Describes a schema-awareness activity (used with sixth graders and college students) that provides teachers with a model of how students can use their past experiences and their ability to infer and predict when reading. Notes that the activity convinces students that they bring to the reading act much more than they encounter on the printed page.…

Each year, fifth graders at Kamehameha Elementary School produce a play about American history. Students do research, write scripts and songs, design costumes and the stage sets, act, and promote the event. The article explains how the students accomplished this over several months and notes how the activity tied into their schoolwork. (SM)

Describes how a fifth-grade social studies class used poems by Langston Hughes and integrated literature, drama, music, and dance to make history more human and meaningful for students. (SR)

Describes the "American Families Project," in which students from two or more schools participate in a creative writing, historical research activity, each playing a role in a fictitious family living in 1838 and corresponding with each other. (RS)

Describes a successful unit of study on poetry in a fifth grade class that ended with students each writing a sonnet as a final project. (SR)

Describes a process for presenting and learning new vocabulary in middle-grade classrooms that focuses on context, questions involving interpretation, and using the word. (SR)

Describes a storytelling project in the midst of a language arts unit on folk tales in a sixth-grade class, how the classroom teacher and the media specialist worked together, how the students' storytelling was assessed, and students' enthusiastic response. (SR)

A sixth grade teacher discusses how she enhanced student writing and thinking skills by having them collaborate on a class monster story. The article describes how they created the story. A copy of the story is included. (SM)

Discusses the efforts of a fifth-grade teacher and a visiting poet to rekindle students' sense of poetic passion and pleasure. Describes how the authors introduced students to poems for two voices (using P. Fleischman's "Joyful Noise"). The poetry unit culminated in a project in which students read and performed Fleischman's poems, then wrote and…

Discusses motivation for writing young adult horror books. Gives examples of where and how the author gets ideas. Illustrates several suggestions for classroom application. Suggests paying special attention to puns and other wordplays that flit through the mind. Suggests writing a random list of words and phrases given by brainstorming students…

Presents annotations of 29 newly published trade books for children and adolescents that teachers find to be exceptional in curriculum use. Notes that many annotations include specific curriculum use suggestions. Groups annotations into primary (K-2), intermediate (grades 3-5), and advanced (grades 6-8). (RS)

Coordinates sociocultural perspectives of literacy with semiotic theories of literacy. Examines the semiotic nature of literacy activities in a fourth-grade classroom in which the students had computers on their desks and five multimedia workstations in their classroom with Internet access. Indicates that the children's literacy activities had…

A study determined if reading aloud to fourth-grade students would have a positive effect on their attitudes toward reading, and if there would be a difference between the attitudes of boys and girls. In Jersey City, New Jersey, 28 fourth-grade students were read aloud to on a daily basis for 15 minutes over 14 weeks. A pretest and posttest were…

This book explores the subject of metaphor, using the imagery of cartography to set a course. It explores the creative aspects of thinking and learning through literature, writing, and word play, drawing connections between English and other content areas. Theory and practical applications meet in the book, linking activities and resources to…

Science Curriculum Assistance Program (Science CAP(TM)) is a multimedia package developed to create a model for preserving classroom science activities that can be shared and customized by teachers. This program is designed to assist teachers in preparing classroom science activities for grades five through eight, and to foster an environment of…