Department Vision and Mission
The ELA courses at Westinghouse equip our students to become deep readers and confident writers who think originally, separate fact from fiction, debate ideas, and compose their positions with fluidity and cohesiveness. Students will develop their creativity, imagination, and authorship while becoming contributing members of the public discourse, universally.
Disciplinary Skills
Successful English Language Arts students are able to:
- Read and process any form of text, technical , informational, or fictional.
- Write any format essay on specific topics with specific agendas.
- Cooperate and collaborate on shared literary products.
- Use rhetorical devices, latent knowledge acquired from other disciplines, appropriate vocabulary, empirical evidence, and scholarly etiquette when presenting arguments orally or in writing.
- Have confidence in their writing, speaking, and reading skills.
- Accept criticism with maturity and grace, and persevere in the face of it.
- Return to, critically assess and revise their own work while also utilizing outside feedback.
- Follow schedules and deadlines.
- Organize thoughts in a cohesive manner for writing and speaking.
- Maintain an organized sense of self (follow the bell schedule, bring supplies to class, etc.)
- Resume reading after a break.
- Acknowledge the work of others use it to support their own ideas.
- Critically analyze and assess the literary craft of the author and emulate models.
- Analyze technical, graphical, and statistical data.
- Be concise and fluid in their thinking processes.
- Become active readers by using strategies to improve speed, accuracy, and comprehension with the ability to translate those skills across technical and humanities curricula.
- Use reference works and bibliographies effectively.