Preparation for Language Arts Skills for High School and Beyond

Teacher: John Jenkins

♦ The long-standing belief in the value of language arts:

• AD 401 in “The Confessions of Saint Augustine” – “For those first lessons, reading, writing and arithmetic, I thought as great a burden and penalty as any Greek.”
• 17th century New England – “The curriculum of the common schools may be summed up in the four R’s Reading, Riting, Rithmetic and Religion…”
• 1795, during a speech made at a Board of education dinner, Englishman Sir William Curtis – “From reading and writing comes the idea in modern education of literacy, by which we generally mean having the ability to understand ideas expressed through the medium of words.”

♦ The two undeniable fundamentals of Language Arts:

• Reading: the ability to understand ideas expressed through the medium of words
• Writing: the ability to effectively communicate ideas through the medium of words

♦ Two truths you cannot avoid:

1.  Your curriculum must emphasize critical reading and effective writing skills.
2.  Augustine did not like learning these skills. Maybe your students won’t either!

Preparatory Skills for Reading Literature

♦ Read

• encourage daily reading for pleasure (student’s choice)
• require short-term reading assignments – use short stories or novellas, thousands are free online
• require longer-term reading assignments – novels, both classic and popular
  • compare book and movie versions of novels
• review and discuss all reading and literature assignments

♦ Experience

• listen to literature
  • use a free audio book service via your library
  • Audible.com
• Go to community theatre productions
  • enroll in a drama class

♦ Skills

• expand vocabulary through reading
• encourage students to mark interesting passages for discussion
• learn vocabulary terms and identify them when reading
• require students to find literary answers to literary questions
  • external conflict and themes
  • Internal conflict and characterization