COURSE DESCRIPTION

The notion of academic language has long been considered important for educating language learners, but with the increased rigor of the new standards many English only students are also struggling with the academic language of complex texts and cognitively demanding writing tasks. The ability to understand and use academic language is an integral part of achieving at high levels, yet it is rarely included in our daily instruction. In this 8 week course we will go beyond academic vocabulary and explore the many complex components of academic language. You will develop tasks that can be used for academic language instruction, as well as a performance assessment that integrates the elements of academic language and scaffolds for academic language demands to support reading and writing of complex text.

WELCOME!

I'm very excite that you are joining our learning community this summer to learn about academic language instruction. If this is your first time in an online learning environment, don't worry--you'll get the hang of it.

All of the assignments for this course are submitted as discussions, although you will not be required to respond or read other's posts unless instructed. We submit assignments as discussions so we can share instructional resources. You will develop a variety of lessons and classroom tools, and one benefit of this class is sharing ideas and instructional resources. You might ask your classmates' permission before using their lessons, though.

Because this course is structured as a series of discussions, this home page is the best place to access the course materials. Click on the week you are working on (below) and access each of the discussions/assignments from the week page.

Again, you will get the hang of this in no time! Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions or concerns.

Best regards,

Kenna Rodgers

(Instructor)

COURSE CONTENT

Click on the links below to access the course materials. Each week will unlock in succession. You must begin with the "Start Here" module. Then on each successive Thursday, the next week's content will be available.

You must complete the Start Here assignment before beginning the class.

Module 1: What is academic language and why should I teach it?
Module 2: Academic Vocabulary
Module 3: Creating Cohesion: Connectives, Syntax, and Sentence Combining
Module 4: Language Functions and Text Structures
Module 5: Disciplinary Literacy and Language
Module 6: Disciplinary Text
Module 7: Academic Discussion
Module 8: Academic Argument Writing

To cancel your course registration

Visit http://my.uen.org (Links to an external site.) and login
Navigate to your Personal Page and use the My UEN Courses link in the Services / Tools portlet under the UEN Tools column
Use the Cancel buttons next to the Course Title

ELA Secondary: Teaching Academic Language