Describes the use of dialogue journal writing in intermediate grade mathematics classrooms as a way to gain insights into students' thinking. Notes that teachers and students became a community of learners. (RS)

Describes how a teacher helps children understand that endings do not just magically pop into their heads as they write the final words of their stories. Hopes to provide students with authentic revising sessions and to encourage them to assume the dual role of critical reader and thoughtful writer whenever possible. (SG)

Describes the poems written by sixth grade students in response to William Carlos Williams's poem "The Dance" and Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Peasant Dance." (HTH)

Discusses how interviews with fifth-grade students about their literacy journeys--the experiences that led them to where they are now in reading and writing--gave great insight (to their teacher as well as to many other teachers) into what makes language arts instruction "take." Conveys the importance of authentic literacy experiences. (SR)

Discusses approaches for helping upper elementary-age children learn about words through integrated study of spelling, grammar, and meaning. Describes what word study is, discusses word study in an integrated language arts unit (providing several examples), and offers reasons for including word study in a language arts program. (SR)

Describes some activities from the authors' fourth/fifth-grade classroom exploring "identity." Offers brief descriptions of 26 children's books that invite critical conversations about identity around topics of: making a choice and changing your life; gaining control and overcoming obstacles; judging and being judged; and relationships…

Questions if it is possible that any place still exists without pressure to teach to the test. Describes one school district that has been able to do so by creating a vision that allows educators to work as professionals. (SG)

Describes the methodology and results of a study of the preferences of fourth- and fifth-grade children for film form and technique. Indicates that children prefer narrative/live action films, followed by narrative/animation, nonnarrative/live action, and nonnarrative/animation. (HTH)

Describes how a teacher researcher invited her students to be detectives on the lookout for language and to take a critical perspective on how it varies with each speaker, purpose, and context. Suggests that educators need to be careful about how they present language varieties so that their students appreciate them as more than "quaint artifacts…

Describes a fifth-grade classroom where student goal setting and self-evaluation were an integral part of the curriculum. Explores the growth and development of these students and their teacher. Discusses what brought about changes in instruction and learning. (RS)

Argues that skepticism is the force that keeps inquiry in motion. Describes how two fourth-grade classes' ongoing investigations of birds fostered a skeptical stance. Relates stories from these classrooms to illustrate three strategies that support learning to be skeptics: examining knowledge in context; challenging the assumptions of models; and…

Describes an informal classroom research project that explored how children perceive the changes they make in their writing and what they think about when they write. (HTH)

Describes fourth graders' observations and hypotheses about the sun and moon and how the three-dimensional reality gradually replaced the inadequate two-dimensional models of textbooks. Discusses implications for instruction of this progression from concrete to abstract. (HTH)

Discusses collaborative explorations of collage, drama, and poetry with visiting artists, teachers, and students. Describes a project in which the picture book, "I Live in Music," was shared with students in Jean Dickinson's class as an extension of a study of the Harlem Renaissance. Presents a script that reflects the authors' story of…

Describes how students parallel the process of author Megan McDonald in conducting research and collecting information to provide ideas for the form and content of their writing. Notes that guiding students to record and organize information in a graphic format helps them to transfer those interesting details to new types of writing. (SG)