Notes that people's voices telling their own stories is the only true connection to the past. Describes how in their teachers' writing group, they listen to each others' stories. Considers how they offer support to each other when lessons fall flat and celebrate when they share the children's wonderful products. (SG)

Supports the return of folktales to school curriculum. Provides a list of suggested activities as well as a dozen popular national and international folktale books for use in the middle grades. Claims that folktales can be used to master content-rich material in the middle grades and allow students to explore relationships with their own culture…

This classroom research project focused on 10 fifth-grade students, all of whom had been labelled low-average achievers by their school. Students were encouraged to read, write, draw, talk, tell stories, and play freely. Five case studies emerged from the interactions. It became apparent that the children were shaping literature to their…

Students at Hauppauge Middle School are writing original children's stories and then telling these stories to preschool children. Before middle school students begin writing their stories, they participate in activities to help them develop a sense of their intended audience. As students write their stories, they work in small groups to discuss…

Presents five pictures of fifth grade low-achieving students involved in reading-writing activities. Presents two alternatives to current classroom practices for nonmainstream students: prize the culture of nonmainstream students; and view storytelling as another literacy. (MG)

Stories can have powerful effects on others. An autobiographical account of a behavior specialist's supposed descent into a severe emotional disturbance (SED) is presented here. Written as a narrative, the story opens with a description of what it is like to think differently from everyone else. It is conjectured that either the years spent by the…