Using academic conflicts for instructional purposes is one of the most dynamic, involving, and least used teaching strategies. Teachers fear divisiveness and also lack fitting instructional models for structuring controversial discussions. This article discusses the controversy process and how teachers can organize and use it to enhance cognitive…

Presents useful ideas for activities that get students involved, upon arrival abroad, in using their foreign language and in relating to their new cultural environment. A "linguistic scavenger hunt" in Paris, France, helps students gain the confidence they need to maximally benefit from their experience abroad. (Author/DJD)

The authors describe some of Great Plains Area Vocational-Technical School's more creative uses of new technologies, including computers and video, in the classroom to teach business-related skills. The school's policy is to let teachers experiment heavily with the machinery to encourage creativity. (CH)

Addresses the fact that a very small number of programs in science education were identified as outstanding in the field by the National Science Teachers Association. (NKA)

Describes a cross-disciplinary peer teaching program to improve high school teachers' writing skills. The 16-week program succeeded because of four main ingredients: administrative support, a long-term commitment to improving student writing, an onsite, inservice design, and incentives for teacher involvement. (MLH)

Children are motivated to write when they produce their own rubber stamps to use in their stories. Suggestions for making rubber stamps in the classroom are given. (DF)

Suggests ways in which educational leaders can become more creative and encourage creativity in those with whom they work. (FL)

Author examines results of creativity and aptitude tests for subjects from early childhood through graduate student level, and concludes that creative production is directly related to information supply (or "knowledge-at-hand"), and that it is the structuring of this information that implies potential for creativity. (RW)

There is in India today a resurgence of interest and research in the area of creative functioning. One of the main problems in creativity research is the scarcity of reliable measuring techniques, which, ultimately, can only be developed by Indian researchers and scientists. (Author/RW)

The new Readers Theatre series features scripts for students in grades 4-8. These original scripts are written for the specific purpose of teaching literary genre. Each book is composed of 24-28 scripts, each of which will be keyed to published books, plays, poems or stories in that genre, encouraging students to read the originals in order to…

Drawing on the author's classroom experiences and the curriculum in a program she established called "Literacy through Photography," the book presents a guide to teaching children to express themselves with photographic images. The book includes over 60 black and white photographs as well as anecdotes about the author's work. Five sections follow…

Reviews of articles selected from various other publications that may be of interest to readers of the English Journal": strategy for keeping a job in today's schools; how and where to publish an article; methods for creative teaching; teaching non achievers; etc. (RB)

Most of the curricular arrangements and instructional patterns employed in contemporary schooling seems to stifle rather than facilitate children's natural creative way of learning. (Author)