Implementing Social Emotional Activities into the English Language Arts Curriculum

Over the last decade social emotional learning has revealed itself to be an important element in students\u27 academic growth. Social emotional learning requires students to learn the skills necessary to effectively communicate with others as well as maintaining a positive classroom environment, where all students feel supported, safe and heard. When students become more connected to their own emotions, they are developing an essential skill that will help them inside and outside of the classroom. Research shows that implementation of social emotional lessons can improve both immediate and long-term social-emotional ability as well as academic growth. Despite this research, teachers have struggled to implement social emotional lessons into their classroom. The focus of this project is to show how social emotional learning can be seamlessly implemented into the English language arts curriculum. This paper provides strategies/lessons to achieve this objective. During English language arts instruction, providing lessons that encourage whole group discussion, collaboration, metacognitive thinking strategies, and emotional literacy, will help students improve their social emotional skills. Additionally, they are becoming more connected to the literature by developing their tier 2 vocabulary and deepening their understanding of characters’ emotions within a story. The English language arts curriculum provides natural opportunities to support students in the area of social emotional learning and combining these is the missing piece for academic growth