Presents a case study of a sixth grade teacher trying to increase her use of literature for language arts instruction. Shows the challenges and successes of attempting to get better at teaching. (PRA)

Presents a case study of a fourth grade boy writing science fiction in a writing workshop. (HTH)

Draws upon the writing of and conversations with three fourth grade children as they provide insights into how their writing was associated with learning. Demonstrates how these children are involved in creating themselves and their social identities at the same time they are constructing textual meaning in the context of school-based writing…

Describes fourth-grade students' experiences during a concentrated research writing project. Shows through a case study how students learned to present objective information through a narrative vehicle. (HTH)

Describes how a teacher finds value in popular culture and violent writing by closely examining the writing of a student who laces his stories with explosions and battles. Finds that once he began to see the similarities between the media his student experiences, the writing the student prefers, and his own favorite media and writing, the teacher…

Suggests that personal writing poses both opportunities and risks in writing classrooms. Discusses the experiences of two children in a fifth/sixth-grade writing process classroom. Notes that benefits of personal writing are opportunities for authenticity, finding voice, and a therapeutic value; whereas risks include coercion of students who are…

Describes how in the examination of a sixth-grade girl's participation in the language arts classroom that is driven by high-stakes testing and by a regimented classroom culture, the authors came to view students' approaches to literacy events as "stances" and their negotiation of their subjectivities in response to literacy events as…

Describes a two-day residence in a fifth- and sixth-grade classroom of poet Arnold Adoff. Presents his interaction with five students as they struggle with their poetry writing. (HTH)

Suggests that good fourth-grade teaching is an expert activity--a complex activity that is not amenable to scripted materials, standardized lessons, or any one-size-fits-all plan for the organization of instruction. Shows that the 30 exemplary teachers discussed produce superior educational gains as measured on standardized achievement tests--not…

Presents a case study of a fourth-grade boy who was an active, intelligent boy who was not coping well with reading and writing in school. Discusses observations of, and conversations with, the boy and his parents in their home. Demonstrates the importance of educators' having a family perspective on students' language and literacy development.…

Follows the development, from fifth grade through eighth grade, of a student poet, who can teach educators what it means to "feel expressed." Offers new ways to think about who children are, what they need to say, and what they need to be taught. Discusses the possibilities of poetry for gaining access to children's deepest capacities for…

Illuminates patterns in responses to literature by analyzing one sixth grader's entries written in her literature response journal. Finds that the student's responses reveal her as an active reader and writer with unique thoughts, feelings. and opinions generated by quality children's literature. (MG)

Tells the story of three African American children's responses to literature by and about African Americans, showing the importance of connecting literature to the lives and interests of children. (SR)

Presents a case study of poetry writing in a fifth grade classroom. Shows not only how writing and reading come together but also how children come together with each other and with published poets. (RS)

Uses the metaphor of the "literacy club" to illustrate the re-making of three fifth-grade readers. Describes three children in jeopardy of being excluded from the literacy club and the steps that they and their teachers took. Looks at how their teachers started where the students were, used a variety of assessment measures, and offered supportive…