Explores the educational process in which college sophomores enrolled in a reading and writing course are engaged. Defines this education as translation: a process of preservation, re-vision, and re-rendering of both texts and selves, prompted by particular course assignments, readings, and forums for interaction. Explores how the metaphor of…

Describes a unit in four steps that meets the challenge of teaching history in a meaningful way by incorporating role-playing with historical investigation. Hopes for each student to breathe life into a person from the past. Discusses the benefits of role-playing biographies. (SG)

Twenty suggestions for building community and empowering students stress the role of community in facilitating inclusion, influence, and openness. Suggestions include mapping the community, finding common threads, conducting community interviews, matching compelling literature with student characteristics, conducting classroom meetings, providing…

Describes how finger puppets can be a safe, creative way for young children to express feelings, act out roles, create play scenarios, and reenact stories as one step toward reading readiness. Details a finger puppetry workshop for early childhood education students; notes that the preservice teachers could produce inexpensive, usable teaching…

Considers how technical communicators of the new millennium will need to develop certain skills to succeed in international online interactions. Notes that computer classrooms with online access can help students to develop these skills through direct interaction with materials and individuals from other cultures. Presents exercises instructors…

Discusses collaborative explorations of collage, drama, and poetry with visiting artists, teachers, and students. Describes a project in which the picture book, "I Live in Music," was shared with students in Jean Dickinson's class as an extension of a study of the Harlem Renaissance. Presents a script that reflects the authors' story of…

Discusses the "Report in a Can" research process that focuses on the successful gathering of data, and outlines its four major steps. Argues for engaging primary students in well-planned research assignments. Describes how to create a "Report in a Can." (SG)

Considers how to transfer a community fund-raising motivational tool to the classroom. Describes the Hoppin' Frog Contest, a project in which students work to earn "miles" instead of working for grades. (SG)

Describes a balloon metaphor exercise to help students to discover the true dynamics of literary conflict in short fiction. Considers conflict in literary characters, conflict for Artisans and Rationals, and conflict for Guardians and Idealists. Discusses stories with successful resolution of conflict, stories with explosive release of conflict,…

Discusses why giving a course depth through storytelling is important. Describes ways to help teachers deepen the impact of storytelling through language and thinking activities that include shadowing, summarizing, student retelling, action logging, and newslettering. Shares one "split" story and student reactions to it as a way of exemplifying…

Considers how to involve students more in discussing poetry. Describes a class activity involving creating a low-risk poetry porthole: the list poem. Talks about learning how to discuss the poetry of others. Presents ideas for making the transition to the discussion of "school" poetry. (SG)

Shows how young children in one early childhood classroom used art materials to express their feelings one day after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Maintains that adults should help children use art activities to work out an understanding of violent events, regain control, and reach some…

Considers how a systematic approach to writing instruction would increase students' performance in both writing and reading. Notes that teachers should connect their reading and writing activities in meaningful ways because reading and writing are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing. Describes use of a "gradual release" model in which teachers…

Shows how different types of process schematics depict changes in state in significantly different ways, emphasizing differently types of information and thus defining event phenomena differently. Provides extension activities to help students understand process schematics. (MG)

Presents two classroom activities designed to get students' questions without stress and to use journals for content area comprehension. Discusses informal reading inventories and the consensus model of reading. (RS)