Schools bring people together. Yet for many children there are major discontinuities between their lives in and out of school and such differences impact on literacy teaching and learning in both predictable and unpredictable ways. However if schools were reconceptualised as meeting places, where different people are thrown together (Massey, 2005)…

This article focuses on a collaborative project between two fifth-grade dual language teachers (English-Spanish) and a university researcher as they engaged children in a study of memoir. The bilingual children in these classes cultivated their genre knowledge by participating in the ways of writers of memoir through the careful adaptations the…

Discusses the differing viewpoints of a classroom teacher and a researcher on the use of small groups as a teaching technique to illustrate the conflict between the researcher/teacher perspectives. (HTH)

Presents a questioning guide for identifying specific classroom issues, then devising a research question that can be systematically researched in the classroom. (HTH)

Describes the experiences of one recipient of a teacher researcher grant from the National Council of Teachers of English as her research began to inform her teaching and her teaching influenced her research. (SRT)

Focuses on student-teacher interaction in one classroom. Discusses different methods for conducting informal classroom research, connecting classroom practices with current theories, and analyzing and interpreting classroom events to improve instruction and learning. (HTH)

Describes various ways of using children's questions as windows on their understandings and approaches to reading and writing tasks. Suggests that children need to know that questions are not signs of failure. (MM)

Presents five pictures of fifth grade low-achieving students involved in reading-writing activities. Presents two alternatives to current classroom practices for nonmainstream students: prize the culture of nonmainstream students; and view storytelling as another literacy. (MG)