Ideas for Teaching English in the Junior High and Middle School
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 193 672 CS 205 941 AUTHOR Carter, Candy, Ed.: Rashkis, Zora, Ed. TITLE Ideas for Teaching English in the Junior High and Middle School. New Edition. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of Eng.Lish, Urbana, Ill. TEPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-2253-1 PUB DATE 80 NOTE 303p. AVAILABLE PRCM National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801 (Stock No. 22531, $13.50 member, $15.00 non-member) EDRS PRICE MP01/PC13 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *English Instruction: Junior High Schools: Language Arts: *Language Usage: Listening: *Literature Appreciation: Middle Schools: Oral Interpretation: *Peading Instruction: Speech Communication: Teaching Guides: *Teaching Methods: Television Viewing: *Writing Instruction ABSTRACT The nearly two hundred activities in this teaching guide for language arts in the junior high and middle school are arranged in five sections: studying language, communicating orally, reading and reading literature, writing, and listening and viewing. Each section opens with a list cf activities, a brief introductory statement, and suggested reading. Sections are subdivided to help teachers locate activities related to particular curriculum units or areas of special interest. All activities were adapted to fit a unified format: purpose, preparation, and presentation. Approximately half of the activities contain material that should be distributed to students and these material sheets are printed separately for ease of reproduction and are presented in a special section. The appendix contains articles on parental involvement in the language arts program and on a two-year p-ogram in junior high school writing. (NKM) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS ate the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** * IDEAS FORTEACHINGENGLISH IN THEJUNIOR HIGH AND MIDDLESCHOOL NEW EDITION US DEPARTMENT OF NE AL's. E OUCATION &WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE 00 EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS RE E N REPRO. olsCED E xacTLy AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN. A T ING I T POINTS OF %NEW OR OPINIONS STATED 00 HOT NECESSARILY RE PRE SEN OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POS1110+4 OR POLICY Edited by CANDY CARTER Sierra Mountain intermediate School,Truckee, California ZORA RASHKIS Chapel Hill, NorthCarolina e "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY National Council of Teachers of English TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER ERICY" National Council of Teachersof English 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana,Illinois 61801 , ....V . -... NCTE Secondary Section Committee: James W. Sabol, Chair; Frances M. Russell, Associate Chair; Thomas L Barton; Candy Carter; Thomas Hemmens; George Hillocks, Jr.; Zora Rashkis; Sr. Mary Louise Vandover; Mae Kathleen Yamasaki; Thomas D. Ragan; Marjorie Farmer,ex officio; Charles Suhor, NCTE Staff Liaison NCTE Editorial Board: Paul T. Bryant, Marilyn Hanf Buckley, Thomas J. Creswell, C. Kenneen Fristrom, Jane M. Hornburger, Robert F. Hogan,ex officio,Paul O'Dea,ex officio Book Design: Torn Kovacs NCTE Stock Number 22531 ©1980 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy where such endorsement is clearly specified. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Ideas for teaching English in the Junior high and middle school. Original ed. by National Council of Teachers of English, Committee on Teaching English in Grades 7, 8, and 9, published in 1966 under title: Ideas for teaching English, grades 7-8-9. Includes bibliographies. I. Language arts (Secondary) 2. English languageStudy and teaching (Secondary) L Carter, Candy, 1947- II.Rashkis, Zora. III.National Council of Teachers of English. IV. National Council of Teachers of English. Committee on Teaching English in Grades 7, 8, and 9. Ideas for teaching English, grades 7-8-9. LBI631.133 1980 428.2'07'12 80-25921 ISBN 0-8141-2253-1 Contents Foreword v Introduction vii Studying Language 3 The Story of Our Language 5 Grammar and Standard Usage 13 Communicating Orally 19 Speaking Out 21 Oral Interpretation 31 Reading and Reading Literature 43 Comprehension 47 Building Vocabulary 53 Using Research Tools 59 Studying Newspapers and Magazines 67 Appreciating Literature 79 Writing 93 Prewriting 97 The Act of Writing 109 Editing 127 Listening and Viewing 137 Listening and Following Directions 139 Viewing Critically 147 Understanding Advertising 153 Activity Sheets 157 Appendix Activities for Involving Parents in the Language Arts Program 295 A Two-Year Program in Junior High School Writing 299 I 't4 Foreword In 1966, the National Council of Teachers of English published Ideas for Teach- ing English: Grades 7-8-9. Compiled by Ruth E. Reeves, this volume brought together journal articles, school district guides, and many original pieces submitted by individual teachers. What these selections had in common was a solidly practi- cal approach to the problems that daily confront classroom teachers. For many years the book was the Council's bestselling publication, and over 35,000 copies have been sold to date. In 1979, with the general encouragement of the NCTE Secondary Section and the particular enthusiasm of Chair Frances M. Russell, Candy Carter of Sierra Mountain Intermediate School, California, and Zora Rashkis of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, volunteered to take on the awesome task of preparing a new edition. There was a national solicitation, and the result is this collection of nearly two hundred teaching ideas. Because grade levels 7-8-9 no longer accurately identify the post-elementary and pre-high school population, this edition has been retitled Ideas for Teaching English in the Junior High and Middle School. In the spirit of the original edition, foremost among the requirements of editors Carter and Rashkis in selecting contributions was that suggestions be "immediately useful" to teachers. Thanks to their judgment, the Council is sure that the present edition will advance our central mission of improving the teaching of English just as substantially as did the first. Paul O'Dea Director of Publications vu Introduction The nearly two hundred activities in this volume are arranged in five sections: Studying Language, Communicating Orally, Reading and Reading Literature, Writing, and Listening and Viewing. Each section opens with a list of activities, a brief introductory statement, and suggested reading. In addition, sections are subdivided to help teachers locate activities related to particular curriculum units or areas of special interest. Communicating Orally, for example, has two subsec- tions: Speaking Out and Oral Interpretation. In the first are found activities re- lated to job interviews, oral history projects, extemporaneous speaking, and organized reporting. Choral reading strategies and tips on preparing scripts for dramatization, on the other hand, are found under the heading Oral Interpreta- tion. Similarly, the writing section is divided into Prewriting, The Act of Writing, and Editing. No system of classification, however, could entirely eliminate over- lapping and arbitrary decisions. The word derivation activities found under The Story of Our Language, for example, might with equel justification have been placed with those under Building Vocabulary. Similarly, many prewriting activities end with a finished or quasi-finished product while some of the activities found under The Act of Writing include prewriting discussion and experimentation. To make the diverse suggestions of so many contributors readily accessible to busy teachers was indeed an editing challenge. Some activities suggest how to brighten a blue Monday or cope with the final ten minutes of a frantic Friday; others more nearly reflect a unit of work that might extend for weeks. Eventually all activities were adapted to fit a uniform format: purpose, preparation, and presentation. This format was chosen because it immediately cues teachers to the basic idea behind an activity and alerts them to special materials or advance preparation that may be needed. Yet it has proven flexible enough to retain, especially in the presentation, the insight and wit of individual contributors. Where activities are not credited to an indiVidual, it is because they were collec- tively generated or came directly from the co-editors. Approximately half of the activites contain material that many teachers will want to distribute in class sets. To simplify reproduction, materials for student use are printed separately and collected under the heading Activity Sheets. Each of these sheets is linked by title to its parent activity and is referred to by page number there. Finally, activities that address a relatively new concern of English teachers parental involvement in the language arts training of their youngstersare found in the appendix. Years ago, parents sometimes felt unwelcome in the classroom or at school, and teachers often frowned when parents helped their children with homework. With little individualization