NJCCCS Handout

Critique of the New Jersey Language Arts Literacy Core Curriculum Content Standards

Overview
• To prepare students of all grade levels to effectively use the different branches of language in the educational process and everyday life.

• The Language Arts Literacy Standards are broken into five strands: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Viewing and Media Literacy

• The student’s ability to show understanding in each of the branches is essential to the completion of each grade.

• Students are expected to demonstrate understanding through a number of different activities and procedures.

• Students use critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity to grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially

• The five strands to build upon each other and supplement each other’s purpose

• Language Arts Literacy Standards are used as a guide for teachers to prepare students for a lifetime of effective and successful communication with others.

Skills, Knowledge, and Dispositions
• Critical thinking
• Problem solving
• Creativity
• Five Strands – Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Viewing and Media Literacy
• Comprehension

Assessments
• Portfolios
• Rubrics/criteria
• Presentations
• Written forms (eg. Research paper)
• Questions and answers

***While the New Jersey Language Arts Literacy Core Curriculum Content Standards gives various assessments, they do not provide sample rubrics, presentations, or writing topics.

STRENGTHS
• Guideline of what to teach- outlines the important ideas
• Makes sure that school systems across the state are learning the same important ideas
• Gives specific learning expectation
• Easy format to follow
• Includes updated standards (complies with current technology)
• Standards are revisited and revised every four years with input from Language Arts Literacy Teachers.
• Clearly focused on 5 areas that make up the heart of what Language Arts Literacy teachers teach: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Viewing.
• Poses Essential Questions that teachers can utilize to address the five strands
• The cumulative progress indicators show when and how students need to be able to move forward in accomplishing new levels of each standard

WEAKNESSES
• Limited explanation of assessments
• Uses vague words (e.g. creativity)
• Doesn’t explain or define key skills (e.g. critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity)
• Although it represents key content to be taught, it does not allow teachers to think outside of the box and it limits the way the material is presented
• Requires a range of skills (five strands) that must be taught simultaneously
• Very lengthy (teachers do not have the time to read all aspects of the standards)
• Students across the state are not held uniformly accountable for achieving the standards
• Standardized tests are not as rigorous as the standards, and therefore do not accurately measure student achievement in Language Arts Literacy
• Teachers are able to over emphasize or under emphasize elements in the standards.

REFERENCES

Splitter, Laurance J. (1991) Critical thinking: What, why, when and how. Educational Philosophy and Theory 23.1. 89-109.

Adams, Dennis M. and Mary E. Hamm. Cooperative Learning: Critical Thinking and Collaboration Across the Curriculum Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1990.

Paul, Richard & Elder, Linda (1999). Critical Thinking: Teaching Students to Seek the Logic of Things. Journal of Developmental Education, 23(1) pp. 34

href="http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&an=8525674&site=ehost-live">Taking Language Arts to the Community.

href="http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&an=8524879&site=ehost-live">What Schools Should Teach in the English Language Arts.

ALSO: For a list of essential questions for all content areas: http://www.state.nj.us/education/aps/njscp/

Grades and Learning

Through this curriculum course I have been made more aware of my purpose as an educator. I suppose I am lucky to have had some time off, away from the classroom, to ponder and self-reflect on my teaching and the learning of students. I wonder, if it weren't for these graduate classes and having the time to reflect, would I still be teaching the same way? As an undergraduate I was taught all of the key characteristics to good teaching. For example, have a hook or anticipatory set, segue to the "lecturette", individual practice, cooperative learning or pair and share activity, and finally closure.

Having all of these technical aspects to a lesson is important. However, the proper assessments is more valuable. Actually being able to determine what the students are learning, if they are learning at all, is much more effective than making sure we check some technicalities off of a list. In the beginning of this semester I said to myself, "yes it makes sense. But as a math teacher, with so little time, do I have the time to do it?" Then I realized this is my job! Just take away some of the meaningless assessments (like the 500 quizzes I give in a semester) and replace them with the time to observe and monitor student progress.

I suppose we all get bogged down with the paperwork- but truly what is our purpose as educators? Grades? They are definitely important to the students, parents, and administrators. And it is what teachers use to gauge progress of students. But what is a grade if it doesn't measure what the students have learned? It becomes a pointless number- a meaningless way to measure success.

I have had numerous cases in school where a student that is driven to do well, gets the A, regardless of what information that student has been able to conceptualize and apply for deeper understanding of the content. I have also had students who were able to conceptualize and apply the information but did not do their homework and did not test well, so they did not do well in the course. As an educator, I want the best of both worlds: a student who is dedicated to do well and works hard in addition to having the capability to acquire that deeper understanding.

But how can we get around using these numbers? Our society is number driven: tests scores, social security numbers, license plate numbers, etc. While I do not think we will ever get away from using numbers or grades, just being more aware of of this may help to improve our practice. As educators, we must develop ways to ensure student understanding and student learning and do our best to match the student's abilities to a number grade.

One way I plan on observing learning in action is through higher order questioning and essential questions. I just read May's Mathematics Teaching in the Middle Grades, an article titled "The Importance of Equal Sign Understanding." One essential question I could use for my course in sixth grade is "What does it mean to be equal?" Just as so many words in the English Language can be spelled the same but mean different things, so do many symbols in mathematics. This article really showed the (mis)conceptions students have about the equal sign as well as the relationship between their understanding and how they solve algebraic equations. As a sixth grade teacher, I would always assume that the students knew what the equal sign meant, but after this article it is apparent that some may not have a full understanding of what this important symbol stands for. I truly have a new way of looking at my teaching and student understanding after this course!