Presents a student assignment which involves interviewing a family member and then drawing images and writing a description of their advice. Includes completed assignments from two students. (SR)

Describes a class project in which students write a detailed story of their family heritage and how they came to live in the United States. Notes that students also paint murals telling the story of their family and present the story and the mural on videotape. Presents four such stories and murals. (RS)

Ponders the definition of an American, and offers some responses to that question from high school students around the United States. (SR)

Describes the Los Angeles Urbanscape Tour, in which the city of Los Angeles provides 11th graders with a living laboratory of the principles studied in-depth in their literature and social studies classrooms. Describes writing assignments which grew out of the tour. (SR)

Describes a project in which students combined personal narratives, drawings, and Japanese woodblock prints. Includes three examples of students' stories and prints. (SR)

Argues that no curricular task is more important than encouraging students to deconstruct the powerful social myth of Columbus. Describes ways to invite students to "talk back" to Columbus and all he symbolizes and to encourage students' appreciation of their own capacities to make a difference. (SR)

Discusses "Private Eye," an approach to teaching which focuses on developing students as artists, writers, and scientists. Describes how this approach uses the jewelers loupe to examine everyday objects 5 or 10 times bigger, thus altering students' way of viewing the world through the change of scale and through analogy-provoking questions. (SR)