In this article, I argue that 9th-grade English can be a fertile environment for demonstrating that students who come to high school with diverse skill levels and from racially and socioeconomically diverse communities can learn with and from each other. It is not enough, however, that the 9th-grade English teacher believes that all students can…

Reprints a 1989 article from this journal describing what happened when students who could not read and write like other kids were turned loose in a computer lab. Updates the article with an Afterword commenting on the earlier piece. (SR)

Describes the Meaningful Other Person (MOP) program instituted at a North Carolina ninth grade center that reduced the dropout rate by 50 percent. (FL)

Nostalgically reviews a student teacher's experience with a class of ninth grade nonreaders. (JK)

Describes an English teacher's experiences when one of his ninth grade classes studying language in advertising was filmed for national television. He found that he and his students all enjoyed their celebrity status, but the glamor surrounding the medium itself obscured the intent of the lesson. (AM)

The author asserts that, in both the junior high school movement and the more recent middle school movement, the ninth grade was considered expendable. He suggests that it is time to resolve the bothersome questions as to whether the ninth grade belongs in the junior or senior high school. (SJL)

Reports on a study that examines the planning and revising of ninth-grade coauthors to determine how collaborative writing socializes and impacts the writing process. Finds that the students' writing processes tended to resemble those of more expert writers--planning, composing, and revising collapsed into a truly recursive process. (TB)

The ninth-grade students are helped in finding their writing voices by using a traditional African poem as a model. With the teaching of this poetry project, it is observed that having a well-defined structure allows students to think and write creatively.

Argues the importance of teaching fractions and discusses examples of fundamental problems in students' conceptualization of common fractions and decimal fractions. (SS)

Presents three open-ended problems as a basis for discussing concerns and possible hazards in their solution, including partial answers or unjustified guesses, and considers the appropriate use of these types of problems. Appendices include problem solutions. (MKR)

Defines "culture,""identity," and "struggling reader" and explores several assumptions underlying the cultural construction of struggling readers and how such assumptions influence their reading identities. Uses those assumptions to interpret a case study of a ninth-grade boy. Offers suggestions based on the student's case for working with other…

Reliability methodology needs to evolve as validity has done into an argument supported by theory and empirical evidence. Nowhere is the inadequacy of current methods more visible than in classroom assessment. Reliability arguments would also permit additional methodologies for evidencing reliability in classrooms. It would liberalize methodology…

Compares instructions for taking a ninth-grade achievement test to the reality of the conditions in which the test was actually taken. (NKA)

In this paper, the author offers lesson plan ideas that are designed to guide teachers of art and science to encourage their students to see connections between art images and physics principles. The four works of art discussed are examples that can be linked visually and conceptually to physics properties in mathematics, space, energy, and light.…

The efforts of a ninth grade teacher Dotie Hyatt are reviewed as she struggles to work within the school district's expectations to meet the needs of her students. Various problems and needs of students are mentioned.