Examines children's story-writing processes as they develop over a two-year period, from kindergarten through second grade. Observes that children reflect multiple worlds in their writing, including their ongoing social world, the imaginary world of their story, and the wider, experienced world of people, places, and events. (MM)

Describes an activity in which students write guided-imagery scripts that are related to works of literature. (MM)

Suggests ways to help students move beyond rewriting to revising, including situational analysis and peer evaluation. Provides a worksheet on generating ideas, guidelines for evaluation, questions for peer evaluation, and a sample research article assignment. (MM)

Responds to Myra Kogen's article, "The Conventions of Expository Writing" (JBW; v5 n1). Discusses several misunderstandings about models of intellectual development. Argues that developmental schemes are useful when interpreted cautiously, but risky if used to classify a student's intellectual development. (MM)

Describes experiences with adult students showing that teachers can take a dialogic approach to literacy in any classroom setting. Points out that the focus is on talk, generative themes, and written dialog. (SR)

Relates a poet's experiences in graduate school, and the poetry he wrote in the 1970s. Discusses methods and techniques for poetry writing in the classroom. Suggests topics for a series of poetry exercises: moebius strip, poetry sights, shadow poems, poetry chair, chopstick quatrains, poetry shirt, poem wrapping the school, word beads, and a haiku…

Describes the use of an electronic bulletin board in a first-year composition class. Explores power relationships and issues of gender, conflict, and authority while focusing on one young man's role on the bulletin board. (SR)

Suggestions are offered for involving advanced Spanish-language students more directly in watching and making later use of videotapes. Steps include preparing students to watch the videos, writing a survey on the video topic, and creating a computerized class newsletter. (LB)

Explains that students in introductory college history courses were assigned to keep journals and write short, informal pieces on reading assignments. Argues that students found themselves thinking about history in new ways. Includes portions of student writings. Concludes that students grew into active learners, who came to appreciate history as…

Describes the approach used with high school advanced placement English classes to a nature-writing project based on the work of Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard. (SR)

Describes a successful unit of study on poetry in a fifth grade class that ended with students each writing a sonnet as a final project. (SR)

Describes a semester-long project for a first-year writing class in which students work collaboratively to research an artist as a person, write an essay as a monologue, and present the monologue as a one-person play to the class. (SR)

Describes the use of "idea books" (journals) with third graders as part of their history/social studies instruction. Discusses entries from units on Christopher Columbus and on George Washington. (SR)

Describes the "shrinklit," a rhyming summary of a literary work which serves as an alternative to student book reporting. Suggests that shrinklits are enjoyable because they contain relatively sophisticated humor and are easy for secondary students to mimic. Provides examples of shrinklits written by students. (SG)

Suggests that one of the greatest outlets for the middle school voices in one particular classroom is the students' immersion into poetry during writing workshops. Describes a classroom environment that encourages children to express themselves in writing, speech, and action each day. Presents numerous examples of students' poetry. (RS)