Standards for the English Language Arts

Book excerpt: This book describes standards for the English language arts and defines what K-12 students should know about language and be able to do with language. The book presents the current consensus among literacy teachers and researchers about what students should learn in the English language arts--reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing. The first chapter of the book (Setting Standards in the English Language Arts) addresses defining the standards and the need for standards. The second chapter (Perspectives Informing the English Language Arts Standards) discusses the content, purpose, development, and context of the standards. The third chapter presents the 12 standards in detail. The fourth chapter (Standards in the Classroom) presents elementary, middle-school, and high-school vignettes which illustrate how the standards might be implemented in the classroom. The book concludes that these standards represent not an end but a beginning--a starting point for discussion and action. A glossary (containing more than 100 terms), a list of participants, a history of the standards project, an overview of standards projects, state and international English language arts standards, a 115-item annotated list of resources for teachers, and a comment form are attached. (RS)