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ELA/Literacy Shifts in Middle School

Learn how the changes in ELA/Literacy Standards impact these instructional areas: helping students build content knowledge through an increase in informational text; reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text; and regular practice with complex text and academic language.


About This Course

For middle school teachers the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts/Literacy represent a new emphasis on reading, writing, speaking and listening across the subject areas. With the development of content literacy standards for social studies/history, science and technical subjects teachers will need to increase the amount and the level of complexity of informational texts in their classrooms.

In this course, teachers will learn about the design and structure of the ELA/Literacy Standards, and how these standards represent shifts in three instructional areas: helping students build strong content knowledge through an increase in informational text; reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text; and regular practice with complex text and academic language.

Course activities include learning about the three major shifts reflected in the standards, viewing videos and reading articles related to the shifts, and applying this learning to practice. A course portfolio provides an opportunity to revisit key ideas, strategies, and reflections during and after the course.


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WAYS TO TAKE THIS COURSE

Simply Audit this Course

Can't commit to all of the lectures, assignments, and tests? Audit this course and have complete access to all of the course material, tests, people, portfolios, and the online discussion forum. You decide what and how much you want to do.

Try for a Certificate

Looking to test your mettle? Participate in all of the course's activities (we use the honor code around here) and if your work meets the 85% requirements, you'll receive a personalized certificate to showcase your achievement. You can also apply for course credit (if desired).


Course Staff

Kim Austin


Kim Austin develops research-based content bridging research and instructional practice for the Doing What Works project. For the past three years she has developed and facilitated online courses for charter school teachers focused on secondary reading. Prior to joining WestEd, Kim developed video cases and courses on learning theory and instruction, supported teachers in creating communities of learning in their classrooms, and facilitated Reciprocal Teaching reading groups in elementary school.

Pamela Fong


Pamela Fong focuses on issues of literacy, school reform, college readiness, and Common Core State Standards in her qualitative research and content development at WestEd. As a professional developer for the Strategic Literacy Initiative at WestEd, Pamela developed modules and led professional development on Reading Apprenticeship, a framework and research-based pedagogical approach for teaching literacy in middle and high school content-area classrooms. Prior to WestEd, she taught curriculum and instruction at the University of San Francisco, academic reading and writing at the University of California at Berkeley, and high school English.

None
Kim Austin, Pamela Fong
Course Code: ELA101M
Course Release: Jun 27, 2014
Estimated Effort: 15 Hours

Suggested Prerequisites:
None

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