Tested and fine-tuned in K-2 classrooms, this book provides engaging lessons and materials for teaching the three genres of writing--opinion, procedural, and story--that provide a foundation for beginning writers' persuasive, informative, and narrative writing skills. The authors' approach integrates strategy instruction, self-regulated learning,…

This collection of seven essays focuses on the wealth of language learning possibilities that open up when teachers surround children with attractive and well-written books and know how to use them in imaginative ways. It reflects the current movement in elementary education toward child-centered teaching and integrating the language arts. Essays…

Intended for teachers and administrators, this collection of essays focuses on the dual meaning of practice--practice of writing skills, and teaching practices in composition instruction. The process section focuses on the types of activities that build composition skills. The product and program sections shift focus to professional practice, the…

This book offers strategies to help educators become increasingly effective in teaching various areas in content area reading and learning. The book includes the following chapters: "Content Area Reading: A Historical Perspective" (E. Dishner and M. Olson); "Content Area Reading: Current State of the Art" (T. Bean and J.…

Focusing on the sociolinguistic dimensions of literacy, this sourcebook builds upon Mina Shaughnessy's contributions to the study of basic writing by gathering together contemporary research, theory, and practice on the subject. The 39 essays and their authors include: "Defining Basic Writing in Context" and "Perspectives on…

Intended for teachers, reading specialists, administrators, students in teacher education programs, and parents, this book contains descriptions of strategies for fostering emergent literacy and steps for carrying them out. An underlying theme is the merging of the art and the science of teaching. Chapters in the book begin with questions to focus…

Intended to involve students in language and communication study in such a way that significant thinking occurs, this collection of teaching ideas outlines ways to teach literature and composition that engage the students in such thinking processes as inferring, sequencing, predicting, classifying, problem solving, and synthesizing. The activities…

Designed to provide examples of the art form that in teaching has been tagged "the lesson cycle," this monograph contains a collection of 50 exemplary lessons that elementary and secondary English teachers have designed and that demonstrate the fusion of form and content that characterize the art of their teaching. The monograph is…

This book is designed for use in preservice and inservice language arts methods courses and as a professional reference for the practicing teacher. The approach to teaching language arts advocated in the book is that of individualized, interactive, and integrated instruction. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "The Language Arts Teacher…

This book presents a description of language arts instruction that advocates language learning that is incorporated throughout the curriculum. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Language Arts and the Beginnings of Language"; (2) "A Literature Foundation"; (3) "Composing and Comprehending via Literature";…

Improving the way to teach writing requires deepening one's understanding of the process of writing. Each chapter in this collection brings together the perspectives of a university researcher and a classroom teacher to show explicitly the connection between writing theory, and practice. The book covers writing development in grades K?12 and…

This book presents excerpts from a large collection of student journals which were submitted to an English professor over a 15-year period. The diaries, many of which were read aloud and anonymously in class, offer a unique glimpse into the personal world of students' lives. The journals demonstrate many of the themes that students write about and…

Reorganized and revised, the second edition of this book provides the latest theoretical and practical materials that instructors across the disciplines will need to help students build strong writing skills. It offers suggestions about how to develop effective writing assignments; and it evaluates various methods of assessing student writing,…

Intended for elementary teachers, reading specialists, curriculum directors, and teacher trainers, this book provides readers with conceptual and theoretical insights and compelling accounts of classroom practice. The book argues that teaching and learning work best when they occur within a community of learners. The book provides interpretations…

Bringing together an enthusiasm for biography and a belief in in-depth learning through long-term projects which include manipulating the material to be learned, this book presents a reading-and-writing approach to biography for elementary and middle school students in which students research and write biographies. Following a foreword and an…