Examines topics relevant to English. Emphasis is on English content appropriate and relevant for Elementary, Middle and/or Secondary school teachers. Not open to undergraduate majors in English.

Based on a review of significant theories, practices and programs for developing writing skills, course participants will employ a range of developmentally appropriate, process oriented, student centered instruction models; develop an understanding of the relationship between reading, writing and cognition; review fiction and non-fiction literature for children and adolescents and apply assessment strategies that address the diverse literacy needs and strengths of learners from a variety of language and cultural groups.

Children and adolescents shape their view of the world through literature written specifically for them. This course investigates ways to help children and young adults read literature with greater pleasure and to increase their critical abilities, to locate literature within sociopolitical contexts, examine its assumptions and derive relevant philosophical questions from it.