Kent State University

The English language arts module provides an opportunity for students to transfer the skills they have learned in the previous three modules to communicate what they have learned regarding the water crisis. Building from the research they conduct in science on U.S. watersheds, students will develop reports on water-related issues and present possible solutions to them as persuasive arguments, in multimedia formats supported by data-based evidence, and present these to a larger audience.

Preparing to Teach the English Language Arts Module

Students use their research completed in Science to draft their essay and persuasive speech in ELA. Therefore, please review Science Lesson 5 well before you get ready to teach this module to familiarize yourself with the work that they do. Students worked in small groups to do their watershed research in Science so you may want students and may want to use those same group assignments when students work on their ELA presentations.

A computer, projection device, and a projection surface will also be needed for all lessons in the module.  Student computers with Internet access will be needed for ELA Lesson 2 and Lesson 3. These devices will most likely need to be reserved well ahead of time too.

In addition, all the lessons in the ELA module should be reviewed the week before its start to get a sense of the flow of the module; and each lesson should be carefully gone over the day before implementation.

	Content Middle school ELA standards call for students to be able to “gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources and to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience. Students must be able to think critically about concepts, claims and arguments as well as be able to read, interpret and evaluate information" (AASL, 1998).  Further, the standards now extend beyond skills for reading, writing, speaking and listening to an emphasis on multiple literacies. Operating from this premise, the ELA module not only targets specific content standards but also encompasses skills for data literacy, media literacy, and visual literacy. Students’ creation of data-based arguments surrounding water-related issues and solutions serve as the context for addressing these literacies. More here ...
	Data Literacy The English Language Arts module provides a context for transferring students’ understanding and use of data as evidence while also engaging students in the use of accurate, appropriate, and meaningful representations as evidence to support an argument. More here ...
	PFL English Language Arts is the culminating piece of the Thinking with Data unit. Students apply what they have learned in previous modules and utilize data representations to support persuasive arguments surrounding water-related issues in the United States. More here ...
	Argumentation In the ELA module students are asked to use data and data representations to support arguments regarding water-related issues and solutions, in both written and oral form, and their oral arguments are judged fair or not by their classmates. More here ...