P.L. 94-142 presents unique problems to schools with special education programs. This article offers suggestions for implementing the act's objectives of individualized instruction, least restrictive environment, and equal protection for handicapped children. (Author/LD)

Describes how fifth-grade teachers and a school library media specialist in Malvern, Pennsylvania collaborated in a student reenactment of the Ellis Island experience. Includes a bibliography of immigration resources and sample background information, identification, entrance papers, and experience of a simulated immigrant. (PEN)

Describes the learning process of a teacher working to make creative-drama teaching strategies part of her teaching repertoire. Investigates how a drama specialist works with that teacher to develop creative drama learning experiences. Finds that creative drama can be incorporated within constraints of time and curriculum, and can be structured so…

Describes how a fifth-grade teacher, who had been sharing evaluation with her students for some time, made the change to writing report card comments together with her students, thus sharing evaluation in one more way. (SR)

Describes a successful program that used a step-by-step approach for teaching research and presentation skills to gifted sixth-grade students. Steps included developing a preliminary outline, exploring various sources, organizing information, using higher-level thinking skills, creating a rubric for evaluating presentations, providing handouts,…

Relates how a professor, for a Theater in Education project in British Columbia, produced and directed "No More Secrets," focusing on preventing child sexual abuse. States that grades five through eight were targeted to transfer learning about sexual abuse, and to tap the emotional experiences of the child to encourage disclosure. (PA)

Describes how the authors implemented a plan that involved building conceptual knowledge through the use of manipulatives and common threads in literature to teach a week-long unit on Rosa Parks. Notes that the students were guided to build conceptual knowledge as they personally connected with fictional heroes and real heroes, such as Rosa Parks,…

Describes the practical application of interdisciplinary activities in a fifth-grade classroom. Twenty-eight students participated in a two-month unit which integrated database activities with mathematics, art, English, U.S. history, and public speaking. Illustrates that student leaders were able to understand and construct search strategies,…

Describes a statistics project that allowed middle school students to integrate their math, scientific inquiry, and writing skills. Students worked in groups of two to six, picked topics of personal interest, collected data, drew conclusions, and entered a national statistics competition. The course format is outlined. (CR)

Reveals how students can be encouraged to use media and new technologies flexibly to compose and communicate their ideas. Describes ways in which teachers can help students enhance their classroom reports with free or inexpensive software that can be downloaded from the Internet. Discusses reports developed by three students in a hypothetical…

Describes how a teacher researcher invited her students to be detectives on the lookout for language and to take a critical perspective on how it varies with each speaker, purpose, and context. Suggests that educators need to be careful about how they present language varieties so that their students appreciate them as more than "quaint artifacts…

Describes a special grade-school program in which a group of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students received answers to their questions about Alzheimer's Disease. (BB)

Describes how a fourth/fifth-grade teacher helps her students discover their tapped and untapped potential through talk in a democratic, shared community of learners. Discusses how issues of sex bias, sex stereotypes, and prejudice and bigotry were addressed in this classroom community. (RS)

Educators at a West Hartford, Connecticut, middle school continually "sell" this large school to the community, enlighten parents about its programs and practices, and welcome more than 300 fifth graders from 5 diverse neighborhood schools yearly. The transition program begins in March and progresses through eight months of activities,…

A Missouri middle school's transition program is based on the idea that parents need as much information as possible about the high school and middle school to ensure student success. The middle school transition is aided by school/PTA newsletters, social and informational activities for fifth graders' parents, student visits, and a handbook.…