ELA Standards Address Digital Texts
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 12/02/21
The National
Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has gone public
with its new
standards for educators who are preparing to teach
English language arts (ELA) in grades 7–12. Those standards,
approved in July, include understanding how students learn from
digital media.
The organization
said in a statement that it believes the previous standards, released
in 2012, needed an update. The new standards are more concise (the
original seven have been reduced to five); give attention to
antiracist/antibias instruction; and cover the use of digital media
in the classroom, including both long-form films and brief videos,
commercials, websites, interactive maps and timelines, databases, and
other digital texts.
The new standards
were created through a lengthy process involving "extensive
review" by teachers and scholars nationwide. They're organized
around the four Council
for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)
principles, grounded in the InTASC
Model Core Teaching Standards and Learning Progressions for Teachers.
"Our field
deals directly with the human condition through shaping the literate
lives of our learners and is uniquely positioned to act on the
complexities we collectively face," said NCTE President Alfredo
Celedón Luján, in a statement. "Bigotry, discrimination,
oppression, divisiveness, and racism are part of the world in which
future teachers of English are working. These new standards seek to
support educators as they prepare to go into the classroom."
"The young
people that we teach should be at the heart of everything a teacher
of English language arts does. Teachers should seek to develop
learners who are creative, literate, agentive, compassionate
individuals," added NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick.
The conference,
delivered virtually this year and focused on "equity, justice
and antiracist teaching," will address the new standards in
several sessions.
The standards are
openly available on
the NCTE website.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.