A discussion of French grammar instruction looks at the relationship between linguistic competence and communicative competence. It offers exercises emphasizing the logic of language, using four different approaches. Three of the exercises use texts (included), and the fourth requires the student to describe a room. (MSE)

Students who have trouble starting to write can create collage images from textured papers to inspire story ideas and written text. Some students may invent a plot first then illustrate it. Others may let textured paper influence their writing. The article describes the process and explains how to make textured paper. (SM)

Discusses how teachers can involve kindergarten children in learning mathematical concepts by basing such learning on the students' personal, real-world experiences. (BB)

Describes how requiring high school English students to read aloud their written material can improve students' oral reading, writing, and listening skills dramatically. Shares four units of study that have led to successful written and oral pieces. (SR)

Reviews the teaching method called "Directed Reading-Thinking Activity" and shows how it might be employed in mathematics instruction. Expands the concept to include directed reading and thinking. Provides practical lesson plans and classroom methods which utilize these teaching concepts. (HB)

Argues that trying to teach students new words outside of any reading context is a nonproductive enterprise. Describes one teacher's innovative approach to teaching students how to learn new vocabulary words embedded in actual texts. (HB)

Changes in our society have led to a turn toward the "greening" of North America. Classrooms are engaging in activities to create environmentally positive changes. The author's personal action plan began with the founding of the Association for Canadian Education Resources, which preserves and shares teaching tools for classrooms. (KS)

Describes one teacher's methods for introducing to secondary English students the concepts of book design and gift books. Outlines the methods by which English teachers can have students design gift books for friends and family members. Argues that this activity fosters family literacy. (HB)

Describes two recent books that encourage the publication of student writing as a method to develop student literacy. Provides citations and detailed analysis of the two books. (HB)

Describes a technique in which students describe themselves through metaphors or similes and asks them to explain the comparisons they made. Discuses additions and extensions to the basic activity. Discusses a similar exercise in which students sought out poems that had a speaker that the student thought was like him/herself, and then wrote poems…

Explores the use of drama as a teaching tool to promote students' interest in literacy and to support every aspect of literacy development. Describes how drama can help develop affect, emergent literacy, decoding knowledge, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, discourse knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. Discusses also using…

Discusses the philosophies and practices of the following 1997 state Teachers of the Year: Karen Fulmer (Washington), Ford Morishita (Oregon), Judy Kuhn (Alaska), Jim Francis (Idaho), and Kimberley Girard (Montana). Describes various activities and projects that these teachers have used to motivate and engage students. (SV)

Discusses how a literature and multimedia course for 11th and 12th graders used active-learning experiences to engage students with Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part One." Describes how shouting Hal's soliloquy; constructing a chart of character relations; rewriting a scene in their own words; performing, filming, and critiquing a scene; and…

Describes an assignment used at the beginning of a unit on poetry in which students analyze rhyme scheme, meter, feet per line, lyric quality, and theme of the lyrics to a favorite song. Notes that after this students may move more easily into analyzing poems. (SR)

Discusses having students in an undergraduate mass communication theory class create metaphors of their own relationships with mass media. Highlights literature in the field related to critical thinking and teaching methods. Describes application of the assignment. Notes that this assignment provides the professor with a means to evaluate…