The assessment model described in this guide was initially developed by a team of fifth-grade teachers who wrote objectives of integrating social studies and language arts. It helps the teacher guide students to create a task-specific rubric that they use to evaluate their own and peers' work. Teachers review the student evaluations, determine the…

A study was conducted of differences in academic performance of boys and girls in Wales, exploring factors that might explain any differences and making recommendations about further studies that might be needed. The statistical analysis is based on statutory assessment and examination results for Wales. At an all-Wales level, for all subjects,…

This study, part of the "Study of Instructional Improvement," assessed the validity of quantitative measures of reading comprehension instruction derived from a language arts instructional log. The log was designed to measure the language arts instructional experiences individual students received over time, and measures from the log were to be…

Efferent teaching asks the student to read for a predetermined answer, focusing on another person's ideas of the text's meaning. Aesthetic teaching allows for literature to be read and experienced as art through the reader's personal transaction with the text which focuses on one's own interest to create and understand the meaning. This paper…

The purpose of this Digest is to explore the evidence suggesting the effectiveness of literacy instruction through communicative and visual arts. It discusses the communicative and visual arts in literacy instruction; television and multiple media as instructional tools; using dramatic activities in language arts classrooms; and teaching language…

The ideas collected in this twentieth edition of "Ideas Plus" come from two sources: ideas submitted at an Idea Exchange session at a National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention or Spring Conference, and contributions by readers of "Classroom Notes Plus" and "Ideas Plus." Some of the teaching practices described in this book are…

This report describes an external review of education reform in Oklahoma that focuses on standards and assessment for benchmarking in English language arts and mathematics, including the related standards and assessments of the American College Testing (ACT) program. Data collection involved analysis of written documents; interviews with leaders…

This paper reports a qualitative study in which a small group of 12- and 13-year-old students in a Tucson, Arizona, junior high school designed a school Web site. The study investigated the potential benefits of hypermedia authoring for language arts instruction. Although successful integration of multimedia technology into schools is not without…

Embracing aspects of both whole language and explicit instruction, this book discusses the creation of dynamic learning environments in which students discuss books, write for authentic audiences, and become published authors. Chapter 1 defines explicit instruction and whole language and discusses a combination approach, and it also includes a…

This guide lists 64 commercially prepared English language arts inventories to assist educators in attaining results as stated in the Illinois Right to Read Initiative Best Practice #2: Assessment to Inform Instruction. The inventories in this guide are offered as another resource and are not meant to take the place of ongoing classroom assessment…

This U.S. history curriculum guide, based upon the historical essays written by Richard B. Bernstein, is intended for students in grades 9 - 12 and refines and extends the understanding of U.S. history that students have acquired to date. Students are challenged to venture into historical explorations and analyses in order to compare and contrast…

This lesson introduces students to one of the most admired characterizations in Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," the Wife of Bath. Students read Chaucer's description of the Wife in the "General Prologue" to consider how he represents her, both as the poet of "The Canterbury Tales" and as a character in his own poem,…

In this three-part lesson, students examine structure and characterization in the short story and consider the significance of humor through a study of Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." In Part I, through skits and storytelling, students first examine the structure of Twain's story and the role he creates…

This lesson plan introduces students to one of the most widely-read genres of 19th-century American literature and an important influence within the African American literary tradition today. The lesson focuses on the "Narrative of William W. Brown, An American Slave" (1847), which, along with the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick…

While a single lesson plan cannot fully explore the variety and complexity of African life, in this lesson students can gain insight into the lives of some black women in Sub-Saharan Africa by adopting a perspective that is in part traditional, based on the arts of African village life, and in part postcolonial, based on the work of African women…