Describes the negotiation and the mentoring that goes on between a student teacher and his supervising teacher. Provides responses from both participants and excerpts of a dialog between them regarding issues of theory and practice. (HB)

Describes how the English department at Merrimack College set out to revise the English curriculum as a participant in the MLA-FIPSE English Programs Curriculum Review Project. Shows how the faculty redesigned the curriculum, and articulates two strategies marking the successful phases of the process. (HB)

Describes how four teachers from different subjects in a New York high school developed an interdisciplinary curriculum unit on Sub-Saharan Africa that integrated English, Studio in Art, and Global Studies for ninth graders. Shows how the unit helped students see connections between subjects. (HB)

Discusses the use of dialogic learning in an undergraduate literature survey course. (PRA)

Describes the Nebraska Literacy Project, a 5-week workshop for K-12 teachers modeled after the Nebraska Writing Project. Shows how teachers can encourage students to look closely at their own literacy histories and their daily practices as readers and writers. Presents the literacy histories as recorded by some participants. (HB)

Describes the way one teacher created in her English classroom an environment similar to a coffeehouse. Claims that using the coffeehouse model, a class meeting devoted to students reading aloud their own creative writing provided inspiration for the students to write. (HB)

Describes how one English teacher developed an "I-Search Project" for high school classes that integrated literary research with peer support to create a community of writers. Shows how such a project encourages collaboration both inside and outside of the English classroom. Provides student response to the project. (HB)

Describes how the English department at Roger Williams University set out to revise and revive the English major under difficult circumstances during the 1988-89 school year. Shows how the faculty redesigned the curriculum, recruited new majors, and established support programs. (HB)

Argues that the current electronic environment forces English studies into competition and combination with extra-verbal codes and languages. Describes a specific approach to reading, composing, and teaching the problematic combination of verbal and nonverbal features in texts conceived for or in electronic environments. Describes continuities…

Numerous critics have repeatedly called for the use of curricular materials drawn from the learner's everyday world, and for many of today's students, one valuable source is the lyrics of contemporary rap music. In first-year writing courses at Michigan State University, the words to one rap song, "You Must Learn" by the group Boogie…

This study investigated the influences shaping the curriculum decision-making process of four English teachers in two middle schools in order to identify sources of professional autonomy and obligation in classroom curriculum. These teachers made decisions daily by selecting content, texts and materials, modes of presentation, learning activities,…

Feminist literary criticism seems to have the potential to bring new life to old standards taught in the high school English class even if the students are not themselves feminists. A feminist approach to literature instruction was first attempted using "This Is Just to Say" and "The Young Housewife" by William Carlos Williams…

In 1979, the Yonkers Public School district (New York) launched a project to design and implement secondary school language arts curriculum guides with an emphasis on written composition. A theoretical framework was developed, based on the work of James Britton and the philosophy of the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP). Britton's work provided the…

Reading tests can be a source of inquiry into the processes of reading, learning to read, and curricular implications. During a staff development program, teachers reviewed and analyzed various reading tests. They discovered that reading tests seem to be unequal in their concern for what is being measured; that very few tests offer explicit or…

The seven articles in this journal issue focus on the teaching of writing beyond the required college freshman composition courses. The articles provide the following: (1) a discussion of ways to teach transferable and local writing skills, (2) arguments for and against the use of tape-recorded comments rather than written comments to respond to…