order thinking and complex literacy skills, such as reading, writing, and citing evidence from texts. Professional development (PD) can…

This study explored whether presenting grammar instruction within the context of reading and writing would improve writing skills. The participating schools were using a traditional grammar instruction in which grammar lessons were predominately taught using worksheets and were presented separately from other reading and writing activities. This…

The purpose of this design-based experiment is two-fold: to see if classroom pedagogies can be developed to improve student achievement in English literature as well as prepare them for 21st Century literacies. Applying Bereiter and Scardamalia's theory of Knowledge Building to English curricula, this experiment tracked the progress of a…

This article describes a writing workshop that took place with 41 low-income, multi-ethnic 12th-grade students who received instruction on specific genre features for writing college admission essays. As a result, students improved the quality of their college admission essays and demonstrated greater confidence with this writing task. This…

Draft it, revise it, edit it. Children write their way into publishing and good communication. (Editor)

Reviews several studies showing that learning to type enhances children's language arts skills. Describes a program that successfully taught typing to elementary school children. (FL)

The Nevada English Language Arts Standards are intended to give Nevada children the tools and experiences that will help them not only to succeed in school but also to become lifelong and adept readers, writers, listeners, and speakers. In the first part, the standards are divided by grades K-4 and grades 5-8 and 12, with each of the two sections…

A language arts course of study that outlines basic goals for each grade level from kindergarten through grade twelve is presented in this paper. Goals and skills to be developed are listed for the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. A flow chart intended as a work sheet companion to the course of study is also included. (FL)

The ultimate purpose of the language arts standards presented in this document is to ensure that all students be offered the opportunities, the encouragement, and the vision to develop the language skills they need to pursue lifelong goals, including finding personal enrichment and participating as informed members of society. The language arts…

Designed for use at school or at home, this book focuses on the development of seven types of literacy: linguistic, visual, mathematical, scientific, geographic, economic, and computer. The book's suggested activities are each introduced with a detailed discussion of the necessary prerequisite skills, the concepts to be mastered, the materials…

This study, with three mildly handicapped nine-year olds, investigated the effects on capitalization skills of a peer teaching procedure combined with student letter-writing activities. Findings indicated acquisition of the skills, with mixed results for generalization. Two of the 3 mildly handicapped peer teachers (ages 10-11) also improved their…

This booklet presents descriptions of 31 successful basic skills language arts/writing programs for prekindergarten through grade 12, collected from school districts nationwide by the National Diffusion Network. Information provided for each program includes: (1) program name and brief description; (2) audience focus (noting grade and ability…

Presents results of a survey that suggests that high school journalism courses help students gain language arts skills better than required or elective English courses. (JC)

Based on the premise that teachers are the chief condition in the literate classroom, and that one of the most important things children do is to observe the way adults think and learn, this book presents five essays suggesting methods of inviting children into the adult world of reading and writing. After a foreword by Donald Graves and an…