An Authentic English Language Arts Curriculum: Finding Your Way in a Standards-Driven Context

This book provides ways of thinking for preservice and new teachers to transition from the theory behind curricular design to engaged teaching and learning in the classroom. It offers a comprehensive framework for the creation and implementation of one’s own authentic and effective ELA curriculum. In addition to strategies for preservice teachers to develop their own pedagogies, lessons, and teaching techniques, Costigan also demonstrates how to design tools for teaching in the current testing- and standards-driven context of the educational reform movement. Containing real-life examples of reading and writing instruction, this book empowers preservice teachers to translate the concepts of curriculum design to actual ELA classroom practices that will engage students.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: The English Orientation 2. The Foundations of Practice: Where We Come From and Where We Are Now 3. English Language Arts: What Is It, How Is It Learned, and How Do You Teach It? 4. Expanding Our Understanding of Intermodality 5. The ELA Classroom in the Context of Contemporary Schooling: Educational Reform, Standards, and Assessment 6. Multiple Literacies as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in English Language Arts, by Limarys Caraballo

About the Author :
Arthur T. Costigan is Associate Professor of English Education and Co-Director of the English Education program at Queens College (CUNY), USA.

Review :
"Costigan contributes to the scholarship of teaching with a volume designed to help teachers think about how to promote student learning in engaging, authentic, and meaningful ways. He carefully theorizes his method so that teachers can re-apply pedagogical ideas in new settings. This book should benefit teachers looking for ways to think about their work within the many and overlapping contexts that shape what is possible in classrooms." --Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of English Education, The University of Georgia, USA "Drawing on classical theorists including John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt, this book sets forward a humane, organic, and student-centered approach to teaching secondary English. Emphasizing meaningful questions, Costigan shows how teachers and students authentically inquire into texts. This book is a wise and experienced guide for today’s English teachers. Costigan helps us critically examine educational reform and Common Core State Standards and their relevance—or lack of relevance—to real classrooms and real learning." --Allen Webb, Professor of English Education and Postcolonial Studies, Western Michigan University, USA