Language Arts Research Paper

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Language Arts

There is a trend among some colleges and universities recently to cut back or eliminate their humanities major and courses, which includes language arts as well as history and philosophy. This has created a controversy over the importance of these areas of learning. It is not that the decision to include language arts in education is new. Appreciation of such learning stems back to the earliest humans. Among the earliest pieces of prehistoric sculpture is from 30,0000-25,000 BCE. The woman, who had exaggerated female parts, is believed to be a fertility symbol perhaps carried by a male hunter/gatherer as a reminder of his mate back home. Many here have heard of or seen the paintings on the caves in France from 15,000 to 13,000 BCE. Early humans struggled to survive against natural forces, animals, and one another. One of the most essential ways of survival was to pass down knowledge acquired from culture and education from one generation to the next

As is well-known, Ancient Greece and Rome emphasized the classics that have been a part of learning for over two millennia. Studia humanitatis, or the study of humanities, began in the Middle Ages and consisted of all disciplines outside of theology and natural science. Studia humanitatis consisted of five major disciplines drawn from the classical educational curriculum, grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. These became known as the artes liberales, or "liberal arts," or the skills and knowledge necessary for a human being to be truly free. Today, educators use the term "language arts" to describe the curricula that traditionally include listening, speaking, reading and writing. Most recently, visual reading has also been added to this list. Language arts, although recognized as a separate area of teaching, is naturally integrated with all subjects that require these skills. It has become a major part of elementary- to high-school- learning.

Strong proponents of teaching the humanities and, more specifically language arts, state that these studies are indispensable to everyone in a modern, democratic, and technologically dominated society.

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The humanities provide students with a foundation of languages, symbols and signs that allow them to think, express their thoughts, and act. Language arts further the brain's functioning through associative learning and interpretation. It is the basis for the cognitive, thought pattern and attitudinal parameters with which people interact with the world. The growing complexity of medicine, law, business, technology and the sciences exist in environments that extend way beyond the specific skills and concepts of curricula basics. Given today's global, highly competitive and progressively flat world, this is essential.

Albert Einstein, a connoisseur of the arts, offered one of the best understandings of the purpose of the humanities.

It is not enough to teach a man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values... He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions and their sufferings, in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow men and to the community... Overemphasis on the competitive system and premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends, specialized knowledge included.

Over the years, three primary models have been used for languge arts instruction in Western learning: The long-used "heritage model" believes that the goal of language arts is to transmit the cultural values and traditions of the culture through an agreed-upon body of literature. In addition, it uses modes and genres of writing that are learned through guided writing experiences. Instead, the "competencies model" is aimed at producing a mastery of language-related skills, especially in reading and writing. This model normally follows a predetermined sequence of learning through basal readers and graded language arts textbooks (Wood).….....

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