Module 4 Introduction: DARE: Key Uses of Academic Language in Content (and Language) Standards

Purpose

As a teacher, you are used to pulling from multiple sources when you develop lessons and activities for your classroom. Starting with the end in mind, you might ask, “How can I engage my students in meaningful activities to learn about this content area, and how will I assess their understanding of the content over time?” Where do you start to look for these answers? You find them in the content standards, disciplinary practices, curriculum, and the wide variety of background experiences and experiential knowledge that your students bring to the classroom.

In this module, you will use a “language lens” to explore the planning process and strategies for integrating language for academic purposes into instruction. You will begin planning for academic language use in all content areas by looking at ways in which intentional language use is anchored in the content standards, and examine how you can design your activities and classroom tasks to foster interactions between students, application of critical thinking and problem solving skills, teamwork, and appropriate and effective uses of technology to develop your students’ 21st century skills.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:

demonstrate ways to intentionally incorporate key uses of academic language (DARE) in content standards used in the classroom.
explain how academic language can support students in their development of 21st century skills.

InTASC Standards

Standard 4: Content Knowledge (Performances 4a–d, h–I; Essential Knowledge 4j–n; Critical Dispositions 4r)

Standard 7: Planning for Instruction (Performances 7a–c; Essential Knowledge 7g–h, j; Critical Dispositions 7q)

Standard 8: Instructional Strategies (Performances 8a–c, g–I; Essential Knowledge 8k–l; Critical Dispositions 8s)