A Student Centered Language Arts Curriculum Grades K 13

Covers curriculum and methods of language arts and reading for both elementary and secondary school as well as teaching English in basic college courses.

This is the fourth edition of James Moffett's seminal text, first published in 1968, which set forth the rationale and practices for the kind of individualized, interactive, integrative language learning environment that only today is coming into its own. It proposed whole language, collaborative learning, active learning, writing workshops, the process approach, student empowerment, portfolio assessment, and the substitution of children's literature for basal readers many years before these cornerstones of enlightened English language arts teaching became fashionable. The book is the centerpiece of life work devoted to curricular innovation and constitutes a truly original approach to the nature of discourse. It is cross-referenced to an equally original collection of anthologies that illustrate with both professional and student writing the reading, writing, talking, dramatizing repertories it stakes out--and to Moffett's other works that build on and extend this one. From the second edition on, the book has profited from the input of Betty Jane Wagner, a master teacher of teachers. Student-centered Language Art, K-12 is arguably the most comprehensive, practically detailed, and original textbook/resource book on English education. It covers theory and practice, elementary and secondary, drama, oral-language activities, and initial literacy as well as general reading and writing. Furthermore, verbal learning is placed in a social context and in the context of nonverbal media and arts that compete with and complement language. The authors have made this edition more compact by shifting some material to a new edition of Active Voice and by abridging matters that no longer need to be dealt with at length because the profession is catching up with the book. They have recast some matters to tie in with current vocabulary and understanding, and some practices have been updated to utilize current technology. In this fourth edition, the book is shorter in length but broader in perspective as it continues to break new ground to integrate language arts with other learning.

In Creativity and Chaos: Reflections on a Decade of Progressive Change in Public Schools, 1967–1977, Charles Suhor brings to life the bold challenges to the status quo in education during a decade of national turmoil. The regimentation and rote learning of traditional schooling could not have escaped the restless temper of the times―Vietnam war protests, racial strife, assassinations, hippie communes, the sexual revolution, an emerging drug culture, and daring innovations in pop/rock music. Suhor describes his immersion in post-World War II popular culture of New Orleans as a rich backdrop for his years as an impassioned educational reformer at local and national levels. A risk-taking teacher and district supervisor of English, he plunged headlong into controversies over black literature, censorship, ebonics, the "new grammar," faculty integration, testing, standardization, and computer technology. He demonstrates how the sweeping national trends often took quirky, distinctive turns in a city that delights in marching to a different drummer. Suhor's engaging account takes the reader into classrooms as well as the intrigues of central office politics and national leaders' disputes on how to best teach students in a time of change. In no sense a doctrinal liberal, he lambastes the errors and excesses of the progressive movement and traces its decline and the backlash demand for a return to basic skills. Suhor concludes with an update on innovations that have waned or persisted in today's schools.