The 32 articles in this book, contributed by teachers from all educational levels, offer practical suggestions for teaching basic language skills. The articles are grouped into six sections: (1) classroom ideas for strengthening reading skills of elementary, secondary, and college students; (2) methods for introducing basic composition skills such as the analysis, summary, evaluation, outlining, and documentation of ideas; (3) techniques for teaching two essential but often overlooked steps in writing; (4) approaches for dealing with some of the finer points of punctuation, spelling, and grammar (specifically, sentence combining and sentence modeling); (5) exercises to teach elementary students how to listen, to encourage divergent thinking in secondary students, and to teach discussion skills; and (6) methods for sharpening students' skills in criticism and for promoting appreciation of literature and film. (GW)