As literacy, including reading, writing, listening, and speaking, is of primary importance to any learning, it is of vital importance that teachers provide a framework wherein all students can develop language and literacy skills.  Acquisition of such skills enables students not only to excel in school but also to pursue life's goals, including personal enrichment and active participation in our global society.

The Secondary English/Language Arts Certification Program collaborates with the English Department in CLA to help students become practitioners who know both their English content and educational pedagogy.  For teachers to create classroom environments where language literacy can be achieved by all students, they must have a strong background in English content, in learning processes, in the nature and needs of adolescents, and in effective ways to engage all students in the learning process.

In a combination of English content classes, education theory and methodology classes, and field experiences, students will develop the skills necessary to blend theory and practice.

Content and Process:  To Know

1. To be knowledgeable of literature from many periods in many genres.
2. To be knowledgeable of how reading, writing, listening, and speaking help students communicate effectively.
3. To be knowledgeable of how prior experience, textual clues and features, word identification strategies, and knowledge of how work meanings and language structures and conventions aid in the comprehension, interpretation, evaluation, and appreciation of text.
4. To be knowledgeable of how critical thought and understanding can be stimulated through summary, synthesis, analysis, comparison and contrast, and evaluation of the ideas of others in our global society.

Application: To Do

1. To build student understanding of the many dimensions of human experiences.
2. To facilitate student understanding of a wide range of writing strategies to enable students to communicate in writing to varied audiences for a variety of purposes.
3. To read for personal enjoyment and to introduce students to a wide range of print and non-print texts to facilitate an understanding of text construction and interpretation, of the variety of culturally diverse voices, and of how new information is gleaned from text

Attitude:  To Be

1. To possess an understanding and respect for diversity across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and in social roles.
2. To realize how technology and access to information sources and the gathering of those sources can generate ideas and questions and pose problems for further student study.

National Council of Teachers of English and International Reading Association, Standards of the English Language Arts, 1996

Resources

• Program Plan in PDF format
• College of Liberal Arts Program Plan in PDF format