Accompanying a collection of 85 books for teenagers donated to local service organizations in Indiana, or donated in the name of such an organization to local libraries, this pamphlet offers suggestions to help the organizations engage adolescents with books and lists the paperback books given to the organizations. Suggestions in the pamphlet…

Middle school pupils tend to enjoy writing verse containing a selected number of syllables per line. A student teacher taught a unit on poetry writing which included a section on writing tanka verse--a 5-line form with five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables per line. After discovering the characteristics of a tanka from a model, the class…

This study examined distinctions between self-esteem as a general attitude of self and the underlying self-beliefs which link the self with a positively or negatively valued attribute. It was hypothesized that black adolescents would have higher scores on the general self-esteem measure, while they would not have have higher scores on all specific…

The attitudes and beliefs regarding gender, achievement and self-concept of sixth-grade students from a rural Kansas elementary school were assessed. Research consistently demonstrates females' superior verbal ability over males and males' stronger quantitative skills when compared to females. Explores the development of these differences in rural…

Ethnographic field research done with a group of working class girls in upstate New York examined the structures of schools that maintain gender and class distinctions and the culture of the girls themselves. Most of the field work was participant-observation at after-school and summer programs at a Girls Incorporated site in a mid-sized…

Examined relationships among young adolescents' motivational processes, use of learning strategies with expository text, and classroom achievement. Found that performance and mastery orientation predicted use of cognitive learning strategies. Adolescents' intrinsic value, but not self-efficacy, predicted use of cognitive and self-regulating…

Seven brief articles by teachers in Foxfire's East Tennessee Teachers' Network discuss the developmentally appropriate application of Foxfire core practices in grades 4-8, and describe class problem-solving related to student behavior problems, community-based projects, changing student attitudes, and use of Foxfire-style projects with special…

Researchers examined relationships between students' home language and academic achievement. National Education Longitudinal Study data indicated socioeconomic and social psychological variables explained the association of home language with academic performance for Mexican-Americans. For Asian Americans, speaking another language at home related…

Describes LANGUAGE, a literacy curriculum for students in middle and high schools, and the teacher retraining that prepares teachers for it. Curriculum components are outlined for a structured approach that incorporates phonemic awareness and whole language aspects. Program evaluations have supported the effectiveness of the curriculum. (SLD)

Studied relationships between adolescents' perceptions of their middle school (school goal structures, autonomy provisions, positive teacher regard) and changes in academic motivation, achievement, and psychological adjustment. Found perceptions to be important predictors; for example, perception of positive teacher regard and an emphasis on…

Studied after-school activities of low-income, at-risk Mexican American middle school students, and examined relationships between these activities and substance use. Results with almost 1,200 students show a general lack of participation in organized activities by these students. Those involved in unsupervised after-school activities outside the…

Teachers have sought appropriate strategies to ensure that students with disabilities receive the support they need within the general education classroom (Klingner, Vaughn, Hughes, Schumm, & Elbaum, 1998). Paving the road to inclusion with successful academic experiences for students with mild disabilities has been especially challenging in the…

Designed for use by junior high and middle school students, this annotated bibliography of over 1,100 titles of fiction and nonfiction also serves as a resource for teachers, librarians, and parents in search of titles that might catch the attention of such students. The bibliography presents annotations of books published or reissued in 1993 and…

This guide was designed to help middle school students plan career paths and make career choices. The booklet is organized in four sections, each intended to guide students in their career development process. The first section focuses on self-awareness as part of career exploration. The second section features five career clusters and related job…

During the 1995-96 school year, 425 middle and high school students in one school district received suspensions for the remainder of the school year from their regular schools. In an exploratory followup of outcomes for these students in the 1996-97 year, three groups were identified: one group of 109 students who were allowed to enroll at…