English Language Arts - Standards Activity             By: Michael Heine

1. Strength #3 - English Language Arts Standards allow instruction to be interdisciplinary.

1.1. It has been proven in research that when instruction incorporates multiple subjects, it deepens thinking and learning. IN a lot of my instruction in 8th grade language arts, I incorporated science and social studies within my writing and reading units. What this does is it allows the instruction to come full circle for the students in the class. When you can build on instruction in other subject areas, it allows students to be more interested and engaged in what they are learning.

2. Weaknesses

2.1. Weakness #1

2.1.1. The biggest weakness with the common core standards is the standards lacking creativity for students in english language arts. In a lot of cases, english language arts is a subject that may be fairly difficult to be creative in. However, when doing many different presentations on literature and writing units, students should be able to present their information and work in many different mediums. It does not allow students to try and present information in formats other than workshops and essays.

2.2. Weakness #2

2.2.1. The second weakness with the english language arts standards is the lack of technology component within the standards. One of the biggest movements in education right now is using technology to transform education in all subjects. The common core standards for 8th grade does not bring up using technology to present and research information. In my opinion, it would benefit students and teachers more to have standards on what ways to incorporate technology into writing and reading instruction.

2.3. Weakness #3

2.3.1. The last weakness with the 8th grade English Language Arts common core standards is how it takes away and does not take into account different cultures and backgrounds. There should be more wording that is accommodating to specific backgrounds.

3. Strength #2 - The 8th grade  English Language Arts common core standards allows students to become college ready more than ever.

3.1. In my opinion, this is maybe the most important of the strengths. One of the things that I focused on heavily within my 8th grade English Language Arts instruction was making sure the students were able to succeed in high school and college by giving them the necessary skills to do well. The biggest skill to succeeding in college is being able to find important information within a text, of many different mediums, and to apply it. The common core stresses heavily the use of finding textual evidence in their standards.

4. Strengths

5. Strength #1 -- 8th Grade Common Core Standards in English Language Arts promotes a deep dive into particular writing topics, with a central theme of finding textual evidence.

5.1. One of the biggest problems in past instruction before the common core was the lack of writing instruction within the literature language arts classroom. these standards, in 8th grade, lay out exactly what needs to be covered within the 3 major writing topics: Narrative, Persuasive, and Expository/Informational. In these standards, it is played out in groups where the teacher can easily create writers workshop and mini lessons based on the specific skill listed in the writing topic.