Revisits the author's efforts to deliberately craft words that surfaced in conversations with others. Reflects on the writing of "What Difference Does Difference Make," which won the author the Emig Award. Emphasizes two qualities of pedagogical storytelling that are critically important when that talk is about "difference."…

Presents concerns about children's growth as oral and written language users and how disagreements over teaching strategies can affect this growth. (SRT)

Argues that a teacher must develop activities for the classroom with the uniqueness of a particular group of students in mind and that a set of activities that works in one setting should not become a static curriculum, uncritically adopted as a formula. (SRT)

Discusses the literature on children's early thinking about written symbols and offers suggestions for teachers seeking to extend that thinking. (FL)

This book reports on conversations in which elementary schoolteachers--who have taught in urban settings for an average of 20 years each--reflect on their professional work. The conversations in the book testify to the teachers' ability to engage young people in active learning--and their stories of teaching and learning verify that difference…