Students and teachers engage in specific roles in classrooms, and within inquiry classrooms, these roles tend to be more varied compared to traditional settings. Teachers may take on traditional student roles including the role of learner, and students, for example, take on the additional role of question asker, traditionally reserved for the role…

Although controversial, perhaps no piece of legislation has the potential to transform India's future more than the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). Upon the passage and enforcement of RTE in 2009, the Indian government instituted a series of wide-ranging reforms to India's education system. For example, the act…

This article investigates how affluent students made sense of social justice issues that were embedded in mathematics learning activities. I present 2 case studies of such activities at the intermediate and secondary levels in 2 different schools. The analysis draws on video records and classroom artifacts and applies the theoretical framework of…

This highly regarded work brings together prominent authorities on vocabulary teaching and learning to provide a comprehensive yet concise guide to effective instruction. The book showcases practical ways to teach specific vocabulary words and word-learning strategies and create engaging, word-rich classrooms. Instructional activities and games…

The author describes a fifth grade gifted class biography project based on J. Renzulli's Interest-A-Lyzer which asked students to choose three people from the past and three from the present they would invite to the class as teachers. (SB)

The article describes innovative activities for presenting legal principles to fifth- and sixth-grade students involving the importance of rules and rulemaking. (CB)

Presents a teacher's journal entries for poetry classes she conducted for fourth and fifth graders at Anthony Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, California, located in a middle class neighborhood with an ethnic mix of students. Describes two poetry writing ideas: "What Matters" and "100 Words." (PA)

Describes a supplementary method for teaching equivalent fractions through the use of a multiplication matrix, providing a simple visual and concrete activity that aids learners in understanding this difficult concept. (SR)

Compares classical literacy (which treats reading and writing as distinct from content subjects) with informational literacy. Discusses seven key informational-literacy teaching practices and class activities that middle grade teachers can use to prepare their students for life in the information age. (SR)

Suggestions for a study unit for intermediate grades on the Viking discovery of North America are offered. Class activities and resources are listed. (MT)

A student-conducted television survey caused the fifth graders to read, think introspectively about their own television viewing habits, conduct interviews, analyze the resulting data, and write about the results. (BW)

This article presents a rationale for using songwriting in the elementary grades and outlines a plan by which a whole class of fifth- or sixth-graders can work together to write a song. (SJL)

This article describes a science learning experience in which intermediate grade students launched balloons with attached postcards to study wind currents. More than 200 (of over 900 balloons) were returned, and their analysis supported the students' hypothesis about the direction of wind currents. (DB)

Details how a fifth-grade teacher implemented Roger Farr's "Think-Along" strategy for developing metacognitive reading strategies for use with the novel "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" by Eleanor Coerr. (SR)

Describes how, with the aid of a computer and modem, students in two schools can carry out a modified formal debate from their classrooms. (SR)