MTTC English Language Arts (7-12) (130) cheat sheet

Reading is a transactional, constructive process: meaning is built from the reader-text-context interaction, not transmitted from page to mind (Rosenblatt's transactional theory).

Bottom-up models (Gough) stress letter-to-sound decoding; top-down models (Goodman, Smith) stress prediction and prior knowledge; interactive models (Rumelhart) combine both simultaneously.

Schema theory: comprehension depends on activating prior knowledge structures; failure to activate relevant schemata produces miscomprehension even when decoding is accurate.

Metacognition = knowledge and regulation of one's own thinking; in reading it appears as monitoring, fix-up strategies, and comprehension repair.

Scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, Ross) provides temporary support within the learner's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky) and is withdrawn as competence grows.

Bloom's revised taxonomy orders cognitive processes: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create; higher-order items require the lower ones as prerequisites.

The National Council of Teachers of English position statements frame ELA as integrated practice in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language rather than isolated skills.

Emergent literacy (Clay, Sulzby) holds that reading and writing develop concurrently from birth through environmental print, storybook interaction, and invented spelling.

Phoneme = smallest unit of sound that distinguishes meaning (English has roughly 44 phonemes); grapheme = written letter or letter group representing a phoneme.

Morpheme = smallest meaningful unit; free morphemes stand alone (dog), bound morphemes must attach (un-, -ed). Inflectional morphemes change grammatical form without changing word class; derivational morphemes can change word class.

Syntax terms: phrase, clause, sentence; independent clause contains subject and finite verb and can stand alone; dependent clause cannot.

Sentence types by structure: simple (one independent clause), compound (two or more coordinated), complex (one independent plus at least one dependent), compound-complex.

Prescriptive grammar states rules of correctness; descriptive grammar describes actual usage. Academic ELA standards generally teach conventions while acknowledging language variation.

Sociolinguistics: dialect is a rule-governed variety, not a deficient form; register shifts with audience and purpose; code-switching is systematic, not random.

Historical linguistics: English is Germanic in origin; the Norman Conquest (1066) layered French/Latin vocabulary; the Great Vowel Shift explains modern spelling-sound mismatches.

Semantics concerns word and sentence meaning (denotation, connotation, ambiguity); pragmatics concerns meaning in context (implicature, speech acts, presupposition).

Literary elements: plot, character, setting, point of view, theme, tone, style, conflict; each is analyzed in terms of its function in the whole text, not just labeled.

Narrative point of view: first person, second person, third-person limited, third-person omniscient, third-person objective (dramatic); unreliable narrators require textual evidence of distortion.

Figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, synecdoche, symbol, allusion, paradox, oxymoron.

Sound devices: alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme (end, internal, slant), rhythm, meter, enjambment, caesura.

Poetic forms: sonnet (14 lines; Petrarchan octave/sestet, Shakespearean three quatrains plus couplet), villanelle (19 lines, two rhymes, two refrains), ode, elegy, ballad, free verse.

Drama terms: soliloquy (alone on stage, inner thought), aside (to audience while others present), monologue, dramatic irony (audience knows what character does not), tragic flaw, catharsis.

Argument analysis: claim, evidence, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal; identify logical fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma, slippery slope, hasty generalization, post hoc.

Informational text structures: description, sequence, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, problem-solution; text features (headings, captions, indexes) support navigation and meaning.

Old and Middle English: Beowulf (alliterative verse, caesura, kenning); Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Middle English, frame narrative, estates satire).

Renaissance: sonnet sequences (Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare); Shakespeare's tragedies, comedies, histories, romances; metaphysical poetry (Donne, Herbert) uses conceits and wit.

Restoration and eighteenth century: satire (Dryden, Pope, Swift), the rise of the novel (Defoe, Richardson, Fielding), periodical essay (Addison and Steele).

Romanticism (roughly 1798-1832): imagination, nature, the sublime, individualism, common language; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Shelley, Keats; Gothic fiction (Walpole, Radcliffe, Mary Shelley).

Victorian era (1837-1901): industrialism, social reform, realism, serial publication, the dramatic monologue (Browning, Tennyson); Dickens, the Brontës, Eliot, Hardy.

Modernism (early twentieth century): fragmentation, stream of consciousness, allusion, imagism, free verse; Eliot, Woolf, Joyce, Pound, Frost, Hemingway.

Postmodernism and contemporary: metafiction, pastiche, unreliable narration, genre blending, attention to identity and global Anglophone writing.

Genre conventions by form: epic (elevated hero, invocation, in medias res), tragedy (fall from high estate), comedy (movement toward union), satire (ridicule toward reform).

Recursive writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing; stages overlap and recur rather than proceed in strict linear order.

Modes of discourse: narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive/argumentative; mode is chosen by purpose and audience, not by length.

Six traits framework: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions (presentation sometimes added).

Thesis statement criteria: arguable, specific, supportable by evidence, and predictive of the essay's structure.

Paragraph unity requires a topic sentence, supporting evidence, and explanation linking evidence to claim; cohesion uses transitions, pronoun reference, and repetition of key terms.

Citation conventions: MLA style is standard in ELA; in-text parenthetical author-page, Works Cited alphabetized by author's last name, hanging indent.

Revision addresses content, organization, and clarity; editing addresses grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling. Conflating the two limits improvement.

Rubrics should be analytic (separate criteria with performance levels) rather than holistic when the goal is targeted feedback on specific traits.

Public speaking structure: attention-getter, thesis, preview, body with signposts, summary, memorable close; delivery variables include volume, pace, pitch, and nonverbal cues.

Speech purposes: informative, persuasive, entertaining, ceremonial; persuasive appeals are ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), logos (logic).

Listening types: appreciative, empathetic, comprehensive, critical; active listening uses paraphrasing, questioning, and nonverbal acknowledgment.

Small-group roles: facilitator, recorder, timekeeper, reporter; productive discussion norms include taking turns, building on ideas, and disagreeing with ideas rather than people.

Media literacy core questions: who created this message, what techniques attract attention, what lifestyles and values are represented, and what is omitted.

Persuasive media techniques: bandwagon, testimonial, transfer, glittering generality, card stacking, name-calling, plain-folks appeal.

Visual literacy terms: framing, angle, shot size, composition, color, lighting, and juxtaposition; editing constructs continuity and can imply causation.

Digital citizenship and source evaluation: check author authority, publication date, evidence quality, and corroboration across independent sources before citing.

Backward design (Wiggins and McTighe): identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, then plan learning experiences aligned to both.

Formative assessment informs instruction in real time (exit tickets, conferences, quick writes); summative assessment measures achievement at the end of a unit.

Reliability concerns consistency of scores; validity concerns whether an assessment measures what it claims. A reliable test can still be invalid.

Norm-referenced tests compare a student to peers; criterion-referenced tests compare performance to a defined standard or learning objective.

Differentiation adjusts content, process, or product based on readiness, interest, and learning profile; it is not assigning more of the same work.

Reader-response and workshop models (Atwell, Graves) use choice, sustained reading and writing time, minilessons, and conferring to build independence.

Literacy across content areas: disciplinary literacy stresses the specific reading and writing practices of a field, distinct from generic comprehension strategies.

Data-driven instruction uses item analysis and error patterns to reteach specific skills rather than repeating whole units.