Writing Center faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina teach humanities courses in which we include literary texts that are not ostensibly "about health care" to introduce to students how unique an illness narrative can be--to challenge, in fact, preconceived notions student may have about what "counts" as a…

What is the role of the humanities in the modern school? Should geography, history, RE and Citizenship teachers remain faithful to long-standing subject cultures and pedagogies? Or is there another way to consider how the curriculum, and the notion of individual subjects and teachers' pedagogy, could be constructed? Drawing on case studies taken…

One of the outcomes of the policy emphasis upon skills formation in countries like Australia and the UK has been an increase in cross-disciplinary structured programs for higher research degrees raising implicit, but often unexamined, questions about the curriculum and expertise that should inform them. Key insights from applied linguistics and…

In this article, the author describes a project designed to take the dread out of discussion in a first-year interdisciplinary humanities course at Sewanee: The University of the South, a private liberal arts college in Tennessee. The Responsible Intellectual Discussion project, known as RID, was created in conjunction with the college's Eloquence…

Describes experiences at Western Illinois University where faculty members in the humanities have developed a successful approach to assessing general education learning in the humanities. The approach (CATS, or classroom assessment techniques) stresses faculty participation and collaboration. A table lists assessment techniques for nine…

In response to a need for curricular support, the Idaho State Department of Education gathered teams of exemplary educators from throughout the state to write courses of study related to all subject areas within Idaho?s Achievement Standards. A need arose to assess areas not tested statewide in a performance-based manner. Teachers involved in…

Describes criterion-referenced assessment that involves the teacher establishing what should be assessed, the standards for assessment, and then finally utilizing a rubric. Discusses the use of criterion-referenced assessment in social studies and humanities classes, the students' role in developing the rubrics, and the success of this type of…

Describes the rewards and challenges of using the Patchwork Text to teach Greek Tragedy to Cambridge University English final-year students. The article uses close reading of the students' texts, analysis and reflection to discuss both the products and the process of Patchwork writing. (Author/AEF)

Pasadena (California) High School's Puente Pilot Project encourages Hispanic students to pursue college and return home as leaders and mentors. A bilingual counselor, community liaison, and English teacher engage students in an integrated curriculum relevant to their life experiences. Portfolio exhibitions involving oral presentation and…

This article relates experiences from three examples of cooperative learning activities at Arizona State University. These descriptions illustrate that cooperative learning activities work well with adults, can promote higher levels of thinking and mastery of the content, and can be used as a student evaluation vehicle. (IAH)

Reports that the developmental process for national standards for K-12 instruction in the arts is nearing completion. Discusses issues and criticisms relevant to the national standards movement and to music education. (CFR)

This book explores how standards are negotiated and created within classrooms, addressing how they actually play out in classrooms from the point of view of students and teachers. It follows the experiences of students and teachers at urban Powell High School who wrestled with curricula designed to expand their achievement. The book presents four…

Findings are summarized for a survey of 15% of the nation's community colleges which was conducted in 1977 and 1978. The survey investigated types of courses, enrollments, and instructional practices in the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and technologies and evaluated findings in terms of institutional size, location, and governance. The…

Results of a national study of college student internships in the humanities are provided. The focus was attitudes and practices of 1,621 departments and central offices on U.S. campuses concerning internships in the following majors: English, American studies, history, art history, philosophy, classics, and modern foreign languages. Information…

An approach to developing college students' critical thinking skills, designed for freshman composition students but adaptable for other disciplines, is outlined. Components include: establishing bounds of analysis; using bibliography to foster scholarship; capitalizing on emotional response; learning the genre to be analyzed by writing in it;…