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users at DESCRIPTION: New York State Learning Standards |
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English Language Arts Learning Standards The above description also gives primary status to the notion of willingness, which, in turn, reflects the belief, that children acquire language, as they need it, through practice and through numerous encounters with exemplary models. It is not enough merely to have the knowledge and ability to do something; one needs to use that knowledge and ability. Individuals develop proficiency in important skills by practicing them. Willingness to participate implies both an ability and propensity to engage, experiment, take risks and sustain effort. Success in school and in life is determined in large part by competence in language. As a significant means for developing students’ abilities to use their minds well, language is a central factor in learning for all students and in all disciplines. Thinking creatively, making informed and reasoned judgments, producing and inventing, critiquing and analyzing – all are facilitated through language. As a lifelong resource, skillful use of language is valued in all areas of our lives in which we participate as adults – as parents, as workers, as members of social and civic organizations. In fact, skillful use of language may be the single most important means of realizing the overarching goal of education to develop informed, thinking citizens. Building on the Board of Regents goals that call for using language skillfully in different contexts and on the New York State English Language Arts Syllabus K-12, which identifies the general purposes of language use, the English language arts standards set forth four broad areas for curriculum, instruction and assessment. Each learning standard contains a content standard that describes what students should know, understand and be able to do and statements of performance indicators that begin to define the expected level student performance at the elementary (k-4), intermediate (5-8) and commencement (9-12) levels. English language arts is really about the student and use of language and literature, but language is more than a school subject. Language is a means for making sense of our lives. It is a symbolic way of understanding experiences, and it helps to shape experiences. Because reading, writing, listening and speaking are inextricably linked to thinking, these acts often generate possibilities and connections in our minds that otherwise might never exist. |
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