Reports on a study of stories written by eighth graders in three very different schools, stories carrying powerful messages about how girls understand their place in the world. Finds that, in one set of stories, females control their lives only as long as they are "good," and in the other set, autonomous female protagonists fail (often for no…

Six essays submitted to Harvard University (Massachusetts) by applicants for the class of 2000 are presented. Topics include a refugee's experiences, a football player's passion for musical theater, the death of a sister, a mother's influence, living in China, and a renaissance-English poetic lament about being a dog. (MSE)

Intended for the K-2 classroom, this book provides teachers with ideas and materials for teaching the writing process. The book contains reproducible thinking charts and graphic organizers including mind mapping, prewriting story structure, and topic, content, and editing charts. Advice for classroom management and the organization and structure…

This paper outlines a model of study mode negotiation between clients and English Language Training providers that has been developed at the University of Malaya, specifically related to English language writing skills as taught to corporate clients. Negotiation is used to reach decisions concerning the goals and methodology of learning to ensure…

"Unheard Voices" was a project designed to provide adult educators with specific guidelines and ideas for integrating a creative writing component into an existing program of adult basic education, General Educational Development, or English as a second language. The project also collected and published student poetry and fiction in…

This issue contains five articles, including reports of activities of the University of Hong Kong's English Center, five action research reports, reflections on various conferences, and a book review by Ray Mackay of "Asian Voices in English." The five articles are: "Cultural Syntonicity: Co-operative Relationships between the ESP Unit and Other…

By the 1980s, the whole language philosophy (Goodman, 1986), based on the idea that reading and writing should be done for authentic purposes, gained credibility. As the movement gained momentum, more teachers began to adopt the student-centered writing workshop as a way of teaching writing. A study of a class of 27 culturally diverse third…

Exploring what happened in the classroom as a teacher used a whole language approach with her culturally varied, urban fourth-grade students, this report tells the story of a unit on personal, narrative writing which occurred from April to June. The report describes how the teacher established routines to make the unit work, and how the teacher…

A "cultural and informational exchange" between two Maryland middle schools allowed two groups of gifted students to accomplish several learning objectives while discovering new regions of their state and nurturing new acquaintances. Computers were central to the program--all information was created using word processing programs, and…

Intended to serve as a general model for the teaching of poetry writing, and written from the perspective of one individual teacher's thinking and experience, this guide, although originally written for teachers of seventh and eighth graders, is adaptable to other levels--elementary, high school, and college. Chapter 1, "Students and…

Four studies by the Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing project at the Institute for Research on Teaching, Michigan State University, examined the acquisition of expository writing skills in fifth and sixth grade students. The first study examined the effects of teaching sixth grade students about comparison/contrast text structure. Results…

A case study traces the evolution of "once-upon-a-time" in a child's classroom story writing, drawing upon data collected in a three-year study of writing development in an urban magnet school. The subject, Mitzi, is observed from kindergarten through second grade. The study assumes that stories are cultural discourse forms that serve…

In recent years, teacher education curriculum has become more focused on the "back to basics" issue of teaching, encouraging teachers to manipulate students and classroom environments to attain one goal: academic learning. Critics claim this narrowing of the teacher education process has led to negative social consequences where children…

A study investigated one way in which teachers can focus on more than children's products and writing processes by examining their social processes as well, specifically the health of the classroom communities and the individual children's comfort within those communities. Under the supervision of the same teacher, "journal time" in…

A desirable approach and sequence for the presentation of rhetorical principles to students of junior high school age is outlined. Principles of invention, logical ordering, strategy, and style are discussed with special reference to writing models, developing skills of observation, audience consideration, and precise diction. Specific objectives…