Assessment involves observing and documenting children's development, their learning experiences and relationships, and how they interact with the world around them. The purpose of assessment is to gather meaningful information about children in order to make informed decisions to benefit their education and development. Using a combination of…

The author follows a group of honors students as they learn a systematic approach to exploring and understanding works of art. The author has devised both a series of questions that structure a thoughtful investigation into what we see and a path that gradually leads students from the examination of familiar, everyday objects to the analysis and…

This descriptive study examined whether the coverage of African Americans in the feature articles in Sports Illustrated during the 1990s was representative of their participation levels. Nearly half of the articles featured European Americans; about one-third featured African Americans. More African Americans were featured in basketball, boxing,…

This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy,…

The author, a dance critic for the New York Times, re-evaluates her early experiences as a critic and outlines what she feels are appropriate evaluation criteria for proper dance criticism. (RK)

This article examines the qualitative findings from a mixed-methods comparison study of the use of an online multi-user virtual environment called Anytown which supplemented face-to-face writing instruction in a fourth grade classroom to determine implications for the design of such environments and the reported impact of this design on students…

This paper analyzes the ethically important moments that helped build, then break, and then negotiate the relationship between researchers and schools during an ethnographic-type study conducted by the team of researchers from a prominent private university. I posit that the researchers' unskilled approach culminated in producing written…

This study examined the reflective journal entries of 42 trainee teachers who underwent teaching practicum in schools in Malaysia. The study investigated the types of reflections, strategies or stance used, and perceptions of the trainees toward reflective journal writing. The findings of the study indicated that the trainee teachers were engaged…

The author discusses and demonstrates how the study of various metaphors in literature can aid the student's ability to write in a unified and coherent style. (RR)

Reprinted from a book of children's photographs, "The Way It Is, edited by John Holland. Part of a series of articles entitled "Environment and the Child.

This study compared the preferred writing topics of urban and rural middle school students. Eighth graders (n = 205) responded to a brief survey of preferred writing topics in the descriptive writing genres of real or imagined stories, reports, and opinions. While some preferred writing topics were divergent such as society, crime, and violence,…

A tribute to the similes and metaphors used by historian Dr. Adolphe E. Meyer in his textbook writing. (IR)

Creative writing with deaf high schoolers began with understanding and writing similes of concrete objects. Lessons then moved to more abstract ideas, including similes for deafness (eight of which are presented). Students then shared their work with the class. (CL)

Performing text in the form of choral reading, rap, reader's theatre, and/or simulations offers students a powerful vehicle for understanding and recalling key concepts and significant details culled from textual materials. Creating a script, poem, or lyrics to perform requires repeated readings of a text, a practice that increases participants'…