Despite strong support for integrating reading and writing instruction, writing practice is often crowded out of the schedule in elementary classrooms. To promote increased emphasis on writing, a working group of literacy researchers highlights three writing goals and six research-based reading-to-writing practices to enliven instruction with more…

How can comedy be used as an effective tool and truly help innovate the learning experience? This paper outlines how aspects of comedy have been creatively integrated into primary and secondary academic curricula such as English Language Arts, social studies, drama, as well as in areas of mental health and wellness. The essay demonstrates, for…

In this article we propose a five-step sequenced approach to integrative interdisciplinary learning in undergraduate gateway courses. Drawing from the literature of interdisciplinarity, transformative learning theory, and theories of reflective learning, we utilize a sequence of five steps early in our respective undergraduate gateway courses to…

Since the learner is actively engaged when composing writing assignments, integrating math through various writing modes can enhance and strengthen students' understanding of math concepts. Two expository writing assignments, an acrostic poem and a vocabulary activity, are demonstrated. Writing can have a positive effect on learning as students…

Discusses providing developmental learners with the opportunity to hear and respond to vignettes (short, descriptive literary sketches such as those in "The House on Mango Street"). Notes that the activity allowed students to experiment with another writing style and to use figurative language in a creative way. (RS)

A teacher wants to help her middle school students who already hate poetry to appreciate William Carlos Williams' poem "This Is Just to Say," but her approach is ill-focused. In frustration, she assigns her students a punitive writing assignment. An approach that might have resulted in a better outcome could be achieved. It would have…

An activity has been used successfully for several years in a middle-school computer class to integrate writing instruction with computer science. Taking approximately five class periods, the activity consists of three phases: (1) the 6th-grade students use paper and pencil to write a story in any literary format; (2) 11th- and 12th-grade…

Recommends using time bonding (finding a role model and researching the process and story behind that individual's accomplishments) as a means to interest students in history. Outlines the instructions covering the objectives of the writing assignments. Students researched a variety of biographies including Jackie Robinson and Lyndon Johnson. (MJP)

Describes a nine-week interdisciplinary study of the environment for middle school students, based on the computer simulation "Decisions, Decisions: The Environment," which involves group work, independent work, and a lot of writing. (SR)

Discusses "Private Eye," an approach to teaching which focuses on developing students as artists, writers, and scientists. Describes how this approach uses the jewelers loupe to examine everyday objects 5 or 10 times bigger, thus altering students' way of viewing the world through the change of scale and through analogy-provoking questions. (SR)

Asserts that oral history and children's literature are effective strategies for making history relevant to elementary students. Includes a figure illustrating the webbing approach and 37 recommended children's books. (CFR)

Describes a project in which grade-four students read a historical novel and wrote essays as historical characters. College-level education students also read the novel and replied to the elementary students. Concludes that the project helped students achieve preestablished instructional goals. (CFR)