Outlines a teaching unit, appropriate for grades seven through college, that helps students understand the nature of the United Nations definition of genocide. Questions the adequacy of that definition. Provides four classroom teaching scenarios for a cluster of five to eight class periods, culminating with students writing an essay about…

Presents a classroom teaching unit based on the Supreme Court case, "Cruzan v. Missouri Department of Health." Students extract and prioritize the arguments from the lower court decisions, write position papers, and conduct a moot court simulation. Discusses individual and states' rights and quality of life concerns. Includes six…

Provides two sequential writing assignments, a foreign policy issue brief and an issue analysis project, used in introductory political science courses as part of a writing-across-the-curriculum program at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. Explains each assignment's component parts and the reliance on teacher-student interaction for success.…

Asserts that the PBS series "The Civil War" presents historical information that can encourage critical thinking by students. Offers a lesson plan based on one program in the series, "The Cause." Provides questions for student discussion and outlines writing assignments based on the series. (CFR)

Discusses the use of science process skills to help students think positively about writing assignments. Examines the four language arts skills of narration, description, explanation, and persuasion, as used in writing about hands-on science activities. (MDH)

Faculty often overestimate the scholarly communication experiences, critical-thinking abilities, and information-seeking skills of the undergraduates to whom they assign papers. A stratified methodology is suggested for teaching information retrieval skills in the classroom. A strong curriculum-integrated approach could ease the burden on students…

Techniques for college teachers to use in managing student resistance to critical thinking include proactive strategies (creating a cooperative environment, establishing rapport, creating high expectations, and countering resistive behavior) and reactive strategies (avoiding personalization of resistance, inviting students to explore resistance,…

Presents a pull-out section that includes four brief articles and accompanying learning activities. The articles include an architectural examination of the move from medieval fort to Renaissance palace, interdisciplinary biographical writing assignments, a look at the portrayal of people with disabilities in juvenile literature, and material on…

Using a reading lesson designed for advanced university students in Brazil, the author discusses different types of exercises that can help students become more active readers and be more critical about the reading materials. The author distinguishes between passive and active reading tasks and argues that active tasks are more beneficial because…

This article outlines the design of a new service-learning component central to a graduate course on teaching elementary and middle school writing. The service-learning involves course participants acting as mentors to middle school students as they write personal histories of local African American, Cape Verdean, and Puerto Rican senior citizens.…

"Lessons in Character" is designed to promote elementary and middle school students' knowledge about core character education values and, through that knowledge, shape children's positive behaviors and support academic success. It consists of 24 lessons organized around weekly themes, taught through stories, writing activities, and class…

This study examines the views of students and teachers in a United Kingdom high school on the students' use of information literacy skills. The students were provided with a scaffold in the form of the PLUS information literacy model. The study demonstrates that there exists a range of understanding amongst students about the value of information…

The introduction of an open-ended MicroWorlds based assignment in a pre-service teaching degree produced interesting results. Students engaged with the task at very high levels and produced work of high quality; so much so that marking trends were reversed. This paper explores the design and implementation of the task and how for many students it…

In pursuit of quality, the learning process should be continuously improved by changing, among other things, the learning material and the way learning is facilitated. A concern for academics, teaching experience in the B.Ed. module: Personnel Management, a module offered by means of distance education at the University of South Africa, is to…

In this essay, the author describes a judicial confirmation simulation she developed as an approach to feminist teaching. She also discusses the importance of active learning in the classroom, as well as simulation background and teacher preparation for the simulation. Students are asked to sign up for various roles in the simulation. These are:…