Contends that by using nonfiction writing as a daily developmental process, a child finds a predictable, nurturing, and accepting environment which helps teachers understand their students, helps children learn, and promotes acceptance of both the student and the child. (MS)

Discusses the development of voice through a specific free-form poetry-writing experience. Suggests a method for teaching poetry that draws heavily on poets from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Shares evidence that this approach to teaching poetry can be the starting point for students developing writers' voice, and suggests ways to move…

Describes a writing workshop in which teachers work with clay and write about their products. (HTH)

Discusses the efforts of a fifth-grade teacher and a visiting poet to rekindle students' sense of poetic passion and pleasure. Describes how the authors introduced students to poems for two voices (using P. Fleischman's "Joyful Noise"). The poetry unit culminated in a project in which students read and performed Fleischman's poems, then wrote and…

Describes a class project involving collaborative partnerships in which fifth graders wrote books for first graders. (HTH)