This working paper presents a twelve-part paridigm for testing the level of concept attainment in language arts. Items were selected for three topics: words, words in sentences, and connected discourse. Within each topic concepts presented in the middle elementary grades were identified, and ten concepts were randomly selected for each topic. Each…

Analysis of the babbling of five infants indicated that between 14 and 40 percent of utterances recurred in particular contexts with a greater than expected frequency, suggesting that babbling is not entirely random but contains consistent sound-meaning relationships that are not adult-modeled. (Author/CB)

Explains how to ask questions that will help students focus on structure and better understand expository text. Notes that because students must make both internal and external connections to text structure, teachers should ask questions which prompt students to identify the relationships among ideas in a text so that meaningful learning can…

This paper looks at how a Brazilian educator implemented Paolo Freire's notion of critical pedagogy. The study describes Brazil's historical background, previous educational conditions, Freire's educational ideas translated into art education, and preservice education. Through participant observation, the study documents the practice of an art…

Explores the relationship between early speaking and writing skills by investigating how children use referential ties (personal pronouns, demonstratives, and comparatives) to build coherence in their oral and written stories. Discusses findings and implications for developing children's communicative competency. (PD)

The "cyberjournal" is a bridge between handwritten journals and word-processed essays that can be integrated into college courses to help students improve writing skills and maintain classwide discourse and multivoicedness through the Internet. Discusses the advantages of cyberjournals (class-centered, public, task-focused,…

This sequential analysis tested the relative extent to which several adult utterance types elicited conversational replies from eight developmentally delayed children (mean age 53 months). Among findings were that child replies of any length were elicited by adult topic continuations more than by any other adult utterance type. (Author/DB)

This study found that three oral discourse genres (script, picture description, and replica play narration) were able to characterize development in discourse abilities in 6 children (ages 5-7) with brain injury and 43 nondisabled children. Brain-injured children produced shorter discourse performances with more off-task talk but showed…

This article reports two studies on the effects of "recasting" (adjusting discourse to provide new information in relation to an utterance) within the context of microcomputer-videodisc-assisted intervention for 84 deaf individuals (ages 3-20) acquiring spoken, written, and/or signed language. Gains were demonstrated in reading and…

This article describes an exploration of activities that can encourage students to think more critically about the influences on their gender and identity. Using read aloud, literature circles, and mini-lessons rooted in the students' experiences, the author's successes and failures are explored within a context where students are placed at the…

This conference presentation is offered as a prolegomenon, or introduction, to a paper and research project. The issues of whether prolegomena are modernist explanatory devices and whether postmodern prolegomena are possible are discussed. The paper proposes a research inquiry into "postmodern teaching" initiated through the metaphor of…

To test three specific hypotheses about recall as a function of four categories of logical relations, a study was done to determine whether logical relations systems of prose analysis can be used to predict recall. Two descriptive passages of naturally occurring expository prose were used. Each text was parsed into 45 statements, consisting of…

This investigation provides descriptive information about the developmental characteristics of syntactic and morphological structures found in the written Spanish language of native Spanish-speaking students in fourth to ninth grades. A sample population composed of 34 male and 56 female Spanish-speaking students was randomly selected from two…

A study is presented that considers the narrator's knowledge of conventional schemata for stories and the cognitive factors which seem to be affecting the selection and organization of material for narration. Children ranging in age from 3 years 10 months to 7 years 4 months were asked to watch a video tape cartoon and recount the story to a…

This manual attempts to establish a hierarchy or sequence within the study of syntax. It is to serve as a textbook, and has as its aim the discussion and explanation of the structure of the correct "properly formatted" sentence. The approach is to begin with "text" and gradually work down. This tendency to begin syntactic research with the global…