Describes how the author used research booklets to be read by sixth graders, poetry books, and taking part in a city-wide writing competition with her eighth-grade students to combat a general apathy in many students' writing efforts. Suggests the projects spoke to individual interests, helped students find a purpose to write, and improved the…

"Teacher to Teacher" provides a forum for teachers to share ideas, materials, and activities. In this article, the first teacher describes the effects the well-known novel "Bleachers" (John Grisham, New York: Doubleday, 2003) had on a ninth-grade english class. The novel bought to life the high school culture that the students found challenging.…

Describes an eighth grade teacher's efforts to integrate talk and writing, questioning and discussion, and learning as a shared responsibility between students and teacher. Outlines several projects related to the theme of work that achieved these goals, including interviews with parents and community members, journal entries projecting into the…

Describes an eighth grade reading teacher's program which involved students visiting elderly adults in nursing homes. Argues that the experience provided the context for students to deal with responsibility in a realistic setting, and that the positive circumstances encouraged them to share their experiences in oral and written form. (RS)

Describes a successful approach to teaching a research unit in a "problem" class. Uses word processing, group work, physical movement and manipulative activities, plenty of individual choices, and respect for each individual. (SR)

Describes how the author's eighth-grade students went on a yearlong search to find the literature of the twenty-first century. Describes how the students read widely, chose their own books, evaluated them according to topic questions loosely based on the theme of breaking stereotypes, kept and shared journals, and carried out projects of their…

Describes a project that involved an eighth-grade advanced English class in learning about banned books and censorship with the hope that students would learn enough about a highly controversial subject to be able to form intelligent options. (EL)