ABSTRACT
A Curriculum of Relationships One of the basic principles of this book is that the Language Arts curriculum is primarily about relationships. Students best learn to read, write, and speak when they are personally engaged with, and can relate to, essentially human issues. As you have probably noticed, despite all your eorts, neither you nor your students can relate in any meaningful way with tests, nor do you or your students relate in any vital way to the types of information and skills they demand (Wheelock, Bebell, & Haney, 2000). Tests care about “performance,” a favorite word of the testing community, not about authentic and deep human thoughts and feelings. e authentic Language Arts curriculum, on the other hand, seeks to enhance student engagement-their relationship, if you willwith reading, writing, and speaking simply because these are the ways we ponder the big issues of being human and by which we attempt to understand the world.
