In productive classrooms, teachers do not just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings. Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using…

This document is designed to show the connection between the required state-written curriculum (courses of study) and the state-tested curriculum (the Alabama High School Graduation Examination and the Stanford Achievement Test, Ninth Edition [Stanford 9]) in English Language Arts. The document illustrates that courses of study content standards…

This book presents a new vision of curriculum--one that invites students to read with important social ideas in mind and write with the purpose of making the world a better place. Developed over years of classroom experience with diverse children, the book will help more experienced teachers take the next step in their professional growth, while…

This is a book about "conscious learning," the kind of learning that enables students to assess the current level and quality of their language performance and then work to improve that performance deliberately, enthusiastically, and with commitment. The book takes complex, sophisticated understandings and reworks them into ready-to-use…

This video is one of a four-part series which is designed to introduce teachers and parents to standards and teaching in a standards-based environment, and aims to help teachers and parents understand how teaching with standards can change classrooms, work assignments, and student performance. This video demonstrates what starting to meet the…

Since Achieve's first report in 2000, New Jersey has revised its Core Curriculum Content Standards in language arts literacy and math. In 2004, at the request of the governor and commissioner of education and with the encouragement and support of New Jersey United, a statewide business and education coalition, Achieve reviewed the state's revised…

The new Readers Theatre series features scripts for students in grades 4-8. These original scripts are written for the specific purpose of teaching literary genre. Each book is composed of 24-28 scripts, each of which will be keyed to published books, plays, poems or stories in that genre, encouraging students to read the originals in order to…

Are states setting high expectations for student learning? To answer this question the Council for Basic Education (CBE) evaluated the rigor of mathematics and language arts standards in the United States. This report is divided into the following sections: (1) Context for the Study; (2) Rigor in State Standards; (3) Issues Affecting the…

In compliance with the philosophy of the Yeshivah of Flatbush, the English department is committed to students mastering the secular discipline of English. Students will develop the language skills of reading, writing, and speaking, as well as a sophistication of style and a clarity of expression. Writing is to be developed for academic purposes…

Visiting a historic site provides a rich stimulus for all kinds of work in English. This handbook offers a range of ideas for work on site for teachers of all Key Stages. The handbook suggests activities which will deepen students' engagement and enable the potential of a visit to be explored within the context of English, and to deliver history…

In this lesson plan, students explore the cultural significance of masks. After exploring the world of African masks and storytelling, they create masks that tell stories of their own. In these six lessons, students first recall contexts in which masks are worn in the United States, and then discuss their use in stories. Students then investigate…

This lesson plan teaches students about the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. Students listen to a brief biography, view photographs of the March on Washington, and read a portion of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. After studying Dr. King's use of imagery and allusion, students create original poetic phrases about freedom and…

Before children can make sense of phonics study, they first must learn that print conveys meaning. Children who do not have this foundation concept may do phonics workbook pages, but without understanding or processing the concepts. That is why--unlike books on traditional phonics teaching--this book emphasizes the making of sound instructional…

This report summarizes results for the second administration of the State Grade 4 English Language Arts (ELA) assessment for New York City public schools in February 2000, comparing 2000 results with results from the 1999 administration of the Grade 4 ELA and from New York state overall and other cities nationwide. Performance of New York City's…

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…