SELECTED ASPECTS OF COMPOSITIONS, WRITTEN BY INTERMEDIATE GRADE CHILDREN (FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH GRADES), WERE STUDIED TO REVEAL GROWTH GRADIENTS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE BY THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS (1) SEX, (2) CHRONOLOGICAL AGE, (3) GRADE LEVEL, (4) GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION, AND (5) RESIDENCE AREA. THE SUBJECTS WERE 14,400 CHILDREN IN FOUR…

Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition was implemented with elementary school regular, remedial, and special education students as an approach for organizing reading and language arts instruction. Compared to a control school, the experimental school found significant effects on reading vocabulary, total reading, and language scores but…

The topic of Presidents and First Ladies provides a thematic approach to the teaching of writing skills and thinking skills in the academic areas of language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science. Activities include, among others, creating a graph of Presidential characteristics and creating a play about an event in one President's life.…

Based on eight months of observation in Japanese classrooms, this book describes a Japanese technique of writing instruction, called "seikatsu tsuzurikata" (life experience composition), and shows how it can be successfully incorporated into American classrooms. A foreword by Kenneth S. Goodman focuses on the technique's importance both…

The articles in this journal issue (1) discuss involving students in various language arts activities that have peace as a theme, and (2) deal with literature for students from kindergarten through grade 12. Topics in the first part are as follows: peace education in the English classroom, the peaceful hero, understanding the language of peace,…

This revised edition contains seven of James Moffett's talks and articles written since the original edition of "Coming on Center" was published in 1981, along with several of the earlier articles that are still timely. The book provides practical recommendations for specific ways of teaching reading and writing, shows why some…

Two model programs for integrating the language arts and specific lessons that integrate language arts activities for kindergarten through grade 12 are described in this booklet. The two programs are (1) the New Brunswick Comprehensive Reading/Language Arts Program, which has five critical experiences as the core of the program: sustained silent…

This packet is the second of five developed as a set of self-appraisal instruments with which teachers (and others) can systematically examine their instruction methods in communication skills. The packet contains forms for teachers, students, administrators, and parents addressing two levels of specificity: responses to the overall communication…

Focusing on a two-year period, this informally written book describes the efforts of several rural elementary teachers to establish a writing center based on a unified language arts curriculum. The book relates the authors' background experiences, outlines the structure of the writing program, offers typical writing experiences and classroom…

The language experience approach (LEA) has been used successfully with students who are beginning to read in English as a second language. In an LEA lesson the teacher can elicit students' comments on a wordless picture book, transcribe students' sentences, read the resultant story aloud (or have the class read it), and have the story copied.…

THIS COURSE DESCRIPTION RECOUNTS A FOURTH-GRADE TEACHERS EXPERIENCE OF MOTIVATING AND ASSISTING INNER-CITY SLUM CHILDREN TO DEVELOP COMPOSITION SKILLS AND INCLUDES THE THREE UNITS SHE TAUGHT--(1) "LEARNING TO BE SPECIFIC" AND "LEARNING TO DESCRIBE SENSE IMPRESSIONS," (2) "LEARNING TO DESCRIBE PEOPLE," AND (3)…

ALTHOUGH CHILDREN'S NEEDS FOR WRITTEN EXPRESSION PROBABLY PARALLEL THOSE OF ADULTS, THE REASON BEHIND CHILDREN'S CHOICE OF WRITING OVER SPEAKING IN GIVEN INSTANCES IS OPEN TO CONJECTURE. MOREOVER, THE COMMON ASSUMPTION BY TEACHERS THAT CHILDREN CAN AND SHOULD WRITE ABOUT PERSONAL INTERESTS OUGHT TO BE TEMPERED BY THE IDEA THAT MANY INTERESTS ARE…

ONE THOUSAND STUDENT ESSAYS WERE ANALYZED TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT STUDENTS WHOSE TEACHERS POSSESS "MORE STRICT" STANDARDS IN COMPOSITION INSTRUCTION PERFORM DIFFERENTLY ON A STANDARDIZED ESSAY TEST THAN DO THOSE WHOSE TEACHERS HAVE "LESS STRICT" STANDARDS. FIFTH- AND SIXTH-GRADE CHILDREN FROM ALL OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS…

The English language arts "strand curriculum" of the Iowa Department of Public Instruction depicts a "framework" for a K-12 program and encourages teachers to be concerned with three major dimensions of learning--concepts, attitudes, and skills. "Optimum Goals" and "Basic Considerations" are outlined for each "skill strand" and for each "content…

When ninth-grade students are searching for help in expressing their newly discovered ideas, the principles of transformational grammar can be brought to their aid in the following ways: (1) Assign a provocative topic to the students which they are to discuss as fully as possible in one sentence. (2) Present only the kernel sentences of a…