Examines positions on English education reform in the early 1900s, specifically the following professional concerns: finance, curriculum, teacher recruitment, and professional leadership. Notes that attitudes and circumstances of the past are repeated in the present. (JG)

Presents a model for a composition workshop using topics generated from the popular media. Designed to help students explore the mimetic characteristics of popular culture and to analyze the appeals, claims, and techniques used in advertising. Grouped under thematic guidelines of social roles, assignments are flexible in length but easily changed…

Considers what literature does, its role in a child's education, and how it might be taught. Advocates the use of adolescent literature in the classroom. (NKA)

Teachers (N=39), administrators (N=9), and a speech therapist working with deaf students rated 240 competencies for teaching English as a symbol system. The top 38 competencies involved practical teaching skills and techniques. Competencies related to the oral-aural method, theory, and background information about deafness were not given high…

Examines: (l) disagreements with publishers during 36 years of authoring textbooks, (2) difficulties of co-authoring textbooks in view of the haste with which they are produced, (3) necessity for high textbook standards from both teachers and publishers, (4) the fact that there are few textbooks authored by teachers. (NKA)

Presents model for developing localized district computer software targeted to Native American students from particular language communities. Describes process through which Yukon/Koyukuk School District developed computer software for Athabaskan students. Emphasizes software as one tool in teacher-directed language arts program, not replacement…

Offers different perspectives of the conference topics that were discussed at the 1984 meeting of the International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE): language and English teacher education, language and competence, language and tests, language and schooling, language and technology, and language and technological overkill. (HOD)

Discusses the new federal law that mandates reasonable accommodation for students diagnosed as having specific learning disabilities and how this law can be dealt with in English programs. (SRT)

Describes goals and development of an instructional resource center, the development of a writing skills assessment test, the collection and dissemination of basic skills instruction and progress, and the establishment of a national testing network in writing. (EL)

Uses complaints leveled against English teachers in l912 to support three points about the crisis in literacy: (1) the "writing crisis" is not new, (2) teaching basics will not solve crisis, and (3) solution to problem should be based on what is known about history and theory of composition instruction and about successful and unsuccessful methods…

Concludes that young people are reading less and are less influenced by reading than their counterparts of almost a decade ago. (EL)

Shows the unexpected consequences of being a part-time guidance counselor and a part-time English teacher at the same time. Shares two experiences, in literature and in composition, that show a greater understanding of students' reactions. (EL)

Argues, in a discussion of the benefits of collaborative writing, that teaching writing as a solitary activity belies actual experience and research pointing to it as a collaborative effort. Shows how to use peer response groups to introduce students to collaborative writing. (EL)

Teaching can no longer be defined as going into the classroom, shutting the door, and doing an exemplary job. Teachers--especially teachers of English--can and should have an influence upon the curriculum by assuming responsibility for purposes, programs, and progress made. (Author/TE)

Decries the back to basics movement and suggests that it is not the place of those with doctoral degrees to teach spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Proposes that the proper place for such instruction is in the primary grades. (RBW)