By implementing strategies described here, educators can be prepared to create an adoption-friendly environment for students and their families.

Teachers strive to design instruction that actively engages all students, but a few "back-benchers" often seem to be left out, due to academic struggles, English language skills, personal disinterest, or other factors. Teachers seek to help these students develop into "active and engaged participants" in their classrooms in…

Biography is a popular approach to history education in the younger grades, especially when teaching units of study during Women's History Month, which is March. A biography-centered approach, however, can be problematic when such lessons are not tied to any context, promoting the misconception that individuals create social change in isolation.…

This article demonstrates how Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) art discussions and subsequent, inspired artmaking can help reach the goals of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects (CCSS-ELA). The authors describe how this was achieved in a remedial…

Literacy skills taught in the elementary grades establish a good foundation but are not adequate for the demands of secondary content curriculum. In history, preservice teachers must be prepared with a solid content base along with the pedagogy for teaching that content. To better teach and enhance student writing, preservice teachers need to…

Describes using Monday morning journal writing activities to give the teacher an insight into what the weekend has done for students. (RS)

Examines several pieces of writing (class assignments as well as writing done outside of school) by the author's 10-year-old daughter. Notes the different kinds of learning promoted in them, and maintains that school writing assignments should be as "real" as possible. (SR)

This paper describes a graduate course using biographical materials for teachers to work through their understandings of reading and writing as personal, valuable processes. The course consists of three parts; each session begins with the reading of a children's picture book that deals with reading and writing; next, the class reads the…

Following the Oklahoma City bombing, fifth graders at a nearby elementary school coped with ensuing uncertainty, pain, and loss. They wrote appreciative letters to fire and rescue workers; shared personal stories with classmates; compiled an anthology of poems, prayers, and stories; attended an assembly to honor parents participating in rescue…

Relates one teacher's solution to the late paper dilemma that strikes a balance between showing compassion and teaching students the meaning of responsibility. Four late paper coupons were issued to each student at the beginning of the year, allowing them to turn in assignments late while deterring habitual tardiness. (MDM)

Shares some responses from those involved in an ongoing oral history and writing project that connects members from a senior center writing group with children 9 to 12 years old from a self-contained special education program. Hopes that these comments and insights will serve as a parting testimony to the value of such intergenerational efforts.…

Draws upon author's experience in developing and modifying a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) program for elementary school students to make suggestions about how requirements and grades can serve as "carrots and sticks" to motivate students to conscientiously use CALL programs. (Author/CB)

Describes "CultureGrams" and "StateGrams", sources that provide practical cultural information including attitudes, appearances, greetings, gestures, dating, family life, transportation, health, and education. Focuses on the edition suitable for elementary school students, explaining specific features and suggesting assignments…

Describes a game whose goal is to make the largest three or four digit number possible from numbers appearing on successive rolls of a die. Discusses the written strategies developed for this game by third and seventh grade students. (RS)

A Polish youngster's school, as "read" in her imaginative composition about classroom anarchy, bears many characteristics of a postmodern institution, with its power relations permeating everyday practices, its rationalism undergoing subversive critique, and its mixed message of subjugation and emancipation. An 11-year-old's "ritual…