In this article, we look closely at the way power circulates through school routines with ordinary texts in everyday moments. We address texts that support different types of achievement and how critical literacy helps us redefine achievement and examine what we're doing with texts and students in classrooms. We interrogate the notion of…

Describes how the author prepares students for the test using genre study and problem-solving strategies. Notes how she struggles with questions about the role that tests play in schools and in children's lives. Notes the importance of teaching students how to take the test, but recognizes it has become more important to help them understand the…

Examines how children develop as writers and presents new ways of looking at children's problem solving in what they do and say during the writing process. Presents an outline of the general orders of child focus in the writing process. (HTH)

Notes that it is important for educators to remember to avoid battles with critics who tie up and wear down educators with arguing--not arguments--because it drains limited time and energy and pulls them away from more important things like working with children. Suggests that it is more effective to prepare a thoughtful, reflective response…

Defends improvisational drama as a means of promoting creative problem solving and describes the author's experience as a creative dramatics teacher at an inner-city school. (DD)

Conducts a critical review of empirical research focused directly on reflection activities with prospective teachers, and conducts a study in the authors' own literacy methods courses to learn what their students do when asked to reflect on course assignments. Concludes that engaging future teachers in multiple opportunities to critique their own…

Demonstrates through the writing of one second-grade student how some of life's crises can be successfully worked out through the writing process. (HTH)

Illustrates how children constantly solve communication puzzles in the course of language acquisition and offers suggestions for teachers and parents to assist children in their understanding of language. (HTH)

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 various ways of using children's questions as windows on their understandings and approaches to reading and writing tasks. Suggests that children need to know that questions are not signs of failure. (MM)

Two articles point out the importance of students' collaboration in the computer lab. The first describes two students' use of the word processor to write a story collaboratively. The second analyzes the dialogue of two students playing a computer game, showing that such games help students become better at planning and decision making. (ARH)

Claims that although a child-oriented classroom is organized by the teacher, the curriculum is enacted by everyone, and that dialogues in which teachers and children develop together provides the core of this enactment. (MM)