Collaborations for Literacy: Creating an Integrated Language Arts Program for Middle Schools

The best of middle school teaching is learning by doing and is interdisciplinary. This book ties it all together and offers a complete, innovative program, from vision, through planning, implementation, and assessment. The program is accomplished through the collaboration of the school library media specialist and the language arts teacher. Senator outlines ways in which they can collaboratively plan, teach, and assess units which use language arts as tools. She includes specific instructional programs, suggestions for staff development, examples of questions, organizers, and units for grades six through eight, ideas for creating schedules, and methods of working together to develop materials for instruction.

This program reflects the restructuring movement in American education. It emphasizes process as well as content, uses authentic material, and stresses interdisciplinary learning and learning by doing. The first part deals with literature as a subject and offers many practical units for the library media specialist and the language arts teacher to use in collaboratively teaching students inquiry and a framework for literature. Armed with these tools, students are able to read, discuss, think, and write about more challenging and interesting literature. Senator offers many ideas for extending literature through creative dramatics, storytelling, booktalks, and book shares. The second half of the book shows how to plan interdisciplinary units so that students, through resource-based learning, may learn to use new technologies and information problem-solving. The work also includes some units for elementary and secondary schools. Because of its innovative methods and practical ideas it will be a boon to library media specialists, language arts and English teachers, reading specialists, and library schools and undergraduate and graduate schools of education.