Presents an interview with Pamela Childers, a high school English teacher for 30 years who is critically aware of the computer's possibilities and limits within the language-arts curriculum. Explores many of the tensions surrounding the computer's place in secondary English classes. (SR)

Finds (1) a steady progression (from grade 5 through grade 11) in students' ability to recognize irony; (2) the irony in a poem was more difficult to recognize than in a joke or in a story; and (3) less-able students recognized irony better than did academically able students. Offers pedagogical suggestions. (SR)

Describes a writing assignment in which students read only the first two paragraphs of Charles Dickens's novel "A Tale of Two Cities" and then, after some brainstorming and prewriting, write a paragraph or two modeled on those, explaining the confusion and turmoil of the present day. Notes how Dickens's expressions become more familiar…

Videos, virtual reality, and the World Wide Web create effective macrocontexts for integrating science and language arts. Contexts must be readily available, appropriate for the level, and interesting to students. Teachers should be able to identify scientific concepts and language skills embedded in them. Alternative assessment methods are more…

Elementary school goals for instruction focus on developing literate readers and writers. Provides examples of integrated interdisciplinary and thematic instruction. Recommends the use of thematic instruction with an interdisciplinary focus to meet National Science Education Standards and National English Language Arts Standards. (Author/SJR)

Finds that 30 states require oral communication as part of an integrated language-arts curriculum; one state reported no state-wide standards for oral communication; two states include oral communication separately from language arts; and twelve states reported exit level testing or competencies of graduating high school seniors which included…

Describes an integrated English/science curriculum wrapped around environmental issues and aimed at establishing collaboration among students. (CCM)

Language and literary arts are based in the technology of communication, making communication studies in technology education inherently interdisciplinary. An interdisciplinary approach emphasizing learning to learn and metacognition can allay concerns about the future of the written word in a world increasingly driven by technology. (SK)

In pondering the reasons for declining standardized test scores at higher grade levels, a California high-school teacher realized that instruction may not be keeping pace with tests. A study of Chicago Public Schools found that repeated or low-level instruction in math and language arts classes was commonplace. (MLH)

Defines a critical pedagogy as a moral vision of human justice and decency. Argues that a critical pedagogy of the theatre could help create an analytical discourse of entertainment to allow children a different type of cultural literacy. (NH)

Offers a classroom vignette illustrating how students learn through story. Focuses on 10-year-old Brad and the role literature discussion played in enabling him to work through the death of his grandfather. (SR)

Describes the author's experience writing a novel which she believed was a love story, but came to realize was a story about domestic violence. Argues for a strong role for young adult literature in examining the realities of abusive, confining relationships. Notes that young people have been helped in dealing with their own dilemmas by seeing…

Examines the origin of the term "attitude," and how its meaning has changed over the centuries. Discusses theoretical definitions of the term by I. A. Richards and by Kenneth Burke. Discusses its role in the learning process, and how an explicit attention to attitude in the language-arts classroom might help students become better readers and…

Discusses a five-day Holocaust lesson based around Robert O. Fisch's memoir "Light from the Yellow Star: A Lesson of Love from the Holocaust." Describes class activities as students responded to Fisch's artwork, to his narrative text, living history, living prejudice, and genocide. Concludes that the memoir is an invaluable testimony and…

Describes ways short story collections can be integrated into the English curriculum, including a short story fair, a short story hunt, using single short stories to extend a unit, using a short story by itself, using a collection as a whole, and using short stories as part of a focus on writing. Offers a list of short story resources. (SR)