To encourage creative thinking, high school teacher Kelly Courtney-Smith asked her students for creative responses to Hesse's novel, using a technique she learned from coauthor Michael Angelotti. Students painted or wrote poems interpreting their reading, then responded to the creations of their classmates. The students found that these…

Describes the wide variety of personal statements and "mini-poems" on personalized license plates. Suggests that having students collect such statements might be a way of teaching them about the creative potential of language. (EL)

The article expounds the theory that, given the right classroom environment, there is no limit to the possibilities of creativity. The limits that do appear are usually the result of the teacher's conception of the acceptable rather than any failing on the part of the student. (Author/LF)

Beginning 13 years ago with a senior English class making their own Christmas cards, a teacher describes how creative activities can improve the appearance and atmosphere of a classroom while also stimulating students to discover and discuss the past as well as the present. (LF)

Recommends a scheme for relating language study to the arts through the teaching of "image,""connotation," and "symbol." (JL)

Role playing can be used by English teachers to develop student empathy and student insight into literature characters. (JH)

Offers 17 exercises combining writing and painting, each with its own theme and goal, and all designed to show that close observation is fundamental to the effectiveness of both visual and verbal expression. (SR)

Uses personal experience with writing a newsletter to show how a newsletter assignment involves students in a wide variety of writing experiences, makes them aware of their audience, and shows them the need for good organizing and editing skills. (MM)

Describes 16 activities that use student-created visual arts to teach conventional reading skills such as organizing sequences and remembering details. Activities suggested include: illustrating poems, descriptions, and stories; designing scenery and costumes; making pictures, book covers, cartoons, and books; and a listening game. (DF)

Explains how picture books can be used to enrich and develop language skills at the middle school and junior high school level. (MM)

Recounts one teacher's use of art in the poetry-writing classroom, and suggests that its success stems from the following elements: schemata for seeing, experience with poetry, individual choice of art and poetic form, an encouraging environment, time to look and think and feel, and a powerful subject. (SR)

Patricia Zumhagen, a high school English teacher, highlights the gender inequalities present in older literature by attempting to develop a film update of Sherwood Anderson's story. The students have learned to see how stereotypes operated in literature and in their lives by various discussions and improvisations.