The program emphasizes a critical literacy practices framework valuing language arts skills for life-long learning with these core values:

• Teaching and learning for democracy and social justice

• Respect for the diversity of learners

• Writing as a rhetorical process

• Reading as a strategic process

• Multiple perspective taking

• Meeting student needs through differentiation

• Teaching speaking, listening, and language skills for students to become advocates

Admitted teacher candidates will prepare to become effective secondary (grades 9-12) English Language Arts (ELA) teachers in diverse classrooms. Coursework in the 46-hour major develops content knowledge and discipline-specific methods by addressing how theory and research support best practices in integrated language arts skills pedagogy.

Teacher candidates develop and apply instructional delivery skills through clinical experiences conducted at University High School (Illinois State's on-campus laboratory school) and a variety of public school classrooms: rural, suburban, and urban.