Many teachers are creating learning environments where students' uses of reading and writing are inseparable and relevant to their daily lives. These teachers are supported by recent trends in language arts research, professionalizing trends in today's political climate, education programs modeling language unification, and enlightened educational…

To gain appreciation for each others' perspectives, a Mississippi language arts consultant and a third-grade teacher from Iowa traded jobs for a year. As a consultant, the teacher found that classroom teachers were more interested in whole-language instruction practicalities than in theory. As a teacher, the consultant learned that classroom…