An article entitled "Pupils Persevere" covered the front page of Madison's local newspaper in February 2005. Highlighting the plight of four alternative programs in Madison's public school system, the article both angered and pleased students at this school. Although the central point of the front-page article was a plea for a larger physical…

This article discusses the work of Lucy McCormick Calkins, an educator and the visionary founding director of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Begun in 1981, the think tank and teacher training institute has since trained hundreds of thousands of educators across the country. Calkins is one of the original architects of the…

Suggests adding poetry instruction to the Children's Defense Fund, a fund created to ensure that poor children get the basic necessities of life--food, healthcare, and education. Talks about the influence that Langston Hughes, a poet who lived in Harlem, had on the first author. Encourages students to avoid living other people's answers and to…

Lists six recommendations made by consultants who evaluated a writing program at Lehigh University. Gives a brief history of the problem that led to each of the recommendations. Offers five tips for others who are thinking of doing a writing program evaluation. (MG)

Describes the institutional and programmatic context in which a consultant-evaluation visit was requested at Washington State University and the evaluators' recommendations and subsequent changes that have taken place. Lists five reasons for requesting an evaluation. (MG)

Presents journal entries over one semester of the author's experiences teaching poetry to "SIE VII" special education students at PS 162M in Harlem. Notes that "SIE VII" is a New York City Board of Education classification for children who "display severe emotional disturbances, such as infantile behaviors, lack of self control, and withdrawn or…

Identifies five factors that contributed to the success of a two-week composition inservice teacher education program. (HOD)

Describes one inservice program in writing that produced a greater commitment to teaching on the part of the teachers involved. Discusses program elements that contributed to that commitment. (FL)

Examines the shortcomings of prepackaged teaching programs for reading and writing instruction that are designed by those removed from the learning environment. (HTH)

The New York State Regents Competency Tests in Writing and Comprehensive Examination in English reflect the belief that the current emphasis on test results mandates that testmakers produce tests that actually test what they purport to test, reflect what educators agree should be taught, and have a beneficial influence on teaching. Prior to the…

Describes a model inservice program developed and implemented in the Bangor Township (Michigan) elementary schools, which was structured on the process approach to writing instruction. (FL)

Suggests that a successful composition inservice program revolves around four components--theory/knowledge, categories or schema, teacher attitudes, and teacher behavior. Concludes that as teachers acquire knowledge of categories, and as they change attitudes toward self-assessing and revising, they change their behavior. (FL)

Describes the Teachers and Writers Collaborative at P.S 49 and the principal who keeps the writing program going. Discusses how the collaboration works and the teaching techniques used by the writing teachers in the school. (MG)

The development of a college writing program can offer many challenges to a program director drawn from the ranks of the English faculty. The discipline of writing, an act of production, is both scorned and clutched by faculty who have been trained to analyze literature, an act of perception. Literature specialists, to be qualified to teach…

Considers the motives for schools acquiring computers, three different ways in which computers may be relevant to instruction, and the extent to which they address broadly shared ideals for children's education. Also discusses the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction in drills and tutorials and the development of writing skills. (RDN)