Describes 20-25 minute poetry workshops conducted by students individually or with a partner. Notes that the teacher meets with students prior to their presentations to review their objectives and plan; and that the teacher models the poetry workshop. Concludes that the investment in time has produced a more profitable return than any other…

Describes a conferenced writing program in a suburban St. Louis high school. Asserts that this kind of instruction is not merely the utopian ideal of writing teachers but a method that can and should be implemented in all schools. (PRA)

Describes a very successful writing assignment the author uses with his high school English students, in which students write about a letter of the alphabet. Notes that this assignment grants freedom for exploration and voice, the raw material for shaping and can be used to teach everything from the writing of poetry to essays for college…

Describes how an English teacher of disenchanted high school kids made students apprentice writers, and used genre study to bring reading and writing together in the classroom. Shows how students learned to do closer readings, looked at the writer's craft, did occasional sentence-by-sentence analysis, and wrote their own pieces in these genres.…

Describes the techniques developed by one instructor for helping students improve their writing, especially creative writing. Outlines how three central writing prompts can be used to inspire student writing and revision. Develops a computer metaphor as a helpful means by which students can access their own "screens." (HB)

Describes the approach used with high school advanced placement English classes to a nature-writing project based on the work of Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard. (SR)

Relates how the author came into a generally contentious classroom of eleventh-grade developmental English students and how it became a place of cooperative reading and writing and critiquing through a democratic approach and a three-week project in which students wrote a fictional story via letter writing. Notes student's involvement and…

Offers observations on the author's experience of the past two years as she returned to teaching high school English after over 20 years of training adults in business in government to improve their writing. Reflects on the differing demands of these work environments, and on how the canon itself and approaches to teaching classics have changed…

Describes how a twelfth-grade high school English teacher used Robert Olen Butler's "Tabloid Dreams" as a reading and writing assignment. Students explored their responses to Butler's stories with attention and depth, and then wrote their own stories, making the potentially ridiculous meaningful, and using complexity and emotion. (SR)

Establishes the value of teachers attending writers' workshops and indicates how teachers can stimulate student writing by having them respond to thematically selected readings from literature. (CRH)

Reports on a survey of college freshmen concerning how their high school teachers prepared them or could have prepared them better for college writing expectations. Reviews results that suggest that those students who wrote the least scored the lowest in college placement exams. (TB)

Reports on technology used by the author's high school blind and low vision students at the Arizona School for the Blind. Notes common difficulties blind readers have getting access to books and materials, and relates her early efforts to build a classroom library. Discusses note takers for less proficient Braille readers. Outlines the Braille…

Describes a year-long evaluation procedure in which students accomplish greater involvement in assessing their own learning, beginning with a first-day questionnaire on learning and writing assumptions, continuing with writing workshop experiences, and culminating in a coursework evaluation project and publication. (KEH)

Describes a collaboration between two high school English teachers that linked sophomore and senior English classes in using literacy for real purposes in the "Magazines for Change" project. Discusses the process of collaboration between the teachers, and describes the project itself. Notes the many benefits that resulted, and describes how…