This study examined the advantages of using written language portfolios for authentic assessment in a third-grade special education classroom. Portfolios included data from students, teachers, parents, and the teacher's journal. Portfolios provided insights about how students thought about their writing, offered new understandings of parents'…

Two teacher educators utilized professional standards to inform their teaching. They used reflective dialog, action research, and critical inquiry in a standards-based language arts curriculum to support revisions and improvements in classroom practices and curriculum development. This led to new ideas about collaborative structures and stimulated…

Describes how one school-university partnership openly discussed the basic tensions between theory and practice. The result was a collaboratively delivered methods course that became the foundation for a complex school-university relationship. The partnership changed the elementary school, provided meaningful inservice for practicing teachers, and…

Provides five fully developed library media activities that are designed for use with specific curriculum units in dramatics, reading, language arts, science, and social studies. Library media skills, curriculum objectives, grade levels, resources, instructional roles, activities and procedures, evaluation, and follow-up are describes for each…

Provides library media activities which can be used with specific curriculum units. Curriculum areas include art (alphabetizing, card catalogs, and encyclopedias); reading/language arts (writing an editorial and using a dictionary); science (using information from books); and social studies (using atlases and gazetteers, and subject reference…

Examines four software packages: (1) "Wordbench"--writing and word processing, grades 9-12 (IBM and Apple); (2) "Muppet Slate"--language arts, grades K-2 (Apple); (3) "Accu-Weather Forecaster"--weather analysis and forecasting, grades 3-12 (modem with IBM or Mac); and (4) "The Ripple That Changed American…

Describes the field experience component of Hawaii's PETOM (Preservice Education for Teachers of Minorities) program. Student teachers visit rural schools, becoming acquainted with their future students and schools. PETOM offers experience with many classrooms and teaching modules. Students are encouraged to reflect and analyze, thus developing…

Presents six curriculum guides for mathematics, reading/language arts, social studies, and science. Each guide highlights library media skills objectives, subject area objectives, grade levels, resources, instructional roles, sample activities, evaluation, and follow-up activities. (AEF)

Founded in 1968, the Transitional Year Program at Brandeis University (Massachusetts) continues to offer intensive remedial math and English for students who might not be admitted to college otherwise. The tuition-free program has been highly successful in turning mediocre high school performance into college achievement. Most participants are…

As new technologies make different ways of communicating available, the language arts teacher and the media specialist can work together to develop literacy. The media center could become the electronic publishing center of the school; through communication projects, students will learn to access, validate, and transfer information in an…

Asserts that multicultural education is an integral part of the school curriculum. Describes a three-week interdisciplinary unit on China combining social studies, language arts, mathematics, the arts, and computer skills. Includes a list of children's literature, a sample lesson, and a map of China. (CFR)

Discusses 15 years of experiences and lessons learned teaching in multicultural settings in the United States, Puerto Rico, and 2 foreign nations. Argues that schooling should be based on a diversity model of education. Asserts that it is difference that engages student minds. (CFR)

Reviews the research illustrating the wide-ranging benefits of open-ended computer programs such as LOGO. Considers the ways in which these programs develop young children's subject-matter knowledge and problem-solving and socioemotional competencies. (BB)

Examines ways in which language practices in the classroom, particularly those involved with reading and writing stories, are gendered literary practices. Argues that the gendered nature of classroom literacy practices requires more critical scrutiny and that texts cannot be treated as separate from their cultural production. (SLD)

Examines the role of education in creating unjust gender arrangements in society through language policies and the discursive practices that it legitimates. Because these practices are in areas in which schools take responsibility, they are open to changes in educational policy. Recommendations are made for change. (SLD)