Describes one multi-age classroom that includes children from 6-11 years of age (traditionally grades 1-5). Explains how this unique learning community began; how student groupings were established to promote social interaction and peer collaboration among a wide age span of children; what the class looked like in actual practice; and what the…

Describes how a teacher explores the bullying behavior of a girl in her class to understand how kids negotiate for power within a learning community. Discusses activities she used to explore and examine the behaviors in her class. Focuses on understanding processes and practices, not on fixing or "normalizing" individuals. (SG)

Examines the roles and relationships involved as a first-grade teacher and her students built a classroom community that supported the children's acquisition of literacy. Shows how the teacher helped the children and how she got out of their way to allow them to take control of their own learning and curriculum. (SR)

Presents a research project examining the use of teaching-learning activities. Gives an illustrative example of a teaching-learning activity that worked. Presents selected software for computer teaching-learning activities. Suggests that the effectiveness of teaching-learning activities is contingent upon the nature of the classroom culture in…

Suggests that it may be important for teachers (1) to identify the social elements and pressures that kindergarten children must manage as they try to "write themselves" in an interactive environment; and (2) to identify the coping strategies children develop to accommodate their social agendas. (SR)

Describes a study of turn-taking behavior in two kindergarten classes. Results indicated that when children were left on their own, they cooperated with turn-taking, whereas, when the teacher was present, he or she tended to dominate the turn-taking. (HTH)

Provides a single lens view of the operation of the complex phenomenon of intertextuality (interpreting one text by means of a previously composed text) in one first grade classroom from one perspective. Finds that young children's writing is influenced in a complex way by texts that have been read to them. (RS)

Proposes that the teacher-as-liminal-servant (stripped of usual status and authority) within a critical pedagogy is guided by compassion and commitment to teach as a social and moral agent in the service of social transformation. Asserts that educational rituals must create classroom conditions that spawn liminal dimensions of learning. (MM)

Presents a case study of one child's narratives and of the teacher's efforts to change sharing time in a first grade classroom. Demonstrates the social nature of the classroom language community and provides an understanding of how children and teachers can work together to understand and support each other's stories. (PRA)

Interviews children in a collaborative learning classroom to understand their perceptions of collaborative learning. (MG)

Illustrates how all of the language arts are used by teachers and students to uncover the imaginative potential of language and their creative potential. Models ways of thinking about and investigating how instructional experiences, including classroom activities and the ways teachers interact with students, affect learning. (HTH)

Discusses thematic centers in which teachers select a theme and design of several classroom stations on the topic. Describes application of the technique in one Canadian class of six-, seven-, and eight-year olds, many of whom were English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. Identifies characteristics of the technique. (SG)

Searches for some precision in the discourse of whole language with respect to the role of the teacher as expressed in words such as empowerment, control, predictability, and authenticity. Observes and interprets the practice of two successful whole language teachers to refine understandings of these concepts as they are enacted in classrooms. (MG)

Describes how a Chinese boy's entry into American language and culture was supported by a second-grade classroom that provided frequent opportunities for him to use oral and written language in personally meaningful ways. Discusses use of multiple discourses, personal recognition, and time and choice. Concludes that freedom, purpose, and support…

Describes an American fourth grade classroom from the perspective of a doctoral student from the People's Republic of China. Notes greater equality among student, teacher, and textbook in the American classroom than in the hierarchical Chinese educational system. Observes that, in their writing efforts, the American students display both…