This paper examines the policy ramifications of district-wide portfolio assessment design and implementation in Rochester (New York). A survey of 189 primary grade Rochester teachers with respect to their beliefs about, and uses of, portfolio assessment examined the link between policy decisions and classroom practice. The major finding is that…

This second issue of a new journal presents six essays all on the theme of the imagination. New programming at the Touchstone Center has begun to focus on the importance of finding new forums for reflecting upon the place of the imagination in people's lives. The essays in this issue come from presenters in recent public lectures and workshops…

This handbook, intended for English language arts teachers, principals, curriculum and testing specialists, superintendents, and all educators interested in preparing students for the grade 8 California Assessment Program (CAP) writing assessment, provides the practitioner with information about the content of the test, the rationale underlying…

This booklet provides Grade 6 teachers, administrators, and students with samples of students' writing that exemplify the criteria used to score students' written responses on the June 1988 Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test. The writing assignment required students to read the beginning of a story and use their imaginations to…

In a sixth-grade unit, students learned about people's facial expressions through careful observation, recording, reporting, and generalizing. The students studied the faces of people of various ages; explored "masks" that people wear in different situations; learned about the use of ritual masks; made case studies of individuals to show…

Designed to help elementary and middle school language arts teachers structure a comprehensive objectives-based composition program, this guide attends to fundamental rhetorical concepts that should enable schools to effectively use existing resources while extending the range of instructional potentials in areas not often included in commercially…

There are three standard complaints given by teachers of freshman composition: (1) college freshman students are inferior to English majors and graduate students, or inferior to freshmen from when the teachers were in college; (2) the subject matter of a writing course is inferior to that of literature courses; and (3) those who teach composition…

Intended for reluctant readers as well as for readers with a special interest in detective stories, this high school English course consists of the following eight units: the history of detective fiction, the psychology of violent crime, crime and society, the procedures of crime detection, the mind of the detective, analysis of the detective…

One of a series of teaching guides produced by the Wisconsin Writing Project, this booklet focuses on suggestions for teaching reading and writing in elementary, middle, and high school language arts classrooms. The first section offers 16 reading/writing activities, a list of topics for language experience stories, and an annotated list of…

Maintaining that sentence-combining language experience is the single most beneficial tool currently available to improve student writing, this paper speculates about the value and effects of the adoption of the language experience approach across the English curriculum. It presents six tasks that need to be undertaken by teachers, researchers,…

Conflict is the basis of all stories and thus should appear in some form in the first sentence. There are three kinds of conflict: people vs. people; people vs. nature; and people vs. themselves. Conflict must be repeated in all the various elements of the story's structure, including the plot, which is the plan of action telling what happens to…

This language arts curriculum guide for grades 10-12 begins with a statement of the language arts goals of knowledge, skills, and values to be addressed in each section. The instructional components are sequenced according to objectives, and most of them are keyed to present resources in the Shawnee Mission (Kansas) school district. The following…

This paper argues that writing teachers' emphases on orderly and polished products from their students have inhibited the ability to invent ideas and think clearly. The teaching techniques of the poet William Stafford are described as a model for teaching students to be more thoughtful. It is concluded that teachers of writing should first…

The major focus of this resource book is on people and the problems they have in relating to one another for mutual growth and development in a rapidly changing society. The goals and objectives of the guide, especially those related to the use and misuse of language in human affairs, have been validated by research as effective for the…

The focus of this guide for program development in the language arts is on the learner rather than on the teacher or on learning materials. Contents include brief descriptions of the curriculum design, methodology, materials, and evaluation; a discussion of the state department of public instruction guidelines for comprehensive planning; an…