Contributed by English teachers across the United States, the activities contained in this booklet are intended to promote the effective teaching of English and the language arts. Teaching strategies offered in the first section of the booklet are designed to stimulate language exploration by helping students learn to tell stories from pictures, see the personal significance in famous quotations, feel comfortable asking questions, suggest solutions to problems posed by classmates, and approach poetry through illustration, movement, and popular music. Activities in the second section are designed to stimulate an appreciation and understanding of literature. Specific activities in this section include a "living literature museum," a way to introduce irony, a lighthearted preholiday exercise focusing on literary characters, and assignments to supplement the study of "Dandelion Wine." Teaching ideas in the third section provide the means for students to learn writing from a variety of different angles and for different purposes through prewriting and writing, and include using writing for self-discovery, a descriptive-writing session based on real estate ads, an in-house field trip, a project in which students write brochures, a way for middle school students to pass their expertise on to incoming students, and a long-term assignment to read, evaluate, and respond to the work of a newspaper columnist. (SR)