Fifth graders responded to a video of a picturebook,"The Red Tree" by Shaun Tan. They had not experienced explicit instruction in visual literacy and their responses served as a foundation for basic understanding of their analysis. We learned that they focused on four major areas: emotional aspects; visual qualities, summaries of the…

One hundred repetitions--100 "useful" repetitions. This notion has guided the author's work in alternative education programs for almost 20 years, dealing with the most challenging students, from addicts to conduct-disordered adolescents to traumatized 5th graders. There are no magic tricks. The role of educators is to align with the healthy…

This article introduces The RULER Approach ("RULER") to social and emotional learning, with a particular focus on its Feeling Words Curriculum. Through this curriculum, RULER contributes to the ultimate goals of an English language arts education--preparing students to achieve personal, social, and academic goals and to be engaged and contributing…

For students born into poverty, grades 4-5 are a boundary where their learning needs change dramatically and in ways that have been consistently misunderstood throughout the many waves of well-intentioned reform over the past century. As a result, these needs have remained unaddressed, and grades 4-5 have become the boundary line where they start…