Four teachers discuss using the word processor to (1) teach writing, (2) help students with dyslexia, and (3) access an information retrieval service for research papers, as well as for other classroom purposes. (EL)

Describes students' work during a 12-week course on fantasy offered to talented and gifted high school students. Illustrates how the students learned about metaphor and inference. (SRT)

Describes the WEED program, in which students write every day but not all papers receive a teacher evaluation. Discusses getting started, follow-up, collecting papers and grading, incentives, and the results of the program. (EL)

Cites episodes from "The Bill Cosby Show,""Family Ties," and "Hill Street Blues" to suggest the humanizing potential of television. (EL)

Describes a writing assignment that leads students to see the complexities of cause and effect relationships by having them analyze a complicated court case and decide who is right and who is wrong in the case. (FL)

Suggests five important but seldom asked questions that can direct a reader's attention to some basic properties of literature. (RBW)

Shows how the Western stories of Dorothy M. Johnson can be used in the classroom to help students learn who and what they are. (EL)

Advocates introducing high school literature classes by analyzing the serious flaws in an important work such as Edgar Alan Poe's poem, "The Raven," in order to increase student involvement in evaluating literature, strengthen student trust of the teacher's judgment, and motivate students for positive criticism. (MM)

Describes a teaching experiment for the study of literature in which students focus on "special authors" and use is made of such teaching strategies as group work, full class discussion, wide reading, and individual research. (HOD)

Describes language-arts activities in the "Gemini Project," a program designed to foster creative expression in a mixed group of senior high and elementary school students. (KS)

This collection of 14 articles aims to help teachers make the most of student discussion and inquiry in classrooms from middle school to high school to college. Contributors to the collection--secondary and college practitioners--offer theory-grounded, classroom-tested approaches for literature study in which students engage in democratic dialogue…

This teaching guide is for use with two novels of young adult literature, "A Far-Off Land" (Rebecca Caudill) and "The Trail on Which They Wept" (Dorothy Hoobler). The teaching guide is divided into three sections: Major Themes (8 themes are listed); Interdisciplinary Topics (9 topics are suggested); and Significant Quotations…

This book provides a practical classroom guide to unlocking the treasures of informational texts. It also aims to demonstrate that reading and writing nonfiction can overcome the gender gap, allowing girls and boys to share interests in any subject from bugs and magnets to gardens and cake baking. It explains the use of a range of instructional…

Examining how teachers help students respond to short fiction, this book presents 25 essays that look closely at "teachable" short stories by a diverse group of classic and contemporary writers. The approaches shared by the contributors move from readers' first personal connections to a story, through a growing facility with the…

Suggesting that the teaching of poetry must be engaging as well as challenging, this book presents practical approaches, guidelines, activities, and scenarios for teaching poetry in high school. It offers 40 complete poems; a discussion of assessment issues (including authentic assessment); poetry across the curriculum; and addresses and…