Team writing and shared ideas are interpersonal experiences that motivate children to write. (JH)

This book gathers 25 essays and 80 shorter excerpts from the past 25 years of the K-8 journal "Language Arts." Essays in the book begin with (1) "Introduction" (Sharon Murphy and Curt Dudley-Marling). Under Section I--Opening Contexts for Thinking about Teaching the Language Arts--are the following essays: (2) "How…

This book adopts a questioning approach to studying history in which students become biographers who read, discuss, research, and write books about their subjects, providing their own original interpretations of the facts. By digging into the past and reflecting on what they have learned, students get involved in the process and are eager to do it…

This report describes the technical quality of a measure of the quality of classroom assignments piloted in the Los Angeles Unified School District's proposed new accountability system. The measure was developed by the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). For the study, 181 teachers were sampled from 35…

This book provides practical strategies for K-6 teachers for using nonfiction trade books in language arts and content area instruction. Research-based classroom-tested ideas are spelled out to help teachers: select from among the many quality nonfiction trade books available; incorporate nonfiction into the classroom; work with students to…

This book presents a critique of urban school reform that emerges from an exploration of three avenues: learning from the country's long history of previous attempts at reform, listening seriously to the voices of urban practitioners, and going beyond best practices in pedagogy and school organization to view reform in the larger, more…

Every day in so many ways, children are surrounded by language: from the language of home and family, to the never-ending bombardment of environmental print, to the clash between school admonitions to use "standard" English and their peer groups' specialized and invented speech. According to the author of this book, students love to…

This collection of 20 essays on topics vital to literacy education, a follow-up to "Becoming Political," aims to be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the past, present, and likely future of literacy education. The essays provide equal parts of theory, strategy, and hope for all who are interested in supporting literacies…

Most books about teacher education processes are generic in their descriptions. This book, however, is designed to enable staff developers and teacher educators to help teachers become effective in their teaching of the reading and writing processes. The book offers specific suggestions for planning and implementing a literacy professional…

Reading and writing are interrelated. What has been read provides material for writing. This paper focuses on reading endeavors that provide subject matter for writing. The paper first recommends reading poetry to the class and states that the teacher should have ready for use an anthology of children's literature. Children can write poems for…

The 1998 "High Schools That Work" (HSTW) assessment contains good and bad news about the reading performance of the 23,900 career-bound students who participated in the assessment at experienced HSTW sites. Based on these findings, this research brief answers the following three questions: What progress are HSTW's sites making in…

This document deals with testing in intermediate communication arts for seventh graders in Missouri public schools. The document contains the following items from the Session 1 Test Booklet: "Swimming in Snow" (Diana C. Conway) (Items 1, 2, and 5); "Discovery" (Marion Dane Bauer) (Item 13); writing prompt; and a writer's…

This document deals with testing in intermediate communication arts for seventh graders in Missouri public schools. The document contains the following items from the Test Booklet: "Under the Rice Moon" (Rhiannon Puck); "Dogspirit" (Gary Paulsen) (Session 1, Items 4, 5, 6, and 8); a writing prompt; and a writer's checklist. It…