Describes how art-making and writing intersect in a sixth-grade art classroom. Discusses how writing about art-making promoted reflection and thinking, and was essential to the learning in class for both students and teacher. Offers brief notes also about art in the language arts class. (SR)

Describes how the author used many versions of the Cinderella story as a springboard for a variety of activities in her sixth-grade class, including discussion of fairy tale elements, aspects of story structure, summarizing, and problem-solving activities. (SR)

Describes how a middle-school teacher used "Charlotte's Web" in Reader's Theatre and in a writing workshop. Describes how the book was used as a writing model for dialog and for examining literary devices. (SR)

Discusses problems experienced during the prewriting phase of a sixth grade writing lesson, observations of the lesson, and advice from leading educators on how to initiate an effective writing lesson. Presents an account of one writing lesson that typifies writing lessons that the author has observed during the evaluation of student teachers. (SG)

Describes the results of one part of a two-year-long classroom study of sixth graders' engagement with and responses to nonfiction trade books. Considers what motivated these sixth graders to read the nonfiction titles they chose for small-group and voluntary reading. Concludes that when students are given the opportunity to select nonfiction…

Sixth and seventh graders (N=239) responded to questionnaires examining sleep behavior and test anxiety on day of major examination in school and day with no major examination. Subjects also completed vigilance task on both days. Partial sleep loss did not adversely influence subjects' performance on task or examination; test anxiety was…

Examines the relative importance of vocabulary difficulty and prior knowledge on comprehension of narrative passages. Finds that knowledge-based preinstruction can significantly improve comprehension of a text dealing with an unfamiliar topic, but cannot compensate for difficult text vocabulary. (RS)

Provides a lesson to familiarize students in grades four-six with the many ways that artists use the technique of collage. Students observe and discuss ways artists make use of materials other than paint on canvas. Examines how the introduction of foreign materials to a surface affects the illusion of space. (LS)

Describes how, when a working writer visited a sixth-grade classroom on an ongoing basis to interact with students, the language and activities of the writing community changed in interesting and positive ways. (SR)

Investigated multidimensional models of self-concept. Administered Self-Description Questionnaire-I and Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale to 43 fifth and sixth graders; Self-Description Questionnaire-II and Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale to 38 eighth graders. Total scale scores were significantly correlated, reflecting similarity in…

Investigates the effects of text absent and text present conditions during summary writing. Suggests that text absent summarization may be beneficial but only for subjects who are competent summary writers or able readers. (SR)

Examined self-esteem related to earned grades, achievement test scores, and other factors among all regular fifth- and sixth-grade students in one intermediate school. Findings seemed to reaffirm importance of self-esteem to academic school success. School Form of the Self-Esteem Inventory scores were more predictive of grades than were composite…

A two-dimensional framework consisting of knowledge forms and intellectual operations was used to analyze curriculum materials, teacher-mediated instruction, and student use of information on essay and traditional criterion-referenced measures in two sixth-grade general science classes. Results suggest low-achieving students may need more exposure…

Links between reading and short memory span, slow naming time, and slow speech rate were investigated for 140 fifth and sixth grade students given a reading test and tests of the 3 variables. Reading was best predicted by naming time, followed by speech rate; prediction from memory span was weak. (SLD)

Examined effectiveness of metacognitive instruction of study skills and test-taking strategies on at-risk fifth and sixth grade students (n=16) and compared traditional instruction with videotaped modeling and video-assisted instruction. Significant group differences seemed to support video-assisted study skills and test-taking instruction as…