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LAED 445 Teaching Writing and Communications in Urban Grades 5-12

In this course, future teachers learn best practices for how to teach urban middle and high school students how to write and make oral presentations. Topics include: sentence and paragraph construction; genres of writing; how audience, purpose and situation guide writing and speeches; assessment and revision; engaging middle and high school writers; assisting English Language Learners; and technological tools for written and speech communications. Teacher candidates learn how to respond constructively to the writing and oral presentations of urban 5-12 learners.

Prerequisites

Special information

Note: Formerly offered as WRIT 421. Admission to Urban Teacher Program, or departmental approval required to register. Clinical field experience hours are part of the course requirements. Co-requisite: This course should be taken within one semester of student teaching and should be taken with EDU 450 Advanced Urban Teaching Practicum and Seminar unless EDU 450 has been taken with LAED 450 Teaching Language Arts in Urban Grades 5-12.
4 Undergraduate credits

Effective August 26, 2006 to present

Learning outcomes

General

  • Understands and develops strategies for teaching and critiquing persuasive writing (letter to editor; editorial, essay, etc.) and text readability: subheads, white space, staging of information (given-new), sentences, nominalizations, graphics, appeal to prior knowledge, announcing of topic, etc.
  • Understands current theories of composition instruction: formalistic, traditional textbook, composing process model, cognitive-processing, dialogic, social constructivist, and post structuralist; able to define strengths and weaknesses of differing models and implications for teaching.
  • Understands elements of the rhetorical context: subject matter, purpose, audience, text structure, attitude
  • Understands theories and research on the effects of teaching grammar; relationship between grammar instruction and writing quality; grammar and usage; sentence analysis; sentence-combining activities; readability; writing readable sentences; staging information; use of white space, graphics, subheads.

Spring 2026

Section Title Instructor books eservices
01 Teaching Writing and Communications in Urban Grades 5-12 Mohamed, Hibaq A Books for LAED-445-01 Spring 2026 Course details for LAED-445-01 Spring 2026