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MON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Summer Semester 2001

EDUC 412 - 4 ?

Dr. Geoffrey Madoc-Jones

Designs for Learning:

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Office: EDB 8673

Secondary Language Arts ?

Phone: 291-5969

EO1.00

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E-mail: madocjo@sfu.ca

Tuesdays 17:30-21:20 in EDB 7500F

PREREQUISITE

Educ 401/402

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will focus on developing knowledge, skills and strategies to create a rich and stimulating

language arts program in the secondary school classroom. Issues in the teaching of the reading of

literature, writing, speaking and listening will be examined through current theory and teaching

practice. There will be an emphasis on teaching B.C. writers in the secondary school.

OUTLINE OF TOPICS

• The historical context of modernity and post-modernity and its cultural, social and individual

ramifications for language arts educators will be investigated.

• The key concepts in this area of study, such as: literature, genre, semantics, semiotics, discourse,

writing process, reader response, hermeneutics, media studies evaluation and education, will be

examined through an investigation of their epistemological and historical roots as well as by an

analysis of the contemporary debate in the area of language theory.

• A series of literary works will be studied in common, both for the purpose of explication and as the

basis for the development of practical criticism.

• A variety of expressive forms, both written and spoken, will be studied so that students' can

develop and present their own creative performances.

• Recent contributions to our understanding of how secondary school learner's thinking and interests

develop will be studied, while considering how these could affect the design of curricula and the

implementation of instruction.

• Drawing on the readings and the expressive activities students will focus on the production of a

piece of curriculum in the area of secondary language arts.

REQUIREMENTS

1.

Interpretation of the selected texts and seminar presentation (20%)

2.

Four brief commentaries (between three and five pages, typed-double spaced) on ideas and/or

issues raised by the readings. (20%)

3.

Presentation of a work of verbal art to the class. (20%)

4.

The production of a piece of curriculum in the area of secondary language arts. (40%)

TEXTS

The Taming of the Shrew. William Shakespeare. Oxford World Classics. Paperback (November 1998)

Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0192836099

Under Milk Wood. Dylan Thomas. Editors: Walford Davis and Ralph Maud. Everyman. 1995.

ISBN 0-460-87765-8

West by Northwest. British Columbia Short Stories. Editors: David Stouck and Myler Wilkinson. 1998.

Polestar. ISBN 1-896095-41-0

Fugitive Pieces. Anne Michaels. M&S. ISBN 0-7710-5885-3

The Judas Hills. Peter Trower. Harbour. 1999 Harbour. ISBN: 155017228X

Chainsaws in the Cathedral. Peter Trower. Ekstasis. 1999. ISBN 1-896860-46-X