General Outcome 1


Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to explore thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences.

Exploratory language enables students to organize and give meaning to experiences. Students use exploratory language to share thoughts, ideas and experiences, and to express and acknowledge emotions. Exploratory language enables students to discover and understand what they think and who they are. It also helps them reflect on themselves as language learners and language users. In addition, it helps them establish and maintain relationships.

Exploratory language is often oral. Through talk and conversation, students make observations, ask questions, hypothesize, make predictions and form opinions. Exploratory talk is often spontaneous. Sometimes students discover what they think at the point of utterance. Exploratory writing also helps students clarify their thinking. When students can see their ideas, thoughts, feelings and experiences in writing, they can reconsider, revise and elaborate on them in thoughtful ways. Representing is also used to explore ideas and interrelationships in diagrams, thought webs, charts and other visual media. Exploratory listening, reading and viewing enable students to gather and verify information, identify areas for further inquiry or research, and develop support for opinions.

As students progress through the grades, they develop the ability to use exploratory language to achieve the other English language arts learning outcomes. For example, exploratory talk and writing enhance student comprehension by focusing their prior knowledge and experiences before reading, listening and viewing, and subsequently help them understand and manage information. Students use exploratory language when analyzing, evaluating and responding to texts, and when deciding how to use language more effectively. They use conversation to collaborate on projects and to develop a classroom community.

It is intended that students engage in purposeful language arts activities that respect individual differences and emphasize the interrelated and mutually supportive nature of the general and specific outcomes.

1.1 Discover and Explore
Express ideas and develop understanding

ELA 8

  • revise understanding and expression of ideas by connecting new and prior knowledge and experiences
  • review, reread, discuss and reflect on oral, print and other media texts to explore, confirm or revise understanding
  • seek out and consider diverse ideas, opinions and experiences to develop and extend own ideas, opinions and experiences

ELA 9

  • talk with others and experience a variety of oral, print and other media texts to explore, develop and justify own opinions and points of view
  • explore and explain how interactions with others and with oral, print and other media texts affect personal understandings
  • extend understanding by taking different points of view when rereading and reflecting on oral, print and other media texts

Experiment with language and forms

ELA 8

  • discuss and respond to ways that forms of oral, print and other media texts enhance or constrain the development and communication of ideas, information and experiences

ELA 9

  • develop and extend understanding by expressing and responding to ideas on the same topic, in a variety of forms of oral, print and other media texts

Express preferences

ELA 8

  • pursue personal interest in specific genres by particular writers, artists, storytellers and filmmakers

ELA 9

  • explain preferences for texts and genres by particular writers, artists, storytellers and filmmakers

Set goals

ELA 8

  • examine and reflect on own growth in effective use of language to revise and extend personal goals

ELA 9

  • reflect on own growth in language learning and use, by considering progress over time and the attainment of personal goals

1.2 Clarify and Extend
Consider the ideas of others

ELA 8

  • acknowledge the value of the ideas and opinions of others in exploring and extending personal interpretations and perspectives

ELA 9

  • integrate own perspectives and interpretations with new understandings developed through discussing and through experiencing a variety of oral, print and other media texts

Combine ideas

ELA 8

  • exchange ideas and opinions to clarify understanding and to broaden personal perspectives

ELA 9

  • examine and re-examine ideas, information and experiences from different points of view to find patterns and see relationships

Extend understanding

ELA 8

  • reconsider and revise initial understandings and responses in light of new ideas, information and feedback from others

ELA 9

  • assess whether new information extends understanding by considering diverse opinions and exploring ambiguities