This ethnographic study documents how a space for critical literacy practices emerged as one teacher attempted to make literacy learning authentic. The school lunch program in an urban elementary district provided the theme for an authentic and focused literacy unit. Throughout this focus unit, the students not only met state standards but also…

Defines semiotics and outlines its implications for teaching language arts. (PRA)

Presents eleven groups of activities students can undertake which deal with sidewalks and which involve both social studies and language arts skills. (DD)

Reports research on providing communication skills through art activities in the primary grades. (RL)

Language arts and science activities are combined in a program based on the adventures of an imaginary character. (DD)

Identifies eight resources that help educators extend and enrich the literacy experiences of students through the weaving of drama, music, and the visual arts into responses to literature, writing, and other areas of the curriculum. (RS)

Illustrates activities which integrate the language arts with other elements of the elementary school curriculum. (DD)

Describes techniques for combining language arts and social studies in a classroom analysis of cereal nutrition, packaging, and advertising. (DD)

Illustrates the benefits and challenges of team-teaching in a multi-age classroom by describing one school's efforts at implementing language arts instruction within an interdisciplinary approach. Discusses initiating multi-age grouping and the advantages and challenges of multi-age classrooms. Offers recommendations. (SR)

Describes a full-time, six-week block which immerses preservice teachers in a self-directed, collaborative, transdisciplinary learning adventure that they translate into a teaching adventure. Shares a vision of what teacher education can be by describing examples of learning contexts, the supportive curriculum model, and the effects these…

Shares observations made by a third-grade teacher who experimented with a variety of strategies to improve her students' abilities to write about mathematics. Notes that this gave the teacher a greater understanding of how students approached solving math problems and helped students practice writing in a meaningful way. (SR)

Describes an alternative elementary school where teachers work together to offer dance as a complement to writing and the study of literature in a whole language approach. Encourages teachers to add new ideas to their curriculum, to use individual talents, and to collaborate with other teachers. (MS)