Discusses potential problems with collaborative learning, noting hat it is often treated as a tool of limited application. Encourages teachers to incorporate playful student collaboration into their classrooms. Argues that by broadening collaboration beyond student response and using it to search and question, students will develop a sense of…

Argues that teachers worry too much about six "Ts": tradition, textbooks, teachers' guides, tests, teachers, and "they." Suggests how English teachers can improve their teaching by approaching these issues imaginatively. (MM)

Reviews the Prentice Hall Literature Series, focusing on: (1) the series' authors and editors; (2) textbook content; and (3) pedagogy suggested in the teacher's guide. (MM)

Finds the film "Dead Poets Society" superficial, misleading, and seriously flawed. Examines seven pedagogical issues raised by the film, including (1) should a teacher who suspects that students are about to break school rules connive at their misconduct? and (2) are "sensitivity games" likely to have a lasting effect on…

Describes various magazine columns or syndicated newspaper columns which engage secondary school students as thinkers and writers. (MM)

Advocates reinforcing the connections among speaking, listening, reading, and writing in the English classroom. Discusses the author's frustrations experienced in integrating speaking and listening with reading and writing instruction, and suggests several ways to deal with these frustrations. (MM)

Points out that keeping a journal provides teachers with an opportunity to critique assignments, discover student writing trends, compile statistics, and collect examples of humorous misstatements and faux pas. (ARH)

Presents the comments of six teachers concerning ability grouping, also known as "tracking." Reports that no reply on the issue supported tracking. Argues that cooperative learning, teaching teams, and the class-within-a-class are the most effective ways for helping students achieve academic success. (RS)

Advocates using "classics" to teach remedial English classes. Outlines several misconceptions about teaching the classics to lower-ability students, and recommends several selections which can be used in remedial classes. (MM)

Describes the efforts of one teacher-researcher to explore the effectiveness of different peer response strategies in the writing class. Notes that teacher-researcher projects can help to develop and assess writing curricula in ways that are outside the scope of specialists and external evaluators. (MM)

Presents a teacher decision-making model that emphasizes "artistic teaching," in which teachers artistically use research and intuition to promote student achievement. Provides examples of this model implemented in several English classes. (MM)

Describes the contradictory impulses embedded in the secondary English curriculum. Considers changing notions of the curriculum and recent trends in curriculum design and theory. Outlines the prominent features of successful curricula based on the concept of engendering coherent conversational domains. (HB)

Describes a course organized in terms of an "exploration of narrative," in which students read and write stories grounded in their own and other students' lives and concerns. Asserts that students' stories are an avenue for the students' various home communities to intersect with the culture of schools. (MM)

Discusses how English teachers can work with other departments to promote interdisciplinary approaches to teaching. Describes sharing writing labs; producing television news reports; engaging in a school-wide theme week; an "academic" Olympic Games; vocabulary exercises in the social studies classes; mock trials; and a team-taught social…

Provides a set of guiding principles for a philosophy of creative educational supervision. (JT)