| Language Arts
The ITBS Form A- Survey for reading and language arts measures the skills and achievement of students.
The Standards for the English Language Arts center around three core beliefs:
* "First, Guardian Angels School believes that standards are needed to prepare students for the literacy requirements of the future as well as the present. Changes in technology and society have altered and will continue to alter the ways in which we use language to communicate and to think. Students must be prepared to meet these demands."
* "Second, we believe that standards can articulate a shared vision of what the nation's teachers, literacy researchers, teacher educators, parents, and others expect students to attain in the English language arts, and what we can do to ensure that this vision is realized."
* "Third, we believe that standards are necessary to promote high educational expectations for all students and to bridge the documented disparities that exist in educational opportunities. Standards can help us ensure that all students become informed citizens and participate fully in society."
In Language Arts, students concentrate on reading operations, writing, speaking, and listening. Students engage in projects which require them to apply language arts skills in real world contexts.
Language Arts II
In this course students learn to construct meaning from newspapers, periodicals, resource materials, and grade level fiction, and to analyze both the concrete and abstract elements of literature. Students engage in activities which require them to practice transferring language skills (language mechanics, grammar, and spelling) to original written works. The course emphasizes the need for students to learn to identify, approach, understand, and solve problems in real-world contexts.
The Standards for the English Language Arts provide twelve standards that are "intended to serve as guidelines that provide ample room for the kinds of innovation and creativity that are essential to teaching and learning."
The MEAP assesses student writing performance at grade eight.
The Michigan Education Assessment Program standardized test for language arts at grade seven includes multiple-choice questions which assess the ability to use context cues and reading strategies to construct meaning from fiction and non-fiction selections.
Genres
The Genres Unit includes identifying and comparing key characteristics of literary genres, as designated by a work's subject, theme, style, and time period. Some examples of genres are science fiction, poetry, drama, British literature, and multicultural literature.
Language Expressions
The Language Expressions Unit focuses on language conventions, structure, usage, and language study. It also addresses parts of speech, figures of speech, syntax, paragraph and sentence structure, word agreement, modifiers, and grammar.
Language Mechanics
The Language Mechanics Unit includes comprehending and applying the rules that govern punctuation and capitalization when writing and editing written works.
Listening
The Listening Unit includes identifying and distinguishing between sounds and patterns in sounds, constructing meaning from information delivered verbally, and understanding and responding to verbal information.
Reading Operations
The Reading Operations Unit includes constructing meaning from fiction and non-fiction selections at comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and judgment levels of understanding. It includes skills which address identifying, discussing, and comparing both concrete and abstract elements of selections (setting, plot, characterization, genre, historical period, theme, tone, moral message, and psychological and political implications).
Speaking
The Speaking Unit focuses on techniques and strategies (voice modulation, body language, ordering of ideas, visual aids, etc.) to convey meaning and to present information and opinions to groups. This unit includes formal and informal communication, debate skills, and verbal/nonverbal communication.
Spelling
The Spelling Unit includes studying language and word structure knowledge to discern the correct spelling of words. It includes skills related to editing passages for correct spelling by making connections between spelling, meaning, and structure.
Study and Research Skills
The Study and Research Skills Unit includes developing organization and research skills needed to find appropriate resources, to judge resources as relevant or not relevant to a given topic, to categorize and synthesize information, to take notes in class, and to study for exams.
Vocabulary
The Vocabulary Unit includes studying and applying knowledge of word structure (bases and affixes), concrete analogies, synonyms, antonyms, and syllables. It also includes applying knowledge of connotation, denotation and words with multiple levels of meaning.
Writing
The Writing Unit focuses on each stage of the writing process: prewriting, writing, revising, and publishing. It includes skills covering a variety of organizational formats and purposes for writing (communicating ideas, opinions, and feelings, clarifying thoughts, and solving problems). Some example writing formats are expository, narrative, poetry, and drama.
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