Describes a teacher inservice project intended to develop a language policy for using writing as a learning tool. Argues that the inservice context for teachers as learners is similar to that of the classroom and that the opportunity for talking should likewise be used for learning in the classroom. (HTH)

Describes actual classroom episodes from three successful teachers and analyzes patterns of teacher-child interaction that empower both learners and teachers. Assumes that successful teaching is not accidental, that only powerful teachers can empower students, and that the teacher's role is both central and crucial. (SRT)

Suggests that teachers and children may have different ideas about how people talk about stories in classrooms. Describes how teachers loosened their attempts to control children's talk and subsequently shared control with them, and collaborated in exploring stories and in teaching/learning to read. (HTH)

Focuses on the nature of elementary school classrooms as social contexts for literacy, particularly for writing. Explores the nature of the classroom as the context for literacy, how children come to understand such classroom contexts, and what defines a beneficial context for literacy growth. (HTH)

Discusses a theoretical framework that draws together previous research on the role of the educator in children's learning. Urges teachers to create classroom "communities" in which children have some control over their learning environment and interact with teachers and peers to carry out legitimate personal and social tasks. (HTH)

Describes a year-long process of inquiry and scientific learning with a class of fourth-grade students. Describes how the students observed, questioned, and wondered their way to new understandings of the life of birds and the nature of inquiry learning. (SR)

Describes an approach to teaching the elementary school curriculum using heuristics, which develops children's critical thinking skills. (SRT)

Discusses materials in the ERIC system concerning knowledge or schemata children have when they come to class, behaviors a teacher may observe, and suggestions teachers can keep in mind when planning creative activities that support children's meaning-making efforts. (HTH)

Discusses the many ways in which conversation surfaces in a seventh-grade classroom and the significance that talk has for the students' linguistic and affective learning. Contains excerpts from student diaries and teacher responses to them. (HTH)

Describes how teachers can rethink traditional questioning to make it a more authentic and powerful impetus to learning for students. Shows how authentic questions stimulated a six-week study of the Holocaust undertaken by a seventh-grade teacher and her students. (SR)

Presents three teachers' anecdotes concerning relinquishing control of the learning situation to the students: seeing through a child's eyes, letting a child write longer pieces with invented spelling rather than being concerned with neatness, and letting students select and interpret poetry instead of teachers doing it for them. (HTH)

Lists and discusses nine classroom practices designed to support writing as a process. (SRT)

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)