SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Summer Semester 2002

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EDUC 412 -

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Dr. Geoffrey Madoc-Jones

Designs for Learning:

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Office: EDB

8673

Phone: 291-5969

Secondary Language Arts

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E-mail: madocjo©sfu.ca

Tuesday 8:30-12:20 in EDB 7600

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D01.00

PREREQUISITE

Educ 401/402

DESCRIPTION

This course will focus on developing knowledge and understanding 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 some emphasis on teaching B.C. authors.

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, as well as 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 classroom.

REQUIREMENTS

1.

Four brief commentaries (max three pages, typed-double spaced) on ideas and/or issues raised

by the readings or work in class. (20%)

2.

Group presentation of a didactic scheme. (20%)

3.

Group performance-incorporating selections from the literary works. (20%)

4.

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

TEXTS

Twelfth Night. William Shakespeare. Applause First Folio Editions. Applause Theatre Books. 1999.

ISBN 155783380X

Fugitive Pieces.

Anne

Michaels. M&S. ISBN 0-7710-5885-3

A contemporary B.C. novel.

One Hundred Years of Poetry for Children. M. Harrison and C. Stuart-Clark. OUP. ISBN

0192762583

A book of poetry by a contemporary B.C. poet.

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

1998. Polestar. ISBN 1-896095-41-0