Describes how students in an 8th-grade rural English classroom were focused and engaged over a 9-week period as they investigated and researched a poem of their own choice by a Native American poet, and wrote a hypertext web of their research journey. Notes that students experienced text in a new way, as a network of links. (SR)

Argues that integrating the arts in culture and literacy can help children become proficient users of language and be accepting and empathetic toward others, as advocated in standard nine of the "Standards for the English Language Arts." Describes two ways the author integrated the arts into a language arts unit on Japan, dealing with…

Outlines exercises for high school and college students that use student-written poems, published adult poems, and synectics (a game-like forced comparison between dissimilar objects) to help students understand the writer's most powerful comparison device: metaphor. (SR)

Describes a lesson in which students create collage insects inspired by the work of Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar). Connects art, language arts, and science. Discusses how students make paper to use as the collage material and how students create the insects. (CMK)

This article describes the experiences of a sixth-grade language arts class that participated in a research and portfolio-writing exercise using the school library media center. Students in this class learned that organization and process are central to the completion of a successful research project. After learning various note-taking strategies…

One of the most controversial aspects of NCLB is its performance requirements for subgroups within the general student population. In this article, the authors examine the implications of these requirements for English-language learners and offer recommendations to help states, districts, and schools facilitate the progress of these students.

In the early 1980s, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) revised its policies on reading instruction. A new transactional definition of reading shifted the emphasis from discrete reading skills to comprehension and set out objectives consistent with that new definition. Policymakers also revised the state?s reading-evaluation instruments,…

This article describes a series of mathematics activities based on the book "A Grain of Rice," which are designed to help students understand powers of 2. Ideas for activities in other disciplines are also provided. (Contains 3 tables.)

To those who would claim that the study of literature is impractical, Probst would respond vehemently, "No, it is essential." The habit of thoughtful reading, insightful questioning, and critical evaluation are learned in English language arts classes where a variety of genres, characters, and situations push students to analyze and debate and…

Vocabulary acquisition is a critical component of academic language. This aspect of the school curriculum seems to be more difficult for language learners to acquire. This study therefore examines the language arts conceptual framework and the instructional activities for vocabulary development in a second grade mixed classroom with a view to…

Grammar instruction has long been a troubling issue for many language arts teachers. This collaborative research between an elementary classroom teacher and university faculty, based on the assumption that grammar is most effectively taught in reading and writing, looks into the short- and long-term effect of error-based grammar instruction on the…

Provides a description of the artwork entitled "Genesis" while also discussing the life and career of artist, William Zorach. Includes activities in subject areas, such as language arts, science, and social studies, and offers Internet resources. (CMK)

In this interview, Gunther Kress proposes how English needs to expand beyond its traditional linguistic frame into a semiotic frame which recognizes not only the visual but other modes. He argues also for a shift to forms of production in which the acts of reflection and meaning-making are fused, rather than separating the production of new…

Synthesizing literature from critical pedagogy, sociocultural psychology, and cultural studies with popular cultural texts and experiences from actual classroom practice, this article conceptualizes the critical teaching of popular culture as a viable strategy to increase academic and critical literacies in urban secondary classrooms. Relying on…

There is often a resistance to verbal language in the nonverbal arts. Within educational establishments, language does not simply serve the art work or its making; it serves other extraneous goals of legitimation. The link between language and legitimation is striking. Dance education in Great Britain, for example, has recently moved from…