Language Arts to Communication Arts

About the Book

To assure literacy, we must end individual teacher and departmental deferments and muster all school and college personnel into an all-out bloodless, professional revolution against illiteracy.  Now is the  time for a thorough review of all educational objectives, strategies, and tactics for preparing and supporting our front line troops –– classroom teachers. Language Arts to Communication Arts: Reorganizing for Tomorrow’s Literacy  provides directions and sounds, “all hands to battle stations!”

 Robert and Lois Wolsch have been pioneers in bringing interpersonal  communication, the speech arts, and phonological awareness into the teaching of language arts and curriculum development. Their recommendations fill the void in education which neglects to address speaking, listening, and sociolinguistic skills.

 Their previous books, The Poetic Language of Children, Poetic Composition Through The Grades, From Speaking to Writing to Reading, Literacy Assured, and Showing You Know  and their workshops throughout the country, have had excellent reviews from experienced teachers, gallant administrators, enlightened parents, and professional organizations. The National Council of Teachers of English recommended Poetic Composition Through the Grades  for all school libraries.

 Combining their four decades of teaching, supervision, and curriculum development, from K-graduate school, the Wolsch’s have been speakers and workshop leaders championing the need for more up-to-date preparation of teachers in listening, the speech & media arts, sociolinguistics for reading and language arts across the curriculum.

 With their new four book Literacy Assured Series,  they help to bring their insights into more homes, classrooms, consultations, committees, and curriculum councils. They identify today’s concerns about children’s language, particularly for children from oral cultures, provide workable solutions, and issue an invitation to all of us to discuss America’s major educational issues.

About the Author

Robert & Lois Wolsch have been pioneers and favorite discussion leaders, for over four decades, in bringing listening, speaking, writing, and reading together. They have demonstrated their ideas, to make composition an enjoyable experience and a major part of every classroom and home, to parent and professional groups throughout the country. Robert Wolsch, Ed.D. Curriculum & Teaching Language Arts, Teachers College, Columbia University, Professor of Communication & Education, emeritus, Western Connecticut State University. Robert Wolsch has been a language arts consultant, providing 400 in class demonstrations each year for 12 years to students and teachers about speaking and writing. Then, as Director of Curriculum Development for the Experimental Program of the Urban Job Corps, his language centered, curriculum research program earned major government funding. His Poetic Composition Through The Grades: A Handbook for Teachers, an outgrowth of his doctoral dissertation under Professor Leland Jacobs, was published by Teachers College Press. The National Council of Teachers of English recommended it for all professional libraries. Robert originated and coordinated the graduate Communication Arts programs for teachers at Western Connecticut State University, which, with composition as a central focus, were recommended in a national study as models for inexpensive, multidisciplined teacher education. The first professor to receive the Connecticut Education Association’s Human Relations Award, Robert is listed in Leaders in Education and Who’s Who in Education. Lois Cothran Wolsch, M.A. Speech & Child Development, University of Michigan, Remedial Speech & Language Teacher, retired, Danbury, Connecticut Public Schools & Adjunct, Western Connecticut State University. Lois Cothran Wolsch, with Robert, previously coauthored From Speaking to Writing to Reading, published by Teachers College Press which stressed the concept of speech first, leading to writing and then to reading. She began her career at the Shady Trails Speech Camp of the University of Michigan and by organizing the speech program in the Ann Arbor, Michigan Public Schools. She continued in the Rockville Centre Public Schools, Nassau Community College, Danbury Public Schools, and part time at Western Connecticut State University. The Wolsch’s have been favorite workshop leaders and long time advocates of interpersonal communication and writing in heterogeneous groups on all levels of education. This is one of their new Litaracy Assured Series including: Language Arts to Communication Arts: Reorganizing For Tomorrow’s Literacy, Foibles of Phonics: And Other Roadblocks to Literacy, and Learning Through Speaking: 810 Performance Based Language Lessons.