Describes how one English teacher developed an approach to teaching writing that pairs student writers with writers in the community outside the school. Outlines the features of this writing partners project, including the responsibilities of each partner. Argues that such programs foster writer skill and self-esteem. (HB)

Describes a collaborative reading and writing project matching preservice student teachers with eighth-grade students. Provides analysis of participant reactions to the program, including specific comments by both students and teachers about the readings and the subsequent writing assignments. (HB)

Provides the responses of nine practicing English teachers to the questions, "What will the classroom be like in the year 2001? What changes do you hope to see implemented by then? What do you expect? What do you fear?" (HB)

Provides the insights and reactions of one fiction writer who discovered that her works had been included on Great Britain's official reading list of the Revised Orders. Considers the rationale of the inclusion of the writer's own writing on the reading list. (HB)

Argues that nonfiction is growing in popularity as reading material among adolescents. Provides data and analysis of a study designed to measure the influence of nonfiction on the attitudes, values, and behavior of adolescents. (HB)

Considers the role of the writing center within the context of a large writing program. Describes how the adoption of a portfolio system of grading at the University of Southern California focused attention on this issue. Narrates the changes brought about by the adoption of a portfolio assessment system. (HB)

Articulates "romantic intellectualism" of what graduate work in English might mean and be. Avoids giving a detailed description of a doctoral program. Intends to convey something that might best be called visioning or dreamwork, and offers it in the hope that it may be helpful to others in their individual and collective visioning and dreaming.…

As multicultural literature has made its way into the English curriculum, it has challenged teachers' thinking about curriculum and instruction and urged them to expand their teaching repertoire to include a cultural-response approach to literature instruction. This article reports on a group of secondary English teachers' exploration and…

National Writing Project reports show that writing process institutes and workshops have effected some positive changes in attitudes toward personal writing. The many teacher-written articles appearing in professional journals attest to the use and benefits of personal writing in the classroom. Nevertheless, there is still no evidence that…

Although literature and reading are considered liberal arts, it would seem that teachers of English and reading have been anything but "liberal" in their treatment of books and reading. By and large, teachers at all levels have failed to capitalize on the enormous potential of reading to make a significant difference in the lives of students. By…

Although workshops and a study by the English Department of the University of Montevallo (Alabama) led to the conclusions that writing should be taught from a process model and that writing consciousness needed to be raised throughout the curriculum, these conclusions did not adequately address several issues: (1) process is a teaching philosophy,…

By using a thematic approach and by drawing on other disciplines for breadth, English teachers can "honorably seduce" career-oriented students into a love affair with literature and draw them back into the English curriculum. For example, a teacher's conversation with a student focusing on fathers and sons led the teacher to suggest that the…

Based on the premise that writing research will be useful to educators only to the extent that it offers them conceptual tools to use in framing and solving their own problems, this paper reviews studies that address educators' perennial concerns about writing instruction. Among the questions addressed in the paper are those concerning (1) the…

The home mission of the University English department is the teaching of reading and writing, and its foreign mission is the "converting" to a higher literacy of those outside the English department, especially those who teach English in the high schools and other subjects at the college level. Potential high school English teachers'…

Sections 51215-51217 of California's Educational Code require that school districts in that state provide remedial instruction to students who do not pass district-developed proficiency tests. As a result of this requirement, school districts have had to create remedial courses for some 100,000 students who did not pass one or more tests in…