Senior 3 English Language Arts: A Foundation for Implementation
Implementation Overview: Senior 3
Building Literate Lives
The purpose of this document is to support Manitoba English language arts teachers in the challenging task of enhancing the language facility of their students. Our professional commitment as English language arts educators is grounded in a personal belief that literacy is a key to the success of students and, indeed, to the richness of their lives. Our aim is to help students form a deep connection with texts, believing that such a connection is vital to their developing a deeper understanding of themselves and their society and to leading more thoughtful, efficacious lives.
The Senior 3 learning outcomes, which are an elaboration of the knowledge, skills and strategies, and attitudes that constitute literacy for Senior 3 students, are the common focus of English language arts classrooms throughout the province. Beyond this common focus, the learning resources and instructional and assessment methods selected by teachers and students make each classroom unique.
Each year teachers are called upon to make a myriad of decisions in developing their programming. These decisions are shaped by the information teachers collect about the learning of students in each class. Assessment is the foundation of classroom planning. All the decisions teachers make in helping students move from their present performance to a level consistent with the Senior 3 learning outcomes need to be informed by close observation of student learning.
As well as assessing individual students, reflective practitioners turn a wider lens on their classroom and their own practices, using the observations they make for the purpose of ongoing self-assessment. Many of the tools that students use in developing the habits of reflection and self-assessment are also invaluable for teachers. A teacher who brings the attitudes of a learner to the classroom plays an essential role in transforming that classroom into a stimulating learning community.
Senior 3 English Language Arts: A Foundation for Implementation provides teachers with theory, recent research findings, classroom strategies, and practical suggestions for implementing curricula. The classroom teachers who collaborated in the development of this document have attempted to include a wide range of ideas and approaches. In the creative task of developing their English language arts programming, teachers are encouraged to select from the materials this document offers, from materials they have developed themselves, and from other professional resources that will best assist their students in attaining the Senior 3 learning outcomes.
Implementation Overview: Senior 3
