This guide provides junior high school and senior high school educators with descriptions of specific techniques for teaching language arts skills, suggestions for planning units and elective courses in the language arts curriculum, and models for changing the English curriculum. Specific topics discussed in various sections of the guide are (1) the process of changing the curriculum; (2) how to determine goals, objectives, and scope and sequence; (3) how to plan units and electives; and (4) meeting student needs through stressing skills in reading, literature, writing, speaking/listening, and language. The materials in these sections include units, overviews, outlines, scope and sequence charts, lesson plans, and bibliographies. Appendixes contain criteria for selecting curriculum materials, a list of school districts represented by curriculum materials in the guide, and a bibliography. (RL)