Offers a profile of Ann Turner. Examines her background, her approach to writing, and to writing historical fiction. Looks at aspects of Turner's historical writing and aspects of her style. Considers if there is a place for poetic language in historical fiction for children. (SR)

Explores the evolving perspectives of six school members who served as tutors (three first-grade teachers, two Title I teachers, and the school principal) on professional development, classroom language arts instruction, and school-wide literacy curriculum. Describes how the program shifted to teacher development and curriculum reform as school…

Notes that humor and hope can produce an interest in reading and writing in children. Presents ideas for developing interest in language arts as well as suggested poems, picture books, and beginning chapter books. Also includes classroom suggestions for developing the four needs of beginning writers: ideas, words, structures, and spelling. (LBT)

Examines how poetry can be used in the integrated curriculum at the middle school level to introduce themes, bring attention to critical issues, and offer alternative perspectives, as well as provide a way for students to respond to issues. Considers the value of poetry for adolescents and suggests the use of language charts to guide exploration…

An elementary school teacher describes how students in grades five through six developed language-arts and other skills by rewriting Shakespeare plays; learning stage design, techniques, and vocabulary; reflecting on Shakespeare's intentions and their own insights into the plays' meanings; and presenting both original plays and their own versions.…

Explains that didaction is an expressive action in search of internal consistency. Analyzes the didactic implications of the poetic transposition into action and the construction of a postmodern action literature through poetry. Presents the process of poetic emergence in Francophone Switzerland and Ontario. (CMK)

This pilot descriptive study examined expressed perceptions of a diverse group of teachers who, in the 2002-2003 school year, piloted implementation of a new standards based supplemental program in reading/language arts, EduSTRANDS. Over 600 teachers in 153 schools using a supplemental, standards based reading/language arts program were surveyed…

Students in Mr. Shaw's classes used to be free to discover the joy of reading books of their own choosing. But that kind of spontaneity is vanishing under No Child Left Behind. This article describes the classroom library Mr. Shaw has built throughout the years and the joy it has brought to his students and their learning.

This paper reports a research project developed in partnership with the Principal and Leadership Team of an Australian secondary school. It monitored a school-based initiative designed to address the underachievement of male students. Students in Year 9 selected single-gender or coeducational classes in mathematics and English during the second…

Examined the performances of schools in a large urban school district using achievement data from a longitudinally matched cohort of middle school students (3,299 students in 24 schools). Results suggest that assessments of school performance depend on choices of ways to model and analyze data. (SLD)

This article assumes the value of a scientifically grounded, rhetorically focused, professionally supported, and publicly embraced grammar within the public schools and examines the past century of practices within the United States from that perspective. It describes a brief renaissance in the 50's and early 60's, inspired largely by the…

A subcategory of computer-assisted instruction (CAI), games have additional attributes such as motivation, reward, interactivity, score, and challenge. This study used a quasi-experimental design to determine if previous findings generalize to non simulation-based game designs. Researchers observed significant improvement in the overall population…

In this article, the author relates her experience in teaching poetry and how it shapes everything she and her students do in the classroom. As a language arts teacher for students in grades 7 to 12, she discovered poetry to be magical in many ways, for it offers such advantages as, brevity, which allows a quick reading and discussion of a…

This appendix focuses on the descriptive statistics of the middle study schools that participated in the "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better. A Large-Scale Study of Middle Grades Practices and Student Outcomes. Initial Research." This appendix contains the following figures: (1) Student…

This descriptive narrative presents a university/school partnership that led to an inquiry-based approach to language arts instruction, resulting in increased opportunities for reflective teaching and learning, students' environmental awareness projects, the integration of science, and the individualization of instruction at the middle school…