English Language Arts Today: An Introduction

English Language Arts (ELA) has always played an important role in my life. Throughout my childhood I was an avid reader, writer, and communicator—and I can attribute my successes in these areas to the foundations laid by my teachers. As I grew older, perfecting my skills in ELA became more intensive and I found myself forming an individual Language Arts style. Its this transitional age that I am most interested in studying, so for the purposes of my blog I am focusing on the later elementary grades while still maintaining a general elementary approach.

Growing up I attended 6 different schools prior to university, with each school offering more inspiration towards my teaching goals. My father's career made moving a common occurrence, but I consider myself very lucky to have experienced a wide variety of schools. Each new school allowed me to better understand the successes and shortcomings in differing classrooms, and have inspired me to become an effective teacher. Having experienced so many different classrooms, I really started to understand what I did and did not like at a young age. It was this fact that helped inspire me to become a teacher. I always loved school—from the learning, to my friends, to just having fun, I knew it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Halloween in Grade 1 !

Halloween in Grade 6 (I'm the angel)
I really loved Halloween haha

For our first blog entry we have been asked to comment on the question: “What do you expect English Language Arts to look like/ sound like/ be like in the Elementary School classroom?” It is a common misconception that Language Arts is simply based in reading and writing. In modern times, ELA is so much more, and includes much broader means of communication.

My description of ELA in the upper elementary classroom vs the lower elementary classrooms are quite different. I remember the wonderful, visual representations of language arts that were hung on the classroom walls. Wonderful pictures and colors always drew me in as a child, and made me excited to learn. As I grew older, I found that visual representations of language arts were less common. By the time I reached grades 6 and 7 they were nearly non-existent. I hope to maintain a variety of visual ELA in my future classroom, not only for the atmosphere but to help accommodate other learning styles. 

With the changing dimensions and means available for ELA, I expect the classroom to be making a transition towards modern variety. From grades 6 through 12 I was required to have a laptop in school, which was definitely a blessing because it opened so many doors for new teaching methods. I feel as though ELA and education as a whole are taking a drastic shift towards including the new technologies available to us. When used properly, all the new means of technology become new means of communication. I hope that as I start teaching I’ll be seeing a wider variety of technologies in the classroom.

While technology can be helpful, it is not the most important aspect of ELA. I expect to see other methods of teaching, primarily in the realms of representing and viewing. I also hope to see the freedoms that come along with modern interpretations of ELA. Education has progressed enormously over the years, and this has resulted in so many opportunities to test new methodologies. I really look forward to becoming a part of it!

One of my old school's elementary buildings
(each classroom had its own house-like entrance, how cute is that)