The High Priority For School Districts

Students are required to take English all four years of high school to improve and develop skills for higher education. We read different types of literature to learn morals and explore new ideas. With writing assignments of résumés, formal letters, and essays, students establish a foundation for future responsibilities in college or a job field. Vocabulary expansion is woven throughout everyday tasks in the English classroom; word choice is crucial to our professional and educational futures. Accumulated writing and reading skills are used in preparation for standardized testing, such as the SAT and ACT. English class improves the confidence in students with reading, writing, and speaking skills. In four years of English, written literature greatly impacts one’s learning experience.

As a future teacher of a fast-changing generation that searches restlessly for new interests, I believe that old and new must meet to keep the basic values of a balanced literacy. Focusing on prior knowledge, collaborating with colleagues, peers, families, and community, creating connections with our surrounding, and empowering students’ learning style throughout the process of gaining knowledge of reading and writing. Foremost, my personal philosophy of teaching literacy is based on constructivism and sociolinguistic, where hands on experience and guidance are priority in an informational world. To facilitate a child’s acquisition of literacy skills , as I plan for literacy instruction for my future classroom, I will take into consideration

Our political leaders struggle to understand the impact they have on the policies they put into place to improve public education. We see mandates that are unfunded and have a significant impact on a school district’s budget. Special education continues to be an area rich with policy and yet additional dollars are not included in the decisions made for implementation. Title one funding is an area that falls into a blurry area of policy for school districts. In our district, we have policies for fiscal responsibility in our spending procedures and yearly audits to be sure we are spending our money in a proper way.

Technology has completely taken over when it comes to writing and it’s not fair to strip this curriculum out of schools and it’s especially not fair for the parents of young children to have to teach their children at home how to write in the cursive script I think it should at least be offered as an extra curriculum class such as music, band, and sports. I think that cursive writing could really benefit anyone children especially but for some reason the school systems have become so dependent on computer technology that a lot of the testing in schools are even done on a computer I remember doing CSAP testing and you had to make sure you filled in the correct bubble just right. As the author writes cursive is a lost virtue and to get it back is more than likely not going to happen this really makes me wonder what other skills schools no longer teach children I mean I know as parents it’s our job to prepare our children for the future but if it comes down to the point to where were having to teach our children the necessities to get them through life at home then what exactly is the point of public schools if they aren’t preparing our children for the future. To me cursive is like math people use it every day and if children aren’t being taught how to write it they definitely aren’t going to be able to

In cases having to do with constitutionality, the issue of the separation of church and state arises with marked frequency. This battle, which has raged since the nation?s founding, touches the very heart of the United States public, and pits two of the country's most important influences of public opinion against one another. Although some material containing religious content has found its way into many of the nation's public schools, its inclusion stems from its contextual and historical importance, which is heavily supported by material evidence and documentation. It often results from a teacher?s own decision, rather than from a decision handed down from above by a higher power. The proposal of the Dover Area School District to

Prosper, Texas is one of the last additions to Collin County and has a current population of over 12,000 residents (Minor, 2010). Prosper’s establishment came about from the merging of two farming settlements in 1902, however the city’s name was not incorporated until 1914 (“History”, n.d.; Minor, 2010). According to the city’s webpage, Prosper is committed to being family-oriented and providing every resident an opportunity to experience quality living while maintaining small town ideals (“About Prosper”, n.d.). The Prosper Independent School District’s (PISD) vision to “reach everyone, everyday” (“REACH Philosophy / REACH”, 2002) mirrors the town’s belief in including everyone. Despite the exceptional growth within the city over the past few years, the school district is determined to meet the needs of its student population. One way in which PISD plans to ensure all of its students receive an equitable education, is through its adoption and implementation of the Response to Intervention (RtI) program.

In chapter seven of Pathways to the Common Core by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman (2012), the authors explain that teachers often dismiss the Common Core writing standards as unrealistically high demands for their students, but clarify that through examination of the standard in a horizontal fashion, the standards are ultimately realistic and attainable. Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman encourage teachers to begin with reading the kindergarten standards (no matter which grade level you teach) and look at the trajectory through next grade levels. The chapter continues by explaining that viewing the standards in this fashion and collaborating with teachers across grade levels will not only create a more realistic view of the standard, but allow students to meet the learning objectives through smaller steps across each grade level (Calkins, Ehrenworth & Lehman, 2012).

Thesis Proposal for English 330- Writing and Education Tentative Proposal: Common Core State Standards: Timothy Shanahan presents strong evidence concerning the inequality between informational text versus literary readings in the English classroom that directly affects other subjects, such as science and social studies. Introduction: Since common core standards has begun to play a major role in education, many educators have deliberated whether or not these standards are beneficial for all subjects. Whether or not all subjects are receiving positive results, requires analyzing the data over a period of time.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are regarded as a detestable beast by many in the educational field. For those who teach literacy, this is not an uncommon idea or ominous threat, yet for those who have never taught literacy and are now expected to implement writing and reading comprehension student learning expectations (SLE), this can be a daunting task. CCSS along with the Arkansas Department of Education insist on this being done (2013). Many times the CCSS were listed on the lesson plans at the high school to soothe the conscience of the educator and to appease the administration, but they were not taught effectively or briefly skimmed over with the students. With the advent of the

Common Core standards were introduced in 2010 and now schools all over the nation are implementing Common Core literacy standards for writing in physical education. According to the website SPARK, which is dedicated to creating, implementing, and evaluating research-based programs that promote lifelong wellness, “The standards prepare students for college and the workforce by providing them with various skills that enforce writing, thinking critically, and solving real-world problems” (SPARK, 2013). The Common Core standards are made up of three components: 1) Text types and purposes 2) Production and distribution of writing 3) Research to build and present knowledge. Physical Education teachers create lesson activities based on these components.

Forty-two states, along with the District of Columbia have adopted Common Core State Standards. These standards were created to focus only on English and Mathematics. An effect of states adopting Common Core State Standards is that all other subjects taught in school were emphasized less. History, Science, and many other subjects are no longer stressed; therefore students are limited to being proficient in only two subjects. The Common Core deprives students’ ability to be skilled in multiple areas. These standards do not provide a slight “break” from the challenging and fast paced teaching of English and Mathematics. In addition to limiting education to English and Mathematics, Jill Bowden explains that the Common Core is affecting kindergarteners by taking them “away from materials that encourage playful learning” (36). Simple, beneficial learning materials typically used in kindergarten classrooms are being replaced with workbooks and textbooks. These standards are not benefiting education; instead they suppress enjoyable learning that one could gain from free learning. All grades are affected, but especially kindergarteners. These kindergarteners are too young for authoritative standards, and should be learning concepts appropriate for a child the age of five. Standards were made “to become the backbone for student, teacher, and school accountability systems and will play an increasingly prominent role in the American educational ecosystem” (Gutierrez 78) Therefore,

Many teachers have reported when implementing the standards not having enough time to prepare and teach all of the lessons needed for their students to meet the Common Core State Standards. The article “Understanding and Implementing the Common Core Vocabulary Standards in Kindergarten” explains a situation where a teacher doesn’t have the time to prepare lessons that follow all of the standards; the teacher finds it hard to explain well to all of his students many of whom are already at risk (Baker 264).

The English department does a wonderful job of finding texts that keep the students interested in what they read, but challenges them with new vocabulary and terms they would not normally use. These topics are also at different lengths that target specific skills that all students need and at different levels so that students with different developmental levels can improve. The English department also works with our school’s library to find some of the newest books that the students will enjoy and do their best to bring those books in. The school’s librarian and one of our freshman English teachers have started a “Book Club” on campus so that students could read some of the newest books and be able to talk about them in an educational setting. Many students are a part of this new club and some of them have stated that this club has really helped them improve their overall reading and summarization skills.

I will use the Literature circle to enhance the student’s ability to collaborate on a higher level so that they can move toward independent readers, molding them to integrate in a powerful classroom activity that will activate their critical thinking skills. I will do a book study and have students to meet and discuss the importance of rotating their roles giving everyone an opportunity to share the responsibility. I will teach how to highlight in different colors distinguishing each student reading.

Educators are charged with not only teaching the content of their subject, but also responsible for creating a learning environments that fosters communication, engagement, and reflection so that the students will be prepared for their future careers and learning. Creating a classroom that fosters reading and writing is one way to engage students while promoting that they reflect on the material and communicate their understanding or misconceptions of the content. In order to form a literacy-rich classroom educators need to increase the amount of time students interact with all forms of print and literacy and the classroom environment is an essential key to setting the precedent and model behaviors that will make students more successful and capable of high level learning. (Tyson, 2013)