Written by Larry Czer
Opening Gambit
If you look at most goals and outcomes for language arts programs, you will see a strong emphasis on reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. The Minnesota language arts standards included both viewing and media literacy outcomes to prepare students for the future job market. These six skills comprise our endgame for teaching in the language arts. These skills should also influence both the way we teach and the way we prepare teachers for today’s language arts classrooms.
The Middlegame
Class instructional time is at a premium at any level of teaching. I started in a one-room school, taught in high school, and now am teaching in college. At every level managing instructional time was a challenge. We can never have enough time to accomplish our goals. But we can make the most of it to prepare students to meet the outcomes. We can’t let old methodologies get in the way of teaching our students. As I prepare future teachers, I have emphasized three mantras.
- Don’t overemphasize parsing and diagramming sentences at the expense of reading and writing. The emphasis on sentence parsing (identifying parts of speech and parts of a sentence) and sentence diagramming (primarily Reed-Kellogg) often uses up too much time that we could dedicate to other necessary instruction. In most state outcomes, few, if any, deal directly with parsing. The closest outcome in Minnesota for 8th grades states: “Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience” (MN Dept of Education Academic Standards).
Although it is necessary that students develop a linguistic vocabulary with which to talk about their language development, we need not spend an inordinate amount of class time on these issues while ignoring the real communication arts. That vocabulary is necessary only to talk about the revision of their writing – a common language, if you will.
The reason we teach grammar, syntax, mechanics, usage is so students can apply these rules to their own writing and speaking, following the rules of standard American English. The teaching of syntax gives students a knowledge of the vocabulary necessary to discuss communication skills. From what we know about language acquisition and development, students can apply the rules of sentence structures from an early age, so what we wind up teaching in school are the exceptions. English is full of exceptions; in fact, the rule is that the English rule is always an exception. Using a student’s own writing to teach sentence structures is the most effective way to accomplish this goal.
- If you are reading everything your students write, they aren’t writing enough. According to numerous researchers (Vygotsky, 1962; Bruner, 1983; Bruner 1986; Bruner 1990), children learn language when they practice it. If you want students to become good writers, make them write; if you want students to become good speakers, make them speak. The analogy holds with both music lessons and sports. If you want to play piano, you must practice. If you want to become a good free throw shooter, then shoot free throws. This concept was best reinforced in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, in which he notes that true experts spend 10,000 hours before they reach that level. To put that into perspective, if you were to practice piano for one hour each day, it would take you almost 30 years to become an expert!
Research in writing pedagogy suggests that the best way for students to improve is to receive feedback. This doesn’t always mean feedback must be from the teacher; students can benefit from feedback given by peers, teacher aides, parents, grandparents, or any other person who can serve as a reader for their writing. The problem with more writing for students is that it launches a guilt trip for teachers, who feel they must evaluate every piece of writing. In a future blog I will discuss various ways to increase student writing without increasing the teacher’s paper load.
- Students learn best when they are engaged in active learning techniques, such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Class discussions at every level of education are often overlooked as a legitimate teaching technique. Let’s remember that well thought out discussions allow students to practice multiple skills: listening, speaking, critical thinking. The more practice students have at these activities, the better they will develop their oral communication skills. I am stunned when my college first-years share that they have never had a full-class discussion. I realize this may be an exaggeration, but perhaps more regular use would help them become more comfortable. Look for opportunities to let students talk in your classrooms, whether in large or small groups. A future blog will discuss strategies and guidelines for implementing classroom talk.
The Endgame
As teachers we need to rethink how we approach our language arts instruction. Incorporating reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and media literacy are the outcomes from which we can develop lessons that make our teaching relevant and purposeful for this generation. Rethinking how we approach the teaching of writing and speaking will only benefit our students, who are quite different from previous generations.
Larry Czer (’79) is serving as an English professor at Martin Luther College.
References
Bruner, J. S. (1983). Child’s talk: Learning to use language. New York: Oxford UP.
Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual words, possible minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Gladwell, M. T, (2008). Outliers. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Minnesota Department of Education. (2010). English language arts,
http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/dse/stds/ela/
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.