Teachers are provided with 16 activity MENUS (Motivating and Exciting but Not Unmanageable Strategies) that introduce, extend, and refine important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. (IAH)

Offers rationales for teaching cartoons and poetry together, and describes classroom activities involving cartoon poetry. (SR)

Demonstrates how drama and literature can be used together through the Living Newspaper Theatre, a specific form of government-subsidized drama created in the 1930s. Offers guidelines for a living newspaper play and includes a script. (RS)

Describes the uses of riddles with elementary school students to create interest, develop literacy skills, promote learning in the content areas, and have fun. Notes 16 books of riddles. (SR)

Hearing impaired students practice recognizing metaphors in an activity that features 38 short stories accompanied by an illustration and a metaphorical interpretation found in one of four sample sentences. (CL)

The article describes ways to tell fairy stories and nursery rhymes to increase deaf students' prereading skills. Teachers are advised to repeat lines and phrases, repeat lines visually, identify linguistic structures, find recurring themes, express a moral view, build cognitive skills, recognize linguistic rituals, and provide opportunities for…

Many questions are on the minds of middle school teachers, principals, and curriculum leaders as they respond to a growing pressure to produce better educated students. Some of the questions are the following: Which language arts curriculum will sustain the interest of middle grades students? How can educators be certain the curriculum meets state…

A rationale for using film in the language arts classroom and suggestions on how to use it. (DD)

A kindergarten teacher of children with advanced language discusses her use of poetry activities to promote reading readiness, auditory discrimination, oral language, creative thinking, independent working, and a love for poetry. Creative activities begin with drawing picture interpretations and proceed to the students writing their own poems. (CL)

Discusses curriculum reform in California. Suggests choosing works that have quality and depict what is universal in human nature in order to select literature that is meaningful to all. (MS)

Discusses why elephant riddles are viable catalysts for word play and language development in the primary grades. Explores some relationships between children's thinking and elephant riddles. Offers some suggestions for incorporating them as a regular part of the classroom flow. (SR)

Discusses the importance of Vietnam War literature by and about women and provides ideas for incorporating it into the reading/English language arts curriculum. Provides a rationale for such literature; discusses types of Vietnam War literature by and about women; and addresses pedagogical aspects. (RS)

Suggests a method for teaching research and other media center skills by integrating them in the reading and language arts curriculum with the media specialist and classroom teacher team-planning relevant activities. Advantages and disadvantages of this approach are summarized. (MES)

Presented are several word and sentence puzzles, both simple and complex, for student use. All involve various-shaped grids made up of squares for letter or word fill-ins. (Author/SJL)

Explores the philosophy behind Haiku and discusses 11 characteristics basic to this form of poetry to help teachers better understand it. (HTH)