Notes that people's voices telling their own stories is the only true connection to the past. Describes how in their teachers' writing group, they listen to each others' stories. Considers how they offer support to each other when lessons fall flat and celebrate when they share the children's wonderful products. (SG)

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)

Describes a cooperative learning activity in a fifth-grade class in which students researched, wrote, and sponsored classroom resolutions honoring African Americans during Black History Month. Discusses how literacy has the power to connect students with their heritage or with any heritage they choose to connect with. (SR)

Children's natural curiosity should be more adequately satisfied, resarch has suggested--especially in grades 4 to 6. Traditionally, the scope and sequence approach which is a learning-what-others think or have thought rather than a learning-to-think-for-oneself method begins during the middle school years. It is interesting to observe that…

Transcripts of two segments of CBS-TV's "Sunrise Semester" discuss the experiences of several participants in a production of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" by elementary school students. (RL)

A study of fifth and sixth grade public school students in Israel suggests that grades and other norm-referenced methods are less effective than task-involving evaluation methods in enhancing student performance, interest, and motivation. This article consists of two commentaries on the findings, with suggestions for implementing task-involving…

Describes three fifth-grade students in the author's school who used humor in their writing assignments. Offers samples of their work and their observations about it. (SR)

Procedures from educational policy research were used to produce three conceptual models for determining teacher effects in classrooms. The use of a system of equations, as developed for these models, shows promise for theory building in teacher education and instructional design. (Author/GSK)

Responds to William Bigelow's 1989 article which was being used in a fifth grade classroom. Questions the approach taken by the teacher and focuses on how children can be most productively involved in the kind of critical reading Bigelow advocates. Discusses the use of "I-Charts" (inquiry charts) to foster critical reading. (MG)

Describes how two fifth-grade boys developed and sustained a love of fantasy books. Describes how these two discriminating readers have developed taste and a social context for their reading experience. Shows how their experience demonstrates important principles about reading and about reading curriculum. (SR)

Describes how the author, a fifth-grade teacher, found the desire, the inspiration, and continuing motivation and rewards to break out of her traditional teaching practices and implement the Reading Workshop in her class. (SR)

Reconceptualizes the idea of curriculum integration to include "cultural imagination." Uses the example of a fifth-grade child's responses to literature to demonstrate the types of connections that can be made. (SR)

Grounded in a communication theory that assumes that the form of communication affects the content of the knowledge that a teacher conveys to his or her students, a study attempted to determine how violence is treated in the classroom. The site for the study was Darbin Elementary School, in a suburb of San Francisco. The method was observation,…

Discusses student responses to and interactions with a professional children's writer who visited a fifth grade writing workshop. Describes the emerging confidence as writers of the children and the classroom teacher as a result of the author's visits. (HTH)

Reports on the findings of a study that examined the writing behavior of eight fifth graders as they composed original mathematics story problems. Reveals strategies and techniques employed by students to accomplish this task. Analyzes student story-problem writing behavior. (HB)