Explores why many secondary students resist writing by examining the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that affected one student's motivation to write. Determines that students' past experiences with writing profoundly affect their willingness to write. Describes ways to preserve and foster young writers' inclinations to write. (MM)

Effective deliberation in teaching relies upon situational appreciation. This article examines some of the central issues and confusing claims in the current debate over the notion of practical arguments as a way of better understanding how teachers think when they deliberate about what to do in the classroom. (IAH)

Explores the effects of Toni Morrison's novel, "Beloved," on readers. Explains that it maps a new direction for the African-American apocalyptic tradition because Morrison relocated the arena of racial battle from the streets to the African-American psyche where memories of the atrocities of the past have been buried. (JS)

Analyzes high school economics textbooks through an examination of the questions that textbooks traditionally address about economic production: What, how much, and how will something be produced, and who gets the product? Considers teachers' relationships to economic textbooks and courses. Concludes that textbooks should be more relevant to…

This article provides a brief overview of the Assertive Discipline classroom management approach and raises questions about its use in schools of a democratic society. Assertive Discipline is criticized as being based primarily on teachers' needs, characterized by authoritarian values and techniques, and lacking research-based evidence for claims…

Proposes and analyzes Video Audience Simulation Technique (VAST), an electronic instructional aid related to video robotics, used to simulate audiences for public speakers, providing realistic speech rehearsal, instructor control of audience feedback to facilitate learning, and portrayal of specialized audiences unavailable in normal instructional…

Describes workshops developed at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) library for faculty and graduate assistants to improve their understanding of library-based computer searching services. Bibliographic instruction is discussed; grant funding is described; the seminar format is explained; and responses to the workshops are…

Describes a method for isolating factors that influence the ability of a reader to comprehend the message of an illustration, and explains a model that is constructed from these factors to highlight potential problem stages in an author's design of an illustration. The model is based on data from comprehension trials with college students. (17…

Self-report data on the physiological/behavioral response associated with embarrassment were collected by questionnaire in Greece, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and West Germany. Blushing/increased temperature and smiling/grinning were reported consistently, with considerable variation, across nations. Understatement and overstatement of…

Explores how child readers in Australia and Germany responded to Randolph Stow's "Midnite." Reports on responses from taped interviews conducted in each country, examining both child and adult responses to the ironic humor of the work. (MG)

Reviews multichannel learning research to find the best ways to combine audio and video in television to improve learning, and summarizes the research findings into principles for instructional television production. Highlights include the effects of redundancy on learning and on audience attention, message clarity, and problems in instructional…

Explores how the different social pressures on men and women, with respect to their physical appearance, might influence their respective experiences of their bodies during normal daily activities. Subjects' body esteem and beliefs about the importance of their physical self in attracting the opposite sex are measured. (JS)

Examines whether a good relationship with both parents can buffer male adolescents from divorced families against detrimental effects of divorce by preventing adjustment problems, compared to adolescents from intact families. Studied three subject groups: divorced/good relationship with both parents; divorced/poor relationship with both parents;…

Assesses stability in achievement-related beliefs, emotional experiences, and task behavior from one grade to the next in 77 fourth- and fifth-grade students. Results indicate that task behavior and some beliefs and emotional experiences were predictable from one year to the next. (RJC)

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and components solutions were compared using two balanced self-report item sets. Results suggest that when self-report items are balanced and negatively worded items are not reverse scored, MDS and components solutions can differ largely, due to a component associated with measures of acquiescence. (SLD)