Offers suggestions from six contributors regarding a variety of classroom activities, including the use of high interest-low vocabulary books with gifted and average readers, an exercise in sequencing, a Halloween project to improve students' grammar, a technique to improve students' dictionary skills, and methods for helping students write books.…

This working paper presents a twelve-part paridigm for testing the level of concept attainment in language arts. Items were selected for three topics: words, words in sentences, and connected discourse. Within each topic concepts presented in the middle elementary grades were identified, and ten concepts were randomly selected for each topic. Each…

The procedures used to develop a list of concepts taught in fourth-grade language arts are described. Thirty concepts from the list were randomly sampled and then analyzed. Analysis consisted of listing examples and non-examples, relevant and irrelevant attributes, subordinates and supraordinates, and a definition and principle for each concept.…

A sampling of over 100 ideas submitted by elementary school teachers at the Idea Exchange at the annual meetings of the National Council of Teachers of English are contained in this collection of teaching tips. The first chapter, "Getting to Know Each Other," includes games to help students learn each other's names, directions for making a…