English Language Arts

Overview

Language is the central means through which students formulate thoughts and communicate their ideas with others. The English language arts curriculum identifies the processes of thinking that support students’ ability to use language to make meaning of texts, whether they are producing texts of their own or interacting with texts created by others.

Experiences with texts are designed to enhance students’:

  • ability to be creative
  • capacity to respond personally and critically
  • celebration of diversity
  • understanding of metacognition and critical thinking
  • use of knowledge and language strategies

The English language arts curriculum supports literacy development through both integrated experiences and the teaching of discrete skills in speaking and listening, reading and viewing, and writing and representing. The curriculum at all levels supports multiple literacies which enable students to interact with and create a variety of digital, live, and paper texts. As students use, interact with and create texts, they increase their knowledge, experience, and control of language. The curriculum also fosters students’ understanding of self and others as well as their ability to be clear and precise in their communication.

The English Language Arts curriculum creates opportunities for balance and integration among the following strand headings:

Speaking and Listening

  • Students will be expected to speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
  • Students will be expected to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and to respond personally and critically.
  • Students will be expected to interact with sensitivity and respect, considering the situation, audience, and purpose.

Reading and Writing

  • Students will be expected to select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature, information, media, and visual texts.
  • Students will be expected to interpret, select, and combine information using a variety of strategies, resources, and technologies.
  • Students will be expected to respond personally to a range of texts.Students will be expected to respond critically to a range of texts, applying their understanding of language, form, and genre.

Writing and Representing

  • Students will be expected to use writing and other forms of representation to explore, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and learnings; and to use their imagination.
  • Students will be expected to create texts collaboratively and independently, using a variety of forms for a range of audiences and purposes.Students will be expected to use a range of
  • Strategies to develop effective writing and representing and to enhance their clarity, precision, and effectiveness.

While the strands are delineated separately for the purposes of explanation in curriculum guides, they are taught in an integrated manner. Constructing meaning from texts is therefore a continual and recursive process which connects all aspects of language.

Students use a variety of cognitive processes such as analyzing, determining importance, inferring, making connections, monitoring comprehension, predicting, synthesizing, and visualizing. Focusing on these processes while students speak, listen, read, view, write and represent supports the development of lifelong literacy learning.

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Foundation for the Atlantic Canada English Language Arts

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Primary

The Primary English Language Arts curriculum recognizes the developmental nature of young learners as they acquire literacy skills. The curriculum encourages growth in student language development through participation in authentic language experiences. Students in primary English language arts are supported on the continuum for language learning in their stage of development. Students:

  • develop language skills with an emphasis on oral language
  • use the processes of thinking: predicting, sequencing, synthesizing, self-monitoring, analyzing, evaluating, inferring, and making connections
  • interact and engage with a variety of texts daily
  • learn how to view, think and respond critically to texts that they encounter
  • create imaginative representations
  • use the four cueing systems to develop proficient reading and writing skills
  • learn to speak, listen, read, view, write, and represent through an integrated teaching style

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Elementary

The Elementary English Language Arts program is designed to equip students with tools to help them meet the demands of interacting with creating increasingly longer and more complex texts. Students are encouraged to reflect on themselves as consumers and creators of texts to identify their strengths and areas for improvement.

The program supports student engagement in a range of experiences which encourages them to become reflective, articulate and critically literate individuals who successfully use language for learning and communicating in personal and public contexts.

Elementary English language arts is designed to enhance students’ ability to:

  • analyze issues and messages in texts related to fairness, equity and social justice
  • analyze the structure and elements of a variety of texts
  • apply knowledge of language conventions in creating texts
  • be creative in generating and developing ideas for texts
  • create increasingly complex texts, using a variety of text forms
  • extend endurance for independent listening, reading and viewing
  • navigate appropriate texts fluently with expression and confidence
  • use cognitive strategies to make meaning of more complex texts

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Intermediate

Intermediate English Language Arts focuses on students’ interaction with and creation of texts. The curriculum emphasizes the personal, social and cultural contexts of language learning and the power that language has in those contexts. Through discussing and creating a variety of texts, students grow in their critical thinking and understanding of the impact language has on them and others.

Intermediate English language arts is designed to enhance students’ ability to:

  • articulate their thinking about their learning as producers and consumers of information
  • be creative and imaginative in their oral communication, writing and representing
  • independently apply strategies when navigating or creating texts
  • interact with a wide variety of texts including, digital texts, drama, fiction, non-fiction, media texts, poetry and visual texts
  • think and respond critically to texts they read, view or hear

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High School

High School English Language Arts continues the philosophy and methodologies of the Intermediate English Language Arts curriculum. It continues to focus on students’ interaction with and creation of texts through the six strands of language arts: speaking, listening, reading, viewing, writing and representing. The strands are taught in an integrated manner designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to become successful language learners who think and communicate personally, creatively and critically.

This program is designed to enhance students’ ability to:

  • assume responsibility for their own learning
  • interact with a wide variety of texts
  • respond creatively when using digital, live or paper texts
  • respond personally
  • think and respond critically to texts they read, view or hear
  • understand their own thinking about how they learn
  • use knowledge and strategies as they navigate and create texts

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