At the James Weldon Johnson Leadership Academy in East Harlem, New York, administrators, teachers, students, families, and community-based artists worked together to create a visually explosive environment that reflected enriched learning experiences based on their multidisciplinary study of New York's history. The Mano a Mano ("Hand to…

Describes a full-time, six-week block which immerses preservice teachers in a self-directed, collaborative, transdisciplinary learning adventure that they translate into a teaching adventure. Shares a vision of what teacher education can be by describing examples of learning contexts, the supportive curriculum model, and the effects these…

Describes a year-long thematic study unit in a middle school classroom called "Coming to America," in which the children and their families celebrated their diversity by investigating their heritage and immigration to the United States, producing a multilingual collection of stories about family and immigration. Shows how considerable learning and…

Discusses an integrative study of a seventh grade language arts class in which students were given the opportunity and the challenge of designing their own course of study. Describes designing the unit, getting started, exploring death and dying, class discussions and journal writing, literature groups, and individual papers. (RS)

Describes how the teaching of language and the teaching of subject matter knowledge can be brought together to empower students and to foster a positive attitude toward their own abilities. Illustrates a framework for integrating language development and the development of subject matter knowledge with a case study of one classroom in Vancouver,…