Place for Writing

This study explored how a critical and place-based language arts curriculum influenced high-performing rural students as writers. This study uses data from a larger, federally funded grant. The sample included 199 students, who comprised the second cohort of students participating in the Promoting Place in Rural Schools grant and were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Students in the treatment groups were provided instruction using four language arts units designed for high-achieving, rural students, while students in the control group were provided the traditional language arts curriculum for their grade level. This study uses 149/199 pre-tests and 158/199 post-tests due to students being absent for testing or dropping out of or being added to the study. Qualitative analysis of student pre- and post-test writing tasks provided data that supported the conclusion that while students in the control group made place connections, students in the treatment group made deeper and more critical connections to place. These findings suggest that writing instruction that values students’ lived experiences provides opportunities for students to make meaning using what they know, as well as to critically examine their experiences as members of their local communities. This study provides insight into writing classrooms that embrace student experience and view students as valuable members of their communities.

A focus on language in the immersion language arts curriculum

Grounded in research on explicit and implicit knowledge and on the role of conscious awareness in language learning, this interpretive case study examined the efforts of one Portuguese teacher to implement a focus on language within a language arts curriculum based on literary genres with a class of fourth grade (9-year-old) students over the course of an academic year. The study found that lessons on authentic literary texts provided a meaningful context for calling students’ attention to nominal and verbal agreement patterns in Portuguese. By the end of the year, students’ nominal and verbal agreement had improved dramatically on a written test, but only their nominal agreement had improved significantly in an unstructured interview, although they had begun to use a greater variety of verb forms. Students were also able to correct many of their own errors and to use metalinguistic terminology to explain the language patterns involved.

UNTANGLING BINARIES: WHERE CANADA SITS IN THE “21st CENTURY DEBATE”

This article examines the extent to which the competencies of the 21st century learner are reflected in the learning outcomes within the English language arts curriculum standards documents for the Canadian provinces. Manifest summative content analysis was used to code learning outcomes in accordance with themes derived from the competencies of 21st century learners. For all provinces, there were few learning outcomes that required students to use digital resources to access information or create knowledge / solutions; there were no learning outcomes related to competencies in the context of core subjects or using social media to communicate and learn. Espoused learning pedagogies need to be galvanized into English language arts curriculum standards that are consistent with 21st century and digital literacy learning competencies.