Relates the author's experiences in a year-long creative writing workshop with a third-grade class, focusing especially on working with one child with a remarkable narrative imagination. Describes how it slowly dawned on the author and the classroom teacher that the boy was not sorting out the real from the imaginary in his descriptions to them of…

Offers children's answers to the question, "Why do we listen to stories?" Explores what a group of second graders had to say about literature, imagination, and the place of stories in their own lives. Discusses the role of literature in unleashing imagination, helping humans see the big picture, and how "knowing the old helps us make the new." (SR)

Learning style preferences of 1,554 students (ages 8-17) identified as gifted and nongifted were measured. Gifted students displayed a stronger preference for imaginative styles, while nongifted children displayed a stronger preference for practical styles. Compared with gifted boys, gifted girls were more likely to prefer imaginative styles.…

Considers the narrative function of children's play by focusing on story, imagination, and visual expression. Argues that children's storytelling brings into account their knowledge of the world and of narrative conventions. Suggests that context shapes and constrains the stories told. Concludes that storytelling can enhance literacy and should be…

Describes an early childhood educator's approach to teaching children about rain, rainbows, clouds, precipitation, the sun, air, and wind. Recommends ways to organize study topics and describes experiments that can help children better understand the different elements of weather. (MOK)

Describes a project based on the book "Roxaboxen" by Alice McLerran for a multiage summer program at the Loudon Country Day School (Virginia) where children create an imaginary town. Discusses benefits of the project, including connecting children with books, illuminating the importance of play, use of imagination, and suitability for various…

Tested whether 2- to 4-year olds could reason with incongruent syllogisms when encouraged to use their imagination. Randomly assigned 2-, 3-, and 4-year olds to one of four conditions (no cue, word cue, fantasy planet, or imagery) and presented syllogistic reasoning problems with incongruent information. Found that in imagination conditions, 2-…

Describes town of Burnt Island, Newfoundland, including its need for imaginative survival; explores the nature of imaginative thought, including benefits to the individual and to society; describes threats to imaginative teaching within town's restructured school; describes characteristics common to the work of Greenfield, Greene, and Habermas…

A New York-based nonprofit educational organization, the Touchstone Center, creates interdisciplinary arts programs in public schools that stimulate the imaginative process. When the natural world is used as a context for imaginative thought, and when children use their innate capacity for wonder and imagination, a new interest in learning often…

Every month, "Leadership" features articles written in an informal, conversational style that provide practical information for school administrators. This issue of "Leadership" contains the following titles: (1) "The Artistry of Communication: No Vision Is out of Reach when a School Leader Commits to Understanding the Power of Skillful, Poetic…

No observer of research currents in the human sciences can fail to detect a new appreciation for the contribution of emotions to descriptions of such wide-ranging psychological phenomena as moral judgement, personal and social development and learning. Despite this, we claim that educating the emotions as a dimension of moral education remains…

Undergraduates studied nonword exemplars and then created their own novel nonwords. In Experiment 1, people studied legal or illegal nonwords. In Experiment 2, people studied illegal nonwords, but to increase awareness of the features, half of the participants assessed the features of the nonwords. Despite instructions to avoid copying any aspect…

This study examined the role of children's story books in uniting generations. Thematic similarities and distinctions depicted in 101 children's story books on intergenerational linkages were examined. They utilized five categories: caring and sharing, fun with grandparents, depiction of multicultural families, relationship with non-relatives, and…

William Hazlitt (1778-1830), one of the most important critics of the English Romantic Period, held and published highly developed views about the nature of the creative imagination, the function of criticism and what it means to be truly learned. Although he never advanced an explicit theory of education, least of all one about the purposes of…

The purpose of this study is to explore elementary students' views of (NOS) to see how well they align with national reform recommendations (AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996). Using an open-ended questionnaire coupled with one-on-one interviews of fourth-grade students conducted at the end of the school year, the researchers explored students' understandings…